What Animal Crossing game has the best soundtrack?

[DaToonie]

Yeah, same. I wonder why that is, maybe the use of instruments? I am not sure.

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Yeah, I guess it's like a smaller range of instruments being used is what gives it that vibe for me. It's mostly piano compositions, where PG had so many bizarre and unique synths being used for every hour, it's hard for me to forget each theme, lol.

The first one has the best main theme and best rainy day music. Nothing can touch Population Growing's rainy day theme.

It has such a bizarre and quirky approach to its music that fits the game so well. It's something I feel the series has sort of lost over time. Every entry has great music don't get me wrong, but I feel Population Growing is the most memorable because of its bold and unique sound. New Leaf was also bold in that it went for a more minimalistic approach to arrangements that faded beautifully into the background of your daily activities. It's still great, but, because of that more minimalistic feel, I feel like it didn't find a spot in my memory as well.

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Y'know what, this PERFECTLY captures how I feel about the soundtracks.

 

[banter]

I also dislike the New Leaf 7 PM theme pretty strongly. I find it unfittingly depressing.

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I wouldn't call it depressing, to me, it's more of a tone for it being the end of the day, the sun is or has gone down, and everyone is sort of settling down for the night. Calming is the word I would use. That's why I like it, fits the tone for the time of day.

The soundtrack is definitely something I'm looking forward to in the new game.

 

[poptire]

2AM from Wild World gets me emotional for some reason

 

[Xita]

Meanwhile 2am from the original game is a B A N G E R

 

[Deleted member 18021]

The crash after the party that is 2AM:

 

[.exe]

The GCN one is still my fav. Too bad the website that played AC songs following the hourly schedule of the game went down.

 

[BigTime_2018]

My soundtrack rankings:

Original > Wild World/City Folk > New Leaf

They're all good, but I prefer the more upbeat nature of the original's and Wild World's/City Folk's.

 

[Tonswelt]

The first game, by far. The tracks were just so much more interesting than any of the later installments', which were a bit too "simple" compositionally. Fortunately, it looks like New Horizons will be returning to GameCube Animal Crossing levels of quality for its hourly music.

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Thank you so much for linking this. I've been listening to the segment with that song in it on repeat for some time but never managed to find a recreation.

 

[hjort]

Evidently the AC community had this discussion over the last decade:

https://nookipedia.com/wiki/Talk:Animal_Crossing_(GCN)

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The discussion makes sense for the purposes of that fan wiki, and how to organize stuff. It's weird to me to use the tagline as part of the title, though.

It was so interesting to me since I'd never heard it before, that I went looking for places where Nintendo might have referred to the game as Population Growing in any official capacity. So far I haven't been able to spot anything.

 

[Tonswelt]

2AM from Wild World gets me emotional for some reason

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I don't want to know how much time I've spent listening to this while secretly playing on my DS during the night.
(I am lying. I definitely want to know)

 

[Rran]

It's kind of a tossup, but I gave New Leaf the edge because 11PM touches my soul for whatever reason...

 

[Melpomene]

I find the original AC and New Leaf to each be very good at a very different style of music, and I'd argue equally good, at that. I just happen to like the style New Leaf is going for slightly more.

Pretty optimistic about New Horizons' music, too.

 

[Antony]

New Leaf - 1am


This is my favourite. I spent as many early morning hours in New Leaf as I did in the daytime and walking around at 1am when everything's quiet in both the real world and the game and doing a little fishing was an experience.
Things were particularly rough then and these early morning sessions were therapeutic.
As soon as the 1am theme would start I would just forget about everything and instantly unwind, the song itself still has an effect on me now.

 

[Jeff6851]

7 am and 8 pm in Wild World are very nostalgic for me

 

[RobotHaus]

It's too hard to pick a single game, they all capture different types of feelings.

I'm fond of the Gamecube soundtrack due to nostalgia, but the later titles really have some great songs that capture the mood of their respective times.



4AM really just hits the nail on the head when it comes to that emotion. Having to wake up this early for work at times, that slow tick of time passing, those heavier notes of you taking the actions you need to get the day started, the piano creeping in and establishing your momentum for the day. It's a wonderful track.

Also, for me I feel as though the Gamecube soundtrack took some inspiration from the original Sims, they both have a bit of a jazzy/contemporary sound that was a flash in the pan around the new millennium.

 

[Mr. Wonderful]

The crash after the party that is 2AM:

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Fantastically funky.

Fantastically captures the trainwreck of "What are you still doing up at 2AM?"

Also, this thread making me realize how similar the Animal Crossing and Breath of the Wild soundtracks truly are.

 

[Rotobit]

The original game's 4 - 7 p.m. themes are like diluted nostalgia for me, for a solid year or two Animal Crossing was my after-school game of choice.

All of the games have great soundtracks though. For a while there I was salty because the original game was under-represented in Smash, but they fixed that with Ultimate, so now they're all good.




The Roost alone elevates Wild World to another level, too.




Coincidentally I just played the Animal Crossing track in Mario Kart 8 and I forgot the Roost replaced the traditional score tally theme, it was a weird emotional gut punch. From a kart game. AC is great.

 

[Chakoo]

For me it's New Leaf and to the dismay of some it's because of 7pm & 8pm (the times I most often played those games).

 

[baconcow]

New Leaf 8pm is easily my favourite non-theme. I like the the theme from New Leaf the best, also. I only played WW and NL so I don't have any Population Growing nostalgia.