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[sega]

You know how I separated music and music design in my favorites?  Rez would definitely fall into music design section.  I'm not too wild about the music itself, but turning Rez into a musical gameplay experience without requiring rhythm based play was brilliant design.  It was very inclusive, unlike the exclusive nature of all those hardcore rhythm games out there (which I also love).  However, I can't on any level say the soundtrack itself is a favorite.

[Radix]

Starsiege--the one with the mechs, not Tribes--has a really fantastic subdued screamy/metal/electronica (I don't listen to a lot of "real" music, so I'm not really sure what you'd call it) sort of soundtrack that really makes you feel pretty damned invulnerable as you twomp around the solar system in your hulking robot.

Apparently the War of the Worlds RTS uses a soundtrack based on a technofied version of Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds musical, which makes it auto-awesome, but it's a rare enough game that I've never actually played it.

[shinygerbil]

Apparently the War of the Worlds RTS uses a soundtrack based on a technofied version of Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds musical, which makes it auto-awesome, but it's a rare enough game that I've never actually played it.

I absolutely love Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds musical. Apparently, they actually released some of this electrofied awesome as an actual CD called ULLAdubULLA. /me goes to track it down...

[LineOf7s]

A couple I haven't seen mentioned:

Stardust (Amiga (500) version):  Didn't play the game much, but I'd pause it and just listen to the music over and over and over... and still do.

The opera section in Final Fantasy VI:  One of a handful of pieces of music I listened to whilst playing that made me go 'wow'.  Sticks in my mind because of it.

Apart from that, too many to mention, especially from the C64 days. The URL for remix.kwed.org is burned into my montior.   

[Keops]

Nice lists.

I thought I was one of the few "weird" people who dugg the Wild ARMs soundtrack Michiko Naruke is teh win.

I enjoy many of the OSTs mentioned above, but to cut redundancy crap I'll mention other game music I like.

Alundra Kohei Tanaka is great too. The soundtrack from this game makes me experiment a whole range of emotions.

Battle Garegga Just brilliant. Manabu Namiki is all sorts of awesome.

Street Fighter III: Second Impact The tunes are smooth what else can I say. I love Ryu's stage theme, the bassline is sweet stuff.

Ikaruga Another great OST, very atmospheric, melancholic.

Final Fantasy Tactics Hitoshi Sakimoto and Masaharu Iwata made a memorable soundtrack. Not a lot of people can make a battle with a few weak goblins in a forest sound exciting and beautiful

Eternal Daughter David Saulesco's music is one of the things that made me love this game. Heck, I died a lot but I just wanted a bit more of music XD I remember entering the ice caverns just to hear the tune. Brilliant work! (PS: Is there a way to get these musical pieces?)

Castlevania Every Castlevania OST has something special for me, I dig this series.

There you go, there are more but this is a nice selection.

[portabello]

Number one for me is Toejam and Earl: Panic on Funkotron for the Genesis.
FM synth funk at it's finest.

Other wonderful soundtracks:

Contra Hardcorps-this epitomizes video game music for me
Earthbound-original, quirky, and slightly avant garde
Riven-pretty much all the Myst games were great.  music as ambience.
Neverhood-everybody wail!
Rainbow Six Vegas-great sound design and adaptive music
Waverace-Not so much for the music, but for the timbral choices.  It always sort of bugs me to hear digital replications of physical instruments.  Waverace's embrace of the synthesizer was a welcome change from most other n64 soundtracks.

These are the ones that spring to mind, though i'm sure i'll remember more.

[Pigbuster]

Earthbound-original, quirky, and slightly avant garde

AGH, how could I forget Earthbound?
And that means I forgot about Mother 3 too! ACK. STUPID.
THERE'S STILL TIME FOR ADDITIONS, RIGHT!?

Mother 3: This soundtrack is perfection. Every single song is wonderful, and there are a number of truly special ones that stick out. I'm probably going to remember the Pigmen Theme for the rest of my life.
It doesn't contain as many weird and quirky tunes as Earthbound did, so it has a different feel than the rest of the series (There are a couple homages, though).
This may well be my favorite soundtrack EVER and I don't get why I forgot about it.

Though that just makes it even worse that Nintendo didn't port the game.

I have just found out that the soundtrack is available through iTunes. HARDCORE.

[Tennis]

hmm lets see

turrican (Amiga) soo freaking good!
Secret of mana (Snes) (good to see someone else mentioned this game too :D )
megaman (NES)
halo 1&2 (xbox)
ridge racer 6 (360)
phantasy star online (dreamcast)
jet set radio (dreamcast) & future (xbox)
Diablo 1 (PC)

[Nate Kling]

You can't forget Megaman X for snes! Those songs can make me cry from pure awesomeness.

[Keops]

You can't forget Megaman X for snes! Those songs can make me cry from pure awesomeness.

This man speaks the truth! Time to undust my SNES and give good ol X some lovin'

[Tennis]

oh and lets not forget beyond good and evil, not only was the soundtrack great, the game itself was one of the best games i've played for ages.
if you haven't played it already , go out and grab it in the bargin bin!(if its still there)

[sergiocornaga]

Eternal Daughter David Saulesco's music is one of the things that made me love this game. Heck, I died a lot but I just wanted a bit more of music XD I remember entering the ice caverns just to hear the tune. Brilliant work! (PS: Is there a way to get these musical pieces?)

I second this, I have been wanting an Eternal Daughter soundtrack for years... 

In terms of my list, I'd say that Cave Story, The 7th Guest, The 11th Hour, Devilish, Earthworm Jim 2, Kirby Canvas Curse, La-Mulana, the Castlevania series and the Gyakuten Saiban/Phoenix Wright series are some of my favourite soundtracks. SOME.

[cactus]

I'd have to go with NES/SNES tunes. Megaman 1-3 standing out especially. Also love Journey to Silius, and Cyborg009 for the SNES. One of the Captain Tsubasa games also has some great tunes, but I never actually played the game, just found the music somewhere. The StreetFighterII music also brings back fond memmories, but I'm not sure I'd like it if I hadn't played the game so much.

I really like the songs in Clean Asia too. But I feel a bit smug saying that since I was involved in making the game (although I had nothing to do with creating the music).

[FARTRON]

Quake - Trent Reznor doing ambient demon-killing music.
Kid Icarus - Hirokaza Tanaka at his peak.
Myth: The Fallen Lords - Marty O'Donnell's best work thus far.  Myth II: Soulblighter is pretty good too.
Battletoads - Best pause music ever.  Not sure the composer.
Super Mario Bros. - This hasn't been mentioned enough times for what the topic of this thread is.  Koji Kondo!!

[lowpoly]

Battletoads - Best pause music ever.  Not sure the composer.

so damn true, good call!

[Xion]

oh and lets not forget beyond good and evil, not only was the soundtrack great, the game itself was one of the best games i've played for ages.
if you haven't played it already , go out and grab it in the bargin bin!(if its still there)

I quoth verbatim for 'tis wholly true.

[GP Lackey]

Daggerfall had a very evocative score, especially the way instrumentation changes according to the weather and time of day.  The 'snowing' theme is one of my favourites.  The whole soundtrack is rather moody.  I'd love to hear a remastered version with live players or at the very least good remixing.  The only ones I've heard so far have basically just changed the samples

The Mercenaries soundtrack is brassy and crass, like a Hollywood action film score.  It's got great thematic development, and it's kind of old school (old school for film scores, not for videogames).  It fits entirely with the game.  It's got a fist-pumping kind of punchiness to it.

Although Dark Forces uses MIDI version of a lot of John Williams tunes (as is typical of Star Wars games), it's cool how it actually diverges from the score of the films, especially in the later parts of the game.  If I remember it right General Mohc and the Archammer had their own themes that were added to medleys of music from the movies.  The John Williams score on its own would have been enough though; mostly its perfect for the mood and are very memorable.

Silent Hill has a fantastic soundtrack, and probably the only one I've heard that can make me feel anxious even completely divorced from the context of the game.  Not something to listen to casually.  For tracks that are largely noisy, industrial, and jarring, there's actually a lot of depth.

Second (thirded) Beyond Good & Evil.  It has a good range in sounds, and I especially like the piano theme (from the lighthouse I think?).

Oh, oh, there's this TurboGrafx-16 game called Legend of Hero Tonma that had a sound test mode which sometimes I'd plug the game in just to listen to.  Great tunes.

[Dust]

let me see...

Donkey Kong Land (GB) I used to pause the game and put the tiny game boy speaker to my ear and listen until the battery's died.
Half life 2 (PC) very cool industrial ambiance here and the techno tunes during the actions sequence made the game even more cinematic.
TLOZ Majoras Mask (N64)Out of both the zelda games for the 64 this ones soundtrack was the most memorable.
Rez (PS2/DC) I dunno if this count since i havnt played the game but I have the soundtrack and its fantastic! especially the remix of Adam Freeland's: fear
I liked many of the castlevania songs to, especially "wicked child"

[VideogameBiscuit]

How come nobody has mentioned Xenon II: Megablast? I used to play that game just to hear the killer soundtrack. I even have it as a midi file on my pc and I sometimes listen to it while programming. Also, Commando on the Commodore 64. Best soundtrack on the C64 ever!

[guille]

Eternal Daughter David Saulesco's music is one of the things that made me love this game. Heck, I died a lot but I just wanted a bit more of music XD I remember entering the ice caverns just to hear the tune. Brilliant work! (PS: Is there a way to get these musical pieces?)

I Totally agree, the Ice Cavern music was my fav too, but that wasn't composed by Saulesco, but by other of the composers, I know this because there is, effectively, an arranged soundtrack that I once got from Saulesco's site, but he only released the tracks he composed. Saulesco's site seems to be down BUT the soundtrack link hasn't been taken down, so hurry up and grab it!: http://www.saulesco.com/files/eternal_daughter_original_soundtrack.zip