ShareThis
Our Game of the Year awards won’t begin in earnest until tomorrow, when we recount the Best Wii U Games of 2013, but needless to say, it hasn’t been easy selecting the winners. With so many excellent titles vying for the top spot in their respective categories, not to mention great new installments in many of Nintendo’s most prominent franchises, this year’s awards have been a veritable clash of the titans, which is the inspiration behind this week’s musical selection…
For this edition of Track of the Week, we wanted to limit ourselves to music from only the most notable contenders from this year’s awards. And while there were still a number of fantastic tracks to choose from, even with this criteria in mind (it’s safe to say 2013 was just as good a year for game music as it was for actual games), no theme sets the tone for an epic confrontation quite as well as “Divine Decree (Ablaze)” from Fire Emblem Awakening, which is why it was the most fitting theme to kick off our Game of the Year issue. What makes this track so powerful is not the operatic chanting or the bombastic instrumentation (though those certainly help capture the feel of an epic struggle), but that it only plays during the most climactic chapters in the game, where victory is far from assured and hinges on your every, carefully plotted move. Here the odds are against you. The enemy forces have you outnumbered, and it won’t be long before they can revive an ancient, terrible god to shower the world in a fiery cataclysm. That sense of bravery in the face of overwhelming odds is what gives the track its power, and it’s why “Divine Decree” is one of my absolute favorite game tunes of 2013.
What are some of your favorite game tunes from the past year? Share them with us in the comments!
