It's rare that I get into a game's music enough that I just randomly decide I'm going to listen to it on the way to/from work and just set my phone to youtube and grab a playlist from the OST and let it run the whole drive instead of the radio or a CD. But a week or two ago I found myself doing this while picking up Taco Bell drive through on the way home.

I think when it comes down to it, I have to go with First Steps, the track for the Forsaken City. I hate picking first level themes as a favorite because that means it's the track everyone's heard even if they couldn't beat one level, and thus it's usually bland, overexposed and overrated compared to some of the deeper gems later on. But there is a just magnetic intensity about this track. You can hear the nerves, doubts and fears but also the tickling excitement of starting a new journey. I never thought you could squeeze that much nuanced emotion out of the synth.

You could say that thanks to this track, this game had me at hello.

My #2 is Exhale, the end credits theme. First time I watched the ending, I was moved by it but not overwhelmingly so. But I noticed the next few times I heard the track if I bumped into it on youtube or in a Celeste video essay or something, I couldn't hear it without getting choked up. And I wondered why? It's just a simple piano arrangement. It's not terribly unique.

Well, of course I hear it and I visualize those images of Madeline and her darker half walking down the mountain together, bonding, working things out. Laughing even. But even without that, the song sounds like it's about somebody who has found peace. And that's all Madeline really wanted, maybe all any of us ever wanted.

Also, at least the way it starts and in its general peacefulness, it kind of sounds like Dire Dire Docks from Mario 64, and that's def not a bad track to sound like.

My #3 is In Love With A Ghost, the Golden Ridge B-side. I was just blown away by how they started with this primitive rough cut of an 8-bit track. Like the first 4 seconds I wasn't feeling it, I thought maybe they went too retro. But just a moment later they started building all these beautiful ethereal elements around it, then there's a few of these beautiful vocal "ahhhhhh"s that kick in and suddenly it was like the game's answer to DKC2's Stickerbrush Symphony. I wanted to beat that level but I didn't necessarily want to leave that level. I could have died a thousand times and still felt at peace throughout hearing that track. It's also just a sick R&B jam.

Resurrections gets my #4 spot. It's the most celebrated track and with good reason but I think the other 3 just grabbed me a little more. It's long, it's all over the place, it covers many different motifs, it's a medley of sorts. But I'm most into the parts that come in when Madeline's dark half (I don't like saying Badeline, I think it cheapens her), both the slow and the frantic parts of that. The starry-night piano that starts the track is kind of nice but to me it takes too long to get to the point. The music that plays when Madeline's dark half is introduced, that's the part I want it to get to. That part at first feels like this mysterious yearning, longing, before ramping up to that frantic chase part. These motifs are often heard in other parts of the soundtrack after being introduced here and the OST as a whole is better for it. It gives Celeste its core character and themes. And for that, we thank you.

So what tracks hit you the hardest?