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The cheesiest videogame songs EVER

Pop ballads, hair metal and other ear-ripping tunes so bad you can’t stop listening

Words: Brett Elston, GamesRadar US

Standout lyric: “Valiant ‘gainst the power, evil forces take heed!”

Anime fans are willing to put up with a lot when it comes to cheesed-out intro themes. Even by our standards though, Lunar lays it on pretty damn thick. The lyrics are super serious, almost out of a ‘60s comic book scribed by Stan “The Man” Lee himself. It has a distinct call-to-arms feel, much more urgent than the stiff animation would have you believe.

Silver Star Story: Silver Star Story Complete vastly improved the intro’s animation, though the song was altered to a far blander ballad. Instead of an up-tempo battle theme, Complete gave us a ditty filled with “let’s go team!” charm:

Head to the last page for cheesy lyrics to “Fighting Through the Darkness.”





Standout lyric: “I saw your face, I felt our souls embrace”

The successful pairing of longtime scribe Roberta Williams and future Gabriel Knight author Jane Jensen unleashed what many consider to be the finest achievement of all adventure games. King’s Quest VI is known for many things; exceptional storytelling, competent voice acting, even quality 3D visuals in a time when such a thing was unheard of.

Too bad the theme song is a maniacally torturous piece of Top 40 flotsam. Someone had the good grace to at least set it to clips from the aforementioned Silver Star Story, making it a dual-layered cheesy calzone from hell:

Show stopper: Like we said, KQVI is something of a crown jewel for adventure titles. Strange then, that it also marked the end of the traditional King’s Quest setup; part seven was Disney’d out the ass and eight “sold out” to action, swordplay and chuggy polygons. Cringe in scoffed awe at seven’s Disney knockoff intro:

Head to the last page for cheesy lyrics to “Girl in the Tower.”





Standout lyric: “Shoot the flying monkey, sink that funky li’l battleship... good God!”

Freaky Flyers is the worst game on this list, period. Every single piece of audio that slithers out of the speakers is an affront to humanity, from a grating announcer to background music Lucifer himself would not have dared create.

The worst of the worst is “Operation Midway,” a song that’s best described as “Village People cover band that was killed and then re-animated as zombies that can only approximate music instead of actually creating it.”

Effing eff: The title screen narrowly lost the Worst Ever honor to “Operation Midway.” That does not mean it is any less dangerous – the lyrics would make the toes of every jingle writer on the planet curl, the singer is out of tune and there are so many synonyms for “insane” we’re confident the writer just whipped out a thesaurus and called it a song. Whacky freaky loony!

Head to the last page for cheesy lyrics to “Operation Midway.”


 
64 Comments
Order Comments: Newest First | Oldest First
mr_brightside  - 1 year 1 month ago 
lol first, good job guys
GamesRadarBrettElston  - 1 year 1 month ago 
I'll mention this on the podcast too, but real quick, the Clay Fighter song doesn't sound quite that awful on the SNES cart. Something happened with the recording.

It's still cheesy as hell though, and I simply had to have it on here.
gorillazbmx6  - 1 year 1 month ago 
I think Captain falcons is the cheesiest but it would have been the best song if there was a FALCON PAWNCH in there
bl00dyvalen7ine  - 1 year 1 month ago 
Awesomely bad
bl00dyvalen7ine  - 1 year 1 month ago 
Incredible Crisis reminded me of the theme from Kablam
skyguy343  - 1 year 1 month ago 
has anybody ever heard the fan-made Mega Man theme song?
skyguy343  - 1 year 1 month ago 
sucks that Rare is with Microsoft cuz now theres no possibility of a GOOD Donkey 64 remake
Holy Diver  - 1 year 1 month ago 
The song played during the first mission of Sonic Adventure 2 was cheesy too
Keilimanjaro  - 1 year 1 month ago 
Good stuff, although I'm surprised nothing from FFX-2 made the cut.
Cynwyddon  - 1 year 1 month ago 
The first time I heard the DK Rap was one of the defining moments of my childhood.
shinywaffles  - 1 year 1 month ago 
Man, I actually like some of these songs!
Hunter2458  - 1 year 1 month ago 
Totally Ignored The GOD ARM Theme T_T
Tochy  - 1 year 1 month ago 
my ears! *head explodes*
cd41  - 1 year 1 month ago 
... I think i just developed a brain tumor from listening to the clay fighters song...
Dameon Angell  - 1 year 1 month ago 
Yeah you guys completely missed two of the most epically cheesy songs from Sonic Adventure 2.

City Escape: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6NaZrPQGfY

And the Main Theme http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guptTJcBRSk

Comon, really, add these in, yo.
drprofessor  - 1 year 1 month ago 
the breakdown in clayfighter made me choke on a pizza flavored combo.
thanks guys. lol
NelosAngelos  - 1 year 1 month ago 
painful, I couldn't watch all of any of those videos.
Johnny6Gun  - 1 year 1 month ago 
Great feature!

You only missed Russian Roulette from Onimusha 2.
skyguy343  - 1 year 1 month ago 
City Escape from Sonic Adventure 2 was the bomb...yo
Xenath  - 1 year 1 month ago 
Seriously how'de you forget the god hand (an amazing game IMO) theme lol "Dragon kick your ass into the milky way" and "god hand keeps my pimp hand strong" that is really cheezy. Though I couldn't make it through the DK rap another time.....it's just horrible.
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