Super Rad Arcade!: My Top 10 Winter Themes

With winter in full swing, sometimes I find myself craving winter stages in my favorite games. Strange, because you'd think I would seek something with a warmer theme during these chilly days to evoke a false feeling of warmth on myself but that's not the case. Typically I tend to prefer ice themed segments to fire or lava type themes anyway.

It feels nostalgic to me to play ice themed stages in the evening when there's snow on the ground and no where to go. It reminds me of being snowed in as a kid, you know, when you'd like to have been enjoying the snow some more but night had already fallen.

Anyway, I was thinking today about what it takes to make a good ice stage. To be honest, many ice or snow themed stages in games are terrible, with icey platforms causing you to slip and slide, the risk of equipment being frozen or even being frozen yourself, on top of the overwhelmingly chilly atmosphere that goes along with such a stage.

One thing that redeems such experiences for me is a well done music piece to compliment the stage. Below are what I consider my top ten ice or winter video game themes. This selection represents those themes catchy enough to keep me coming back to those treacherous ice stages.

Note that these are in no particular order. I like them all so well I just found it too difficult to decide which I like best.

Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow - Pitch Black Intrusion - This track blends the haunting atmosphere of a Castlevania with a winter chill.

Mega Man X4 - Frost Walrus theme - This theme captures a below zero underground Mavrick base perfectly.

Super Mario Bros 3 - Ice World theme - If there's one theme out there that screams frozen tundra it's this one.

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 - Ice Cap Zone Act 1 - Another great upbeat Sonic theme with an arctic chill. I also believe Michael Jackson had something to do with this tune...

Donkey Kong Country - Snow theme - I find this theme haunting and that it quite effectively makes me feel cold.

Mega Man 1 - Ice Man theme - It's an 8-bit blizzard!

Phantasy Star Zero - Snowflake - A great and chilling theme for exploring a frozen tundra with friends.

Metroid Prime - Phendrana Drifts - Now you know what winter sounds like on an alien world.

Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode 2 - White Park Act 1 - This track reminds me of a winter carnival I used to attend as a kid.

Ninja Gaiden 2 - Act 2-2 - It's debatable whether or not this is actually snow blowing in this windy stage, but for me it always was. Not only does this theme work perfectly with the look of the howling wind and snow but it works as an awesome action theme for just about any kind of Ninja Gaiden stage.