Kanon: Yume no Ato
I’m not sure if I can really explain it too well, but to me Yume no Ato is the track that essentially is Kanon. It’s slow, not very energetic and has a rather melancholy sound, which fits in rather nicely with Kanon’s winter setting. The title invokes a sort of reverence for the past, like chasing for remnants of long lost dreams. Honorable mentions to Shoujo no Ori, but this track is just too damn good.
Clannad: Sora ni Hikaru
Of course, this track pops up in a lot of the very impactful moments of Clannad, so even just hearing the intro to this BGM is enough to get me feeling a certain kind of way. The song is just so overflowing with hope and provides such an immense feeling of catharsis when it plays at those right moments that I can’t help but easily think of it as my favorite Clannad BGM. When everything just wells up in the chorus I think it’s just about enough to make my heart skip beats. I would end up mentioning way too many tracks in an honorable mentions list for Clannad, so I’ll just leave that out
Tomoyo After: Dear Old Home
I had a really hard time picking between this one and Hope, but Dear Old Home’s just got that great groove that really makes me feel settled in. It’s a really comforting piece.
Planetarian: Gentle Jena
Honestly Gentle Jena is the only track from the original VN soundtrack that actually significantly stood out to me, but that’s really undercutting just how powerful I think it is. Gentle Jena plays in my favorite part of Planetarian, and it certainly is not a small part of why it’s my favorite moment. It’s filled with a reverence for the stars, and the song somehow strikes me as simultaneously comforting but also filled with melancholy. The moment this song plays is the moment Planetarian truly became great in my eyes, and frankly the combination of Gentle Jena and the scene as a whole is so powerful that it basically instantly shot Planetarian to being my second favorite Key VN.
Little Busters: Haruka Kanata
This is a song that still hits me right in the feelers to this day. Doesn’t matter if it’s the vocal version or the instrumental, it’s just overflowing with really raw emotion, and the song in conjunction with the scenes it plays in feels like a figurative baseball bat (haha) to the gut. Honorable mentions to Ring, Ring, Ring and Song for Friends, but the sheer power of this one really takes the cake.
Rewrite: Sanka
I’ll admit: I’m one of those people out there that’s not exactly an enormous fan of Rewrite’s soundtrack. There were maybe 4 or 5 tracks that stood out to me, but lordy does this one REALLY stand out. The various shifts in intensity throughout this song are goddamned amazing, and naturally this gets used in a lot of great moments in the VN. I almost feel like it’s too obvious a choice as a result, but man it’s just such an overwhelmingly great song that I still get goosebumps from listening to it. Honorable mention to Nirinsou.
Opinions on favorite track from VNs I’ve yet to read/finish pending