[kupoartist]

Ideally, I like music to be continuous but very sensitevily triggered by onscreen events. Very few games actually do that (I can't think of a single one right now)... Stuff like FF just triggers Pieces for mahor events and frankly, overworld themes and stuff can get pretty annoying. Meanwhile something like Unreal Tournament uses just a single song per map (and some maps share songs)... I haven't got that annoyed with them yet, mainly because a FPS is far more involved in many levels - When you run round a FF overworld, you don't have to listen out for a guy behind loading up rockets ready to spring at you from behind Fort Condor

So yeah, I'll go with that "it depends on the game" option. I've also noticed that the more atmospheric a game is, the more ambient (i.e. pretty unnoteworthy when listened to casually) music it uses. A game like Homeworld would save memorable tunes for battles and cut scenes, whilst "idle time" when you're resource collecting and stuff is more ambient. Then, it is a build-up and release of tension type of thing that is seen in any good movie.