In my opinion, it has to be Wild World/City Folk. So much nostalgia with those tunes and I genuinely think it fits the game better than New Leaf. I love the original soundtrack also, very different but very cool.
A large part of WW's cohesion is every hour using the same uncommon instruments (the accordian in particular is iconic) + piano and composing them creatively. It's sometimes dismissed as "samey" but it seems like similar compositions (mood, dominant instrument) are blocks of time that feel, uh, samey in real life. NL could be fancier with the soundfont at the cost of a less distinctive or reflective-to-experience soundtrack. I hear people liking individual tracks in NL but don't hear general praise very often.
For the time of day music, probably population growing; for K.K. songs, city folk. Wild world's music was the same a city folk's, but sounded a lot worse. New leafs time of day music was just very boring and dull, and it only brought in a few, new, good K.K. slider songs.
Gonna have to agree with GC for overall; New Leaf is probably my least favorite. There were some good ones (7 pm stands out), but overall I wasn't a fan.
Mine would probably have to be wild world solely for nostalgia reasons. I pretty much used to play that game at all hours of the day, and I never got sick of hearing the soundtrack, not even once. The music that’d play at 12/1am? really brings me back. Even when I had nothing to do i’d just carry on playing. ACGC is a close second though. The music that plays at 2AM I believe, is so strange for an early hours of the morning soundtrack and that’s why I find it hilarious.
Personally, the GC game has the best over all soundtrack. Every single track is an individual and sounds so fun. NL is a little.... bland, but has some surprisingly good ones, I love 4pm, 9pm and 2am. CF and WW have the same soundtrack p much, LOVE the city theme tho and 10pm
I always loved the soundtrack from Wild World and also from City Folk. Especially the title theme
from both of them is iconic for me. It brings back lots of memories. The soundtrack of the CG one
and New Leaf are also nice, but not so much my favorites compare the other two.
I'm torn between Wild World and GC. I really love both, and both have their own kind of nostalgia accompanying them.
But I think I'd have to go with Wild World. I liked pretty much every theme in that one. I remember 12 pm and 2 am being my favourites.
I'm not too keen on the soundtrack in NL to be honest. It is okay, but there are some themes I just really don't like, and I usually set my time to an hour where I actually enjoy the music. 4 pm and 5 pm are good imo, and midnight to 3 am as well.
I would order them Wild World > GameCube > New Leaf. Wild World is very nostalgic for me and I love the instrumentation. GameCube has a really fun, energetic vibe. New Leaf is just meh.