OK, im not sure what you fully mean by emotive and atmospheric... but from what I assume you mean im gonna say emotive. I like the music to make me not just make me feel like im in the area (atmospheric im guessing) but more make me feel the pace and action of said part. I enjoy atmospheric sound, but if it loses any pretense to what the gameplay is it kinda throws me off.
For instance, the jungle music in SA2 is great not only because it sounds jungley with the drums and stuff (also being kinda jungle technoey, is this a pun?) but the face pace of the music helps the most. If it didn't have that fast pace to the music it just wouldn't feel like Sonic and just turn to total crap for me. I could do without the jungle sound if needed, but dont take away the speed of the music. Thats just sacriligous.
Which is something that upset me about sonic heroes (i know, this aint nintendoish... but then both these games are on Gamecube, sooooo). The music just didn't feel right at times in Heroes. Take the "??? highway" i think it was electric highway, second stage. Anyways, it started off fast for a few seconds and then dropped to not as fast as I hoped it to be. The whole soundtrack really lacked in my opinion. Except for the boss tunes. Those match SO well.
Which reminds me Sonic CD had some of the best emotive music. The tunes for the future were just so emotive to what was happening. Especially Crystal Quadrant, it felt depressing and mechanical.