Great article on "Zelda" Composer

[Docteur Qui 1,544]

No. Not John Williams. 8O

Here's an interesting article with famous Nintendo composer Koji Kondo (the musical genius behind Zelda and Mario, among others), including stuff about the upcoming Twilight Princess game, now rumoured to be released as late as November this year (). It's a cool article though.

[Ray Barnsbury 8]

Nice article. I love his Ocarina of Time score...great music for a great game!

Ray Barnsbury - PS: Cool "Window to the Past" signature

[Marian Schedenig 8,193]

including stuff about the upcoming Twilight Princess game, now rumoured to be released as late as November this year

Perhaps that leaves me enough time to finish Ocarina (if only the gameplay weren't so confusing) and Wind Waker.

Marian - who doesn't know where to go next in Ocarina.

[AzOutcast 122]

Good find Magical, thanks for posting.

I always liked Majora's Mask more than Ocarina . . . that goes for the music too.

[diskobolus 3]

Cool, I was just talking with friends about Zelda games last night. Ocarina is easily the best of them all, followed by A Link to the Past. I found Majora's Mask to be fun and creative, but overly complicated and the world wasn't pretty. Give me Hyrule Field any day. Plus, the Majora's Mask score reused a lot from Ocarina.

[Marian Schedenig 8,193]

I was hoping Wind Waker would be better than Ocarina.

Marian - not entirely convinced and somewhat frustrated about Ocarina.

Born on the Fourth of July

[Docteur Qui 1,544]

I've recently replayed Wind Waker, and found it remarkable. I can honestly say that I can't imagine the Zelda world done differently than in that game. Obviously that will change with Twilight Princess as Zelda is synonomous with quality (except those CD-i games, and the cartoon...), and that game will redefine the series once more. But I have to say I'm going to miss the cel-shaded aspect a lot. It's a pity they had to change it for the masses, and an even greater pity that people missed a brilliant game for superficial reasons. Zelda never has been realistic - the animation in OoT and Majora's Mask was far from "realistic"; the animation in them was too surreal to be grounded in reality.

As for the article, I'm most interested in the styles that he says each game has to it - obviously OoT was very straightfoward and symphonic, but I liked the description of the MM music as "Chinese Opera". I loved Majora's Mask and I find it superior to Ocarina of Time in many ways - music included. But then again, you can't go past Hyrule.

The music in Wind Waker was a step down I thought, but still very enjoyable - especially the Great Sea theme, Aryll's theme and the End Credits music (with the title music, Great Sea and Aryll's theme all in counterpoint). As well as the new stuff, the adaptational music is great too, like the Kakariko Village remix in Windfall Island, the Kokiri Forest/Lost Woods theme in Outset Island and the Forest Haven.

I can't wait for the eastern Europe-inspired music fow TP, and funnily enough I found this article while searching for a sheet music arrangement of the E3 2005 trailer music that I had before the mass cleaning of my hard drive.