The best thing about Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom? The music
There was a slight sense of anticlimax after the release of The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. It’s a very good game, of course, but perhaps a few steps away from the greatness we expect from the series. The new, indirect gameplay style, where Zelda summons echoes of objects and monsters to solve puzzles and win battles, is asking quite a lot from both players and the game’s designers, and there is a sense that this is not yet fully accomplished. is realized. Even Princess Zelda’s first starring role in the series that has carried her name for 38 years comes with a few disturbing asterisks.
But there is one aspect Echoes of wisdom that fully meets – and perhaps even exceeds – the sky-high expectations fans have of the Zelda series. It’s the music. In terms of musicality, production and the unexpected genius of the concept, this is perhaps the best, most exciting and most appropriate Nintendo soundtrack since… perhaps Mario kart 8?
That may sound like a strange comparison, but hear me out. Everyone knows that Mario kart 8‘s soundtrack kicks ass. Why bump it butt? Partly because it reframes classic video game music in a new context. It takes the kind of frenetic, funky themes of 16-bit era chiptunes and arranges them for a live jazz funk band complete with devastating lead guitar, frenetic slap bass and a full brass section. It’s a big, exciting sound that amplifies and refreshes something nostalgic, but also humanizes it and makes it more analog, so it connects even more deeply with the listener. It tears.
Echoes of wisdom‘s soundtrack begins (but doesn’t end) with an equally simple, equally ingenious instrumentation idea: What if Zelda music, but woodwinds? During the first part of the playing, the dominant melodies and tones are brought out by clarinets, oboes, recorders and whistles, blowing over a modest string section. It’s an unexpected and delightful sound: warm, innocent without being too childish, intimate but with a sense of mystery and even melancholy.
The music for Echoes of wisdom was written by a team of composers led by musical director: Nintendo veteran Hajime Wakai. Wakai has reinvented Zelda music twice before. First he did the obvious and belted it out cinematically with a full orchestra Heavenly sword. Then as sound director for Breath of the wild And Tears of the kingdomHe oversaw a radical change of direction to a soft, ambient approach, led by meandering, unresolved piano lines.
Also – just as relevant to the Echoes of wisdom score, if not more: Wakai was the composer of the original Pikminand wrote many of that series’ signature tunes. Pikmin games have a unique musical soundscape, with chattering synths spelling out hazy melodies over strange, shuffling, plinky-plonk rhythms. Wakai’s instinct is not always to make music that is grand and enveloping. In Echoes of wisdomAs in Pikmin, he pares back the arrangement in such a way that you can hear all his unusual instrumentation choices that draw you into a toy-like world, rather than immersing you in a cinematic world.
Echoes of wisdomThe band’s score is also melodically playful. Much more than Breath of the wild And Tears of the Kingdomthis score looks to the past, with many references to the Zelda soundtracks of the great Koji Kondo – his original theme and the immortal Ocarina of time score in particular. But instead of repeating Kondo’s melodies, the Echoes score repeatedly takes half a sentence out of them and then goes somewhere else. The most important upper world music begins with a familiar fanfare before writing a brand new, less shrill, more lyrical Zelda theme around the chord progressions of the old one. The farm theme plays the first three notes of ‘Epona’s Song’, but then wanders into a relaxed recorder playing on acoustic guitar, mandolin and bongos. The seriously gorgeous music for the village of Sea Zora brings back the harp arpeggios of ‘Zora’s Domain’, but then interweaves them with lilting flute, strumming guitar and loud chimes.
There are so many more of these beautiful tunes, witty arrangements and beautiful musicianship to enjoy in the full soundtrack. But the point is that Wakai and his collaborators approached this score the same way the designers approached the game – intending to use the familiar, nostalgic pleasures of The Legend of Zelda as a starting point for a new journey and a fresh reinterpretation. The musicians undoubtedly did better.