Flute Boy’s Meadow – Title Theme (A Link to the Past)

Hello Zelda Dungeoners, and welcome back to Flute Boy’s Meadow, the weekly feature where I take a good look at the music that makes Zelda great.

Today I’m returning to writing this feature after taking a week-long break to attend last week’s Zelda Dungeon Marathon–which, by the way, was absolutely amazing! To start off again, I chose a piece of Zelda music that ranks among my all-time favorites. Despite being less than 20 seconds long, this rousing theme manages to capture something of Zelda’s essence with its tune. It is among the most classic tunes in the entire series and is pretty well ingrained in my perception of A Link to the Past. So without further ado, go on and click the jump to take a (short) listen and read what I have to say!

Title: Title Theme
Game: A Link to the Past (SNES)
It’s a pretty iconic scene for me at this point. In small white letters, the words “Nintendo Presents” quickly appear and then vanish against a black background. Then, slowly, three golden triangles spin toward each other and meet in the center of the screen. And then… bam. This music blares, a castle moat and wall appear in the background, and the title The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past flashes into view. It’s a perfectly short buildup with excellent music to accompany it; it is, quite simply, the intro to the single greatest 2D Zelda game.

Purpose
The purpose of any title screen is, in short, to welcome the player to the game and make them intrigued for what they are about to play. Quite often developers will use the title screen to set the mood of the game and Zelda games are no exception; Majora’s Mask, for example, has easily one of the most perfect title screens (and accompanying music) I have ever seen.

But here we have a much earlier title screen in the series. There was no visual tour of the game’s views, no long-winded remix of familiar in-game themes, just a Triforce and a castle. Visually, there really was not a whole lot going on with this game’s title screen. It showed an epic logo, a nice background, but what else was there to make this really pop? Well…

Sound
The opening seconds of this tune do their job perfectly, in that they do very little. It’s peaceful; just a few strums on a harp accompanying a gently spinning Triforce. You kinda feel like this is important, but nothing’s too big yet.

Then stuff blows up. Rousing fanfare lights up alongside the screen’s visuals, and then the true essence of this theme becomes apparent. I feel this is just what makes the song pop so well; it’s like opening a curtain, really. You are first shown just blackness, but then that opens up into your first glimpse of the game. It is an unveiling. When Nintendo needed to decide how they were going to introduce the game to their players, they opted to… well, introduce it. The song even comes with everything that goes with a grand unveiling; fanfare, crashing cymbals, a rising crescendo, and a resonating final note.

This is the theme I think of when I consider a great unveiling in the Zelda series. I’m not alone either; the game’s creators have slipped in subtle nods to this theme for years since its first appearance.

To sum it up, many other main Zelda themes focus on the adventurous parts of the series. This song is more like the opening of the doors that lead to that adventure. I remember being giddy with joy the first time I heard this piece included in the Symphony of the Goddesses’ arrangement of the Zelda Main Theme, and I expect to be just as excited if (okay, let’s face it, when) it is used as the title music for A Link Between Worlds. It is just a very exciting tune, one that revs you up and makes you ready for adventure.

So, that wraps things up for this week. As always, I am eager to hear your comments on this song, my writings, and especially your requests for future songs for me to write about. Be sure to leave all of that in the comments, and I shall see you next week!