Flute Boy’s Meadow – Zelda 3DS

Good morning (or afternoon, evening, whenever you happen to read this) Zelda Dungeoners! It’s that time of the week again; Friday morning has come, and that means another Flute Boy’s Meadow!

This week, I’d like to take a quick break from my series on Overworld Themes in order to give special attention to the game everyone’s talking about: Zelda 3DS, AKA A Link to the Past II, AKA “Nintendo is making my childhood very happy this Christmas.”

Thanks to the direct-feed audio of a recent demo video by NiNTENDOMiNATiON we have a very good quality sample of two music tracks from the game. These are the Dungeon Theme for the tower dungeon shown in every video and demo so far, as well as the excellent Boss Theme. I think these tracks are a great start to what looks like a promising soundtrack; jump on in to see why!

Track: Tower Dungeon and Boss Battle
Game: A Link to the Past II (3DS)

Now, there are of course two different tracks in this video, and we’re having to listen for the first time through the regular game sounds, so this is going to have to work a tad differently than most Flute Boy’s Meadow features. Namely I’ll try to see what we can see about what these songs really are rather than just my usual “it sounds like A and I like it because B.” Anyway, on with the show!

Dungeon Theme
0:14 – 3:20 (repeating)

The first thing many people will notice about this theme is that it bears a strong resemblance to A Link to the Past‘s dungeon theme. It carries a recurring theme that matches the tune of the original, but it has a lot more added to it. It’s not all a matter of better sound, either; they’ve brought in elements of another game as well.

So we have elements of both old and new Zelda here, and man do they work well together. The primary bulk of the song borrows mostly from “Skyview Temple” and its sort of meandering tune that gives it a moody, low-key feel. I really like this part; it has an excellent mood that makes the dungeon feel both mysterious and also somewhat exciting.

It’s all driven home by the piece from A Link to the Past, which kicks in as the song begins to really build. It’s at this point that we really start to feel the intensity of the dungeon. Coupled with the previously established lower tone, it makes for a really nice combo while also paying an excellent homage to its roots. Besides, you gotta love that almost bluesy trumpet!

Boss Theme
12:15 – 13:30

Oh yeah, this sounds amazing! Taken straight out of A Link to the Past and spruced up for the 3DS, this track really shines now that it’s got a new coat of (audio) paint. The track is now a tad longer, and there’s a trumpet and some wind instruments added to help add to the melody of the theme so it isn’t just the old pulsing-and-drums.

The end product is amazing. The song is jazzed up enough and feels so intense, it fits perfectly with the boss fight it accompanies and brings the classic tune up to speed with today’s standards. I feel they recaptured Kondo’s original plan for the song excellently, and I can’t wait to see other classic tracks in this game.

One last note
I also noticed that there’s a distinct change in the music whenever Link uses his Merge ability to move along the walls. In both the Dungeon and Boss themes, as soon as Link pops into the wall the music becomes much quieter and its bass track seems to drop out completely. You can hear examples of this at 3:28 and 13:03 in the video.

I find this pretty interesting; it helps to lend a feeling of stealth to the power with the music quieting down like that. Maybe we’ll see applications of the Merge power as a stealth mechanism? Only time will tell.

How do you like the music we’ve seen so far from Zelda 3DS? Are there certain songs (like the Dark World) that you’d really like to see brought back for the game? Let me know in the comments!