Ocarina of Time Ocarina of Time 3D Music

[Tylis]

I recently found out that the makers of OoT 3D spent hours and hours refining the sound on the 3DS to make it sound like the old N64 version. Quite funny really, the control the old(ish) players of OoT have over the makers - I mean, I think the makers just did the sound like that so they could please the original players. Which is fairly obvious...
But, the sound peoples actually started to remake everything from scratch, until one of the supirior people actually said: "We want it to be as close to the original sound as possible" So it was a bit funny, actually

 

[Raven]

Either way the result would have been near the same, it was only the approach that was changed. At first they tried to program the music for the 3DS itself, but then they decided it might be more authentic if they tried programming the music like the way they did for the N64 OoT cartridge. Both would have suited the game fine but perhaps the N64 produces distinct sounds that would play differently if those noises had been rebuilt from scratch for a much more powerful system. I'm really not sure why they decided to try and emulate the old music when they could have had newer versions of the songs, most likely they saved themselves a lot of cash by taking the easy road. The reworked songs might have cost them an arm and a leg. and it's not like the same music redone would have made the sales any higher than they were. So in that sense I think they made the right choice, business wise.

 

[Tylis]

Yeah, that does make sense, actually. Good point.
I mean, old players would buy it to see what the new songs sound like, but more probably wouldn't because they didn't stick to the original version.
-nods head-
As well as the fact that redoing the music would have probably costed more, being more high-tech and all that Jazz. So Nintendo couldn't rely on fans buying the game just to see what the music sounded like, what with people who wouldn't buy it because it is different.

And, I suppose, they couldn't rely on people new to the franchise. It's fairly obvious that old players were the majority who actually bought the game. I mean, when I first got into Zelda (when I actually understood the game, not when I was four) it did seem pretty daunting joining a massive community. So, I agree, I think they made the right choice.

 

[Tansunn]

The reworked songs might have cost them an arm and a leg.

I doubt it. Mahito Yokota admits to having redone about half of the soundtrack, but after that, Koji Kondo told him to make it sound like the N64 version instead. Seems to me like it'd cost more to spend a bunch of time and effort making new versions of half of the soundtrack only to have to scrap it all and start over from the beginning.

http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/3ds/zelda-ocarina-of-time/0/1

Yokota: Earlier, we talked about how back then games could only stream sound in most cases, and we were under technological constraints this time, too, so at first we decided to stream it. It was difficult technologically to change the music in realtime to fit different game situations.

For that reason, at first I decided to spruce it up by arranging slightly more up-to-date music. But when I'd done about half, Kondo-san suddenly said, "Make sure you stay faithful to the Nintendo 64 sound."

...So I gathered together the development team and said, "We've got to remake all the music. We need to recreate the Nintendo 64 sound, so let's do our best!" Then we set about redoing it all.

I'm not sure why he decided to do that. I, and many of my friends, would have liked the music updated as well, even if it was just an updated sound bank. There have been games on the N64 itself that sound better than OoT did even while still using a MIDI format. It just seems kind of weird that they use modern technology for the graphics and controls, but leave the audio stuck in the '90s.