Skyward Sword is One of Those Games That Begs for a Fully Orchestrated Soundtrack

[RoBirk29384]

To every Mario Galaxy fan here, remember fighting Bowser? Those boss fights in Mario Galaxy felt so much more thrilling and rewarding with an epic choir in the background chanting to the rythm of the battle. Since Windwaker, the Zelda series has perfected the rythm of each battle's music to follow along with the pace of every fight, particularly in boss battles. Remember fighting Phantom Ganon in Windwaker, following the rythm of the music as you strike his blast back and forth with each swing of your swords? Now imagine that same situation with a choir and full symphony orchestrating your battle as it plays out, chanting and crescendoing with each hit. What a more dense and epic feeling!

This is what Skyward Sword needs above all else, with the single exception of beautiful polish and textures, to bring this world to life (and they're on the right track with their new painterly style). With these new, exciting ways to fight our battles with the Wii remote, we need a world that sounds and looks beautiful, epic, and dense to fight and explore in. This is where the Zelda series shines and I have faith Nintendo will deliver, even if I have to wait until the summer or later to get my hands on it. Mario Galaxy raised the bar for the Wii, so why shouldn't Skyward Sword?

 

[Azure Sage]

I definitely agree. The sheer epicness of the background soundtrack of the bowser fight in Mario galaxy you mentioned certainly had me enthralled, as with the Phantom Ganon fight in WW. Another example of this is in TP. The boss battles. As the bosses hit the ground stunned, the music picks up it's tempo. And in the final fight with Ganondorf(same game), as he and Link clash swords, you can hear the music tilt to the side the fight is going; sinister if Ganondorf is gaining the advantage, or heroic if Link is gaining the advantage, then heroic...er... still as you leave Ganondorf vulnerable and start delivering the pwnage. I think this would be a great effect in any Zelda game, not just SS.

 

[blubb]

To be honest, I'm actually not a big fan of *real* orchestrated music in video games, and that for several reasons. (OK maybe I'm a bit biased because of growing up with 8- and 16-bit VGM). To me, whenever there is OM in a video game, it sounds very bland, ambient and not memorable at least in most cases. Then the limitations that midi or 8 bit music naturally had has required a lot of creativity and created a whole new musical genre of its own. It just amazes me how people like Koji Kondo, Nobuo Uematsu etc. can make so much out of so little, that's the artistic talent that I prefer over OM. Another, rather personal reason I don't like it is the ear torture called Fake Latin :yuck:! No, it does not sound "epic"! And no, it has no originality! I really hate it when they do this, the two worst examples of VGM that actually could have been very good are the SSBB title theme and FF7's Sephiroth theme, but the Fake Latin choral stuff spoiled it for me.
Another thing is that I'm not that much of an audiophile in a way that I could really appreciate the difference in quality between digital music with today's possibilities and OM, but hiring a whole high-end orchestra and having them study and play every piece multiple times isn't that cheap so I'd rather see them use their budget and main concentration on things like storyline and gameplay development.
It's kind of similar as with graphics: I don't want games to be too realistic and with dozens and dozens of long cutscenes, the same applies to music. It just doesn't feel like a video game anymore but like a movie if they exaggerate with such things. If I want to watch a movie, I'll either go to the cinema, buy a movie DVD/BD or watch TV. But I want to play an action-packed video game.
Even if I sounded a bit a harsh, the inclusion of OM is not that big matter for me, if it's done right then I'm fine with it.

 

[Y2K3]

In a way I agree with blubb. Even if SS, for some reason, didn't get orchestration, I wouldn't be bothered by it. I think it sound snice and all (for example, the Road to Bowser theme on SMG2 is my favourite version ofthe piece) but I also usually can't tell it apart from non-orchestrated music. I was convinced for the longest time that TP was orchestrated, because it sounded real enough to me. After realising it wasn't, I could sometimes tell the difference. I find unless I hear a piece then hear an orchestrated version of it, I can't tell the difference. I figure as long as the music is good, I'm happy.

That said, orchestration is still great, IMO.

 

[Yonatesf]

This has alsready been discussed by Miyamoto and Aonuma.
Miyamoto said: "We can't do what we did for Mario Galaxy and not do it for Zelda" which kind of is a confirmation
that there will be orchestrated music.

 

[Michael Heide]

Another, rather personal reason I don't like it is the ear torture called Fake Latin :yuck:! No, it does not sound "epic"! And no, it has no originality! I really hate it when they do this, the two worst examples of VGM that actually could have been very good are the SSBB title theme and FF7's Sephiroth theme, but the Fake Latin choral stuff spoiled it for me.

The Latin in FF VII wasn't fake.


Neither was the Latin in Brawl.

 

[blubb]

OK OK after being exposed to a lot of fake Latin I really wouldn't have thought they used actual Latin there (at least the medieval church pronunciation, because the Romans would've pronounced /ae/ as [aɪ̯] and not [ɛː], same goes for /v/ which was pronounced [w] and not [v]), still I don't like it. With "fake" I'm also thinking of Gregorian Chant which I forcefully had to learn about during school, so maybe that's where my rejection towards that kind of music might come from. This was music from around the year 1000 and I think that copying it in the 21st century is just lame. Heck, I'd even be more satisfied if they had used Japanese, though I wouldn't understand it, at least that's a language that people still speak in today.

 

[RoBirk29384]

This has alsready been discussed by Miyamoto and Aonuma.
Miyamoto said: "We can't do what we did for Mario Galaxy and not do it for Zelda" which kind of is a confirmation
that there will be orchestrated music.

Read the interviews farthur. Aonuma was shocked when he heard Miyamoto say that because they had no plans for orchestrated music as of that point. Therefore, unfortunately, the confirmation is inconsistant. I mean, Iwata had said in 2010 that Skyward Sword was coming out that year. Obviously, that didn't happen =P

To be honest, I'm actually not a big fan of *real* orchestrated music in video games, and that for several reasons. (OK maybe I'm a bit biased because of growing up with 8- and 16-bit VGM). To me, whenever there is OM in a video game, it sounds very bland, ambient and not memorable at least in most cases. Then the limitations that midi or 8 bit music naturally had has required a lot of creativity and created a whole new musical genre of its own. It just amazes me how people like Koji Kondo, Nobuo Uematsu etc. can make so much out of so little, that's the artistic talent that I prefer over OM. Another, rather personal reason I don't like it is the ear torture called Fake Latin :yuck:! No, it does not sound "epic"! And no, it has no originality! I really hate it when they do this, the two worst examples of VGM that actually could have been very good are the SSBB title theme and FF7's Sephiroth theme, but the Fake Latin choral stuff spoiled it for me.
Another thing is that I'm not that much of an audiophile in a way that I could really appreciate the difference in quality between digital music with today's possibilities and OM, but hiring a whole high-end orchestra and having them study and play every piece multiple times isn't that cheap so I'd rather see them use their budget and main concentration on things like storyline and gameplay development.
It's kind of similar as with graphics: I don't want games to be too realistic and with dozens and dozens of long cutscenes, the same applies to music. It just doesn't feel like a video game anymore but like a movie if they exaggerate with such things. If I want to watch a movie, I'll either go to the cinema, buy a movie DVD/BD or watch TV. But I want to play an action-packed video game.
Even if I sounded a bit a harsh, the inclusion of OM is not that big matter for me, if it's done right then I'm fine with it.

And that is why I used Mario Galaxy as my example, due to the fact that orchestrated music was used right in that game, and most certainly brought me into the game the way traditional Mario music could never do. Remember the 2004 Zelda E3 trailer? What brought tears to people's eyes and chills down their spines was not only the revelation of a realistic Zelda title, but also the epic choir and instrumentals that guided us through. Nintendo has a way of exciting all of our senses in their games, and with the inclusion of beautiful and epic orchestration, paired with these new watercolor visuals, polished to perfection, we will not only have loads of fun playing, but we'll be playing in a more dense, alive world.

To be honest, I'm actually not a big fan of *real* orchestrated music in video games, and that for several reasons. (OK maybe I'm a bit biased because of growing up with 8- and 16-bit VGM). To me, whenever there is OM in a video game, it sounds very bland, ambient and not memorable at least in most cases. Then the limitations that midi or 8 bit music naturally had has required a lot of creativity and created a whole new musical genre of its own. It just amazes me how people like Koji Kondo, Nobuo Uematsu etc. can make so much out of so little, that's the artistic talent that I prefer over OM. Another, rather personal reason I don't like it is the ear torture called Fake Latin :yuck:! No, it does not sound "epic"! And no, it has no originality! I really hate it when they do this, the two worst examples of VGM that actually could have been very good are the SSBB title theme and FF7's Sephiroth theme, but the Fake Latin choral stuff spoiled it for me.
Another thing is that I'm not that much of an audiophile in a way that I could really appreciate the difference in quality between digital music with today's possibilities and OM, but hiring a whole high-end orchestra and having them study and play every piece multiple times isn't that cheap so I'd rather see them use their budget and main concentration on things like storyline and gameplay development.
It's kind of similar as with graphics: I don't want games to be too realistic and with dozens and dozens of long cutscenes, the same applies to music. It just doesn't feel like a video game anymore but like a movie if they exaggerate with such things. If I want to watch a movie, I'll either go to the cinema, buy a movie DVD/BD or watch TV. But I want to play an action-packed video game.
Even if I sounded a bit a harsh, the inclusion of OM is not that big matter for me, if it's done right then I'm fine with it.

And that is why I used Mario Galaxy as my example, due to the fact that orchestrated music was used right in that game, and most certainly brought me into the game the way traditional Mario music could never do. Remember the 2004 Zelda E3 trailer? What brought tears to people's eyes and chills down their spines was not only the revelation of a realistic Zelda title, but also the epic choir and instrumentals that guided us through. Nintendo has a way of exciting all of our senses in their games, and with the inclusion of beautiful and epic orchestration, paired with these new watercolor visuals, polished to perfection, we will not only have loads of fun playing, but we'll have the pleasure of experiencing a more dense, alive world.