M Disk Playlist VGM Primer 2002 Written

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Forgotten
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These are the soundtracks that help shape and define what we hear in the video games that we play. I am Nitro, and this is the M Disk Playlist Video Game Music Primer, 2002.

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Xenosaga Episode 1, composed by Yasunori Mitsuda

Xenosaga Episode 1 was billed as the spiritual successor to the 1998 hit, Xenogears. Xenogears director Tetsuya Takahashi left Square when it was determined that Square didn't have the funds to help support his planned multi-part series to which Xenogears was attached to. After leaving Square, he formed Monolith Soft. However, he struggled to find proper funding for his games, with only Namco willing to take a chance with this new development company. Namco helped fund and publish Takahashi's first game under the Monolith Soft brand, Xenosaga Episode 1.

In addition to Takahashi returning as the director, Yasunori Mitsuda was recruited to work with Takahashi once more. Unlike many role playing games at the time, and very much unlike Mitsuda's previous scores, the score to Xenosaga Episode 1 was composed almost entirely with live music. The majority of the score was performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra. The piano pieces were performed by Yasuharu Nakanishi, some of the choir pieces were performed by the Metro Voices choir, and some of the pieces were performed by the Gen Ittetsu Strings. And in another throwback to the development of Xenogears, Joanne Hogg was brought back as the vocalist for this game. Working on two songs; Pain, the song that plays during the ending sequence. And Kokoro, the song that plays during the game's staff roll.

The score also features a unique piano arrangement of the 16th century English folk song, Greensleeves, which is more commonly known for it's 19th century arrangement into the Chrismas carol, What Child is This? In another unique approach to a role playing game score, only two battle theme's were used in the entire game. The original Final Fantasy only had one battle theme, but after that, role playing games usually had at least two battle themes. In this game, every single battle in the entire game used the same piece, except for the game's final battle. Another unique approach to the score was that according to Mitsuda, the pieces were written with scenes from the story in mind, unlike traditionally where pieces were composed for characters, battles, locations, etc...

Xenosaga Episode 1 was not the kind of soundtrack commonly heard in role playing games at the time. Yasunori Mitsuda did not return for rest of the Xenosaga games, with episode 2 composed by Yuki Kaijura and Shinji Hirose, and episode 3 only composed by Kaijura herself. With Episode 1, however, Mitsuda was still able to leave his mark in the Xeno series in a way that very few composers for role playing games were able to achieve in their careers.

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Kingdom Hearts, composed by Yoko Shimomura, Hikaru Utada, Kaoru Wada, and Takahito Eguchi

Disney and Square had a lot in common. Both created memorable characters, both created memorable stories, and both inspired unforgettable experiences for their respective fans. Bring the two together, and you get a new generation of memorable characters, stories, and unforgettable experiences. What began as conversation about Super Mario 64 between Square producer Shinji Hashimoto and Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, evolved into what they thought was wishful thinking, that only Disney characters in a third-dimensional game could match the popularity of Super Mario 64. Kingdom Hearts director Tetsuya Nomura heard the conversation, and volunteered to be in charge of a Square game featuring Disney characters. The ambitious idea was pitched to Disney in Japan, and approved.

The premise of the game was simple; You, as Sora, traveled with Disney characters Donald and Goofy to save various worlds based on Disney properties from the Heartless, while searching for Sora's missing friends Kairi and Riku. In addition to Disney, characters from the Final Fantasy series appeared in the game as well. It was a huge crossover project, which seemed almost unfathomable at the time. Even Yoko Shimomura had trouble grasping the concept when she was assigned to work on the game. She was already familiar with Square's approach to role playing games, due to her works on Live a Live, Super Mario RPG, and Legend of Mana. But knowing that disney characters like Donald Duck and Winnie the Pooh were part of the story made things all the more conflicting.

Once she got over the initial concept, she faced new hurdles. Hurdles like rearranging some of the most well known Disney music at the time. She felt the pressure of making the Disney music stay true to the original within the hardware limitations of the PlayStation 2. Based on hardware limitations alone, the most difficult piece of Disney music for her to arrange was Danny Elfman's This is Halloween from the 1993 film, The Nightmare Before Christmas. It was difficult primarily because it was hard for the PS2 to render a song as complex, and as long as This is Halloween. In Shimomura's own words, it took "trial and error" to finally get the arrangement to sound just right. Other arrangements of classic Disney pieces in the game were the Mickey Mouse Club March originally composed by Jimmie Dodd. Winnie the Pooh's theme used in the 100 Acre Wood world originally composed by Robert B and Robert S Sherman. Night on Bald Mountain, originally composed by Modest Mussorgsky was used as the battle theme for Chernabog, who originally appeared in the 1940 film Fantasia. And Shimomura's personal favorite piece of Disney music to arrange, Under the Sea used in the Atlantica world, composed by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman. There is even an arrangement of Nobuo Uematsu's One Winged Angel from Final Fantasy 7, as the battle theme for one of the game's super bosses, Sephiroth. The battle against Sephiroth, as well as the battles against Ice Titan and Kurt Zisa did not appear originally in the Japanese release. Instead, it was part of the Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix reissue. The Final Mix reissue also adds the Night on Bald Mountain theme to the Chernabog battle, which originally only used the battle theme, Destiny's Force.

The Final Mix also introduces two new pieces to the soundtrack; Disappeared, the battle theme used for the new super boss whose identity would not be revealed until the release of Kingdom Hearts II. And Another Side, the piece used in the Deep Dive version of the secret post credit scene, Another Side Another Story.

Tetsuya Nomura had only one vocalist in mind for the game's vocal pieces, Hikaru Utada. The song Hikari was composed specifically for this game, and two versions of the song were used. The PLANITb remix was used in the game's opening cutscene. And the original version is used during the game's ending, and for part of the staff roll. Hikari was also re-recorded in English for the western markets under the name Simple and Clean. Instrumental arrangements of the song were used throughout the game as well, arranged by Kaoru Wada. Wada is primarily an anime industry composer. Some of his most notable works include Harlock Saga, Inuyasha, Princess Tutu, D.Gray-man, and most recently, the Ace Attorney anime adaptation. Wada also composed the main staff roll theme, March Caprice for Piano and Orchestra.

Takahito Eguchi's sole contribution to the soundtrack is an arrangement of the game's main theme, Dearly Beloved, which plays when you view your overall stats after the post-credit scene. Since he was a young child, he had studied music. He joined Square in 1998, and worked on the game's Racing Lagoon, The Bouncer, and Final Fantasy X-2. He also worked on the anime Rental Magica, Trinity Blood, and D.N.Angel.

Yoko Shimomura may be one of the first names that comes to mind when it comes to the music of Kingdom Hearts, with the other one being Hikaru Utada. As great as their contributions were, the contributions of the other composers cannot be ignored. Even the smallest of contributions is just as great as a large quanity of them. And with the skill and talents of these four composers, Kingdom Hearts was given an unforgettable soundtrack that helped give Square it's biggest role playing game franchise since Final Fantasy. All these composers would return for future installments of the series, except for Eguchi, who currently composes for Sega. But for primary composer Yoko Shimomura, Kingdom Hearts would be her most career-defining series after game's like Street Fighter II, and Super Mario RPG.

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The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, composed by Jeremy Soule

The Elder Scrolls franchise is defined by its open-world gameplay, and the opportunity to provide almost hundreds of hours of content, to which you could progress through said content at your own pace, in no particular order. You could literally go through hours upon hours of gameplay content before even touching the game's main story. Before Jeremy Soule came along, the Elder Scrolls games were composed by Eric Herberling. Then with the release of Morrowind, Jeremy Soule became just as integral to the Elder Scrolls franchise as Koji Kondo was to the Mario and Zelda games in the 80s and 90s.

Jeremy Soule had already been an established composer by the time 2002 rolled around. He started composing video games at Square with the 1995 release of Secret of Evermore. Then he left Square to compose for Ron Gilbert, who he had always admired as a game designer. His work on the 1997 Total Annihilation not only enhanced the experience of playing that game, it also helped develop the game as well with his own personal input, and his pitch to use live music instead of synthesized music. After working with Gilbert and Humongous Entertainment, he became a freelance composer in 2000 where he further defined his career with games based on the Harry Potter franchise, and other iconic role playing games like Dungeon Siege, Neverwinter Nights, and of course, this game.

Like his score for Total Annihilation, the number of pieces in the entire soundtrack are small when compared to other popular role playing games at the time. But what lacks in quantity is made up in quality, as the entire score for Elder Scrolls III was composed with live instruments. Also, the way the scores were presented coincided with what you were doing. If you were exploring, etheral music would play. If you were in battle, more grand sweeping music would play. And if you were in caves or dungeons, haunting music would play. No specific piece was made for a specific character or locale. And this would be the recurring pattern for how Soule approached the next Elder Scrolls games he worked on.

Jeremy Soule was already a profilic composer by the time Elder Scrolls III was released. But it would be the Elder Scrolls franchise that would ultimately make Soule more of a household name than any othter game or franchise he worked on, due to how popular the series would become, and how the franchises popularity grew with each new release.

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Guilty Gear XX, originally composed by Daisuke Ishiwatari and Koichi Seiyama

Everything about the Guilty Gear stems from the creative mind and talents of Daisuke Ishiwatari. He created the game, produced the game, designed the game, and composed the game. Ishiwatari had many interests. At first, he just wanted to be a musician. But his passion for visual arts melded with his passion for music, so he joined Arc System Works, as that company presented him the best opportunity to express all his interests at once. Before Guilty Gear, Arc System Works wasn't known for its stylish fighting games. Much of its resume consisted of ports of already existing games to other systems. Arc System Works was one of the primary developers of video games based on the Sailor Moon series, including the beloved Sailor Moon RPG, Another Story.

Guilty Gear was the first game Ishiwatari worked on. He wanted to make something that was similar to the Street Fighter games, which would also appeal to anime fans. To tap into the anime fandom market, he drew inspiration from the manga Bastard!! His inspiration for Bastard!! and his love for Street Fighter combined to create Guilty Gear, originally released in 1998 for the PlayStation. The series did not hit the arcade market until 2000 with the release of Guilty Gear X. But the Guilty Gear series, and Ishiwatari's music truly didn't shine until the release of Guilty Gear XX. The characters, the music, the graphics, the animation, and the graphics....all widely regarded as being some of the best in the fighting game genre, and some of the best looking 2D animation gaming had seen at the time. Guilty Gear XX also saw the most updated releases. Guilty Gear XX began as an arcade game, then through multiple updates and releases, found itself on the PlayStation 2, Xbox, PC, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo Wii, PlayStation Network, Xbox Live Arcade, and the PlayStation Vita. Ten years this game was supported.

The music of Guilty Gear is largely defined by metal. No vocal pieces were used. Instead, the main focus of the music was the fast paced guitar riffs, and intense variations of the hard rock genre. Information on Koichi Seiyama's involvement in the game is limited. However, he does state on his Twitter account that he is a keyboardist. And the website MobyGames does list him as a keyboardist for Guilty Gear X and Guilty Gear X Plus, but as a composer for XX. So it can be speculated that he was the keyboard performer on Ishiwatari's pieces, or the two collaborated together on the entire soundtrack as a whole.

The 2003 updated release, Guilty Gear X2 #Reload is notable for having an entirely different soundtrack composed exclusively for the South Korean market. This new, completely optional soundtrack was composed by popular Korean artist, Shin Hae-chul with his rock band, New Experiment Team AKA N.EX.T. The decision to replace the soundtrack with a new one composed by Shin Hae-chul could be traced to marketing reasons. N.EX.T was one of South Korea's most popular rock bands in the 90s until their break up in 1997. Conveniently, they reunited in 2003, right around the time Guilty Gear X2 was starting to hit its stride. The soundtrack was so successful, Japanese fans of Guilty Gear wanted to import the soundtrack for themselves. According to an official press release from Arc Systems on their website, the Nintendo Switch port of Guilty Gear XX's latest update, Accent Core Plus R, will contain Shin Hae-chul's soundtrack, making the soundtrack officially available for the first time outside of Korea. This update will be part of the upcoming Guilty Gear 20th Anniversary Pack.

Guilty Gear XX was considered the pinnacle of the Guilty Gear franchise, just as Street Fighter II was the pinnacle of the Street Fighter franchise. Guilty Gear did things that no other fighting games did at the time, and no other fighting game had such a fast paced rock soundtrack like the one made for the Guilty Gear games. And who better to know exactly how Guilty Gear should sound than the man who created Guilty Gear in the first place. And who better to be trusted the series in South Korea than a musician who was just as experimental with the rock genre as Daisuke Ishiwatari was.

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Medal of Honor: Frontline, composed by Michael Giacchino

Michael Giacchino used to make his own music when he was a child. He would make music for stop-motion animation that he would produce in his spare time. When he got older, and learned that there was a school for people pursuing a career in visual arts, he jumped on the opportunity to hone his craft. He enrolled in the School of Visual Arts in New York City majoring in film production. While studying, he learned of the opportunity to become an unpaid intern at Universal Pictures. He did this while working at Macy's to give him some sort of compensation to stay on his feet. After graduating SVA in 1990, he studied music at the Juiliard School.

Universal hired Giacchino after his internship ended, but then his career path led him to working with Disney in Los Angelas. He joined the Disney Interactive branch to work on his first music jobs. Scores for video games based on Disney properites. Some of those games include Mickey Mania: The Timeless Adventures of Mickey Mouse, Gargoyles, Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow, and The Lion King. Giacchino then took his skills to DreamWorks where he composed the video game adaptation of the 1997 film, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, one of the first console games to rely on live music for their soundtrack. Much of his music were for video game adaptations. But in 1999, he got the opportunity to compose for a video game designed by Steven Spielberg, Medal of Honor. Medal of Honor is a first person shooter franchise set in World War II. It was marketed not just for Steven Spielberg's involvement, but as the PlayStation's own big budget answer to the Nintendo 64's GoldenEye. The Medal of Honor series would become so successful, it spawned multiple sequels. What made Frontline's soundtrack stand out, when compared to the soundtrack's of the previous Medal of Honor games, was how much effort the PlayStation 2 allowed.

This soundtrack was performed by the Northwest Sinfonia with an 80-piece orchestra, and full chorus. Northwest Sinfonia had already had experience performing for video games, working on titles like Jeremy Soule's Total Annihilation, and the previous Medal of Honor games. Anders Marshall serves as a solo vocalist for the soundtrack, performing on the pieces After the Drop, Arnhem, and The Songless Nightingale.

After Frontline, Giacchino would become more known for his film scores than his video game scores, frequently collaborating with filmmakers J.J. Abrams, The Wachowskis, and Brad Bird of Pixar where he would win an Academy Award for his score in the film, Up. To get to where he is today in the film industry, he honed his craft in the video game industry, and helped push the envelope for how far music can sound in consoles.

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TimeSplitters 2, composed by Graeme Norgate

TimeSplitters is the product of many people who worked on GoldenEye and Perfect Dark at Rare, who left to form Free Radical Designs. The challenge they faced was, could they live up to GoldenEye and Perfect Dark on their own, without Rare? And could they do it on a non-Nintendo system? They were determined to do so. With TimeSplitters, a launch title for the PlayStation 2. It was successful enough for Free Radical Designs to develop a sequel, made by the same team, and composed by the same musician.

When compared to what David Wise achieved on the Super Nintendo, and what Grant Kirkhope achieved on the Nintendo 64, Grame Norgate's contributions to Rare went somewhat under the radar. He began his career at Rare working on the arcade game, Killer Instinct, with Robin Beanland. His first project as a primary composer was the Game Boy Donkey Kong Land. After the jump to the Nintendo 64, he became the sole composer for the game Blast Corps, and he helped compose the GoldenEye soundtrack. He was briefly involved with the Jet Force Gemini and Perfect Dark soundtracks before joining other Rare staff members in leaving the company in 1999 to join Free Radical Design to work on the TimeSplitters game.

TimeSplitters is a game where you explore different era's and periods across time and history to stop the evil alien race named after the game. Norgate describes the game to that of a toy box, when compared to his previous scores. He felt that the main premise of the game, and how over the top it was, allowed for him to be more open-ended with how the score should sound. With this approach to TimeSplitters and its sequel, the soundtrack became one of the most eclectic in a first person shooter. There were times the score sounded etheral, dramatic, action-packed, exciting, upbeat, ambient, or any of the combined above.

First person shooters at the time were usually limited to their story, and the theme of the gameplay, in terms of how the music can enhance the experience. With TimeSplitters 2, there were no limits to what kind of music could be composed for the game, simply due to there not being a limit to how many historical and time periods were covered in this single game.

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Metroid Fusion, composed by Minako Hamano an Akira Fujiwara

After eight years, the Metroid series was back. It was developed initially as Metroid IV, by the same team that developed Super Metroid for the Super Nintendo. And it managed to stay true to what made the Metroid series a success in the first place. A large 2D world where you could explore at your own pace, unlocking upgrades and defeating enemies to help unlock newer areas to explore. Super Metroid's score was about enhancing the environment through sound. And as ambient as the Super Metroid score was, it used melodies in the pieces, making it much easier for the music to stand on its own. In Metroid Fusion, more of the score relies on ambience than Super Metroid did. This was done on purpose, as Minako Hamano emphasized ambience over melodies, not wanting to risk alienating anyone with recurring music while exploring.

While working on Super Metroid with Kenji Yamamoto, Minako Hamano was the newcomer of the two. Now on Metroid Fusion, she is the more experienced composer when compared to newcomer, Akira Fujiwara. In fact, Metroid Fusion would be the first game that Fujiwara helped score. He worked as a sound designer for the games Super Princess Peach, and Tetris DS. After that, he worked on the score for the game, Master of Illusion. Beyond that, no information on Fujiwara was made avaliable as of thos production.

Also like Super Metroid, callbacks to the music of the previous games can be heard. At the time, the battle theme used for Ridley was just one of the boss themes. But in this game, we start to see that this battle theme would soon become Ridley's own signature leitmotif, used and arranged in every encounter against him. Like all the previous Metroid titles, the main theme was arranged from the first one, as well as the item jingles, all originally composed by Hirokazu "Hip" Tanaka.

Metroid Fusion could arguably be the most haunting and most atmospheric of the Metroid games. With a sense of urgency added to the open-ended exploration, the atmosphere could almost be compared to a survival horror game. No other Metroid game, past or present, placed a much stronger emphasis over the music highlighting the atmosphere, over creating catchy melodies. And that helped make Metroid Fusion more of a tense experience for Samus Aran, than any other adventure she had embarked on. Metroid Fusion was also initially released the same day as...

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Metroid Prime, composed by Kenji Yamamoto and Koichi Kyuma

2002 was a great year for fans of the Metroid series. Not one, but two main entry Metroid games were initially released side by side. One for the Game Boy Advance, and one for the GameCube. Metroid and the Game Boy Advance seemed like a natural fit. But Metroid and a console beyond Super Nintendo seemed almost impossible. Nintendo could not figure out how to properly impliment a Metroid game on the Nintendo 64, but saw an opportunity with the GameCube. Nintendo formed a North American company with Jeff Spangenberg of Iguana Entertainment, responsible for popular games like the console ports of NBA Jam, and Turok: Dinosaur Hunter. That company would be named Retro Studios.

Retro Studios and Nintendo split the responsibilities of creating the next console Metroid game, with Nintendo taking on the development of the score. Kenji Yamamoto returns having helped set the tone for Super Metroid's eerie atmosphere. He is joined by newcomer Koichi Kyuma in his very first project since joining Nintendo. While Metroid Fusion's score, led by Super Metroid's other composer Minako Hamano, put a stronger emphasis on creating a haunting atmosphere; the score served to balance both atmospheric with adventurous. Music cues for specific enemy types were used, adding a newfound sense of tension to the Metroid series. But Yamamoto's biggest goal for composing the Prime score was, to provide "presents" to Metroid fans in the form of arrangements of pieces from previous Metroid games, and not just the arrangement of Hirokazu "Hip" Tanaka's original main theme, or the item jingles.

When you first land on the planet Tallon, you are greeted with an etheral arrangement of the original Brinstar theme from the very first Metroid. When you're in the Magmoor Caverns, you are given an arrangement of the lower Norfair theme from Super Metroid. And alongside Metroid Fusion, Metroid Prime establishes the fact that when you fight Ridley in a Metroid, you get the same leitmotif, with a different arrangement each time.

Metroid Prime was one of the riskiest games for Nintendo. It wasn't known how Metroid from a first person perspective would work. But in the end, Metroid Prime became just as big of a standard to the Metroid series as Super Metroid did. And it's score, in terms of tone and presentation, encompasses what the Metroid franchise leading up to Prime and Fusion were all about, while simulataniously giving a cue to what kind of music the Metroid series was now capable of, thanks to the GameCube.

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Mega Man Battle Network 3, composed by Yoshino Aoki

The Battle Network series started right at the launch of the Game Boy Advance. It was Capcom's way of capitalizing on the success of games like Pokemon, right down to releasing multiple versions of the same game starting with this one, and the rising popularity of card games. While Mega Man Legends was more of an action role playing game, Battle Network followed the style of role playing games that were top down, with turn-based battles, combined with card games like Magic the Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh. The Battle Network series was targeted to a younger audience, in contrast to the other Mega Man games being targeted to the more hardcore audience.

The original Battle Network game was composed by Akari Kaida. But it was Yoshino Aoki who would become the name most attached to the entire Battle Network series. Aoki studied and trained in classical music since she was six. She learned to play the piano, the flute, the synthesizer, and was a trained vocalist as well. In fact, as a vocalist, she would perform songs for three different Capcom games. Breath of Fire's 3 and 4, & Mega Man: Battle & Chase.

Up until the Battle Network series, Aoki's only involvement with the Mega Man franchise was composing arrangements of the Mega Man X3 score for the PlayStation and Sega Saturn releases. With Battle Network, the production of the music was more or less what Akira Kaida started with the first Battle Network; a combination of simple chiptune music with compressed 16-bit audio. In an interview with Square Enix Music, Aoki confesses that she wanted to stay true to what Kaida introduced to the series. At the same time, she expressed her support for musical contrasts, and her desire to challenge herself to do something new with each game. She was especially motivated by Battle Network 3, which Aoki describes as "the remarkable phase of this series."

Mega Man and memorable music have always been synonymous with one another, since the very first Mega Man game. Composers throughout the years have contributed to Mega Man's rich musical history. With Battle Network, a blend between the music that started the Mega Man series with the present era was established. Yoshino Aoki's contributions helped refine the Battle Network series score, which has helped bring her back for the DS port of the fifth game, and the final game in the series.

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The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, composed by Koji Kondo, Toru Minegishi, Hajime Wakai, and Kenta Nagata

Thanks to the Nintendo Gamecube, the music capabilities of a Zelda title were greatly expanded. The games in the Zelda series used music in a way that helped both enhance the gaming experience, as well as add to it through the plot, and/or the gameplay itself. Music instruments as a plot device began with Link's Awakening for the Nintendo Game Boy. In this game, which takes place 100 years after Ocarina of Time, the game is named after a boton called the Wind Waker. The Wind Waker is used to help Link in his adventure in multiple ways. It helps Link change the direction of the wind while sailing on the King of Red Lions, change the day/night cycle, warp to different locations, and other songs are used to help Link traverse through different dungeons. As opposed to the Ocarina of Time, music coducted using the Wind Waker is more complex. You don't just push buttons at your own pace, you must first match the right time signature, and then time the buttons required to play a specific melody correctly.

But the music of Wind Waker is much more than the Wind Waker itself. After Majora's Mask used two composers for its score, four composers were used for Wind Waker. Koji Kondo, normally synonymous with the music of the Zelda franchise, slowly started to show that the Zelda music would no longer primarily be associated with him. Arrangements of his works in the previous Zelda titles can be heard throughout Wind Waker. Zelda's lullaby reappears, as do the item jingles. The Deku Tree theme in Ocarina of Time is rearranged, and established as the leitmotif used for hidden caves found in Hyrule. Most notably, the Hyrule castle theme from A Link to the Past is rearranged as one of the ending themes. Wind Waker would begin the tradition of A Link to the Past's Hyrule castle theme reappearing in future Zelda titles as a leitmotif.

Toru Minegishi, who joined the Zelda franchise with Majora's Mask, would slowly transition into the role as one of primary composer of the Zelda series with this game. Minegishi had always been a fan of Kondo's and his music in the Zelda franchise, using those as inspirations of his own career. He was mainly responsible for the games event scenes. Minegishi was inspired by Disney animated films, like Aladdin, to create the most dramatic sounding themes for the events. Hajime Wakai would also be a primary successor to Koji Kondo. Starting with the release of Skyward Sword in 2011, Wakai would serve as an integral part of the Zelda franchise. Wakai got his start with Nintendo on Star Fox 64. He would also be associated with the Pikmin series, providing the music and the voice clips for the games. Wakai was also responsible for how the battles in Wind Waker sounded. With Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, the music would shift in tone whenever an enemy confronted Link. But in Wind Waker, the music did change, but the tempo would also change as the battle progressed. In addition to that advancement, a full orchestra tutti would be played in real time, whenever Link dealt damage to the enemy. A tutti is the Italian term to describe an entire orchestra playing their instruments at once. Kenta Nagata, primary composer of the Mario Kart series, would only be involved with Zelda for a few games. This one, and Phantom Hourglass for the Nintendo DS. While the other composers collectively composed the battle themes, dungeon themes, and the event scenes, Nagata would be responsible for composing the island, and character themes throughout the game. According to Wind Waker's director, Eiji Aonuma, the mandolin heard during the prologue piece; The Legendary Hero, is performed by legendary game designer Shigeru Miyamoto himself.

The Wind Waker's soundtrack exemplifies many events. It encompasses the advancement of sound composition in video games that would help shape and define how the Zelda series would sound in the future on home consoles. It represents passing the torch from Koji Kondo to Toru Minegishi and Hajime Wakai. It uses arrangements of pieces made famous by Kondo, while establishing new trends set by the newer Zelda composers. Some of the arrangements are blended with the brand new pieces of Wind Waker. The soundtrack alone represents the past, present, and future of the Zelda series at once. It was an excellent representation of what the Zelda series gave us before, and what the Zelda series had the potential to bring, thanks to hardware advancement.

Sources

Arc System Works

Asia Pacific Arts

Moby Games

Rocket Baby

shmuplations

Square Enix Music

Video Game Music Online