Official Nintendo Consoles Music Thread (Thanks for Listening!)

Double trouble post!  So, I've been listening to Xenoblade X's ambitious ost for about a week now, and figure I'd share some more favourites.
 

First up, aBOreSSs, and yes, that is really the track name.  Honestly one of the easier ones I've seen from Sawano who has a history of coded track names.  I could have just said area BOSS I suppose, but where's the fun in that?  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDrBMSTB1AE

Next up we have The key we've lost, also notable as the theme used during the first E3 trailer for the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5txz0g8O90

Finally we have N木ig木ht木L. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3ZJNvOdBJ4


Honestly picking Sawano for this is a pretty strange choice overall, given he's primarily a tv and movie composer.  But as time has gone by and the soundtrack has grown on me I've come to feel this might just be a stroke of genius, it's nothing like the first soundtrack to be sure (but then from what I've seen neither is the game besides the battle system and Nopons and a ost's first priority should always be reflecting its source) but it just works.  It has tons of energy as you'd expect from Sawano (or I'd expect anyway as a bit of a veteran listener of his), but when it decides to be subdued it really hits home with themes like Requiem and So nah so fern at times almost as beautiful as Xenoblade's Main Theme (almost, but much as I like this soundtrack nothing is topping Xenoblade's title screen theme.  Nothing).  There are definitely going to be split opinions on this when the game comes out, especially when it comes to the vocal themes (would it be immature of me to say "inb4rapbattlethemehate"?), but after giving this several listens and letting it grow on me I'm firmly converted that despite my original concerns of choosing Sawano for a video game soundtrack it was the right call.  

Course that's all meaningless if the music isn't incorporated in to the game properly, so we'll see when it's released.  Hopefully they don't pull another case of using the same two themes for every boss confrontation cutscene and battle while ignoring several others ultimately depriving the former of its impact and criminally underusing the latter (I'm looking at you Unfinished Battle!)

...You know what, I actually prefer the Mt. Pyre remix that was actually in ORAS? That one's too overdriven for me, especially the percussion.  And I'm still hoping to discover XCX's soundtrack in-game.


GNamer Music Period of Time 129: Redemption

With this idea down for a while, it's time for a resurrection!  Maybe this will get people excited for SMG3 at E3?  Which is not necessarily a good thing if they don't announce it...

Super Mario Galaxy 2



This generated out of a conversation I had with Stu_the_great, in which we agreed that SMG1's soundtrack was better than SMG2's.  However, his opinion was that the soundtrack for SMG2 was pretty awful.  I disagree with this!  I feel that there are some great under-appreciated tunes, and I'm going to bring five of them to the masses.

I've covered SMG2 before, by the way, way back in week 45.  I still feel that Puzzle Plank Galaxy's music is the best in that game, but I covered it then and won't cover it again now.  But here's an 8-bit remix of it, because that's the way we roll nowadays.

(Oh, and I'm not saying there aren't rubbish pieces in there.  How about Glamdozer, or indeed most of the boss pieces?)






5: Gliding



Aaaaah.  Lovely.

There aren't any remixes of that on Youtube, so have something that's also "Aaaaah.  Lovely", albeit with more than a touch of melancholy: Dire Dire Docks, Alone in Space Remix.  Tenuous link?  Naaaah...


4: Sky Station 1/2



Triumphant opening level music that's (whisper it) better than Good Egg Galaxy.  And there's two of them.

And here's a Mario & Sonic version that's arguably even better than the original.


3: Bowser's Lava Lair



This is just pure nostalgia.  Hey, it's better than Throwback Galaxy (not that that isn't also great).

This remix adds an extra layer of epicity to proceedings.


2: Melty Monster Galaxy



Better or worse than SMG1's Melty Molten?  Who cares?  They're both great.

Trance version.  Not my sort of thing, but some of you might enjoy it?


1: Fleet Glide Galaxy



WOOHOO!

Like its brother at number 5, no remixes.  So here it is sped up.  Honestly, it sounds ridiculous, but I don't have much to work with here.


And that's another period of time done.  Anyone still think that SMG2's soundtrack is a load of rubbish?  Any good tunes that I've missed out?

It's a good soundtrack - Puzzle Plank is indeed the highlight - but it doesn't have the breadth of quality or memorability that its predecessor had. I still find myself randomly humming some of this little ditty years after playing the game.

You can't go wrong with a bit of Sky Station.

hehe, period

I've always loved Mario Galaxy 2's soundtrack, though I too agree it's weaker than the first. There are a few tracks which feel "throwaway", but generally it didn't stick with me as much because it just isn't as fresh either -- there's more bombastic orchestra which is great but I can't remember any quieter moments being as graceful as, say, Space Junk Galaxy. That being said it's still got as much variety as Galaxy 1.

I'd probably put Cloudy Court Galaxy's music in my top 5, mind, to me that's the game's equivalent of Gusty Garden.

---

Been pretty impressed with Code Name: STEAM's soundtrack. Who'd have thought sweeping orchestra would fit heavy metal? Well, it does, though it works much better in-game because the music dynamically changes depending on how the battle's going. Apparently it's a bit like Advance Wars: Dark Conflict's soundtrack? (Same composer natch)

Here are a couple of tracks from the game that I like:

Intersection: Me vs. You
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oq0AcgCtwoY

Deadly Dance II
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4TIH3ppcxs&index=19&list=PLDiKVJkERi-CMdXnWA_2AZvoGIfDI2X6H

Stuck Tekken Tag Tournament 2 on for the first time in over a year, played a bit of one of the Wii U exlusive modes and just about pissed myself with laughter at this tune. I'd totally forgotten about it - it's fantastically out of place.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSRvWTvPkAE

Oh God! Erm... so, STEAM's music is brilliant. TTT2's... er... I don't even...

Fronkhead, more than most other pieces in SMG2, I felt that Cloudy Court was a cheap SMG knock-off. Not as good as Gusty Garden, Good Egg and the like.

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSRvWTvPkAE

Is that Heihachi's new theme?

GNamer Music Week Month Period of Time (thank you Drunka) Thingy 130: Kartaclysm

Mario Kart 8 (without the DLC)



Mario Kart 8, almost universally considered the best Mario Kart ever.  Is this in part because it was the first MK to have a fully recorded orchestral-cum-big band soundtrack?  Probably not, but that's a nice extra.

Also, because of its substantial DLC, we can even get two posts out of it. My five favourite non-DLC MK8 tracks, then (and I could easily have done ten):






5: Shy Guy Falls



Love the whimsical panpipe in this track, tootling away.  The squawking Shy Guys are good too.

Here's a piano cover that actually sounds like it'd be pretty tricky to play.


4: Bone Dry Dunes



I'm mostly just surprised that there's a desert piece that I like.  Think that last happened back on the DS in M&L:PiT (Gritzy Valley or whatever it was).

Synth choir ahoy!


3: Toad Harbor



What with there being a Peach of Liberty in this course, and a distinctly American feel to it, "harbor" can be spelled like that I guess.  Not much to say about the music: I just quite like it.

Classic soundfont without going full-on 8-bit, like every Youtube remixer and their Chain Chomp.


2: Cloudtop Cruise



How to do good music cheaply: borrow liberally from Mario Galaxy.  Swooping epicity straight out of that game, literally at one point.

Nintendo remixed this one themselves: there's the brilliant thundercloud rock version, and then Sakurai's boys had a go.


1: Rainbow Road New/N64 Version



What a surprise: a Rainbow Road with brilliant music.  But Nintendo outdid themselves: not only did we get a new version, with the series' usual high standards, but also a brilliant remix of THAT ONE.  Top stuff!

Remix of EVERY RAINBOW ROAD?  Youtube has you covered.


There we go, gents.  Any I've missed out, not including the DLC?  Jaster will surely alert me to one such...

From what little I've played of Mario Kart 8, Toad Harbor and Rainbow Road were the standout tracks, save the F-Zero remixes (which I hope are to come) so I'm glad to see them here.

Yay! Toad Harbour! That music makes me want to live there.

Bonus fact: According to Nintendo's Japan office, Toad Harbour is an accurately re-creation of "like, the whole of America".

The bits that aren't Eagleland, anyway.

Sorry for the DoPo, but while it lasts, there's a very relevant reward up on Club Nintendo. Now, can I be bothered to scrape up my stars...

Those OSTs always look so appealing - wish I had the Stars for them.

...and I spent all my stars on a hat!

GNamer Music Thing 131: RUDE!

Conker's Bad Fur Day

Look, I've never played this game (I was 11 or something when it came out), but even I know that no Nintendo music thread is complete without this song. Caution: extremely rude lyrics!

SLOPRANO!



Like I said, I never actually played the game, so I don't know if there are any other good songs in the game. Feel free to educate me!

It's on rare replay so hopefully I'll let you know soon.

GNamer Music Month 132: Mariachi Month

Guacamelee!  Super Turbo Championship Edition



I'm so glad this made it to Wii U, after the other format bods (especially Vita owners) had been raving about it.  Did it deserve the hype?  To a large extent, yes.  Hard as nails, very good looking, at times genuinely funny, with a great combat system.  

And the soundtrack - well, it was less "influenced" by mariachi music, than it stole the genre wholesale and made it work.  You can buy the soundtrack on Bandcamp, but is it WORTH $7?

Temple of Rain



My favourite bit of in-game music, especially when the trumpet and voice come in.

Santa Luchita (World of the Dead)



I had to include one track from the World of the Dead, but a lot of those tracks are just ethereal versions of their "alive" versions.  Credit, therefore, to Santa Luchita, which switches into a minor key.  Perhaps not the best piece in the game, but I had to give it a shout-out for its cleverness.

Credits (Bad Ending)



I must admit, I skipped straight to the good ending.  The credit pieces are very similar until right up near the end, where this one gets positively haunting.  The only Guacamelee piece that I'd say touches on the magical.

I did love the music in Guacamelee but I would say I couldn't identify one track from another; mainly because all all the crashy sound effects! Also: didn't know there was a bad ending. Balla and I are #Pro it seems

That's one thing I would concede, that all the musics seem to blend together a bit and become indistinguishable from each other. Apart from the credits theme, that is. Anyway, if the soundtrack is a bit of a guitar-filled mess, it's a good guitar-filled mess.

Yeah, like Jimbob, I'd have struggled to pick out particular tracks from Guacamelee's soundtrck, but it's certainly a fine soundtrack. I remembered the Temple of Rain track though, perhaps because I was stuck there for a little while.

GNamer Music Month 133: Deluxe Redux

Kirby Triple Deluxe Part 2: The ReKirbening



Last year, Kirby Triple Deluxe snuck into the 4th place in the 3DS game awards in what was a pretty empty year for the console, and that's where it belongs.  It's a really nice platformer though - not new, not special, but nice.  Satisfying.  A solid 7/10. Like Kirby should be.

I covered K3D back in Week 107 (back when they were still weeks), long enough ago for the channel to have been copyright claimed since (but I've been back and fixed all the links, so please go back and sample them thank you).  But recently I've discovered, or re-discovered, a piece in there that in my opinion deserves a place up with the greats.  That's what this month is all about.

Oh, by the way: this is the main game's final boss theme.  I don't care much about spoilers, on the grounds that anyone who's going to play this will have completed it by now, but You Have Been Warned.







Moonstruck Blossom (link is spoiler-free bar music)

Image Isn't Tho:

I listened to this long after the game, long after I'd forgotten the associated boss fight.  I think it's beautiful.  I think that you will too.

There also also several really nice remixes of this theme, although they all include pictures of the final boss in the video:

• Japanese vocal remix with Layton violin.  Really nice haunting stuff.
  
• Guitar version.  Tear-jerker.
  
• Sorta electro-SNES version.  My least favourite of the three, but it makes a change from constant weepy-feeling ones.
  
• And now for something completely different: combined with the final boss theme from Super Paper Mario.  Works surprisingly non-terribly.  Picture of SPM final boss included, but again, you've probably finished the game by now.

Even if you couldn't care less for Kirby's games, give this piece a chance.  I find them pretty forgettable most of the time, but I can't stop listening to/humming this.

The first 40 seconds or so of that surprised me - didn't seem like something from a Kirby game!

Yes, that's probably why I like it so much! Just 'cause it's different, I mean: there's still some good music in other Kirby games.

(Obligatory mention of Outer Rings, which continues to possibly be the best Kirby piece there is.)