Less than 15 seconds long and yet the music you hear inside the Hen House on Tal Tal Heights is one of the most cheerful melodies I’ve ever heard in a video game. Ishikawa absolutely nailed this tune, with clear inspiration from Koji Kondo’s Zelda theme. The mountain range on the north side of Koholint Island, which serves a very important role in the game’s plot, has an appropriately epic-scale vibe that makes it sound like you are ascending to the heavens to confront a god (and based on the story of this game that actually isn’t too far off). “Tal Tal Mountain Range” by Kozue Ishikawa It’s only 15 seconds long but it’s got a lot of character. Almost as if the music is reluctantly forcing itself to be cheerful. The music you hear when you enter the Mabe Village shop or when you enter the Witch’s Hut east of the Mysterious Forest is a piece of music that almost feels sordid and untrustworthy by nature with its music box-like jauntiness that goes into a hushed wind-down before winding back up into jauntiness again. The contrast with the cheerful tune of Mabe Village made this particularly effective. ![]() The moment you head north from Mabe Village and enter the Mysterious Forest while being greeted by the arrow-shooting warthog-like Moblins, the mood immediately changes as the music becomes more tense and antagonistic, as if you are being slowly surrounded by wild predators. Here are ten tracks from The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening that I personally love: Slider’s songs) but Totaka is probably most famous as the voice behind Mario’s dinosaur friend Yoshi. Hamano would go on to compose for many games in the Metroid series and a few Wario games, Ishikawa would go on to compose music for the Wario Land series on Game Boy as well as the Super NES game Star Fox 2, and Totaka would go on to compose the soundtracks for such Nintendo games as Yoshi’s Story, Luigi’s Mansion and Animal Crossing (including all of the expanded live performance versions of K.K. All these composers would have further success beyond Zelda. ![]() ![]() Kazumi Totaka, who also served as the game’s sound programmer, seemed to handle miscellaneous things like the music for mini-boss battles, the music that accompanies various inhabitants across Koholint Island and the songs of the Musical Instruments of the Sirens. Kozue Ishikawa was the one behind the more light-hearted music you would hear in forests, villages, shops and inside houses. Minako Hamano was the composer behind many of Link’s Awakening’s most serious and dramatic songs, composing all the background music for the caves, castles and dungeons. ![]() A woman named Minako Hamano, a woman named Kozue Ishikawa and a man named Kazumi Totaka. But the fact that all these songs are permanently embedded in my brain and I memorized all of them by the note means I’ve had decades of time to contemplate which songs are the best.īefore I get to my list, it’s important to give credit to the three composers responsible for the music in this game. Obviously since Game Boy was my first game system and Link’s Awakening was literally the first video game I ever played, it’s hard not to love all the music in this game based on nostalgic appeal. But right now I want to focus on a certain aspect of this game that deserves its own article, and that’s the soundtrack.īefore Link’s Awakening came out, the Zelda series has always had killer music, with Koji Kondo handling the soundtrack for the NES game The Legend of Zelda (1986) and its Super NES sequel The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (1991), and Akito Nakatsuka handling the soundtrack for Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (1987), but in my opinion Link’s Awakening blew previous soundtracks out of the water, which is impressive seeing as how Link’s Awakening was the first handheld Zelda game, although unlike previous Zelda games, the story had a little bit more depth and emotional resonance, and that ambition with the story was reflected in the game’s musical ambition as well. I have not yet had the opportunity to write an article where I really dive into my love for the Japanese video game The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening released by Nintendo for the Game Boy in 1993, and I promise that I will eventually.
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