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The iconic Legend of Zelda theme is a banger, but composer Koji Kondo was worried it would get old fast. Learn about his innovative approach to game music and how it shaped the sound of Hyrule for generations to come.
Transcript
00:00If you've ever wondered why the original Legend of Zelda Overworld theme isn't in more games,
00:04we can tell you why. As legendary composer Koji Kondo explained it back in a 1999 dev
00:09Q&A for 64 Dream Magazine, I've always kind of wanted to shake up the music a little bit in
00:13any
00:14case, and because Ocarina of Time is a brand new 3D game on the N64, I felt it necessary to
00:19change
00:19the music just a little bit from previous entries in the series. He continued, additionally, Hyrule
00:24Field is so vast that I thought it'd get boring and repetitive to hear the same melody all the
00:29time. So, I decided to make a variety of music that would never get boring, with additional
00:34music and effects depending on Link's status. That translation of Kondo's quote comes from an
00:38undated post on Javed Steret's Good Blood blog. A look at the Wayback Machine suggests the translation
00:43went live in 2024, but we only became aware of it following a recent Did You Know Gaming video
00:48that made a vague reference to a previous translation. Of course, the theme would return,
00:52but it's hard to criticise Kondo's desire to try new things given just how far the series and its
00:56music has come. Still, the original Overworld tune remains a banger to this day.
01:00proceso lefts of Terry pluses Kondo's
01:00training mooring Ouage
01:00he being trained
01:00his songs
01:00Y
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