My Gaming Audio History: The Legend of Zelda (1987)

This must be one of my all time favorite games.  I played this to death as a kid.  I've got a video of myself dancing embarrassingly to the ending music when I was 6 years old.  I'll post it soon.  Incredible, iconic music.  Unbelievable audio experience.  What can one say about the music to LoZ that hasn't been said before?  I've already blogged about a really cool video that shows a visualization of the various sound channels for the Overworld Theme.

First of all, there's a sense of thematic unity in the music that I very much appreciate.  Koji Kondo is called the "Grandfather of Video Game Music."  I think the reason I have so much respect for his writing is that the composers I most admire are those who write good, memorable melodies (Mozart, Rachminov); that's Kondo's style.  A connection I'm seeing across Kondo's games now is that The Overworld Theme of LoZ brings a commonality with Super Mario Bros Ground Theme in that they both have intros that don't repeat.  The intro here is three times longer than the SMB Ground intro, clocking in at 6 seconds.  Also, Kondo uses a canonic counterpoint, almost a call and response between the melody voices (square wave channels) not only in the Overworld Theme, but also when you collect the piece of triforce at the end of each dungeon.

This game is also the first game I would've played where playing a musical instrument is part of the game play.  Of course, late in the game, using the flute/whistle is a convenient way to travel around the world map quickly/erratically, but I'd also say it's a critical part of the gameplay.  If you think about it, you've got to use the instrument to beat Digdogger and to open the way to the 7th dungeon, so I'd say that making music is a very well integrated feature in the game.  I always wondered why the instruction book said that Pols Voices don't like loud sound and just read that the Japanese NES, the Famicom, had a microphone as part of the controller.  If you blow into it, you could kill these enemies.  Too bad that feature wasn't a part of the American version-- what a cool way to integrate sound!

Who created the audio experience?  Koji Kondo.  Interesting that the credits use a pseudonym of Konchan, much like the credits of Castlevania were spoofs.

What is the audio experience?  This game definitely has more sound effects than any other game I've looked at so far.  I can see that going to have to leave behind my listing of all the sound effects, which in some cases with the Atari, were what comprised most of the audio experience of the games!  Some of the sound effects include: picking up hearts/keys, placing bombs, exploding bombs, the sound of the boss breathing, the sword slashing, finding a secret, the sound of collecting rupies, navigating through your menu, spending-- the same as the sound of typing, your shield blocking attacks, the candle, opening a locked door, ocean waves, Link being injured, magic spells, and others.  Not only do we have numerous sound effects rather akin to "noises," but there are musical sound effects as well: the iconic Zelda secret sound, a sound for discovering an item, a death sound (a downward spiraling audio that mimics Link's on screen movement), Link's flute whistle, and the sound when you step into Ganon's room/ defeat Ganon.  There are also several music tracks as well.  I've listed them, their keys, and their lengths at the end of the entry.

How does the audio draw the player more deeply into the game?  It's hard for me to discuss this music retrospectively.  The Overworld Theme is just iconic adventuring to me.  The upward motion and major feel lift the player and make me want to keep exploring.  The minor feel of the dungeons with the melody in the bass gives a sense of eeriness to the atmosphere inside them.  You know something frightening is close when you hear the breaths of the boss monsters.  Ganon's castle theme is so unusual and chromatic, I don't really hear it squarely in any key.  Of course the Death music and the End Game music are the same, except that the Death Music is a single melodic line and the End Game music has multiple voices, and thus, harmonies.

Here's a link to the soundtrack if you want to give it a listen.  Just over four minutes of music.

Title screen: Bb major (1:23)
Overworld: Bb major (38 sec w/ intro that doesn't repeat)
Dungeon: G minor (19 sec)
Get Item: 1.5 sec.
Triforce piece: 8 sec.  G major
Life Lost: 2.5 sec.  Chromatic.
Whistle: 3 sec.  G major.
Ganon Appears: 3 sec.
Zelda rescued: 5 sec.  C major.
Death Mountain: 22 sec.  ???  I can't decide what key, what do you think?
End game music: 64 sec.  C major.  First 10 sec is the same as the game over music.