Nintendo UK has shared a new interview on their website with The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening’s composer and arranger Ryo Nagamatsu, who shares details such as the reasoning behind the game’s musical identity, as well as some beta versions.
Here are some highlights:
In Zelda games, we often use orchestrated music, and we also have a tendency to make the music more dramatic by adding elements to it when there’s already an original version of the song. However, since a large orchestra wouldn’t really fit the visuals of this title, I kept it to a small one this time. At the same time, we still needed music with ‘oomph’ for a Zelda game, so I initially created the title music using brass instruments.
The story and characters appearing in Link’s Awakening are ‘unusual’ when the Zelda series is concerned, so we had to diverge from the usual mindset we have for Zelda titles.
The advantage of playing one melody with one instrument is that changes in expression or how the melody is played are easier to feel because they result in a more direct change in the music. As a result, we can make the melody wonderful on its own without tweaking it or making the arrangement more extravagant. Old games only had few tones anyway, so in that sense it’s really a straightforward remake.
You can read the full interview and hear the sample tracks at its original source here.
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening is available on Nintendo Switch.
