Saturday Note’s Alright #2 – The Legend Of Zelda

The Legend Of Zelda Theme (Overworld), The Legend Of Zelda (1986)

About as Famous as Mario’s Overworld Theme, is Zelda’s Overworld Theme.  Gamers all over the world recognise it as one of “those tunes” that everyone knows.  Epic in it’s compostion, and summing up the RPG quest within one track is a tough job, but Koji Kondo is the man to do it.

The Legend Of Zelda would be nothing without it’s titular track as the game would be dull without the upbeat little ditty.  Simultaneously filing in the “Adventure” and “Battle” themes which you often have separate in most action RPGs, it fits in in both roles brilliantly and effortlessly.

The melody goes along at a nice pace, very, emm, melodic, telling you a story of swords sorcery and pointy ears, augmented at certain points to emphasise the grandeur and boost the tempo of the piece while the bass does it’s own thing; wandering all over, emulating Link’s movements throughout Hyrule, up hill and down dale.

Need I say much more on this wonderful piece of gaming history?  I probably should, but I’ll let the music do the talking with this one.  Away and enjoy it some more, maybe get playing Zelda once more or something I don’t know.

Sample: http://www.midishrine.com/ostepop/nes/The_Legend_of_Zelda/overworld1.mid

“Old Ganon’s madder than a barrell full of Octorocks and li’l Zelda, she don’t care”

Thanks to www.midishrine.com for hosting the midi file.  Again, you’ll need to have a media player plugin installed in your browser, such as QuickTime, to hear the sample.