TECD-27457: Hoshi no Kirby 64 Original Soundtrack

[RBM95]

Track 26 ("Above the Clouds") is credited to Hirokazu Ando in this album, but Planet Robobot reprises the theme and the sound test credits Jun Ishikawa instead.

While this could mean that either the album or the sound test are wrong, what I think happens here is that while Hirokazu Ando is indeed the composer (the song is an arrangement of Kirby's Adventure's Butter Building after all), Jun Ishikawa was the one that arranged it for Kirby 64, and the album didn't correctly reflect this.

I guess it makes sense, given how Ishikawa seems to have worked on all the "level" music on Kirby 64 while Ando made "cutscene" music.

EDIT: the CD soundtrack of Robobot also credits Ishikawa, so the theory seems about right.

[Blitz Lunar]

I came to the same conclusion, myself. Kirby 64's arrangement is certainly Ishikawa, so I'd call it a misprint.

I am most curious about the Planet Robobot arrangement of "Dark Star" (k64_isyoku.dspadpcm) - does anyone know whether it is credited to Ishikawa or Ando? As it was glaringly omitted from this album, no composer information was known until now. If I had to guess, I'd say both versions are purely by Ando, but I am not certain at all.

[CHz]

The Dark Star arrangement in Robobot is credited to Ando yeah.

[Robert_Chrystian]

I've made some minor changes on the the notes (changed the "-"s for "~"s) and on the covers names, just for this album to follow the pattern that VGMdb follows these days. Also, I've added the clever observations you guys did to the notes, sice the information came from a pretty decent source. Let's hope Planet Robobot's OST confirm that.

EDIT: Also, what about the last two tracks, aren't they arrangements? Searched and didn't found out if these songs are on the game. If they aren't, shouldn't the "Arrangement" classification be added?

[Spirit_Chaser]

Does anyone have any good composer guesses on the songs that do not appear in this soundtrack?

[CHz]

The only one I think is known for sure is the Neo Star map theme, which is confirmed Ishikawa's by the Planet Robobot sound test.

Here's the list of the omitted songs ordered by sound test numbers. Titles are all made up.

02 unused tune
03 Theater
04 Castle Dedede (stage 1-3 interior)
16 Ripple Star Catacombs (stage 6-2)
20 Miracle Matter
21 I'm Hit!
23 Goal Game
24 Rock Star Map
25 Pop Star Map
26 Aqua Star Map
27 Neo Star Map
28 Shiver Star Map
29 Invincible
30 Dark Star
33 Mini-Games
34 Ripple Star Map
36 Select File
37 Enemy Info
61 Kirby Dance/Long
62 Kirby Dance/Short

Excluding the jingles, I'm pretty comfortable guessing that all of these are Ishikawa except Dark Star, which I don't think is out of the realm of possibility for Ishikawa but sounds more Ando-y to me. I like how clean it would be if Ando only did cutscene music, though...

Please note that I am extremely bad at guessing and would love a second or third opinion.

[Blitz Lunar]

My second opinion is identical, so hopefully that's reassurance :P it is interesting to see Dark Star getting arranged in Robobot, but unfortunately that doesn't tell us any more about the original musician as arranging each-other's tunes is standard. It still has an Ando-ish quality to me, but likewise I wouldn't be surprised if Ishikawa wrote it.

Also there is one non-OST song not on your list by Ando (unless I missed it) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8xetES1BCY

[CHz]

Originally Posted by Blitz Lunar

Also there is one non-OST song not on your list by Ando (unless I missed it) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8xetES1BCY

That's on the CD, track 1! It's two songs in one.

[KrustyKong]

So track 22 "Idiot of the Sea" is a slight remix of the Float Islands theme from the first game. Should that be noted somewhere?

EDIT: Also, the cutscenes names are based on their Theater titles in the Options so I'll add those for the localized names.

[KrustyKong]

track 5, "Room Guarder" is a remix of the Arena theme from Adventure which was done by Ando, much like "Above the Clouds". I think this should be noted somewhere.

[CHz]

Idiot of the Sea is kind of borderline, it uses part of the bassline and one of the rhythm bits from Float Islands but is otherwise original. If the bit about Above the Clouds is actually correct and they intentionally credited it to Ando in the booklet because he wrote the original (as opposed to it just being a mistake), then they evidently didn't think Idiot of the Sea was close enough to the original to credit Ishikawa for it.

The melody of Room Guarder has the same rhythm as the melody of the arena theme but otherwise the tracks aren't that similar, I wouldn't call it an arrangement.

[KrustyKong]

Um... I don't see how Above the Clouds is any different from Room Guarder. The former is slower than the original while the latter is a faster paced. Probably based on the Kirby Super Star arrangement. Room Guarder itself was even used in Nightmare in Dream Land for the Meta Knights theme.
Ishikawa said in this Epic Yarn interview that Ando did the music for Adventure https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Iwata-Ask...nd-207153.html

[CHz]

The difference is that Above the Clouds uses Butter Building's melody directly from start to finish? I know what you're hearing that's similar between Room Guarder and Arena: the rhythm is almost exactly the same and both phrases basically start by hitting the same note three times (Arena has a grace note between the second and third notes that Room Guarder doesn't). But other that they're fairly different: the intervals are different and the melodies go in different directions (Arena goes up and down, Room Guarder just goes up) and they transpose differently.

If you have something where Ishikawa says he based Room Guarder on Arena then I'm all ears because they are a little similar, but they're nowhere close enough for me to think it's an arrangement otherwise. Like, as a sanity check I ran them by a friend who has way better ears and musical knowhow than I ever will and he thought the same thing. ¯\(º_o)/¯

[KrustyKong]

Just making sure you know I'm talking about the Kirby's Adventure Arena and not the Super Star one?

[CHz]

Yeah, I was listening to the original NES song the whole time.

[SYZekrom]

Where do the English (Localized) names come from? Was the album ever released outside of Japan?

[CHz]

I don't believe it was, the tracklist is a mix of the localized world names, minigames, and movie titles (the cutscene song titles on this album are the same as the names of the movies they accompany in theater mode, which is pretty common for Kirby music).

[SYZekrom]

Oh I see, thanks!