Kinda surprised to see so much love for Wakai. I always thought he was one of the weaker composers at Nintendo. Star Fox 64 is good, but a lot of it blends together in my mind, the two songs he did for F-Zero X were easily my least favorites, and I wasn't too crazy about most of the battle themes in Wind Waker. Nintendogs is one of the few games I can think of where the soundtrack was annoying to the point that it made me want to stop playing. Star Fox Command was mostly obnoxious as well, but that's not entirely Wakai's fault. That game was repetitive by design: you mostly hear the first 20-40 seconds of each song over and over, and even the most amazing soundtrack ever wouldn't change that. Out of the context of the game, it's decent but unremarkable. Pikmin 1 had nice music, but I don't remember a lot from 2...
I don't hate his work (Nintendogs aside), but it doesn't resonate with me in the same way as Kondo, Yokota, Nagamatsu, or even Minegishi.
That said, there are a handful of Wakai tracks that I really like. Zoness and Aquas in Star Fox 64 are quite lovely, and Star Wolf's theme is a classic. I like Forest of Hope, Forest Navel, and Distant Spring in Pikmin. I was mixed on Skyward Sword at first, but there's a lot to like. I find Ballad of the Goddess and most of the overworld themes boring, but I like a lot of the cutscene, event, and boss themes (e.g. Fi's theme, Ghirahim's theme, Groose's Theme, Stalfos Battle), and some dungeon themes are pretty good as well, though I prefer the more ambient approach of the previous 3D games. I can also respect Skyward Sword for trying to push the Zelda series music in new directions, rather than relying on callbacks to Ocarina of Time.
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