The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (#11852)

[Mac_Tear]

So, can we please talk about the 3rd and final trailer of this game, released a few days ago.

It bares a lot similarities to the final trailer for BotW back in 2017, which is just awesome. But, the music in this dude, the music is just pure epicness! Nintendo is known for often saving the best for last and keeping fans uncertain about the upcoming games, but this one proves that Nintendo nailed it AGAIN.

Every scene is underlined with the perfect musical atmosphere, from mysterious to calm, from foreboding to pure tension and epicness. I mean, just listen to the combination of traditional erhu and saxophone, it's just amazing! I cannot stress enough how much I love this music. Also, it seems this time the music is more melodic than in the first game, where most of the soundtrack relyd on moody ambient piano chords (exept for boss battles of course). I'm so curious and I hope we do get another BRILLIANT soundtrack release from Columbia this time. Their partnership with Nintendo and its latest Zelda soundtrack releases is absolutely amazing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHGShqcAHlQ

Musically, we have the first goosebump moment at 0:38 with the famous main theme as the title logo appears while our hero descends gracefuly from the sky. A few seconds later we're introduced into the world of Hyrule with BotW's main theme by soft piano chords, before the first foreboding section around 1:08 gives us glimpses of Hyrule Castle's theme together with the weird, reverted sound effects, which we also heard in the previous trailer. Something is about to happen... and as Zelda falls and slips through Link's outreached hand, we hear bits of "Midna's Lament" from TP at 1:22 and the music goes WILD with dramatic, fast swirling strings and woodwinds in the background, before it suddenly ends. The music then shifts from a sad and hopeless moment to, what I think, is the best part of the trailer - the epicness at 2:10, when the saxophone nails every note, backed up by the strange noise, erhu and percussion and again a short snippet of our Zelda Main Theme portraying the hero Link. We have a brief section of piano, when Zelda reappears, holding one of the titular Tears of the Kingdom, before evil strikes back with a absolutely menacing and brutal version of Ganondorf's Theme by organ and percussion, revealing the long spectaculated return of the famous antagonist, before things go even more epic with the LoZ Main Theme played by triumphant horns and saxophone - before it all ends in a clash as the logo appears again. A theme similar to Urobosa's Theme from BotW can be heard shortly after that, and the overall trailer closes with some desolate piano notes from Zelda's Theme.

I know, my inner fanboy shouts here, but this trailer along with its music deserves a nomination for best trailer/music imho.

[zierts]

I'll have to be that guy this time.

I know I'm in the absolute minority, but Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom do absolutely nothing for me. I have no desire at all playing these games. Must be their sucking up to 2010s gaming trends such as open-world gameplay and multi-language voice acting. I think Breath of the Wild got a pass because it's from Nintendo. Were it not connected to the Zelda brand and to the company, gamers would have torn it to shreds for its failure to deliver 60fps and doing things that have been done in Western games before, years after the fact. At the same time, there's Nintendo's weird refusal to give us a female version of Link. There's precedent with Linkle, they dropped most of his character design with Breath of the Wild anyway, have him crossdress in the game, there's rumors that Zelda will be playable in Tears of the Kingdom, but God forbid they give gamers the option to play a female version of Link. I just don't get them.

Also, Mac_Tear, I hate to disagree on this but I found the trailer music to be quite bad. Weaving in musical themes from earlier installments for a few seconds felt like blatant nostalgia-pandering to me. The saxophone part and the weird mish-mash of instruments was particularly unpleasant to my ears. And then they base their percussion on the annoying-as-**** "make-it-epic woosh hit" or whatever it's called. You know, that "Da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da DA!! Da-da-da-da-da-da DA!!!!" thing that's in EVERY HOLLYWOOD TRAILER of the last ten years or so.

The only consolation is that the trailer music will be relegated to the credits at best, as has been the case with Breath of the Wild. I have high hopes for the rest of the soundtrack, which I thought was excellent in Breath of the Wild as well. It was the saving grace of that game for me. Again though, not enough to make me play it.

[RBM95]

We have the composer list via leaks:

Sound Director
Hajime Wakai

Composers
Manaka Kataoka
Maasa Miyoshi
Masato Ohashi
Tsukasa Usui

[MetalLord]

Sound Design:
Mitsutoshi Kodama
Yohei Minagawa
Isami Yoshida
Takahiro Noshio
Yuki Tsuji
Riyu Tamura
Takuro Yasuda
Tomoyasu Taka
Eiji Nakamura
Chiharu Minekawa
Hiroki Taniguchi
Shotaro Arakawa
Yasushi Inomata

Sound Programming
Junya Osada
Masafumi Kawamura
Kota Wada
Takumi Sekino
Shun Hayami
Ryosuke Kawakatsu
Koichi Sato

[Eidolon2010]

Originally Posted by RBM95

We have the composer list via leaks:

For the sound director and the lead composer, no surprise, since they were mentionned a while ago... ? (And the main theme has brief BOTW motifs, so easy to find out)

For the others, I know two of them by name, but I'm truly unfamiliar with the trio.

[Mac_Tear]

Originally Posted by RBM95

We have the composer list via leaks:

Yasuaki Iwata did not return for the sequel? It's a bit disappointing as I really liked his contributions. On the other side, I'm glad that Nintendo also gives younger and lesser known composers a chance, especially in a major title like this one. At least, Wakai is back. Would be nice to see Kondo back, but it seems he's more interested in the Mario franchise than Zelda...

[KobobKC]

We finally hear some words from one of the new composers, Masato Ohashi. He did the dungeon themes, character themes, and cutscenes. https://www.nintendo.co.jp/jobs/keyword/132.html

[KobobKC]

We got confirmation that Manaka Kataoka composed the main theme (no surprise) https://youtu.be/xuXHrHRZzLk?si=AVpQRPBd91G5jxFW&t=73

[KobobKC]

The sound programmer talked in depth about sound and music implementation at GDC. https://gdcvault.com/play/1034667/Tu...ngdom-Evolving