When Orchestra Meets Beep Boops: How Zelda: Link’s Awakening (2019) Merges Two Styles with Sound
The original Zelda: Link’s Awakening, an action-adventure game, was developed in 1993 by Nintendo. Nintendo really pushed the capacity of the computer to handle such a complex game system, but still most of the computational resources were spent on handling the gameplay while the art and sound were reduced to a minimum level — pixel art and 8-bit arcade-style music.
Now 26 years later, Nintendo remade this game — capturing the old-school arcade feel while fully utilizing the amazing graphics and sound technology available nowadays.
Original vs. Remake of Link’s Awakening
Here are some major purposes of sound for games:
Setting the environment and emotion
Player interaction feedback
Information (voice, cue for events)
In the following paragraphs, I will focus on the setting of the environment and emotion in the sound of Link’s Awakening (2019), and specifically how it captures the style of the remake and set the emotion for different parts of the game.
While I absolutely love the sound design of Breath of the Wild, I have to say the sound of the remake of Link’s Awakening is equally impressive, despite how much less attention it gets. It is a fusion of beautiful orchestra music and arcade chiptunes — it seamlessly merges the sound of an orchestra with arcade-style electronics to fit the style of the remake. Something very hard to handle. But it totally nailed it.
Original Zelda: Link’s Awakening Soundtrack — Title Scene
The original Link’s Awakening is fully 8-bit, which means that all the sounds were electronically produced with a very limited musical dynamic. (Each bit is able to produce 6db of dynamic range, so 8-bit is only able to produce a dynamic range of 48 dB, which is about the difference between the loudness of breathing and a quiet suburb or conversation at home. Most sound nowadays is 16-bit that produces a dynamic range of 128 dB — the largest dynamic range that doesn’t destroy your hearing). Therefore, in the original Link’s Awakening, everything sounds almost ‘flat’ like beep boops because of this lack of dynamic range.
Orchestra + Chiptunes
Breath of the Wild uses a full-size orchestra and a piano to portray the epic-ness. In contrast, Link’s Awakening (2019) chose to be on the ‘lighter’ side. In order to capture the feel of the old version, the composer/arranger, Ryo Nagamatsu chose to use a small-size orchestra and the synthesized chiptunes to carry out the epicness as well as the arcade feel. A smaller orchestra allows the sound to be more compact and not too heavy, while the charm of the 8-bit sounds makes it sound playful and arcade-y.
Shop Scene
A good example is this piece from the shop scene. The intricate acoustic instruments literally play side-by-side with the 8-bit sounds and it feels surprisingly natural and appropriate.
High frequencies
In terms of the visual style, the remake of Link’s Awakening is almost like a dream back to childhood. Even though I never played the original version when I was little, it makes me feel nostalgic about being a kid — all the characters look very cute and innocent. At the same time, the music centers mostly around the higher frequencies. For example, here’s when Link first wakes up in Mabe Village.
Mabe Village
As you can hear, the piece centers on high frequencies that really make it sound like a fairyland. Very pleasant and playful. The choice of high frequencies makes sense in this game, because most characters do look like children and children mostly have higher-pitch voices.
Ballad of the Windfish
Here’s the Marin’s Ballad of the Windfish, a beautiful song also known as the song of awakening that’s sung multiple times throughout the game as guidance for Link. It is also very high-pitched.
Sound transitions between high and low
Transition from Mysterious Forest to Mabe’s Village during 2:40–3:00
Since most of the game centers on high frequencies, the transition between high and low frequencies is used as a great indicator of the level of danger. For example, the transition into lower frequencies happens when the player enters a dangerous area such as the Mysterious Forest occupied by blue-skinned armored pig enemies. When the player exits the dangerous Mysterious Forest and enter the safe Mabe Village, the sound transitions from low to high. In the Mysterious Forest, a variation of main Zelda melody is played half-speed in a minor key with a cello, which has a rich low-pitch tone. In the Mabe Village, you can hear the main melody played by a music box and the sound is much higher and sparkly than it is in the forest. In this video from 2:40–3:00 you can hear this beautiful transition from the Mysterious Forest to Mabe’s Village.
Conclusion
Merging the two styles of sound is difficult, but Ryo did a great job representing the mixture of a nostalgic arcade with an epic adventure. We discussed several notable aspects of Ryo’s sound design in Zelda: Link’s Awakening: 1) using a small-size acoustic orchestra and straight-up 8-bit electronic chiptunes, 2) setting an innocent and childish vibe with a high-frequency range, and 3) transitioning between high and low-frequency ranges to convey the shift of emotions. Ryo’s techniques are very straightforward and effective. I think it’s absolutely amazing how he achieved the style mix. It was a great learning experience for me as a game and sound designer to analyze Ryo’s sound design. Hope you enjoyed it as well. :)