Tri-Force Tunes

The Legend of Zelda is one of Nintendo's most popular game franchises. And with it comes theories, lore, and questions. My mission at The Sheikah Stone is to find the answers by research, playthroughs, and theories. There have been thousands of questions and theories, but with an 18 game series, there may still be more to discuss, debate, and discover.


There is, in all Zelda games up to date, an underlying subject just begging to be discussed. Though there are many things I could talk about today, this one stood out above the others. Though many times in the actual gameplay of any installment in the series, this subject can go unnoticed or disregarded. It has changed astronomically since the series birth, but there are themes and pieces that stay the same. And this whole world of Zelda that works behind the scenes and in the background can be opened to you if you just pause and listen. If you haven't guessed the subject of today's discussion by now and from the glaring hint in the title, we are going to be talking about the music of Zelda.

The story of Zelda is primarily told by the images on the screen, but if we delve in the aforementioned world of the Zelda soundtrack, we can find that the music plays a large part in the narrative as well. In the earlier games, we were treated to a very simple, techno buzzing soundtrack that was neither pleasing to the story or the ears. It's nice to go back and listen to the retro music, but I do it solely for the purpose of seeing how far the Zelda soundtrack has come from then. Things like orchestra and computers make the music much more of a storytelling device and an enjoyable experience. But, as usual, I will only be talking about the newest games, from Ocarina of Time forward. So how did the music change between games? How did it add or take away from the overall experience? Why did they keep some of the themes throughout all of the games? This is exactly what we will be discussing.

Ocarina of Time

This game was one of the pioneers of not only the music of the games but the brand of the Zelda series. It took the Zelda themes from an 8-bit melody to an epic soundtrack. It starts by giving us a beautiful piano melody at the title screen, and the iconic Great Fairy Fountain theme at the player screen. Both of these are simple enough but set the stage very well for the rest of the game. We are given an assortment of Ocarina songs, which are fun to play but can get extremely repetitive after playing them a thousand times by the end of the game. This problem is not easily solved and was probably the only way they could incorporate the Ocarina at all, but I feel repeating it after you play it lost its magic almost immediately. But in the end, the soundtrack successfully enhanced both the emotional and the epic moments of the game. It rarely hindered the gameplay and paved the road for the Zelda games that followed.

Majora's Mask

As the seasoned readers of The Sheikah Stone already know, I am a BIG fan of this game. The emotion captured in this game if without comparison, and the characters are more realistic than in most games. Not in graphics, but in the way you feel their fears and desires, and the connection you make with the people around you in the game. This deep emotion is beautifully expressed through the music. It speaks of trapped souls wanting to find peace, a dark force and its lust for power, the fear, and unrest of the people. My favorite song in the game and one of my favorite songs in the series is the Song of Healing. This song perfectly captures the feeling of the game. It feels like a sad song, but not a depressing one. And has an underlying ray of hope throughout. It plays when you heal a soul of its misery and return it to a state of peace. When you take away its worries and make a mask representing its freed spirit. I've talked a lot about this one song, but it, in my opinion, is the highlight of the music. No other soundtrack quite captures the emotion and sad but hopeful feeling like that found in Majora's Mask.

The Wind Waker

This game is a complete opposite to the one before it, and it shows clear through the music. Though it is different from its predecessors, I wouldn't say that makes it inferior. All the songs are playful and catchy and helped the story play out with its innocence, but also it's adventurous nature. Though many of the songs repeat multiple times, they never seem to get old. This can't be said for the actual songs created by the Wind Waker. In Ocarina of Time, the repetition of the songs was necessary to keep the integrity of the music as we brutally mangled them as we tried to rush through them as fast as possible. In Wind Waker, this repetition is not necessary, because it is physically impossible to rush the songs. So after playing the Command Melody 8,000 times, all love for that song is burned to stubble, not that it's that thrilling of a song, to begin with. But, this same thing can't be said about some of the other repeated songs that aren't played on the Wind Waker. The biggest example is the song "The Great Sea". It repeats many times throughout the game as you spent somewhat grueling hours on the vast ocean. But never, in my personal playthroughs, did it ever get overly annoying. The adventure and exploration of the song never seemed to get old, and I still smile every time I hear it now. This can be said about many songs in this game. Many of the islands have their own songs, which adds to the want of exploration, and the personality of the people and islands that you find. All in all, though sometimes annoying, this soundtrack is fun and exciting. It adds to the feel of the game, and only hinders the game during choice moments. I still love it every time I listen to it.

The Twilight Princess

So if OOT was the trendsetter, Majora the emotion, Wind Waker the adventure, then Twilight Princess is the EPIC!. Because, my goodness, does this music make you feel like a boss. The more orchestrated soundtrack gives you a wider range of awesome, and it pairs perfectly with the epic nature of the game. The new Hyrule Field theme is probably the coolest thing ever and is my favorite song in the Zelda series so far. But besides just covering the epic category, it also covers the other ranges of musical genre. With Midna's Lament covering the emotional side, the adventurous is covered by The Hidden Village Theme, and Ooccoo theme covers the...weird side. But every track is beautifully crafted and is literally and figuratively "music to my ears". The temples and dungeons each have a unique theme that feels totally different from each other but perfectly represents the level. This soundtrack is probably my favorite out of the five, and none of it is really that repetitive. One of the only negative things I can think of is the theme that plays when you're near a monster or foe. This theme can sometimes interrupt another theme, which kind of throws off the moment. But this only hurts the game in a few instances and is vastly made up for by the other tracks.

Skyward Sword

Okay, so this soundtrack is a little lacking. Some of the songs are actually really good, and the better orchestration improves it a lot. But the soundtrack as a whole seems not all that memorable. In Wind Waker, the song that plays during the sailing portion is long enough not to feel repetitive, but short enough to feel familiar. Unfortunately, these qualities are not found in some of the repeated songs like the one that plays in Skyloft or in the flying portions. The songs themselves are okay, but listening to them a few times, they really lose most of their umph. So there's the negative stuff, but there is a lot of things it did well. The tracks for some of the areas and dungeons were actually really good. Tracks like Fi's Lament and the Lanaryu Sand Sea are great additions to the game and make the areas or characters they represent a hundred times better. So, though it's not the best of the series, it's a far cry from being a bad soundtrack. And those track highlights are some of my favorite of the series.

So there you have it, my opinion on the music of the Zelda series. Even though they all have their own varying degree of faults, they are all play a major role in the game. I have many good memories attached to some of those songs. So next time you're traversing a cavern or sailing along the great seas or expansive deserts, take a moment, just a little bit of time out of your adventure, to listen and appreciate the music that sometimes fades behind other parts of the game. And I promise that it will make the game that much better. As always, comment below your own thoughts and opinions about the Zelda soundtracks. Happy Adventuring! :)


~Stalfos