The Beeps and Bops have vanished, but is this Orchestral Soundtrack any good?

If you have been listening to all the various podcasts me and Josh have created over the years (including those from our older website) then you may have noticed that there’s too running jokes about me: I never write blog posts and I know nothing about retro games. This would seem to suggest that I’m the least qualified member of the team to review ZREO Music, a website “commited to lush symphonic performances of the greatest songs from The Legend of Zelda™ as they would have sounded with the warm halls and intimate expression of a live philharmonic.” But hey, I’m going to have a go anyway.

They have a vast collection on songs and albums available to download from the website (all for free) but I’m going to concentrate on the music from Ocarina Of Time, the 1998 Nintendo 64 game. In my opinion, this is a truly classic game, the first game that I ever played really (other than a selection of Game Boy games) in fact I still have a fond memory of playing this game at my grandparents house at christmas (at the same time I first drank cider, luckily I became a gamer and not an alcoholic). But before any more dewey eyed recollections of the good old days, let me talk about the album.

Firstly, the 170mb zip file downloaded relatively quickly and importing into iTunes was a doddle, even the album covers have been provided. At this point, I realised the sheer quantity of songs that I had just downloaded (82 to be precise). The total running time is just shy of 2 hours as many of the songs are actually just short leitmotifs such as the 9 second ‘Open Treasure Chest’. The longer songs tend to be the theme’s that played in the background of the game, the 5 minute long ‘Hyrule Main Field Theme’ being the perfect example of this.

The quality of the music itself fails to disappoint, in fact it sounds like it could be from a Hollywood adaptation of the game. The ZREO team have taken the already great source material and given it the orchestral make over it truly deserves, with the rich sound of the philharmonic making the songs sound much more powerful and vivid than the original MIDI tracks could ever hope to achieve. In some points the fact the music was created by software synths becomes obvious, even if the quality of the synths is excellent. This isn’t really a complaint, hiring a hundred odd musicians and a conductor is hardly affordable for what these guys are trying to do, but I would love to hear these songs taken and performed by the real thing (London Symphony Orchestra, I hope you are listening).

Of course, the best way for you to appreciate the quality of these songs yourself is to take a listen. Below is the track Zelda’s Theme which is one of my favourites on the album.

I have listened to a many video game covers over the past few years, ranging from the okay to the downright awful (mostly consisting of unimaginative techno remixes). However, what the ZREO team have done here is hugely impressive: they have actually improved upon the originals, this site is a definite must for any Legend of Zelda fan. But for me, the thing I have enjoyed most whilst listening to these songs are the way they have reminded me of what a great time I had playing this game when it came out. In fact, I think I may go and dig out my N64 and have another go on the game that got me into gaming.