Koji Kondo is the master that works behind the world of worlds that we have all known and loved. May that be the pixel mushroom filled world of that lovely plumber turned national icon, Mario or the green clothed elf, Link. This wonderful master of sound has surely influenced your understanding of the video game world. Having a track record of being in the 40’s this man has had his hand in many of your childhood memories, just like you have had your hand in many bags of Cheetos while playing his games.
His Link (Legend of Zelda) games were inspired by the forces in nature. He took to the woods to look for inspiration. He looked to the fae of the forest to guide the world of music. When finding his own personal Navi, he returned to the computer to compose his own form of perfection.
Looking directly at the very first game of the series The Legend of Zelda, we have very little to go on because of the limited capabilities of the equipment of the time. With the skill and precision of an artist, Koji Kondo manages to take us to a world that he has helped create. His eerie sounds of the dark, deep caves of Hyrule or the higher pitched and happy songs of the plains and the woods.
Koji Kondo’s true work really gets to shine with the installation of The Ocarina of Time, a game that is based solely off of its capability to have good music. The spine of the game is that wonderful purple sweet potato that makes wonderful sounds that disrupt the currents of time, among other things. Without the people to make that potato sing, the game would have lost some of its nostalgia value.
The Ocarina of Time has, in general, more dark tunes than featured on the track list of any Zelda games previous to it release. This soundtrack has forever become something that form the way Zelda sounds for years to come.
Koji was working on the Majora’s Mask Sound track at the same time as The Ocarina of Time which explains why the two tracks have very similar sounds. While the story line of the two games is very different, we still have the crisp tones that Kondo is familiar with crafting.
Even without knowing the master behind the curtain of the video games, we can hear the story unfold before we even see it. It is all thanks to Kondo that we have the tracks that leave a track that gets our heart racing during an epic boss battle, fight with our controllers while the monotone puzzle track plays in the back ground, or while we sob as the princesses gets taken for the thirtieth time. It’s a fresh wound every time, I tell you. Thankfully, there is some variation in what the games have in store for us.
Sometimes the princess gets kidnapped, other times the moon is about to crash into the earth and end everyone’s miserable existence. But no matter where you look, there is, without fail, a little green boy who is going to save the day. And just like the boy dressed in green with a funny hat on, Koji Kondo is always going to be there. His tracks will last immortal in the headaches of our childhood.
Kondo’s work, while in great variation, holds the same throughout all of his works in a sense that he is creating tracks that tell a story. He never lets the listener or the player walk away from a situation feeling robbed of your time. Koji sees his job as a way to engross his audiences, and bring them even closer to the game themselves. Even being in charge of some of the sound effects, I owe all of my personal favorites to this man. Navi’s snarky “Hey, Listen!” at varying intervals has to top my list as my favorite thing that has been done. For a while, that was my text tone and I go all kinds of strange looks from people all around. Even in the classic chest opening is something that he had a say in. And if the sound of a chest is something that you can remember from childhood, then you know the person who made that knew exactly what they were doing. The Quick little trumpet toots to lend us privy to knowing that we have a new item to try our will always bring me such joy.
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