Zelda Reorchestrated And Other Assorted Videogame Music

I've been going back through some of my music that I've had for a long time but haven't listened to much, and discovered a great set of music produced by a project called Zelda Reorchestrated (or ZREO). They've taken songs from the classic Legend of Zelda games and spruced them up, rearranging them using some very high quality orchestral samples. Read on for some samples of my favorites.

Here's the Kokiri forest theme from the original N64 game, Ocarina of Time:



And here it is redone by the ZREO team:





Here's the original Zora's Domain:



And the ZREO version:






I'm really amazed at the effect video game music can have on me, even years after I last played the game it's from. It's definitely good music to begin with, but I think something about hearing the music while playing an engrossing video game makes for an especially potent mental connection. Just hearing a few seconds of some of this music will instantly bring me back to being a little kid, sitting down on Saturday morning to play video games all day. Powerful stuff. Here's a few more of my favorite songs from various video games, in their original form:

Corridors of Time from Chrono Trigger (an old Japanese RPG for the SNES with a fantastic story)



Rainbow Road from Mario Kart 64 (one of the best party games ever)



Big Blue from F-Zero GX (possibly the most insanely twitchy white-knuckle racing game)



And I've just got to include two from Metroid Prime, Retro's masterful adaptation of the always spooky Metroid series to 3D: the title screen music and the music from the Ridley boss fight.