Why Star Fox Sounds Like Star Fox

Star Fox 64 has had one of the hardest slept on soundtracks in video game history. The music was co-written by the legendary Koji Condo right in between his work on Super Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time. And the Star Fox 64 theme is just as good as anything on either of those soundtracks. It was also co-written by Hajime Wakai and was Wokai's first composition gig with Nintendo. A fascinating showcase of the early style and talent of the man who went on to write some of the most charming and unique music in Nintendo's catalog. So, when I saw that Nintendo had released some of the soundtrack to their new Star Fox reboot on Nintendo Music, I was thrilled to see just how faithful the new arrangements are to the N64 originals. None of the actual notes of these compositions have been touched. They've just been given the live orchestra treatment they've always deserved, drawing more color and richness out of the original intent of each track than the N64 sound card could accommodate back in 1997. The respect for the source material on display here bodess very well for the game as a whole, I'd say. So, in celebration of this celebration of a Nintendo soundtrack that deserves more and might finally be getting it, let's talk about what defines the sound of Star Fox 64.

By contrast to the cartoony sound of Super Mario and the epic fantasy atmosphere of Ocarina of Time, Star Fox's music is determined. It's militaristic and it captures a sense of preparing to meet a daunting challenge head on. The main theme penned by a Kojicondo uses an elegant blend of these musical ingredients to bring this feeling to life. The military feel of the soundtrack is provided mostly by the marching rhythm. Tony and snare drum rolls simmer behind a brass section that plants notes squarely on each beat and heavily emphasizes beats one and three. Compare this to the syncopated rhythms of Mario or even the more uptempo adventurous themes from Ocarina of Time. If Hyrule Field runs at a sprint, barreling forward through your journey, Star Fox's marching tempo keeps us in the war room debriefing before our mission. Another aspect contributing to the military sound is the use of perfect fourths. Fourth intervals sound cold. They don't have the comfort and warmth of thirds or sixths or the harsh pointedness of seconds or sevenths. They don't feel as open as fifths either. There's a mechanical sense to the perfect fourth, something just a bit unhuman. This feeling gets leveraged well in more dissonant and threatening sounding pieces as we'll see in a minute. But I think it's interesting that the melody of the main theme is harmonized just about entirely with perfect fourths. The fourth between A and D here combined with the G bass note give us a G sus 2 chord. It's the tonic chord, but it's neither major nor minor, neither bright nor dark, neither cold nor hot. And this contributes a sort of detached feeling to the theme, like we're grimly assessing the situation at hand rather than welling up with a spirit of adventure. But alongside this coldness, there is an element of heroism to this music, too. And I think this is supplied by the use of the mixelyian scale. The main motif runs up from the fifth to the flat 7th, which is the characteristic note of the mixelyian scale. And then as the melody continues, it passes by major thirds to solidify the sound of that mode. The mixelyian scale or the major scale with a flat 7th was the go-to sound to evoke heroism in '90s video games. And it's all over Nintendo games from that time. Something like Hyrule Field's theme from Ocarine of Time also uses the G mixelyian scale for its adventurous and heroic attitude, but heavily emphasizes the major third of our G chord and spells out clear movement between G and F major chords in the harmony. Using this same scale, but with a more ambiguous approach to the harmony retains some of that heroic quality, but gives Star Fox a less optimistic vibe. Nevertheless, the Mixelyian scale creates the music's sense of determination. The Star Fox crew is on a mission, and they're going to save the universe, but it's not going to be a fun time. The danger of the mission at hand

is frequently expressed in the soundtrack through chromatic movements that feel dark and threatening. The second phrase of the main theme jumps to the four chord, C, a typical move, but then it slides back and forth between C and D flat chords under a development of the same determined melody. This D flat, the flat five of the key, isn't a functional part of the progression here. It's being used as a way to color that C major chord with a sense of danger. That danger makes the C chord feel more heroic by comparison. Resolving to C major here instead of like a C sus chord turns it into a beacon of light cutting through the darkness. Chromatic sliding is used to evoke the same darkness, the same ominous presence all over the soundtrack. The map music, also written by Kojicondo, expands on the same main theme. After running up to the flat 7th of the key, the melody slides down chromatically back to where it started. We're keeping the same militant atmosphere that we had in the main theme with the low fourth intervals holding steady on C and F notes underneath the whole thing emphasizing the strong beats at a marching tempo. But the added chromatic motion ups the amount of darkness in the piece. And this darker variation on the original theme tells us that we're getting closer to embarking on our mission and forcing us to wonder if we'll be able to make it through in one piece. And the threatening nature of

the music only increases as you actually move into the missions themselves. Corneria's theme written by Hajime Wakai sets up a vamp in 64 time that trades between F minor and E flat minor over G flat chords. The shrill 16th note strings are unrelenting and the one to flat two movement in the bass invokes a less heroic mode, the friian scale. Followers of the channel will know that the friian scale, a minor scale with a flat second, is the perfect sound for creating a sense of threat, and it's used all over the Star Fox soundtrack to great effect. Trading between the tonic chord, F minor, and an E flat minor chord, which has the flat second of the key in it, is a way to instantly access the friian sound. And it's even more emphasized here by placing the flat second of the key in the bass. The melody leans into it, too. This main figure clearly outlines F minor. And then as the figure repeats, the last few notes move step by step down the F minor scale until the phrase closes on an ominous flat 2:1 resolution. The game's militaristic feel is maintained by the rhythm here. We still have a marching tempo and snare drum and tonyany hard at work, but there's also a specific rhythmic pattern of dotted quarter notes followed by undotted quarter notes that's taken on a musical shorthand for military operations. The Mission Impossible theme is my go-to example. uses two dotted quarter notes followed by two regular quarter notes adding up to be in 54 time. If we compare it to the Corneria theme, it's exactly the same, just with an extra beat of rest thrown in to expand it to 64 time. You'll find this same rhythmic formula bringing the stress of high stakes missions all over the game. The second boss theme in the game uses the exact Mission Impossible pattern for its accompiment, for example. Medio's theme takes the same approach but in three four. The pattern now two dotted quarters followed by three quarter notes as accented by the tony part. On top of this, a steady stream of eighth notes in the bass wind around an E friian scale. the low range accentuating the scale's ominous nature. When a melody comes in, it's once again harmonized in perfect fourths for this bleak, detached feeling and features chromatic descent to create that sense of danger that we're looking for. Having a consistent pallet of compositional tricks to pull from across a soundtrack is the best way to establish a game's unique sound. The music for Fortuna and Sector Zed uses the same special ops rhythmic approach, but twists it to be more rhythmically disorienting. We alternate between a bar of 54 and a bar of 34, giving us the Mission Impossible rhythm one bar and then this short jittery 34 rhythm immediately after the thing that I find funny about this is that it actually adds up to eight. So you could write this out in 44 time, but it's syncopated so specifically to the military operations cliche that it's almost impossible to feel it in 44. This

kind of disorientation is something that Hajime Wakai is fantastic at. He somehow finds a way to surprise you even if you think you know all of the musical tricks of the trade. The music for the training mode written by Wakai follows the lead set by Condo's main theme. Staccato brass stabs on the beat in a marching tempo, perfect fourth intervals and rolling snare drum accompaniment, setting up a militaristic feel. But when the melody comes in, it meanders out of the standard four bar phrase box and leaves you guessing where you are. The genius of this melody is that it feels like it should be a four bar phrase. The first four bars work perfectly as a four- bar phrase. It's just that this fourth bar also works as the start of another four bar phrase and the two dovetail together into a seven bar phrase. And then instead of just having a melody with a seven bar phrase, which would be weird enough, the melody is passed from the strings to the trumpets and starts the first bar of the phrase again on the last bar of the previous phrase, dovetailing two seven bar phrases together for a 13 bar phrase. And then the strings cut off that last bar of the melody to set up a 12 bar loop of two seven bar phrases. The constant C bass note ties it all together. And the way the harmony plays around with different borrowed chords creates the perfect amount of ambiguous motion where we don't feel like we're not going anywhere, but we also never get where we're going. I adore Wakai's writing. His idiosyncratic choices and ability to disorient turn out to be a perfect compliment to Condo's emotional precision and melodic virtuosity.

A lot of the soundtrack is pretty harrowing as most of the music is scoring daring flights through enemy territory, but Condo's contributions to the soundtrack balance out the overall tone of the game. Another theme he wrote for the game appears first in the title screen, and it sounds like something you'd hear in Ocarina of Time. The static tonic G note in the melody holding while the harmony descends farther and farther into the depths ending on this B augmented chord portrays our hero doing their best to hold out against an overwhelming force. And the quizzical sound of the augmented triad at the end leaves us wondering if they will succeed. With the mission accomplished theme, that question is answered. We did it, ladies and gents. The same melody plays out over a G bass pedal. The melody emphasizing the flat 7th of the key, but also running fleetingly over the major third for that same dutiful mixelyian sound that colored the main theme of the game. But after the first phrase, the following phrase takes the same melody and bumps it up to a straight G major version that is harmonized with what sounds like the bridge section from Zelda's lullabi. Bringing us out of the sound of anxious anticipation for our mission and into this beautiful G major descent from our four chord to the one chord brings a sense of satisfaction, a sense that we accomplished what we set out to do. This feeling is taken even further with the allclear theme. The same melody now starting in G major and harmonized to sound like it's scoring a graduation. How fitting for one who's finished all the missions the game had to throw at them and came out the other side unscathed. It feels like our Star Fox team should be standing at an awards ceremony receiving Medals of Honor. The darker elements of Threat, the chromatic descents, the perfect fourth harmonies, the frigian scales embody the challenge and sense of danger that is a part of the appeal these games have to players. The military rhythms and orchestration gives the exact right flavor to flesh out the world of the game, the characters sense of duty, the high stakes of the battle at hand, and how awesome these gigantic spaceships are. The masterful melody writing humanizes these cartoon animal characters, showing us their sense of purpose and evoking in us all the feelings they'd be feeling before taking on their missions. Anticipation, a hint of worry, but overall a resolve to do what you have to do to triumph over evil and save the galaxy. I really like the soundtrack and I'm completely thrilled with the respect for the original music you can feel emanating from the new arrangements. I hope you enjoyed this look into Star Fox 64 and I'll see you in the next one.