Happy Monday-after-Valentine’s Day! We’re now halfway through the month of love. Cupid’s been flying around shooting heart-tipped arrows. Friends and couples have given each other gifts, gone on romantic dates, and leaned into the usual Valentine’s sentimentality. In Skyward Sword, too, romance is quite literally in the air. Of all the Legend of Zelda games,…

No, not that Nirvana. Not Nirvana with Kurt Cobain. This is Nirvana the Band, with Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol. More recently, it goes by Nirvanna the Band, with two “Ns.” It’s complicated. Let me explain. Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie is out in Canadian theaters today, and there’s a good chance you…

Composer and producer Lufus takes a handful of iconic Zelda melodies and translates them into something sweet and gliding and strange in “Zelda’s Merry-Go-Round“, something with soft strings and a half-whimsy, half-haunted kind of swing, reminding me of carousel horses. Press play on the video below and listen along with me, and you’ll soon notice…

It’s the end of October, we’re officially deep into spooky season and the Halloween weekend is here. Although I’m not a big fan of the festivities, probably because I didn’t grow up with Halloween, I do partake in the spookiness in my own way. When the temperature goes down and the morning fogs lingers a…

Happy Halloweek! From the Shadow Temple and the Depths to Skull Kids and Poes, Hyrule and its parallel worlds are riddled with spooky places and characters. I wrote recently about the uncanniness inherent in the Twilight Realm and its battle music. Spookiness and creepy music come easily to darker Zelda games like Twilight Princess and Majora’s Mask. Breath…

Some of my favorite pieces of music from the Zelda series are truly bonkers. I have a special place for the wildest Zelda tracks in my music library, but one of them I added on accident; I am surprised and disoriented every time the track “Twilit Battle” plays in a shuffle. Among the wild tracks…

With last month’s trailer for Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment, a lot of talk has sprung up about Fi and her musical theme. With all this talk, I thought it would be nice to talk about Fi’s Theme, where we’ve heard it in Zelda games since Skyward Sword, and what its inclusion in the Age…

Every so often, you find a fan tribute to your favorite IP that feels like it was made specifically for you and your Venn diagram of interests. For me, that tribute is Tempo of Time, a 31-minute prog rock epic that pulls together fifteen Ocarina of Time tracks, stitched together into a single, shifting, dramatic musical…

Echoes of Wisdom has quickly become one of my favorite Zelda games, and its soundtrack has predictably followed suit. It has a cozy feeling of togetherness that I feel much of the series doesn’t always incorporate. Of course that’s not inherently a flaw; I’d consider it a feature in most cases. Link tends to mind…

A game’s main theme can tell you a lot about it. Well-crafted ones reflect the world, characters, and story of the games they represent. Skyward Sword’s “Ballad of the Goddess” and The Wind Waker’s title theme are great examples, giving players an idea of what makes their worlds special through music alone. Rivalled by the…

Chancellor Cole just might be the most cartoonishly evil character in the Zelda series. While there are a handful of goofy villains, they each have their own values and motivations. Master Kohga, for example, continues the Yiga legacy and seeks revenge for his ancestors being outcast by the royal family. Cole doesn’t seem to have…

There are a whole lot of compelling characters in Majora’s Mask, many of whom have personal struggles on top of the incoming apocalypse. Anju’s fiancée has gone missing, Pamela’s father is turning into a Gibdo, and Lulu’s eggs have been stolen by pirates. In a game with no shortage of deeply personal stories, Cremia’s stands…

“Drum major Zach Hedrick, is your band ready?” The year is 2012 and the Pride of Oklahoma marching band take the field for their performance. The theme— video games. In this captivating performance, the band plays a familiar melody for Zelda fans in the audience. This segment is often praised for the arrangement, intricate formations,…

The River Zora have been a rare species in recent years, their last mainline appearance being in 2013’s A Link Between Worlds. This time around, in Echoes of Wisdom, they’ve left their role as enemies behind entirely and embraced a peaceful lifestyle. It’s a very welcome change in my book, and not just because I’ve…

Echoes of Wisdom gets off to a rollicking start, leaving little time for rest. From the initial but temporary Link battle against Ganon, to Zelda’s stressful escape from first the encroaching rift, then the patrolling Hyrule Castle guards, the player is thrown from one moment of conflict to another. In some ways, Suthorn Village is…