Aug 102016
We take a tour through the first three Star Fox soundtracks and discuss the brand’s many unique selling points, from its muppet animal heroes to its gamey-orchestral jams. SNES and N64 tunes incoming!
SHOW NOTES
0:00:00 – Main Theme (Star Fox)
0:18:25 – Emergency Call (Star Fox)
0:18:45 – Corneria (Star Fox)
0:25:21 – Asteroid Venom Orbital (Star Fox)
0:27:47 – Space Armada (Star Fox)
0:29:10 – Meteor (Star Fox)
0:32:21 – Fortuna (Star Fox)
0:34:20 – Boss Titania (Star Fox)
0:44:15 – Venom (Star Fox 2)
0:46:28 – Eladard (Star Fox 2)
0:48:20 – Macbeth (Star Fox 2)
0:59:09 – Opening (Star Fox 64)
1:00:51 – Star Wolf Theme (Star Fox 64)
1:07:00 – Area 6 (Star Fox 64)
1:09:12 – Boss B (Star Fox 64)
1:18:51 – Godspeed (ocremix.org)
Awesome episode.
I had no idea the music for Star Fox 2 was that good; its a gentle reminder that the instrumentation for SF64 was kind of awful in comparison.
I love the Armada theme in the original game. There’s something so tense and exciting in it that is completely missing in the Smash Brothers Brawl remix, which sounds almost too whimsical in comparison.
I also liked the soundtrack of Star Fox Assault. Not an amazing game, but the best we’ve seen in the last 15 years from the series. Much of the soundtrack is effectively an official orchestral remix of music from Star Fox 64; while less original, it’s still better than the generally forgettable music from Star Fox Zero.
Jeremy Parish went into detail about that “X” game that Patrick mentioned in a recent episode of GameBoy World. You can clearly see Argonaut developing the DNA of StarFox. They really pushed both systems to the max!
Yes! A new episode and one on my beloved Starfox series!
The original StarFox (or StarWing as I knew it), was a seminal game for me and that glorious soundtrack is still one of my all time favorite video game scores. The N64 is a better game, but I never took to the soundtrack and I’ve always been disappointed that Hirasawa’s songs never saw any more usage, outside of the occasional nod on the Smash Brothers stages. I wonder if there was some Nintendo office-politics involved once Kondo took over?
Starfox 2 has some really catchy and interesting songs on it as well and I definitely second the opinion of StarFox: Assault and it’s awesome orchestral symphonies.
Overall I love the colorful personality of the Starfox franchise. To me it speaks of Nintendo’s genius. Shoot em ups are mostly abstract affairs about some solitary ship fighting against endless, faceless armadas. Very rarely do schmups and space shooters have any significant lore or characters that can bring the universe to life. There was nothing about Gradius, Thunderforce or Afterburner that made you think and wonder about their settings and scenarios.
But in Starfox, having you be a part of a bantering squad injected a ton of flavor. Together with that rousing StarFox theme it instilled a sort of Top-Gun style pride of being part of an ace flying wing.
Some PC games like Wing Commander had toyed around with the squadron idea, but Nintendo made the team dynamic so fun and memorable.
Star Fox has seen better days and Zero might not have been the glorious return everyone had hoped for. With a little luck the franchise will stick around for more installments. And more Hirasawa music dangit!
Thanks Brett for a Star Fox episode, I’ve always wanted one because it’s a series that’s always had amazing music. The Corneria track from original game on SNES blew me away at the time!
I agree with Patrick that Star Fox Assault has amazing music, if only because of the orchestrated versions of Star Fox 64 tracks. I thoroughly recommend that game’s rendition of Star Wolf
I’m glad you ended with the bizarre Alice DeeJay/Starfox/Limp Bizkit track, I remember you guys mentioning it on Laser Time a while back and now that line “Come a little closer” is associated in my brain with Slippy yelling “FOOOOOX” and then that boss yelling “WHOOOOAA!”
What a pleasant surprise to see a new episode. Especially Star Fox!
I’ve been listening to the SNES soundtrack a lot at work lately. I can really power through some on-rails layout design work while that OST is rolling. Thanks for including some of the soundtrack from Star Fox 2, which I’ve seen a fair amount of footage of online but had not heard much of the music.
The opening song sounded juddery, almost like Final Fantasy 6 music not playing properly, and most of the songs didn’t sound very spacey to me. The 64 songs especially sounded like Dragon Quest music. I didn’t know that N64 music ever sounded so much like Super Nintendo music, which I’ve never been very fond of, the way the samples make so much of the music sound so similar bugged me from the beginning.
Fun fact! That bonus stage song that uses “When the Saints go Marching In” also uses a Japanese public domain song, “Yuki.”
Thunderbirds shout out! You’re wrong Chris it’s the greatest show of all time.
Anyway, I really enjoyed this episode. Not familiar with most of the Star Fox games but this was all great.
Love the show guys keep it up!
I haven’t finished the episode yet (I like to space them across weekends doing housework), but a couple random thoughts on Star Fox 1:
1) Dan Owsen, who seemed to be in the credits for localization stuff for like every 90s Nintendo game, did the voiceover for the Corneria Scramble. I learned fairly recently that he also did the Super Metroid intro, which made me recognize him in the scramble just now.
2) This ep made me remember to finally look up what is actually being said during the scramble – “Incoming enemy fighters. Prepare for launch.” My childhood friend who introduced me to the game always said it was “Easy aiming fighters, prepare for launch,” which never quite made sense to me, but I believed it up until about 15 minutes ago.
3) I thought maybe there was a Shakespearean character naming trend for the planets, because I had to read A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 8th grade, which has a character named Titania, which of course made me immediately think of Star Fox. But alas, I don’t think Corneria and Fortuna are characters.
4) Fortuna’s Music is such a reflection on the times with that early-90s hip-hop sound. Kind of reminds me of Toe Jam & Earl even.
5) The fact that I can barely remember Titania’s music reminds me of how much I always skipped it. Even if I wanted to do the hard path, I’d usually warp past it.
Bonus fact for 3: Not Shakespearean, but “O Fortuna” is part of the 13th century “Carmina Burana” and was eventually turned into opera music.
Great episode, love this series and loved the extra bits you guys brought in (such as the N64 VHS commercial… thing. Good lawd, I remember that one for SF64.) The glimpse of Star Fox 2 was a real treat, as well. I knew about the ROM, but I had no idea a legit finished version is out gathering dust in some drawer. Alas. I had no idea the music was so damn good in that, too.
Star Fox 64 was one of those games I played 80 gillion times, so it’s got solid roots in my nostalgia bank, and its credits theme is one of my favorite game tracks of all time (I also loved the Venom track, which I would play the easy route just to hear sometimes.)
I watched a friend in my neighborhood play the SNES Star Fox for a minute back when it was released, yet I didn’t check it out for myself until the 2000’s. It’s… rough to go back to after loving SF64 so much, but I did power through until I could beat the hard route, and then never touched it again. Ended up playing Star Fox Adventures (and loving the music in that) a lot more, even if THAT game’s a weird, stupid mess. I totally look forward to a VGMpire on that one and Assault.
Great episode! Never played any of the games but listening to this made me want to watch A Fox In Space again.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uieM18rZdHY&w=560&h=315%5D
Cool to hear a mention of The Wingless. I randomly discovered his remix of the ending to The Guardian Legend (Hyperion) a long time ago, which is awesome, but I’ve never heard any one else actually mention him in any context, heh.