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You'll get a one year (12 issues) subscription to Nintendo Power Magazine, the Zelda: Twilight Princess Player's Guide and Zelda: Twilight Princess Soundtrack CD! Please allow 4 to 6 weeks for delivery of your first issue.

The Zelda: Twilight Princess Player's Guide will begin shipping the week of November 19, 2006 and will take 4-6 weeks for delivery.

The Zelda: Twilight Princess Player's Guide features:
Complete, detailed walkthrough
Maps of every region and dungeon
Detailed boss-slaying strategies
Find every Piece of Heart, insect, and Poe's Soul

The Zelda: Twilight Princess Soundtrack CD includes the following tracks:
The Legend of Zelda: Orchestra Piece #2
Hyrule Field Main Theme
Odron Village
Kakariko Village
Death Mountain
Midna's Theme
Ilia's Theme

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Wow, seven tracks!

It's about time we gotta release date for the original Japanese OST.

7 tracks is such a tease.

Considering the Player's Guide is $15 by itself, this isn't a bad deal.  And the promo CD is probably enough to make me want to renew.

This is mixed news for me.  On the one hand this means that in the near future we MAY have a Japanese release of the CD.  The bad news is is this CD sounds like a disappointing marketing tactic for fans of the game.  I won't even bother picking it up--seven tracks only is an utterly pathetic waste.  It's a shame that Nintendo of America has not learned how to make a proper CD soundtrack release of their games, and that they're continuing this trend with what is sure to be one of their most popular releases is infuriating to me.

I can only pray the Japanese release will be better, if there is any.

-Jon T.

Didn't they do the same thing with Chrono Cross? Release a soundtrack disc to those that preordered the game, that only featured, like, eight or so songs?

Yep. Five tunes:

http://chudahs-corner.com/soundtracks/i … =3TP-0032K

I don't see why people are looking a gift horse in the mouth!  First, you get a subscription, then the Player's Guide, AND you also get a bonus CD.  Sure, we all would have loved a complete soundtrack, or at least a longer CD, but what the hell you get a full subscription, Player's Guide, and bonus CD!  Personally, I think it's a great deal.  Sure, Nintendo Power is a mediocre magazine, but their Player's Guide are always very good (although I tend not to use them unless I get frustrated) and the CD is a nice touch...I don't see any reason to complain.

cheers,

-avatar!

And for Legend of Mana and Threads of Fate/Dewprism as well, I believe.  It is officially known as the summer of Squaresoft.

Well at least that's a little better than the 3-song disc that kMart gave with Ocarina of Time..

Hehe, ohhh yeah, I remember that summer well. I actually FINISHED all three of those games, too.  Though it's funny how the one game I had really been looking forward to -- Chrono Cross -- was the only soundtrack disc I didn't manage to get. Hoohoo, I loved playing Mint in ToF....

Perhaps, but it's still very disappointing.  My suggestion:  wait for the Japanese release, and give this one a pass.  The former will be more complete, the NOA release will not.

-Jon T.

RE: Twilight Princess music, taken from IGN's review of the game:

"Nintendo missed a big opportunity where music is concerned, though. The developer consistently creates some of the most memorable and beloved musical compositions in the business and in no franchise are there more memorable and catchy songs than Zelda. Twilight Princess features these wonderful tracks, but the majority of them are MIDI-based and not orchestrated. The MIDI tunes are passable, but they lack the punch and crispness of their orchestrated counterparts. We honestly can't understand Nintendo's decision not to invest more time and resources into the music because Wii discs do not share the storage limitations of GCN ones."

Perhaps because it was late in development as a GCN game and is still a GCN game; they probably didn't think it was worth the expense and time to release Twilight Princess with an orchestrated soundtrack on the Wii if it ran the risk of delaying the game any further.

My guess is that it all comes down to money.  Hiring a full orchestra to do an entire game's soundtrack is not cheap.  And even if it was cheaper, would you really want static orchestra tracks?  MIDI may not be the highest quality, but it's much easier to vary the tune in real-time as in-game events dictate.

That's really a vastly underappreciated (and also underused) ability of sequenced music.

Good advice, although the NoA ver. of OoT wasn't completely worthless because of its looping abilities

Reportedly, the Hyrule Field music is going to have three iterations a la Ocarina of Time's overworld theme.  Can't do that with an orchestra. 

But also, I notice that IGN had a movie up which had the overworld theme orchestrated.  I wonder where you'd hear that in the game...

I'm not sure, but either way I'm sure it will be a fantastic soundtrack all around.  Other sites other than IGN have said that this is the best in the series.  Given that I've enjoyed all of the ZELDA scores (yes, even the ones that some folks on here found a bit offputting--MAJORA'S MASK and WIND WAKER), I do find it a tad hard to believe that it could surpass even OCARINA OF TIME.  Personally though, I think the compositions, from what I've heard so far, sound great.  Orchestrated or not, this is one album I'm definitely going to get when and if the Japanese version is announced.

Hopefully, too, I'll post my thoughts on it on these boards in the not too distant future. 

-Jon T.

It seems the biggest complaint in the reviews regarding the sound isn't exactly that too few tracks were orchestrated, but rather that the majority of the tracks that aren't have dated synth (which stands out next to the orchestrated ones).

This, to me, is a valid arguement, only because the Cube (and definitely the Wii) are capable of more realistic sounding synth.  Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask's synth didn't bother me at all, but I do think it's about time Nintendo's sound programmers pumped out more realistic sounding samples given the cartridge-based era is over.  Intelligent Systems did a great job with Paper Mario: tTYD and Fire Emblem 9, and EAD needs to do the same.

With all that said, I won't enjoy Twilight Princess' soundtrack any less!  Compositions is what I ultimately judge the music on.

Those are streamed, not sequenced.

You're right, but the point I was making was that the synth in those games sounded great, whereas the synth in Wind Waker and Twilight Princess doesn't sound nearly as great.

One thing you have to remember is that streaming will automatically take up more recources than synth. It allows them to focus on making everything else better.

Do you REALLY think FFXII would sound so crappy if they streamed it?

(of course, this doesn't make it any less annoying when it does sound bad.)

-Joshua

I'm over ten hours into the game and I have no problem with the sample quality.  While it's not up to the level of the samples used by HAL Laboratory (for example), it's a lot better than Wind Waker, IMO.  I think the biggest reason is because the samples are chosen a lot more carefully this time around.

The real-time music changing is likely a reason Nintendo went with sequenced music, as I find this to be very evident in the course of the game.  I am impressed with the way the Hyrule Field music blends in and out with the battle music whenever enemies are near.  Furthermore, the Hyrule Field music beautifully segues into yet another piece of music when nighttime falls.

Oh, and the compositions are great.  I wish they would have included the Faron Woods post-Twilight daytime music on this soundtrack though.  That's one of my current favorites.

I haven't played through the game yet (I'm getting it for X-Mas) but I would also like to add in that I HAVE been discovering some bits and pieces of the game's music in the videos from the game on places like YouTube and/or Google Videos.  So far, I have yet to be disappointed.

Speaking of the "real-time music changing", I found this attribute in some of the boss battle themes.  Take, for example, the boss in the third dungeon--when Link is battling the monster, the music plays a faster version of "Dinosaur Boss Battle" from OoT.  When the boss is on the floor and Link close enough to deliver a blow, the music changes, almost as if to heighten the tension of Link finally getting his enemy on the spot.  I found this to be a very impressive touch.

Quality-wise, I had no qualms with WINDWAKER's soundtrack as a whole, but TWILIGHT PRINCESS is shaping up to surpass that, both in scope and composition.  And while the sound quality samples aren't as good as say, FIRE EMBLEM:  PATH OF RADIANCE or any other Nintendo-produced game, they're certainly not any worse than the ones for OCARINA or MAJORA'S MASK.

My full impressions of the music will come as soon as I either a) play the game, or b) get my hands on the official Japanese CD release.

-Jon T.

Link please.  Would love to hear that.

As for interactive music, Kondo is a big fan of it (and so am I) and has been doing it since Super Mario World.

It's during the Stailid battle (WARNING:  If you haven't played through the game yet, this may contain some spoilers, but if it's the music you're after, OK)

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid … 3109&hl=en

Yeah I've noticed it too; SUPER MARIO WORLD is an excellent early example of "interactive" music.  Case in point:  in each stage of the game whenever Mario boards Yoshi, a drum instrument plays along with each theme.  Nice early touch.

-Jon T.

Side note: another series that does this is Sly Cooper. Man, I love the interactive music in the first game... it's great!!!

Man, at first, I was thinking to myself:  "What is Jon talking about?"

The boss theme didn't sound anything like "Dinosaur Boss Battle"... but I had to stick around for the second form - didn't realize the video was over 10mins.! 

It sounded nice, too bad they cut the last part out though.  I still like the in-game OoT version better (the OST version is sorely lacking the choir).

Come across anymore old arrangements?

I'll have to check that out.  Rare did a great job with it in the Banjo games too.

Sorry I forgot to mention that it plays at the second half mark--heh, I get too enthusiastic that I sometimes leave out things that I intend to say--but I do agree that it was a bit of a bummer that they cut out the second half of "Dinosaur Boss Battle."  That said, I DO like the frenzied, "hurry-up and strike the bad guy" style that plays when Link hammers Stailid down and closes in for the kill.  It seems like this is an all-new "theme" for TWILIGHT PRINCESS, as I've heard this new motif referenced on some of the latter boss tracks I saw bits and pieces of--Argohma and the Fire Temple boss (sorry, forgot his name).

I'll keep an ear out for more remixes.

-Jon T.

For people who are interested or don't know already:

Music:
Toru Minegishi
Asuka Ota
Koji Kondo

TEASER MUSIC ORCHESTRATION
Mahito Yokotu

ARRANGEMENT
Michiru Oshima

.

Hot damn...that just piqued my interest a bit.

Mind you, that was only for the teaser trailer music.

I'll have co-sign on this...  Kaleb is right, the sample quality is much improved over Wind Waker.  You will hear some Wind Waker-ish samples here and there, but overall, the synth is a lot better and much  fuller.