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"I would suggest that it's not the medium, but the quality of perception and expression, that determines the significance of art. But what would a cartoonist know?" -- Bill Watterson


Points of Interest – 5/2/08

Just a short one today, folks.

Yesterday, IGN posted a small feature on the music of Super Mario Galaxy. And one part in particular stuck out to me:

But despite Yokota’s confidence in the concept, Koji Kondo, original Mario series composer and musical advisor for Super Mario Galaxy, struck it down rather hastily. Mario is not cute, Kondo insisted, Mario is cool.

For the most part, that’s largely in a way how I perceived Mario. Not cool in a Sonic way, or a hip, trendy Poochy way, but simply cool in his own right. He gets to do all these things, have a lot of adventures that let him go and do things people could only dream about, like in Super Mario Galaxy itself. Traveling in space, even flying through it… such a simple concept, but at the same time, such an adventure… and it’s cool.

New Super Mario Bros. is one of my favorite games of all time, even one of if not the favorite 2D Mario adventure of mine. And yet, reading the line above made me realize my one small grievance with the game: The music.

Some of it, anyway. Mapscreens, the castles, ghosthouses, deserts, some of the World 8 stuff especially… most of it was great. Excellent. Loved it. But then there was the typical “normal” stage music that was strung throughout, from World 1-1 on, plus the one usually in stages that involved springs and bouncy stuff. The music is just so… cute. It’s good, but it lacks the adventurous tone which past Mario themes have had.

Put it next to something like Bob-omb Battlefield from Super Mario 64, or maybe something from Paper Mario, the simplistic Super Mario Land tunes, or even the very first original Super Mario Bros. theme. It just doesn’t quite fit the same way, does it?

Of course, others have told me that Mario has been on this road for a bit now, perhaps since the Super NES. And yeah, parts of Super Mario World might hold to that; I’m sort of on the fence, myself. But Yoshi’s Island, despite the tunes seeming to adhere to the game’s coloring book aesthetic, seemed to retain that feeling of exploration and adventure. And as noted above, Super Mario 64 seemed very true to the series’ roots of music. Sunshine is a tougher nut to crack, as they really seemed to accent the whole tropical island theme of the game. I’d really have to give it a listen again, but it seems more like its own branch. And of course, Galaxy really helped bring us home, so to speak.

So, those are some basic thoughts on what I’ve seen and prefer in the Mario games where music is concerned. One other thing to add, though, is that I do wish that at least once, they’d return to using the original Super Mario Bros. theme as stage music, rather than title screens and Toad houses and little Easter Egg nods to fans.

But in the end… yeah, I think Mario’s cool. No spitting-in-the-face here.

–LBD “Nytetrayn”

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