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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Is Breath of the Wild's sound track lackluster?

It is not bad, and has quite a few memorable themes. However compared to the rest of the franchise, it fails to live up.

There are many things that make BotW memorable, the few and far between soundtrack when playing the game will not be one of them.



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Biatch please:



Yes, it is. When you compare it to OOT which has a ton of sweeping, iconic themes, it is just barren and bland.



It has some amazing tracks some of the best in the series imo. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDHw7EarfOk (Gives me goosebumps every time I hear it)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vwWFYy9UA0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JgJR4iy7wc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwyhYmGzKLU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1bsYhXs7TA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aWHkYWslcw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjTTZgfX2jA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfHwvOskWzg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYgNE7ZyJqMj

These are the best soundtracks from the game imo.



It's a quiet game, and that just makes it better. A soundtrack isn't just a bunch of catchy songs with a cliche (ice level has bells, fire level has bongoes, etc). BotW represents a destroyed Hyrule. 100 years ago everything went wrong, and now it's a desolate, (almost dead) field. The soundtrack perfectly gives that tone (to me).

There's also the theme of Nature vs Technology, which leads to my favourite track in the game

That song is also very quiet, but it's so hecking beautiful.

I mean, most people complain about a bad OST only because it doesn't have an overworld theme. Like, 1 song out of potentially 100. Whoopie doo.



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It is lackluster imo. What's there is good, but we needed way more. Most of the time when you're playing the only things that you're constantly hearing are your footsteps, ambient noise and some piano keys here and there (Which get rather annoying since it's always the same ones - there's not enough variety). There's also the fact that BotW has voice acting and it got in the way of the OST during cutscenes imo, since in older games I could read the story at my own pace and hear the background music while doing it.

I really don't get the "but if the overworld had music it'd get repetitive" comments that people make when talking about this game's OST tbh, because Nintendo could've easily made music work with the overworld, they just had to make longer themes that also changed on the fly based on the environment/time of day/enemies/etc (Basically what happens in games like Mario and Banjo-Kazooie when going underwater, but more involved).

EDIT: I'm also mad that they didn't make a proper staff roll theme and instead reused music from various other parts of the game, it felt cheap even if the music was good.



PAOerfulone said:

From a series that has given us masterpieces, many of which can be found in the same game, such as:


So many classics can be found in just one game. There are many other great pieces in each of those games, but for now, I stuck with my absolute favorites.

Breath of the Wild in comparison, while it certainly has memorable and breathtaking pieces of its own. The quantity does not come even remotely close to that of the games that precede it.
And from the Legend of Zelda franchise, we aren't necessarily expecting better, because like I said, Breath of the Wild has incredible pieces of its own, but we expected more. Much more.
Grass, birds, trees, and wind is nice, and it fits this game perfectly, but I'd rather hear Lorule's theme, or the Forest Temple from Ocarina of Time (even though that temple sucks major Dongs), or the orchestral piece that places while you're flying through Skyloft.

THAT'S what everyone means when they say Breath of the Wild's soundtrack is lackluster. Because compared to there others, it certainly is.


I can most definitely find you 10 great tracks from BOTW.

 

A couple that haven't been linked yet:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMfK82oSLkI

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj36pdFItB4

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqKowuTPmH8

 



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Ljink96 said:

It has some amazing tracks some of the best in the series imo. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDHw7EarfOk (Gives me goosebumps every time I hear it)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vwWFYy9UA0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JgJR4iy7wc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwyhYmGzKLU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1bsYhXs7TA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aWHkYWslcw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjTTZgfX2jA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfHwvOskWzg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYgNE7ZyJqMj

These are the best soundtracks from the game imo.

Pretty good job! These alone probe that BotW has several amazing tracks (and there are even more, like Vah Naboris battle theme, the rearranged version of Rito Village, etc.). In fact, some of these prove themselves better than their equivalents in past Zelda games (for example, as iconic as OoT Lost Woods and Kokiri Forest themes are, I find Korok Forest Theme superior. Same with Hyrule Castle Theme in BotW vs Ganon's Castle in OoT and ALTTP). The paraglider minigame theme is one of the most amazing songs I've heard (it's a shame that not many people discovers it). While I was looking at your compilation, I noticed that maybe the problem with BotW OST is that the game is so big that many people doesn't get to discover and enjoy some of it's coolest trakcs.

Despite of all, nothing compares with Majora's Mask OST. That's a true masterpiece.



It makes me sad how minimalist they went with it, because they were so obviously inspired by Joe Hisashis Ghibli sounddracks. And while they absolutely nailed the minimalist parts of it, the soundtrack is completely missing the big sweeping compositions that are also always part of his work. Ghibli soundtracks always build, the Zelda BoTW soundtrack stays decidedly in the backround at all times.



And for every 10 tracks you may find, there's 20 more from each of the others. Every one of them being just as or more memorable than Breath of the Wild's.