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JWeinCom on 19 August 2012
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happydolphin said:
JWeinCom said:

Uhhhh, I think the Galaxy's Greatest Wave music is perfectly fitting for the circumstance.  It's peppy upbeat racing music for a racing  minigame.  And I don't see whats less childish about the Mario 3 music.  There is less bass I guess, but that's a practical concern.  The Nintendo had a more narrow range of sounds, so the notes had to be further apart to make an appreciable difference. As another poster pointed out it's actually pretty musically complex.

I'm with Mr. Kahn on this one.  Until you can really define clearly what you mean by kiddy or not kiddy, it's hard to really debate this.  It seems that your just going on your personal feelings.  You're entitled to your opinion, but it's not something that can really be argued for or against.

No, he could not be more wrong. I'm trying to answer your questions and debate it, so give me a chance.

@bold, which is the interesting part. Did you notice that the super mario bros 3 music contains more woody sounds, like banging a hollow wooden stick? Yes, there is more bass in the older games, and the thing you point out that's it's probably a practical concern, is something I hinted at in the link I gave trucks. I hinted at that when comparing the DD version of the Zelda start theme against the NES version of the Zelda start theme.

D21 posted a video comparing the Genesis to the SNES, if you haven't watched it, it's an excellent viewing. There is a section where he compares the audio of both platforms, and he points out that the Genesis is better suited for metal type music, whereas the SNES could pull off some of the orchestral songs in FFIII. So that's again on a technical level that translated into the feel of the music.

On Wii however, Nintendo have the liberty to create the music they so please. As such, they choose to use kiddy sounds and instruments for a reason I cannot comprehend. I will try to word it but it is difficult, I'll try to find some sound samples.


You can debate art, but you do need some sort of functional operational definition.

For example, what's a "kiddy" sound as opposed to a not kiddy sound?  What makes one instrument a kiddy insturment and another instrument an adult instrument?  You could play a lullaby on a bass guitar, and you can play a dirge on a mandolin (probably can't play a lullabye on a drum though. That'd be impressive).  You mention woody sounds in Mario Bros 3, but what exactly makes those sounds any more "adult" than the music in Mario?  Again, it seems you're just operating based on how the music makes you feel, but it may make me feel entirely differently.  

On the whole, I feel that you're attributing peppy, up tempo, cheerful, or high pitched as childish, and anything with more bass, more somber, or darker (physically or emotionally) as adult, and I don't think this is the case.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIuvjG3Egjo  Is this kiddy?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P3IRiSm3iA&feature=related  You mentioned intimidating boss fights, but this was way more intimidating than anything in Mario 3.