A Look Back at the Pony Canyon N64 Sound Series
Nintendo OST’s (Original Soundtrack) weren’t a dime a dozen back in the day at all in the States. During the SNES and N64 era, we would occasionally get soundtrack offerings for Nintendo’s first & second party games via random Nintendo Power releases or their Club Nintendo program. I also remember buying soundtracks at Electronic Boutique/Funcoland/EB Games back in the day and they were often very incomplete – missing a lot of music, including many that were my favorite selections. Every now and again, we would get our hands on a complete soundtrack that was handled appropriately – such as the Killer Cuts pack-in included with the SNES port of Killer Instinct in 1995 and the Perfect Dark Dual CD Set released in 2000. These two soundtracks are great examples of how soundtrack releases should be. But overall, Nintendo’s soundtrack releases in the US left a lot to be desired as they rarely hit and often missed in terms of offering the complete score. On the Japan side, things were a lot better; although some of their Japanese releases were mishandled, like Super Metroid: Sound in Action, which had very poor mastering and sound quality.
Overall, it’s always felt to me that Nintendo didn’t really feature their composers by putting out high quality soundtrack productions during this era. The music wasn’t always treated with care when put on compact disc with poor mastering, substandard booklets/inserts, and/or missing a lot of in-game music. These soundtracks seemed like they were an afterthought to Nintendo. Compare this to how publishers like Square treated their composers and music. Digicube’s Squaresoft line up were the gold standard for soundtrack releases back in the mid-90’s – mid-2000’s; with complete, expertly mastered scores that offered great listening experiences. Granted, most of the scores in the N64 Sound Series belong to games in genres that typically don’t have a lot of music composed for them and are thus solid releases. And then were are two releases that were totally and completely botched.
THE NINTENDO 64 SOUND SERIES
During the N64 days in Japan, Nintendo teamed up with Pony Canyon for the ‘N64 Sound Series’, and for the most part, these releases were quite good.
Let’s go through each one of the N64 Sound Series releases to see how they fared as soundtrack releases. I also offer my brief general impressions of the score - because I just cannot help myself.
Let’s go down the list…
Super Mario 64 Original Soundtrack
(PCCG-00357)
Release date: 7/19/1996
Pony Canyon’s N64 sound series gets off to a great start with the Super Mario 64 OST. The release contains all the music from the game, including each of the interactive musical arrangements on stages like “Dire, Dire Docks” and “Cave Dungeon” – both were handled very well on this soundtrack. Koji Kondo himself tops it off by provided a piano arrangement of “Piranha Plant’s Lullaby” for the score as a bonus track. Very good soundtrack release here.
This is the last Mario game that Kondo scored all by himself. It’s an overall great soundtrack despite having probably the weakest lava level and haunted house themes in a Mario game.
Mario Kart 64 Original Soundtrack
(PCCG-00419)
Release date: 9/19/1997
Another very solid release. All the music from the game is present with some added sound effects/voice over tracks to round out the package.
I’m not the biggest fan of this OST but I do see it as a solid first effort. There are some fun tracks here to listen to, but I will say that Kenta Nagata has come a very long way from this first project here and has really matured as a composer. Listen to his growth from Mario Kart 64 to The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker...
And oddly enough, this OST spawned an arranged album.
Starfox 64 Original Soundtrack
(PCCG-00421)
Release date: 10/17/1997
Starfox 64 OST cover art
Starfox 64 was the third PonyCanyon release and this too is a very good soundtrack album. All the music in the game is present here. No bonus tracks on this one though.
Starfox 64 remains Hajime Wakai’s best work in my opinion. The score is really, really good. I remember not initially liking the music back in the day when I first played the game for two reasons – 1). The sound quality didn’t sound as good as the original SNES Starfox in my opinion, and 2). I really missed Hajime Hirasawa’s main theme from the original Starfox. Kondo’s march has now become the series theme for the Starfox IP and it has since grown on me as the years passed and so too has my feelings about this score. The sound library and sample quality is definitely a step down from Super Mario 64 but the compositions here are really top-notch. Once I gave it a real shot and listed through the soundtrack outside of the game did I begin to appreciate it.
Waverace 64 Original Soundtrack
(PCCG-00425)
Release date: 11/19/1997
Waverace 64 OST
Another very solid release with all songs present and even some bonus tracks – chief among them the “Game Staff Voice” Kazumi Totaka likes to do. I always wish we could get these types of tracks interpreted.
There’s not much to say about the score itself. It’s pretty nonintrusive during gameplay with nothing very noteworthy musically, but pleasant and enjoyable all the same.
Yoshi’s Story Original Soundtrack
(PCCG-00438)
Release date: 2/4/1998
The fifth release is another very good one – and with another one of Totaka’s staff voice track too.
This is a better outing for Totaka than Waverace 64 in my opinion. This score follows the Super Mario World model of having one central main theme arranged and rearranged for each stage of the game and it works very well here. Listening through this album puts a smile on my face, it really is that happiness inducing.
Diddy Kong Racing Original Soundtrack
(PCCG-00448)
Release date: 4/1/1998
This is the one album of the N64 Sound Series that I do not have in my collection. I own the inferior US release instead. It is my understanding that the Japanese release is the compete score with no music missing (please correct me if I’m wrong).
It’s been a while since I played this game. I remember having it at launch and playing through it that holiday season while envying my friend’s new Tomb Raider game on PS1. But I had a blast with it and David Wise’s score was good I vaguely remember – I’m going to go back and listen to it again one of these days and report back…
1080 Snowboarding Original Soundtrack
(PCCG-00454)
Release date: 5/20/1998
The seventh release in the N64 Sound Series is also a complete set and includes one insane bonus track (seriously, just listen to this).
I think it would’ve been cool if Wataru Yamaguchi’s lyrics were a bit clearer on “vacant lives” but at least you can sort of make him out “grasp power!” and that track is lit because of it. And poor Nintendo of America having to censor “give it to me” on the domestic soundtrack release 😂 – can’t blame them though. And how about this follow up from Kenta Nagata after Mario Kart 64!? Really showing some range!
F-Zero X Original Sound Track
(PCCG-00459)
Release date: 9/18/1998
The streak continues with F-Zero X OST here. The album contains the complete score along with several staff ghost bonus tracks of players beating record times. This isn’t new to Nintendo soundtracks to include recorded gameplay sessions – the SNES Starfox OST contained these sorts of tracks as well.
All I’ll say is that this is the music genre F-Zero music should always be. This album spawned the second arranged album within the N64 Sound Series – and it’s FANTASTIC.
The Legend of Zelda Original Sound Track
(PCCG-00475)
Release date: 12/18/1998
The combo breaker had to come at some point. And it couldn’t come at the worst time with the most important N64 game and the one most worthy of having a soundtrack release handled with care. The game contains all the music from the game, so there’s that. But so much music was packed onto the disc that only one track even loops (“Hyrule Castle Courtyard”). This makes for a very scattered and distracting listening experience.
I’ll talk more about this in a later post but it’s a shame how poorly this release was treated. I sometimes imagine how much better this release would’ve been had the Digicube staff been in charge of its direction…
Banjo Kazooie Original Soundtrack
(PCCG-00486)
Release date: 2/17/1999
This is the final soundtrack release in the series and just like Ocarina of Time before it, it’s not handled properly. Even worse, it’s missing a HUGE amount of music. Similar to Super Mario 64, Banjo-Kazooie featured interactive but on most of its stages. Grant Kirkhope modeled Banjo-Kazooie’s score after Super Mario 64’s interactive musical score but on a much larger scale with a lot more music (with a cart size twice the size of Super Mario 64’s). Each of those arrangements are missing from this soundtrack and you only get the vanilla versions of each level’s music. Disappointing.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Overall, I think it’s fair to say that the N64 sound series was a huge success. The first nine releases were well done, nicely mastered, and contained all the music from their respective games. The last two releases were not treated with as much care! It’s as if PonyCanyon was determined to keep each release on just one single disc. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Banjo-Kazooie each needed multiple discs for an ideal listening experience.