Did you know that in Luigi’s Mansion’s files, there’s a bizarre, creepy piece of piano
music which you can never hear in-game. …What’s this music doing here,
and why was it written? Well, in this video I’ll be talking about my favourite
Nintendo musical secrets and mysteries. Like, where did the bizarre laugh from Zelda’s Great
Fairies actually come from? And did you know that you can hear unfinished versions of a bunch of
Mario songs if you know where to look? It’s time to pull back the curtain on some of the strangest,
creepiest and most bizarre Nintendo music secrets! Number 1 Super Mario Odyssey has a really varied, and unique soundtrack. The game had three main
composers: Naoto Kubo, Shiho Fuji and Koji Kondo, with each of them taking charge of a handful of
the game’s kingdoms. For the Luncheon Kingdom, the music was handled by Shiho Fuji, best known
for her work on the Mario and Splatoon series. So, this whole kingdom is based around cooking
- the characters who live here look like forks, there are stew pots and giant fruit
and veg all over the place. And when you approach the kingdom’s town, called
Peronza Plaza, you’ll hear this song. It sounds very playful and stereotypically
Italian, but it turns out this song hides a clever secret - the percussion is
made up of actual kitchen utensils! You see, Nintendo released some behind-the-scenes footage of Mario Odyssey’s
soundtrack being recorded, and alongside the mandolin and accordion,
there’s knives hitting a chopping board... Plus a pan lid being hit with a ladle! Once you know about this unique percussion, you
can really clearly hear it in the song itself. It’s a great way to make this cooking-themed
kingdom sound very cooking-y indeed! Number 2 In 2016, Nintendo released this
thing: the NES Classic Edition, a plug-and-play console featuring 30 iconic
NES games. This console was so popular, it sold out almost immediately in
many shops. And when you boot it up, you’re treated to a truly delightful menu theme,
written in the style of classic NES music. Now, the following year, Nintendo released a
follow-up console, the SNES Classic Edition. And this new console has its own theme
song that plays in the menu. Check it out. So, these two menu themes sound pretty different
from each other. But if you listen closely, it turns out there's a less than obvious melody
shared between these two pieces of music. I think it's so cool how these two
unique consoles share a secret melody! Number 3 Next, let’s talk about Luigi’s Mansion 2, also
known as Dark Moon. So, there’s a pretty iconic mission near the start of the game called
"Quiet Please!" In this mission, when Luigi enters the mansion, he hears spooky sounding
piano music. It’s genuinely pretty unnerving! Then, as he investigates the mansion, Luigi gets closer and closer to the source
of this creepy music, until finally… Upon entering the library from the balcony,
he finds the piano playing itself! Creepy! Now eventually, Luigi loops round to
enter the library from the ground floor, where he discovers a piano playing
ghoul, who he then has to fight! But what you might not’ve realised is that
the spooky music Luigi hears during the earlier part of this mission is actually
this poltergeist practising for his big performance! You can hear him mess up,
pause and try playing the section again. And he even sometimes messes up and
slams down on the keyboard in anger! As this spooky piano music progresses,
it sounds closer and closer to the song you hear in the library. Until,
by the time you get there... The piano-playing ghost has finally finished
his practice, and puts on a performance! Number 4 Now, while we’re talking about piano music
from Luigi’s Mansion, we’ve got to talk about Melody Pianissima, the piano playing ghost
from the original Luigi’s Mansion. When you enter the Conservatory and start playing the
various musical instruments around the room, you’ll be confronted by this piano playing
ghost, who gives you a musical quiz. She’ll play a classic Mario song, then ask
you which Mario game it comes from. Now, she actually only has two
Mario songs in her repertoire: the underwater theme from Super Mario Bros 1,
known in the game’s files as "PianistQuiz01", and the athletic theme from Super Mario Bros 3,
known in the files as "PianistQuiz02". But there’s actually a third song, called "PianistQuiz03",
which never gets used in the finished version of Luigi’s Mansion. In the international version of
the game, this is what that song sounds like... Now, that might sound familiar to you if
know about Totaka’s song. Kazumi Totaka is one of Nintendo’s most prolific
composers - he’s worked on Mario, Zelda, Yoshi, Pikmin, Animal Crossing and more.
And in pretty much every game he works on, he hides his own personal
melody known as Totaka’s song. Now, Totaka’s song actually appears
elsewhere in Luigi’s Mansion 1, if you leave the tutorial menu open
for about three and a half minutes. But originally, Melody Pianissima
the piano-playing ghoul would’ve performed Totaka’s song on the piano. But things get weirder in the Japanese
version of the game. Because while there’s still a song called "PianistQuiz03"
in the game’s files, it’s not Totaka’s song, but instead a totally original piece of music.
And it’s pretty creepy sounding! Take a listen. I genuinely have no idea what this
song is, nor why Melody would’ve played it on the piano! It’s a complete
mystery, and a pretty spooky one at that! Number 5 Next, let’s talk about A Link Between Worlds.
This Zelda game features the Milk Bar, where Link can come to fill up his bottle of
milk. It also contains a duo of musicians - a bard and a flute player - who Link can
pay 10 rupees to perform a song. There’s a fairly large number of songs from the Zelda
series which these musicians pick at random, including Zelda’s theme, Hyrule
Castle, and Death Mountain. But this Death Mountain theme hides a pretty
interesting secret. Here is the list of the songs from the Milk Bar as seen in the game’s files.
Each one starts with “BGM BARD” - bgm standing for background music. And we can quickly pick out
the song ending in “MOUNTAIN” - that’s the Death Mountain theme. But directly afterwards
is another song called “MOUNTAIN SP”, where SP stands for “Special”. What’s so
special about it? Well, take a listen. Yeah, the flute player goes completely rogue, playing a cacophonous mess on his
instrument! The song ends in a loud bang… What’s that bang supposed to be?
A gunshot? I truly have no idea. Now, it’s said that this alternate version of
the Death Mountain theme will play in-game if you’re really lucky (or unlucky, perhaps),
though I personally haven’t been able to confirm whether that’s true. But what’s
with this bizarre song in the first place? Well, most of A Link Between Worlds' soundtrack
uses synthesised, virtual instruments rather than real recorded performances. According
to the game’s composer Ryo Nagamatsu, “We never intended to use a live orchestra
for the development of this game… Live orchestras are definitely impressive, but
they produce too much reverberation and include too many low-pitch sounds to be
suitable for the Nintendo 3DS speakers.” However, there is at least one real instrument
featured in the game’s soundtrack... The recorder! Ryo Nagamatsu actually plays the
recorder himself, so although the musician in the Milk Bar is known as the “flute boy”, what
you’re actually hearing is a recorder. And I’m guessing that when Ryo Nagamatsu went to
record this recorder part for Death Mountain, either he hit a wrong note and decided
to just go really wrong on purpose, or he always set out to have fun and
make it sound as bad as he could. Either way, the final result speaks for itself! Number 6 The Zelda series has quite a few characters with
unknown voice actors. Take Beedle, for instance. He has a super iconic voice… “Thank you!” And has
appeared in a bunch of Zelda games, including Wind Waker, Skyward Sword, Breath of the Wild and
Tears of the Kingdom. And yet, the identity of the person who provides his voice is a complete
mystery. All four of these games have a list of voice actors in their credits section, but for
minor roles like Beedle, there’s no way of knowing which actor provided which character’s voice.
And so, Beedle’s voice actor remains a mystery. And, I thought that the Great Fairy from
Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask would be the same. This character only has two voice
lines, but they’re unbelievably iconic! That laugh haunted the nightmares of many Zelda
players back in the '90s! But it turns out, we do know who voiced the character! It’s a
voice actress by the name of Yayoi Jinguuji. Now, Jinguuji actually provided the voice
of a bunch of characters in these N64 Zelda games. Along with the Great Fairy, she
voiced Nabooru, Ganondorf’s second in command… Along with the witches Kotake and Koume! Sadly, Yayoi Jinguuji passed away in
2017. She was only 52 years old. But the agency she worked for left her profile
up on their website as a sort of memorial, and we can hear a snippet
of what she sounded like. That was Yayoi Jinguuji, the
actress responsible for imbuing the Great Fairy with an extremely iconic voice. Number 7 Starting with Super Mario Galaxy, almost every 3D
Mario game has used actual instruments in their soundtracks, rather than the virtual instruments
found in older games like Mario Sunshine. This, I think, makes a really big difference to the game’s
music - it’s a lot more lively and expressive. If you’re a trumpet player for instance, and you
hear this song from Pokemon Sword and Shield… Those synthesised brass stabs
sound pretty darn awful. But interestingly, we can get a look at what Mario
Galaxy, Mario Galaxy 2 and Mario Odyssey would’ve sounded like had Nintendo not recorded actual
instruments for their soundtracks. Because all three of these Mario games were revealed BEFORE
the orchestras had recorded the game’s music, which means that instead of the
final, recorded piece of music, Nintendo used an earlier placeholder
track with synthesised instruments. In an interview about Mario Galaxy’s music,
former Nintendo president Satoru Iwata explained, “Even when [the game’s developers]
had decided to use an orchestra, [they weren’t] able to do the recording until
the contents of the game were finalized.” And so, in the first trailer for
Mario Galaxy, we hear this… The same thing happened with Mario
Galaxy 2. Listen to the difference between the reveal trailer and the finished song. And finally, a lot more recently, the same
thing happened with Super Mario Odyssey. I’m so glad these games ended
up using real instruments, and by all accounts they always planned
to. But because of the timing of when these reveal trailers debuted, we get to hear
what these soundtracks could’ve sounded like, had Nintendo not forked out the cash
to record them with an orchestra. It’s an interesting peek behind the curtain of
Nintendo’s music, which applies to a lot of what I’ve talked about in this video. Nintendo’s music
is always polished and excellent, so it’s just so interesting to hear, for instance, cut songs that
didn’t make it into the game, or in-progress, unfinished versions of music, or just to hear the
game’s composer messing around and having fun! But that’s all from me - thanks so
much for watching this video! Videos like this one are made possible by my
super kind supporters over on Patreon, A special thanks go to my $10 supporters...
