I want game examples of when small parts of a song, be it a beat, a sample from it, a leitmotif, whatever, gets used in the game, or throughout the game, before the full song where it’s from gets revealed. I want that moment of like “oh!! I was listening to this song all along and I didn’t know!!”
what comes to my mind is Parappa the Rapper, the beat that plays on the Now Loading screen plus the little title screen scat jingle both turn out to be part of a full song that plays right before the final stage!
title screen:
now loading:
Funny Love:
the other game that comes to mind is Sonic CD, with the Level Clear jingle being a part of the credits theme, Cosmic Eternity
This may be too obvious or not quite the same thing, but the first thing I think of is the structure of Rez. You start with the most basic version of a song and gradually work toward the fully-assembled version.
Also, Journey. There are simple motifs that come up early on and become more elaborate orchestrations later. Culminating in this:
You get the opposite in Katamari Damacy. You hear the main theme right away, but then it comes up again later, sometimes subtly. My favorite example is how it’s integrated into Lonely Rolling Star.
The Eight Melodies you collect as you go through the game in Mother 1 and 2 that eventually form a song that’s critical to the plot. I remember that Smiles and Tears plays in the Earthbound credits, can’t remember when you hear the full song you’ve gathered in Mother 1.
Not sure if this fits exactly but in the opening scene outside the castle, a variation of the Bob-omb Battlefield theme plays at 3:55 https://youtu.be/sHN0x718N7A?t=224 and the tracks for Cool Cool Mountain and the slide levels are just variations of that tune as well. Also, you can hear the Inside the Castle Walls track referenced as a brief motif when Peach is reading her letter at the very beginning and the main riff of Bowser’s boss fight theme plays when Mario first enters the castle.
The vocals from the bridge (maybe not the right term) of the opening theme from Persona 3 used again in the final boss battle, not sure if this is what you’re looking for
Something similar is done with the dungeon theme (which gradually changes as you progress higher through Tartarus) and a song that’s used in some of the endgame dialogues, if I recall correctly.
There is this series of songs in beatmania IIDX called CaptivAte where they take the last odd-numbered version’s system BGM and turn it into a playable song in the even numbered version, which is kind of like this but spread across two consecutive games.
The IIDX (11) RED credits song became CaptivAte ~Jouka~ in IIDX 12 Happy Sky:
CUSTOM DRIVE, the title screen music from IIDX 13 DistorteD became CaptivAte ~Chikai~ in IIDX 14 GOLD:
THE FANG (TROOPERS STANCE), the title screen music from IIDX 15 DJ TROOPERS became CaptivAte2 ~Kakusei~ in IIDX 16 EMPRESS:
(CaptivAte ~Sabaki~ is the odd one out, released between IIDX12 and 13’s releases in Guitar Freaks and drummania V2. According to production notes, this song was the “prototype” that informed the sound of all the CaptivAte songs that came after it despite being released in-game second, but is not explicitly based on any game’s system BGM.)
Link’s Awakening is about collecting a bunch of instruments to play a song, similar to the another games. its dungeons basically all use two simple motifs too (i really love this piece analysing that)
ffxiv is full of songs taking bits from each other
Wario Land 3 does a similar thing to Link’s Awakening by having multiple music boxes that come together to play a theme. The theme only really plays once before the final boss before later kicking off the ending credits.
Wind Waker’s title theme is a nice foreshadowing of the two sages songs that are used for the Wind and Earth temples.
Outer Wilds does it on several levels, too. The part everyone thinks of is the Travelers’ song but there’s also the short theme that occurs at the end of the loop that actually turns out to be the first 30 seconds of the theme you hear when you finally decide to actually try and break the loop.
More generally this is related to the use of leitmotivs, where a tune is reused as a theme in various pieces, and they intermingle when the piece is referring to the specific things they represent. Undertale is one of the kings of this, where characters that are related have adjoining themes, like how Asgore’s boss theme is a more aggressive version of Toriel’s mixed with the determination theme and of course how Flowey’s cutesy theme is the basis for the regular final boss’ theme or the case of Napstablook and Metatton. And of course the first half of the Papyrus fight versus the second half.
I also really liked it in the FF7 remake during the Jenova fight where I was all “ah this is a kinda underwhelming orchestral remix of the original game’s theme” but then when things get serious a much more faithful variation kicks in (and teases future things by having bits of One Winged Angel snuck in).
i never wanna say ‘leitmotif’ coz i don’t know the difference between that and a regular motif and when i looked it up to make my post itt the dictionary websites just kinda shrugged and were like “‘leit’ means ‘lead’ i guess”
can you help?
I want to say this was all over skip Ltd. games e.g. Bit Generations and Chibi-Robo but couldn’t think of anything specific. Art Style: Cubello does the Rez thing of building layers on top of a basic track as you get closer to the “core”/beating a level. This trailer has the fully developed version of one of my favorites and doesn’t have much buildup but the brass and synth parts toward the end start playing as you get down to the core.
@eska A leitmotiv is recurring and represents something in whatever story the music piece is trying to tell. Like, the big classic example to explain that would be Peter and the Wolf by Prokofiev, where each character has an associated leitmotiv and then a piece representing a scene with characters X and Y combines both leitmotivs into a single melody. It’s building blocks, a vocabulary for a musical language about the specific work the music’s written for.
Like, let’s go back to FF7, the PS1 version. Sephiroth has a theme and Aerith has a theme and Jenova has a theme but they aren’t leitmotivs, you don’t get a combination of Sephiroth and Aerith’s theme in their big scene together, none of the Sephiroth boss themes borrow anything from his regular theme, and Jenova’s theme uses no part of Sephiroth’s theme either despite the relationship between the two characters. In contrast, in the FF7 remake, some of those are stripped down to their essentials and used as building blocks in other songs, like mentioned in my previous message. Undertale thrives on this (an approach Toby Fox likely experimented and perfected in his work on Homestuck), it’s got them for character and places and even an abstract concept, and in general as games have evolved towards more elaborate soundtracks it’s become a thing because reusability is good in game dev, plus since it’s building blocks it goes well with how adaptive music is usually done.
Another good example would be Monkey Island, where tunes that are just themes in the first game become leitmotivs from the second game on, Lechuck’s theme in particular.
One of my favourite game leitmotifs is Ganondorf’s theme as its introduced into subsequent tracks later in the series. I think it’s originally established in ALttP with Agahnim. It’s such a simple theme but fits into arrangements that work for different contexts.
Quite a foreboding drudge in OoT that signals Ganon’s arrival and is later more personal as he plays his own theme on an organ before the final confrontation.
It’s triumphant in BotW as its the first playable sign of Link’s explicit conflict with Ganon.
Grim and uncertain in Wind Waker (especially in the context of the scene as the world is flooding)
It’s mixed in with the Hyrule Castle theme in Twilight Princess. I can’t remember if this is before or after Ganondorf is officially revealed to be the main villain but it shows who’s in control over the castle.
You can hear a primordial version of it taking form in Skyward Sword.
ok but like, the little phrase used in the caves and dungeons in link’s awakening is just a motif? like a leitmotif has a particular association with a character or storytelling element and a motif is just a recurring bit that sounds nice or whatever??
Mother 3’s soundtrack is built on this. heck, it’s even part of the combat mechanics. There are loads of tracks that are emotional variants on eachother and use recurring motifs, the most prominent ones being the Pigmask Theme and the Love Theme
an example that jumps out at me is at the very end of the prologue/start of chapter 1 where you hear a snippet of the pigmask theme playing from their ship as they bomb the forest
i think it’s cool that the theme is apparently diagetic. there’s even a part later where it’s playing on the radio at their training facility
oooh and in both Mother 3 and Earthbound the Saturn Valley theme has the same percussion, this kind of goofy off-kilter timpani and cowbell, and when you’re in the caves just outside the valley you only hear a loop of the percussion along with the usual earthbound spooky cave noises, the full theme doesn’t kick in until you go in. always thought that created a neat effect
SMT3’s tower of kagutsuchi theme does this so well & i’m glad somebody finally stitched all the variations together on youtube since iirc they’re missing from the OST. just imagine this progressing over a multi-hour grueling tower climb and you’ll get the idea
also i really really love how hours of this austere ominous synth piece getting you psyched to attack and dethrone god is followed by the acid disco freakout boss theme, they’re so incongruous & funny. just adore this game’s sense of humor
