Nintendo 64 Original Soundtrack Greatest Hits

	Album Title: Nintendo 64 Original Soundtrack Greatest Hits
	Record Label: Nintendo of America
	Catalog No.: 1101-Winter96
	Release Date: November 1, 1996
	Purchase: Buy Used Copy

Review

This release is a compilation of a range of music from Nintendo’s games. It includes a large selection from Super Mario 64 and Blast Corps, in addition to some selections from Killer Instinct Gold, Wave Race 64, and Star Fox 64.

Body

Now let me get on to the disappointing stuff. Killer Instinct Gold‘s tracks disturb me, especially track 5, which doesn’t contain music at all. All it has is just a totally terrible cacophony of sound effects, along with a voice line or four. The lines are something like “hakoda” or “indakuroken”, then I hear screaming.

Also, track 6, although enjoyable, is not even in Wave Race 64. Why didn’t Nintendo just put the actual music from the game on the CD instead of just wasting it with a hardly exciting 7:48 track that seems to go on forever?! The Blast Corps music is questionable. Most of the game’s tracks are full of malevolent feeling, except for track 10, which sounds like I’m in the jungle with futuristic music.

The Star Fox 64 music is just as awesome as the original game, with guitars exploding all around it. I haven’t played the game yet, but I hope this music gets to be in it. The Super Mario 64 music, however, is something quite different. Track 18 is a humorous “It’s a me, Mario!”, then the following track is that same familiar Super Mario Bros. theme, juiced up with a 64-bit update. Wow. All of the other tracks give me the feeling of playing the game itself as well as playing the Mario games of the past.

Summary

This album is quite good, but it could have been better if there were a bit of more music from the other games and some more complete selections. Many will prefer to purchase the complete soundtracks for Star Fox 64 and Super Mario 64 separately, but there are some decent exclusives on here like Blast Corps.