Pinkie Ranks: Top 5 N64 Songs/Soundstracks

Welcome back again little lights of my life!  Today I will ramble more about gaming! Why?! Because as a Virtual Blogger it is now my task to have factually correct opinions!  So to celebrate that I am right I really wanted to do a top 5. I wanted to do a top 5 Kaiju first.. but I realised.. I really have to know them a bit better. Mamma Mothra is considered the mother of monsters so .. maybe Godzilla is like my brother.. I might need to learn more about him before I think he is a bit basic.

 So because I was listening to video game music while listening to this post .. how about I review video game music again! From the N64 this time!  As I did SNES and NES in the past! Like with them, only one entry per franchise (uhm kind off) ..with an honourable mention in the same game (most of the time) .

_{<Disclaimer> All the Songs Are YouTube Videos, to hear them read this post on my actual website. <End Of Disclaimer>}

Number 5: SS Anubis – Jet Force Gemini

Jet Force Gemini was a great game on the N64 that would have never really been on my radar. Shooting bugs with an anime girl, a guy in space armor and a dog wasn’t something I was particularly interested in at the time.. it looked “kiddy” yet did not play kiddy.. so I kinda found that dumb! So I decided to rent Star Wars Shadows of the Empire instead… man I really disliked that game! The shooting was so awful.  I returned the game the same day as I took it out.. even though I rented it for a week.. I did not want Shadows to be my weekend!  The Video Game Store Owner recommended me to Jet Force  Gemini instead and since I wanted space Violence I reluctantly agreed. My mind was blown. This game was so much better!  It also had really great music! Very different from what you expect such a cute looking game.  The game played so smooth as well.. so I actually kept renting this until I finished it! …Which meant I would have been better off buying it.. .but oh well.

SS Anubis is a track that has a super foreboding tone, but also something big! It had this  explorative.. spy movie like quality that also really worked well for alien stuff. Those were some strange times!  It is very loopable.. and non intrusive and easy to put on a loop, by it’s own it might sound a bit boring for those who have never played the game.. but there was a way that these tracks were designed where ingame sound and audio blended together in such a nice cocktail that this always left an impression on me! A second favourite of mine is the fire planet Eschebone!  I mean.. there are just so many pretty sources of light there and.. the music is absolutely bone chilling. There is a real sense of danger and evil there.. and even though the level absolutely sucks donkey kong.. with the last K being replaced with a D but it’s theme was amazing. Rare did an amazing job. I could have filled this list with just rare songs alone and it would still be a great list. They are on here a lot.. in fact….. the next entry might be Rare as well!

Honourable Mention: Eschebone

Number 4: Sloprano – Conker’s Bad Fur Day

I love platformer games, yet on Nintendo 64 that love was tested a bit.  I wasn’t the biggest fan of Mario 64. It’s a great game don’t get me wrong but there were a lot of stars that aren’t fun to collect. I now.. and always will dislike a game that requires ultra specific , conditions such as entering a level at 12 o clock to stop all the moving parts, or figuring out some super vague secrets. Nowadays I do enjoy playing through it. .but then I was heavily leaning towards Team Rare. Donkey Kong 64 is a game I (as one of the few people)  really liked (except for playing the Arcade games)  and Banjo Kazooie, in my eyes blows Mario completely out of the water. So when  a platformer was said to release with lot of potty humor, violence and Teddy Bears I was on board all the way! I had a lot of fun with the multiplayer but I had even more fun with the campaign.. especially the earlier parts.

Sending bees to a sunflower, so she gets ticklish enough to show her boobs to a horney and hungover king bee… and of course.. fighting a giant turd by the power of conjuring context sensitive toilet paper. I loved this game so much and in part it is because of the Opera Scene.. weirdly I am a sucker for Opera music in video games and this one is no different.. although a bit low brow!  It’s a song sung by a baritone piece of poo that flings parts of his body at you and the entire opera is metaphors for the excrement. However the way how tempo in the song is used to ramp up difficulty and the comical and clever text pushed this towards some greater heights. While I would not say this track is “forgotten” I often see it passed over for the DK Rap, which I will cheat with and make my honorable mention here. Conker Had great music troughout the game, I very much love the main theme as well.. but since these are the two most iconic N64 songs with Vocals..both by Rare and the same type of game .. I think it is allowed.. and that way you can compare and agree with me that Sloprano is a more unique song!

Honourable Mention : DK Rap – Donkey Kong 64

Number 3: Gerudo Valley – The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time

The Legend of Zelda  Ocarina of Time was my first experience with this absolutely amazing franchise, with either this or Windwaker being my favourite installment. The Minish Cap taking a close third. My little sister forced me to call the main character we know as Link Turban8  (Tulband8 in Dutch)  or she would reset my game over and over.. so  my first Journey with Turban8 was quite unique.. I had never played a game like  this before and here it became clear that I was a true gamer and my sister was not.  We had to play together but I picked up on the nuances of this game fairly quickly and in the end she abandoned playing this so Turban8 was strictly controlled by me.  I loved the music of this game so much, the overworld theme, Zelda’s Lullaby,  Saria’s song.. this game blew me away! Music was an actual theme in the game and I would often just try to match the songs that were playing in the background. I learned to do this pretty okay as well.. and I adapted to a new way of Video game thinking.. away from the SNES platformer mentality.

One song impressed me so much more than the others, and that was the song of Gerudo Valley!  My oh my did I love that song. The temperament of that song, the punch it packed and the “Bandito” theme really made this an absolute bob!  I would often return to Gerudo valley just to hear that amazing song. Song of Storms will be put forward as my honourable mention, it can’t hold a candle to Gerudo Valley for me though! I love this song SO much! I loved it so much it was in my dreams! I once dreamed I got married to a video game character and we had to dance on the music! I just soared like an eagle to Gerudo  Valley! Even did the rose/flamenco thing!  Hmmm….I watched a lot of cartoons back then! I wasn’t able to beat the game at that age, the temple of Shadow and Spirit proved too tricky for me.. but I kept coming back to this game and falling for the song over and over again. I was so happy it got to be a thing in Smash Bros as well!  They also made an absolute amazing Mariachi version of this!

Number 2: Rainbow Road – Mario Kart 64

When I was just a little Pinkie, I had a little friend with a bowl cut, who always invited me to come play Mario Kart on SNES.. I always lost and did not  think I would like the sequel.. I hated SNES Rainbow Road to the core!  My friend always beat the living daylight out of me! So when I first got Mario Kart 64 I kind of was upset! I didn’t really like that game.. I always played it with my friend because they wanted to play it, not because I liked it.. but I quickly realised how good this game actually is! I loved how this game controlled.. I loved the new weapons and I could actually stay on track and .. since I was not friends with Bowlcut  anymore.. I did not really lose to anybody.. except my sister .. but she would punch me if she lost, so I faked losing a lot.  Regardless , whenever she was not there I would race the AI on harder cc’s and win!  I had so much fun! Then I had to do Rainbow Road.. and it was AMAZING.

Rainbow Road 64 is my favourite Mario Kart Track and Track ever.  It really felt like the end of a (short)  journey and instead of being punished .. like in the last one you were rewarded with a gorgeous track..which almost took as long to complete as the entire rest of the game.  Seeing those character depictions on the sky, the sense of actually driving on a Rainbow.. it did more to me than being just a great track.. and track.. I think my love for Rainbows came from that game.. before that I kinda felt they were overrated but I loved Rainbow Road 64 so much that I even made a Mario Kart Rainbow Road Dungeon in my Digimon campaign. It was super fun! During the game the track almost constantly played and no one was ever annoyed by this music looping.  It hits all the right notes of grandeur, space and lightheartedness. This isn’t a final dreadful trial for you to overcome.. this is a reward.. your victory lap!  That is to me what Rainbow Road should be. The track before that,  should be the final trial. This game got that feeling right, and this track is a perfect accompaniment for it. Oh right.. honourable mention.. Koopa Troopa Beach I get.. cause Island vibes?! It isn’t even in the same ballpark though.. heck.. if Rainbow Road is Yankee stadium.. then Beach isn’t even in America.

“Honourable” Mention: Koopa Troopa Beach

Number 1: The Entire Soundtrack – Banjo-Kazooie

I know , I know, this sounds like yet another cheat.. but you can really take your pick here and pick from anything in this library of this game. Freezy Peaks, Gruntilda’s Lair, Spiral Mountain,  the actual main theme, every single track is amazing.. but before we get into that let’s talk a bit about my history with this game. I was reluctant to pick  this up as Mario 64 had been a bit of a mid-experience for me.  When I say MID I mean that in the softest way possible. I had a great time, but I no where nearly loved this game as much as I loved Super Mario World. I did not love it as much as Super Mario Bros 3 either. It was somewhere around Mario 2 and 1 for me. However because of how much I loved World.. this felt like a disappointment.. I did not care too much about how impressive 3d was. I wanted a fun game I could play with my Sister, I wanted Yoshi, Especially Stompy.. my Yellow Yoshi (my sister claimed the blue one). Then Banjo came and I expected the same experience.. but I was blown away! This game.. was SOOO much better. I am sorry but it just really is. Mario 64 is a great game.. but Banjo… it’s the near perfect collectathon platformer. It is one of those 10/10 games for me.

The gameplay, the  humor, the synergy and most of all the music. This music style is SO unique! I am not good with backoffice names.. especially when it comes to music.. or voice actors.. I don’t really care who voices a character as long as I like the voice. I love the voice acting in a Hat in Time .. yet I have no idea who did it.. I love the music in Blast Corps.. I have no idea who did it! When it comes to music I know two names. Nobuo Uematsu, who I still refer to as “that Final Fantasy Guy” and that there is Grant Kirkhope. All respect to Uematsu.. but he just makes amazing music.. Grant Kirkhope’s music is so unique and so is …Kirkhope, I’d almost call it a genre.  I can recognise if a song is a Kirkhope and that style feels so catered to the iconic bear and bird. Even if it is used in other games it is as if you can taste that love for this franchise. Whenever I hear a Kirkhope song.. I imagine a Bear and a Bird jamming out to it. There is a love for the characters here.. a LOT of it. After this game .. this type of music and sound design became part of this type of game.. so it simply is just outstanding and I can not pick a favourite. It was the birth of something new.. and I’ll take it as a whole! If I ever would be a VTuber, I would very much would like an Kirkhope style intro! If he’d make one I’d begin streaming the next day!

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