With the recent release of the Nintendo Switch and its marquee launch title The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, it’s as great a time as ever to be a fan of Nintendo’s iconic fantasy franchise. And any music-loving fans of the series now have one more reason to get excited: A new The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time orchestral soundtrack will be released Monday with a vinyl offering coming next month, bringing some high-fidelity sound to the score of one of the most famous video games of all time.
Ocarina of Time was released in 1998, the first Zelda entry for the Nintendo 64. Although the game became one of the most popular titles in the franchise’s history, as well as one of the most well-remembered games of all time, the sights and sounds were a far cry from the kind of lush, euphonic presentation Breath of the Wild features. Simply put, the technology then was not what it is now.
Which is why Ocarina of Time’s score is so ripe for a fresh redo, complete with a vinyl album release for all the audiophiles out there. According to Nerdist, the album is called Hero of Time, and it was initially backed by nearly $50,000 raised on Kickstarter. It’s arranged and composed by Eric Buchholz, a composer who’s worked on video game scores before, and it features the Slovak National Symphony Orchestra (a 64-piece orchestra, naturally) playing arrangements of some of the game’s classic melodies.
While people will need to purchase the physical record to hear the music in all its sonorous vinyl glory, feel free to check out the above preview of the album’s titular track, “Hero of Time.” According to Buchholz’s Bandcamp page, the album will be released on Monday. And the vinyl edition looks pretty slick, to boot—produced by iam8bit, the artwork (by Ryan Brinkerhoff) is appropriately lush and colorful, as are the LPs themselves.
"An epic re-imagining of the iconic score " – Nintendo Life https://t.co/xMeEfYVAzz
— Materia Collective (@MateriaColl) March 25, 2017
Anyone who’s tantalized by this project can order the vinyl album for $40. It includes a digital copy of the soundtrack, as well as the two LPs, one in green and one in purple. The physical records reportedly won’t be sent out until April 24, however. Suffice to say, anybody with a diehard Zelda fan in their lives ought to give this a think—any birthdays coming up, perhaps? If so, this could be the perfect gift for anyone who sits back and dreams of wandering the Hyrule Field, whether on foot or on horseback.