Musical Score in the Legend of Zelda

In Video Games which have lacked voice acting, music and melody have often taken the helm in facilitating narration and establishing a sense of atmosphere to the player. That’s what Kotaku is now saying with its recent article on the influence of music in late 80s and 90s video gaming. In a nutshell: interactive experiences such as Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy, and The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask became such masterpieces partly as a result of their often-times incredible musical score. The article then goes on to give a brief lesson in sound perception: basically, the human brain cannot fully process both sound and voice simultaneously from a bandwidth standpoint, the effort in harmonizing melody and voice would result in an audible mess.

This immediately makes me think of the debate over whether the Legend of Zelda should incorporate voice acting. Think about what voice acting would do to a game like Skyward Sword with its fully orchestrated musical score, it would end up being a complete and utter mess, with the musical score possibly having to take a back seat for the sake of the voice acting! This is why I hope to God Nintendo never incorporates voice acting within the Legend of Zelda; too much would be lost in transition: either the voice work would overwhelm the score, or the mix between voice work and musical score would result in a mess of a presentation. Still not convinced? How about this: what if Nintendo chose to do a re-imagining of the Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time but instead of the gorgeous Gerudo Valley or the foreboding Forest Temple theme, Nintendo chose to convey the atmosphere of those locales solely through voice work? It’d end up lackluster and boring. You’ve heard my thoughts, now I would like to hear yours: does Zelda need voice acting I’m order to thrive? Would such integration degrade the overall experience? I look forward to some healthy debating and discussion in the comments. 🙂

Sources:

Kotaku