@Simbabbad
Well, people can judge, dissect, and criticize all they want, it's a free country (here in the U.S. anyway), but I still think it's silly until the finished product comes out. This trailer was obviously not meant to showcase the music in the game, since you can barely hear it the vast majority of the time. But whatever, it's the nature of the internet and gamers in general to do this. I'm anticipating an epic proportion of complaining and disappointment with the soundtrack when the game comes out.

And rightfully so if things aren't improved. It is NOT silly to have and voice an opinion on something given to the public for presentation. Do the graphics look nice? Yes. Oh, no, it isn't finished--quite silly of me. It is quite valid and warranted to criticize the quality of something that should be a given. If these are not just the old implemented tracks which will be swapped out for better-sounding ones come release then I wouldn't blame anyone for complaining. If it is all better then, then great. Currently, the audio is not where it needs to be.

But I'll end my argument on that for now and switch to saying that the gameplay, levels, and graphics are looking really slick throughout! This game will be a blast!

My contribution to this thread:

@bpumpkin777
If the soundtrack deserves complaints it'll get complaints. If the soundtrack deserves praise it'll get praise.

I don't quite understand the point you're trying to make here. Well, I do but I don't know why. You're making it seem like we're gonna hate shit just to hate it cuz we're stubborn Nintendo fans or something. You of all people should know better than to make remarks like that. You're almost sounding like that guy Crisis_Hearts.

People here love the music in Super Mario Galaxy 1, 2, and Kirby's Epic Yarn. DKCR will get the amount of praise it deserves when it comes out. No one's out to get the game, seriously.

@carlosrox
What I'm saying is that DKC Returns soundtrack is going to be held to a higher standard than your normal 2-D platformer normally would be because of the bar the SNES games set for the series. If the soundtrack isn't mind-blowing, people are going to be disappointed most likely. This thread proves that, in that you have people in this thread already grumbling about the music and trying to dissect it in a trailer where the music is barely audible for most of the trailer.

But that's how life works. Like the Weezer green album, it wasn't really bad compared to the music world as a whole, but next to their previous 2 albums, it was disappointing, so people ended up disappointed. I don't think that is a bad thing per se. Disappointed doesn't necessarily mean you dislike something, just that it didn't meet expectations, and if those expectations are built from something concrete in the past, it's sort of natural to be a bit disappointed when things don't match up.

With that said, it's next to impossible to match the soundtracks of DKC 1/2, so I'm not even expecting that. They're seriously probably top 10 video game soundtracks ever. As long as the soundtrack has some cool remixes and some cool new tunes, I'll survive. Actually, even if it doesn't, I'll survive, if the game rocks.

Jesus Christ, are you guys still talking about the music? Because the thread became intolerable as soon as that started.

Hey you know what else I love about music? How it often has percussions, bass, and leads!

@Zero
That's understandable, but we don't have a CD of the soundtrack for DKC Returns. We have a 1-minute trailer of barely audible snippets of the music.

I really love how varied the environments are. That was one of my favorite things about the original. Rain, snow, underground, evening... thunder and lightning. I think it's one of the first games that ever made me really fall in love with environmental effects.

Really glad to see them stay true to the original in that regard. It also keeps the game feeling much more fresh than level after level of the same motif.

@bpumpkin777 Well... I actually heard some early Weezer green album stuff and was like... eh. And then the final album released, and it was still eh.

Still, I don't think anyone is judging the whole soundtrack, just saying that so far it's a bit lacking. There are a good 4 or 5 tunes in that trailer and none of them really match the best of the older DKC games.

@Oldmanwinter
Indeed, and to top it off, I wouldn't be surprised if the footage shown so far is strictly from the first world of DKCR. So there's likely to be even more variety packed into the rest of the game.

@Zero
Yeah, 'lacking' is an accurate term for what amounts about 10 seconds of music if that, the rest being completely overpowered by the game's sound effects.

The songs are low in the mix but you can still hear them, and none really stand out. I'd be pretty shocked if any of those songs in the trailer turned out to be the next Aquatic Ambiance or Stickerbrush Symphony.

I can't say anything about the compositional quality, not to mention the fact that we're dealing with remixes for several of these. BUT I think people can validly make a statement on the quality of the instruments in the trailer, or rather the quality of the sound itself. Doing so is similar to judging the visual quality of a game based on the trailer; yes, it's out of context of the full stage/world, but you can still get a good idea of how the game as a whole will look based on a trailer, at least this close to launch. I gotta agree with Cubed's big post about hiring a trombonist, or at least getting better samples.

Outside of that, though, I'm excited about the game and will definitely be nabbing it in November.

Zero said:

The songs are low in the mix but you can still hear them, and none really stand out. I'd be pretty shocked if any of those songs in the trailer turned out to be the next Aquatic Ambiance or Stickerbrush Symphony.

Maybe, maybe not. You don't know, nor does anyone else from that very limited sound sample in that trailer. That trailer was very obviously not meant to show off the game's music or they would have turned it up in the mix and there would have been significantly more to hear.

This is why Nintendo doesn't release a lot of trailers for big games usually. The exact reason. Gamers are notorious for overreacting.

I kind of do know, because low in the mix or not, I still heard the songs. And they weren't that impressive. And the game is releasing next month, so I really doubt the songs are super still far from final versions or anything like that.

On the flipside, sometimes I watch a trailer and know I'm going to love the music.

@Zero
Thank you for proving my point. Not only is that trailer you linked to almost twice as long as the DKC trailer in this thread, the audio in the trailer is nothing but music from the game. There are no sound effects from the game whatsoever in the trailer.

And no you didn't hear the songs, you heard a few barely audible snippets that are mostly drowned out by the game's sound effects. If you want to wring your hands over the game's music as a whole over that, that's your prerogative of course. I think you're being ridiculous, given who is doing the music and the priority Nintendo has openly said they're putting on the music for this game.

Maybe the music will end up being subpar, who knows. If there's a game that deserves the benefit of the doubt when it comes to its soundtrack though, it would definitely be this one.

@bpumpkin777
Not that I think Nintendo's lying but just because they said something it doesn't make it true, or that their heart is in the same place ours is. I mean, people from Nintendo think Animal Crossing was a huge title for the holidays 2 years (?) ago. That's just missing the point of what most of us want. Eh I dunno what I'm trying to say here other than just that someone from Nintendo says something it doesn't make it true. I mean, Nintendo makes mistakes. I'm sure Miyamoto thinks Wii Sports is as good as Mario or something and he'd be dead wrong.

Not having Water stages is already a big mistake since that counts out Aquatic Ambiance or something that could topple it. They could have had something as good as that or Dire Dire Docks but now we know we'll be missing a water track. Water tracks are awesome. I'm sure others agree. That's the kinda thing I refer to though. Nintendo wants this game to be better than the old DKs right? Well, removing water levels is a mistake I think. It was a part of the original games and a part many people must have liked by the very nature of the series being so huge. Nintendo (or Retro, whatever) doesn't always make the right decisions and I think that's one example.

Edit: People at Nintendo said Zelda TP was going to be the best Zelda ever and that it'd be better than OOT and we all know how that went. I mean, I actually agree it was the best 3D Zelda but most would vehemently disagree. So again, just because Nintendo says it that doesn't make it true.

@carlosrox
I hate to do this Carlos, but you and Zero have forced my hand:



Yes Nintendo makes mistakes, but they do way, way, way, way, way more right than they do wrong. Way more. I wish I could find the actual article, but I can't even remember where I read it, but Miyamoto and others were adamant about the music in this game needing to play an important role. Miyamoto was heavily involved in the development of the original DKC, and I'm pretty sure the same is true of DKC Returns.

I can almost guarantee you that I spent more time playing the original DKC than anyone who posts here. I could 100% that game in under two hours. Not having water levels is somewhat of a disappointment, but none of us knows why they chose not to do them. Maybe they decided they wanted to do something completely different that we haven't seen in a DKC game yet. We don't know.

You and Zero are upholding the long, storied tradition of Nintendo fans overreacting to a game before it's even out, going back to the early GameCube games like Wind Waker, Metroid Prime, and Double Dash and before. I say we wait until the game is actually out before we rake Nintendo over the coals for a subpar soundtrack.