Often, that wonderful feeling of nostalgia you get when loading up a game from your childhood comes from hearing the soundtrack or sound effects that used to blare out of your TV screen. From the iconic Super Mario Bros. theme to the Legend of Zelda's 'da da da daaaaa', there's bound to be a few sounds that instantly bring you back to happy times.
YouTube user Teppei Okada has captured that very sensation in the best way possible. One of his specialities is performing the soundtracks to classic games in real-time, with the game playing in the background. He was brought to our attention when this new F-Zero video started doing the rounds on social media this morning:
What a tune.
Perhaps the best thing about his performances, though, is the fact that he also uses his violin to recreate all of the little bleeps and bloops that play when you go through menus or stomp on Goombas. His Mario video arguably shows this best. It's truly wonderful:
And here's a Zelda one, just because:
Can you imagine how much better rounds of Mario Kart or Smash would be with a performance like this to spur you on? Let us know what you think in the comments below.
[source kotaku.com]
Comments (16)
Why did I click on this?
I mean, practically everything sounds cooler when played on a violin.
By a sufficiently skilled violinist, that is, but still.
These were done AGES ago!
I love this because it's not just a testament to his skill as a violin player, but also to the sound design of these classic games.
They sound even better on the oboe. I mean, yes, the oboe is my instrument, so I'm biased, but I'm looking at it deeper - the oboe has an amazing timbre to convey those old NES/GB/GBC tracks beautifully.
One example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGHYwDECZBM
Rather cool I have to say.
I swear I saw this ages ago. Slow news week already?
@TechaNinja maybe you did, but this isn't labelled as "news", so I'm not sure what you mean?
Wow. That’s just about all I can say. Wow. I did recreate the Super Mario Bros. theme with dog sound effects yesterday, though.
This was new to me
Wow, this guy’s awesome and I really hadn’t seen this before. Whoever’s playing F-Zero is dreadful though, was he playing with his feet while playing the violin?
@TechaNinja These seem to be new videos, but the idea ain't novel! I've seen someone else do SMB. music and sound effects with a violin years ago as well.
Just clicked because the stretch-o-vision NES games irked me.
I saw a sonic piano one of these, including effects as well. Was really cool.
It's actually pretty difficult to break timing and get it so accurate like that, kudos to him. Wonder how long before he realised that simplified/slower/bad gameplay was a better choice to lessen the difficulty, though?
Super great! I’ll always be a sucker for videos game music played by concert instruments.
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