The Legend of Zelda franchise is well known for its incredible music. With iconic tracks including 'Lost Woods' and 'Gerudo Valley' from Ocarina of Time alongside the beautiful, ambient music from Breath of the Wild, we imagine many composers would no doubt feel a tad overwhelmed at the prospect of adding to the franchise's astounding back catalogue.
One man who reckons he's up to the job, however, is Shoji Meguro, the esteemed sound director of Atlus's Persona series, who worked on the franchise until his departure in 2021. Speaking with Nintenderos, he praised Xenoblade Chronicles and Fire Emblem before clearly stating a desire to write music for The Legend of Zelda:
"Nintenderos: Since we are a page specialized in Nintendo, we want to ask you this: If the opportunity to compose the soundtrack of a Nintendo video game were presented, what franchise would you like it to be?
Shoji Meguro: It's a difficult question. If I were guided by my favorite world feeling, I would have to say Xenoblade Chronicles. But it's hard to put Fire Emblem aside... Although well, I would love to write songs for a Zelda game!"
Granted, the prospect of Meguro ever working on a franchise like The Legend of Zelda is extremely slim, at best, particularly since the creator currently has an active Kickstarter project on the go for a new project called 'Guns Undarkness', which has nailed its intiial funding target of £25,498 (converted from Japanese Yen) with a total of £81,257 at the time of writing.
Still, it's nice to know that if Nintendo ever finds itself at a loss with regards to music composition, it sounds like Shoji Meguro might be willing to lend a hand!
Would you like to see Persona's composer work with Nintendo in the future? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
[source nintenderos.com]
Comments 25
Considering the bangers Meguro-san has put out during his time at Atlus... GOSPEL.
A Nintendo studio scooping Meguro for a project would be insane.
And not unprecedented for Xenoblade, considering they got Hiroyuki Sawano to compose for XCX.
A RIVER IN A DRY LAND
Meguro's music is phenomenal, so having him compose for something from Nintendo would be spot on.
I can totally see him put out a soundtrack worth listening to for Fire Emblem. The music of that series has always been rather weak IMO.
Persona 5's soundtrack is absolutely stellar, but I'm not quite sure how well that sort of style would fit Zelda. Put this sort of style into Fire Emblem or Splatoon!
I would love to listen to his takes on Zelda or Xenoblade music
While I do like the Persona 5 soundtrack, I wouldn't want Xenoblade or Zelda to sound like that.
But he's a talented guy so I'm sure he could work well with the style of Zelda and Xenoblade as well.
I would love to see Meguro spread his wings a bit more and tackle more varied projects like this. The composer has some pretty incredible range and could do a lot with more resources. Considering the OSTs for Digital Devil Saga, SMT Nocturne, Catherine, and Strange Journey, there is much more to him than his influence on the Persona series
@Ralizah the track attached to this article is very reminiscent of some of the ones you hear around New LA in XCX, sort of a mix of the Blade Barracks and the dreaded yeah yeah yeah one whose name I forget 😅
Assuming he'd use his Persona style of music, it wouldn't work with Zelda at all. But I'd still rather listen to something like Life Will Change while exploring Hyrule than to hear the awful or rather non existent music that is BotW's ost
"You'll never see it comingggg" as I drop a boulder on an unsuspecting bokoblin.
@Browny With the exception of God Shattering Star
He and every musician on the planet. Who wouldn't
@Royalblues - Pretty sure the scope of his musical talent isn't just only energetic as you see on Persona games, which fit the style of the game very Very well.
I bet he has an understanding of how Zelda music works, with the more classical progressive epic styles we've heard for ages. I think it would be a good match. Not the greatest, but I am sure he'd impress.
It's funny, this conversation reminds me of how people usually fan-cast roles of characters in movies with how one LOOKS, and Heath Ledger was "too pretty" for Joker at the time and he nailed the style of Dark Knight amazingly well.
The guy has good taste, though I haven't haven't heard his music besides a couple Persona 5 tracks, so I can't say if he'd be a good fit.
Meguro is a god, would love to see him compose for a Nintendo game.
@Royalblues It's kinda sad that people only associate his name to Persona 5 when he was the leading composer on Shin megami tensei Nocturne and the Digital devil saga duology, those games had a lonely, desolate atmosphere, so his style would totally fit something like Zelda breath of the wild. He doesn't only makes pop, jazz and rap.
@OwenGamer22
Ehh, I disagree. Still weak, like the rest of that game.
@fenlix
Agreed. His work on Nocturne especially was phenomenal. I especially love the DDS soundtracks, and continue to hope that Atlus gives us ports of those. Even if it's the same (lazy) treatment they gave Nocturne.
I think sometimes it's easy to forget just how much variety there can be in one composer's work.
Takeharu Ishimoto for example has composed music for The World Ends with You and its sequel, as well as Type-0 and Crisis Core.
So I wouldn't write off things like this so quickly, even if it's still rather unlikely to happen
Is the composer any good?
@StarPoint He's called here "Persona composer", but he actually made soundtrack for most Megaten games in general, like SMT 3 or Strange Journey have very different OST than persona I would say.
Not Xenoblade please, music of XC1,2,3 is already perfect.
It is generally preferable for video game soundtracks for other series to sound like music from the Legend Of Zelda rather than the other way around. The music of Zelda generally best succeeds with experimentation and risk-taking. This would not be the right fit.
Persona 5's soundtrack is so goated that it's one of the few actually in full rotation in my Apple Music library.
However, I'd like to hear more of those type of funky jazzy vibes in a new Mario, Sonic Adventure, Street Fighter, MvC, Mega Man X Command Mission, Jet Grind Radio, Robotech: Battlecry, Trauma Centre and/or Catherine games though over Zelda.
... Wun can only hope.
Xenoblade is one of those series that the music just doesn't do anything for me outside of the context of the games.
Shoji Meguro, enough said. Just look at my user name to give you an idea how I feel about him. He could score anything and I would listen.
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