Game info: Wikipedia
Listening: soundtrack album (missing some ambient cues), extracted audio
Credits
Audio Lead: Clark Wen
Sound Designers: Frank Bry, Crispin Hands, Ken Kurita-Ditz, Kristoffer Larson, Tommy Tallarico Studios (uncredited)
Music: Kenji Yamamoto
Music (Assistant): Koichi Kyuma
Info
I NEED TO START THIS POST WITH THE UTTERLY DERANGED FACTOID I JUST LEARNED THAT AUTECHRE WAS ORIGINALLY ASKED TO DO THE METROID PRIME SOUNDTRACK??? CAN YOU IMAGINE
So anyway, how about that surprise drop of Metroid Prime Remastered? Pretty neato, right? I’m not sure that I’m going to play it any time soon, but it sure got me in the mood to listen to the Prime soundtracks again.
Metroid is one of my all time favorite game series, and the audio is a big reason why, although Kenji Yamamoto tends to be one of the less interesting composers of the series to me. He’s a good composer and I’ll say that any day of the week, but generally when he works with other people I like their songs more (Super Metroid being the uber example) and my favorite soundtracks are ones where he has less presence. I used to daydream about what it would be like if Minako Hamano had defined the “modern Metroid sound” and not him… but then Metroid Dread came out and it felt like it fell out of that alternate universe! But we’re all here to talk about how Prime 1 is a cool soundtrack, so let’s talk about how Prime 1 is a cool soundtrack.
Yamamoto showed off some audio design chops back in Super Metroid (the bass in “Brinstar – Plant Overgrowth Area” is a sample I think about all the time), but I think he really hit the ground running in establishing a cool, unique outer space sound atmosphere for Metroid Prime on the first entry in the series with full-production music. I like that aspect of his music the most, so my favorite tracks in the first two Prime games tend to be the more ambient and moody ones vs. ones with a more melodic focus, but his sense of production always comes through even in the other tracks I find less interesting, so everything’s enjoyable to listen to.
Koichi Kyuma is a tricky one to talk about because this is one of the only games he’s known to have worked on musically, and there’s no breakdown besides a couple of random tracks we know are by Yamamoto. We can try to draw some conclusions by comparing the soundtrack with the sequel, which was only done by Yamamoto, and seeing what stands out as unusual in the first game, as well as by referencing some old, pre-Nintendo MIDIs he wrote under the name “QMA”. Kyuma seems much more likely to mess around with odd time than Yamamoto, and in general Prime 1 has a few different tracks that are “proggier” in a way that Prime 2’s soundtrack isn’t really at all. Prime’s soundtrack is pretty consistent in its audio design, though, so it wouldn’t surprise me at all if Yamamoto programmed or arranged Kyuma’s compositions.
Recommended tracks:
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“Frigate Orpheon Escape” (Kyuma?) has an unsynced alert beep loop and jazzy drums with an unprocessed kit that both always really stood out to me
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“Ancient Chozo Ruins” (Yamamoto?) has a bunch of ambient sound effects that remind me a bit of Metroid II’s cave themes
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“Tallon Overworld” (Yamamoto?) is one of the iconic area themes and you know what? It’s good
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“Vs. Metroid Prime (Head)” (Kyuma?) is a DnB banger with two wonky rhythmic bits starting at 1:40
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“Wrecked Ship Entrance” (Yamamoto?) is one of the ambient themes left off the soundtrack album, I love the voxy synth and repeated EPish chord that sounds kind of like a super chill red alert noise
(track titles are unofficial translations from VGMdb except the last, which is completely made up)
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