2/17/2008 - Big Blue Music

Next month the gaming world will mark another momentous occasion as Super Smash Bros. Brawl is released for the U.S. audience. This has been a long-awaited release for the still fledgling Nintendo Wii. The previous Smash Bros. games have been huge sellers and it looks like Nintendo has pulled all the stops for this one. It looks so great that it would be the only game that I consider buying the Wii for. On top of it all, there is online play, something that will definitely make the replay value go into the stratosphere.

To get an idea of what the game is going to be like, we should look to none other than the previous release of Super Smash Bros., Melee. For that we turn to a series of YouTube videos from user "CrappyCaptureDevice". These videos chronicle the "History of Super Smash Bros. Melee" by showing all aspects of the game in relation to their counterparts in the past games of each franchise. From stage levels to special moves, this "history lesson" is quite extensive and very entertaining.

I've chosen to feature the lesson on where the music of the Big Blue stage came from. First, of course, the Big Blue stage of the SNES version of F-Zero is shown. I've always liked this music because it suits the racing theme very well. In fact, if I had this playing in my car radio, I'd be tempted to speed. What I didn't know, and what this video opened my eyes to was that an alternate soundtrack plays on all the stages at random times. For this stage, it comes from an obscure racing game for the NES called Mach Rider. It is said, in fact, that F-Zero is the spiritual successor to Mach Rider. I don't know about that, but the music is kinda cool.