“Title Screen” from Nintendo’s Kid Icarus, released in 1986
Written by Hip Tanaka in 1986, Kid Icarus is one of those pieces that stay with you and you may or may not have it in your head for the next several hours – sorry. If you ever play the game, you’ll be hearing the music a lot, as the title is notoriously difficult even by today’s standards.
Essentially, Kid Icarus is the story of an angelic character named Pit who seeks to get three treasures and save the Goddess of Angel Land, Palutena. You start at the Underworld and go up… and up… and up.
This is one of Hip Tanaka’s more straightforward scores – unlike Metroid and Earthbound (as a co-composer with Keiichi Suzuki), which were more in his off-the-beaten-path styles. There’s a classical lightness that permeates this score, giving it the sense of always moving forward, just like the game.
For the rest of the score, check out the VGMPF’s post about it here:
http://www.vgmpf.com/Wiki/index.php?title=Kid_Icarus:_Angel_Land_Story_(NES)
For more of my video game rantings and learnings, check out my podcast (Into the Score) at http://www.intothescore.com!
Thanks for reading!
Kenley
This is the second time that I’ve seen a post about this music in the last week (wish I could remember the other source). I’d never heard it before, and what I find most charming about it is that it starts as a kind of rinky-dink tune and just keeps getting more complex until the end. It’s only a minute-seventeen long, but it blows through eight different distinct sections. Crazy.