Super Smash Bros. - Star Fox Music - Video Game Music Shrine

Space opera

Stepped in the shoulders of giants, the music from the epic space opera…for some reason featuring anthropomorphic animals…called Star Fox—because of course every good space war drama needs to have the word “star” on its name—displays proudly its influences on its sleeve, synthesizing its sound from a mixture of the influential Planets suite from Gustav Hoist (especially Mars), which itself influenced the score for Star Wars (it was actually used as a tempt track), combined with the romantic pomposity of adventure films from the 30s and the patriotic military music featuring snare drum for marching. However, the two main influences for the presentation of these games were the British puppet show Thunderbirds and the recently released film Independence Day. More about Star Fox music can also be found over here

Originally, the idea of the Star Fox series was to showcase the newly developed Super FX chip for the SNES, which allowed to create 3D graphics with polygons; the perfect game to demonstrate this was a space shooter on rails. The animals were only added later thanks to the quirky sensibilities of game developer Shigeru MIyamoto, who was inspired by the similarity between the long lines of Shinto gates in Kyoto and the gates the Arwings had to cross in the game; Miyamoto finally settled on having a fox as the main character after visiting Fushimi Inari-taisha in Kyoto, the head shrine of Inari, a Japanese kami associated with foxes. Inari is portrayed as being able to fly, and its shrines, particularly the one in Kyoto, are surrounded by red arches, giving Miyamoto the idea of a fox that could fly through arches.

You can see the arches and the fox here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fushimi_Inari-taisha

Another game designer, Inamura, used Japanese folklore as an inspiration to add a bird named Falco—but he is actually a pheasant—and a hare as two other protagonists. He also added a toad; the inspiration came from a staff member of Nintendo EAD who used a toad as his personal mascot. Imamura populated the Cornerian army with dogs and the enemy army with monkeys, and made General Pepper a dog and Andross a monkey, since there is a Japanese expression about fighting like dogs and monkeys.

The main theme of the Star Fox series written by composer Koji Kondo replaces the original main theme of the series written for the original game, since Star Fox 64 is a reimagining of that first game combined with elements from the cancelled sequel. Th score for the N64 game mixes the romantic grandeur of film scoring with martial music. Koji Kondo wrote the main leitmotifs for the Star Fox team and ending of the game while composer Hajime Wakai wrote the music for the stages. The triumphant score from Kondo contrasts with the war infused scores from Wakai. The two main influences on the music, just like the games themselves, were the award winning score of the recently released movie Independence Day and the TV show Thunderbirds, which also combined The Planets suite with Hollywood adventure music and military bugle calls, fanfares and marching snares.

The Thunderbirds score. You can even hear a melodic part that might have served as inspiration and it is very similar to the Star Fox main theme at the 1:28 mark. The composer has admitted this score influenced him

For the battle oriented, the non triumphant parts of of the game, like the stages, were inspired by the set-pieces from the film Independence Day

Even the Star Fox credits take its cue from and similar figures from the end credits of Independence Day, starting almost in the same way

Sector Z

One of the two stages that never returned to the Smash Bros. series (alongside planet Zebes) since it was coopted by other pars of the universe, namely planet Corneria, also featuring the Great Fox, the huge ship that carries the team across space. It was the largest stage on the original game. This stage is based on the Sector Z level from Star Fox 64, named lile this because of its Z shaped nebula in the background. On this level, Invader III ships attempted to ambush the Great Fox, Star Fox’s mobile headquarters, by firing six Copperhead Missiles at it; hence the reason why it is the best stage to put the Great Fox on. Also in this stage are the Arwings themselves, Star Fox’s signature aircraft, that occasionally fly above the stage and are based on their appearance in Star Fox 64; they also appear to have one Laser Upgrade as they fire two lasers at once as opposed to the standard one. Probably Falco, the best pilot because he is a bird, is the one flying it.

The version of the main theme heard in Smash Bros is the one normally heard whenever the team is beginning a mission; sadly, it does not feature the same parts that are used on the intro, which has an extra section where the timpani become more intense playing in eights and there is a string ostinato propelling the action and making the theme feel darker (although this one contains the extended outro at least). It is also sparser since it does not have a horn section. Like many adventure focused pieces, it its a modal composition that mostly uses the Mixolydian and Phrygian major profiles. The trumpets play a harmonized melodies creating various kinds of suspended chords and other non major/minor ones which make the piece feel less light and more menacing. Curiously, the the second loop of the piece interchanges the real trumpets with the synthetic ones for Section 1.

Fox Victory Theme

Mission Accomplished. The galaxy is saved or, rather, Fox just managed to score a victory against Pikachu in a one on one battle from Super Smash Bros.

Like most of the other victory themes, this one is based in one of the celebratory cues from the parent series, in this case the mission completed successfully from Star Fox 64 composed by Koji Kondo. This is just a snippet of the full track from the game and goes quickly to the coda. The theme itself is based on rhythmic and harmonic motifs taken from the main theme of the series. As Koji Kondo often does in his celebratory cues, it uses the so called Mario cadence with the bass pointing towards a bVI-bVII-I resolution using the G scale.