Star Fox 64 is one of those games that I don’t believe enough people have played. If you haven’t, you should. In fact, you should go play it now. Right now. Come back when you’re done.
…done? Great! The soundtrack of Star Fox 64 is another favorite of mine. I even had the official soundtrack CD when it was released. The boss battle themes were amongst my favorites.
There are 3 boss themes in SF64, Boss Battle One, Boss Battle Two, and of course the imaginatively titled Boss Battle Three. In this medley I switched up the order to 1-3-2. Not because I can’t count, but because 2 is a very high energy impactful piece, while 1 and 3 are more on the slower dramatic side. So I used the slower themes to build up to the big crazy battle theme.
Boss 1 and 3 were, for the most part, pretty simple. The first little lead scale in One is a little complicated. It sounds really cool on guitar. Theme 2 is where things start to get crazy.
Boss Battle Two is another one of those wacky 5/4 songs, but to add to the challenge, it’s a fast paced 5/4. There is a lot of fast double bass drumming which was difficult to do because I’m not much of a fast double bass guy. Soloing in 5/4 can be kinda weird as well. The solo I came up with sounded really good, and I even threw in a rare Jonny Atma sweeping arpeggio bit towards the end.
Overall I was greatly pleased with how this song turned out… although it sounds a tad bit dry, perhaps I should’ve used some more reverb. Either way, it’s still one of my favorites from the 2011 era.