ZREO Tribute Week: Legend of Zelda ~ Twilight Symphony Review

Original art by X-Cross 

This past week the group behind Zelda Re-Orchestrated announced that after nearly nine years of performing together that the group was disbanding. To celebrate their near decade of great music, I will be doing a tribute to ZREO this week.

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Today: A Link to the Past Review

Tuesday: Crowning Music of Awesome

Wednesday: Beyond Audiodome

Today: Twilight Symphony

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To finish off my Farewell to ZREO Tribute Week, I decided to take a listen to the team's final album they produced; Twilight Symphony.

Now to start off, I skipped over The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. I had played the game a bit and enjoyed it, but due to circumstances, I never really got around to playing the game. I did however follow let's plays of the game and streamed the soundtrack on Youtube. I am aware that Twilight Princess is not as popular with the fans, some going as far as calling it the black sheep of the Zelda franchise. I see their issues and merely shrug it off. I myself enjoy the game and I am not going to let someone else choose my opinion.

Coming in at 50 songs, this album is quite large, Every song from the game has been beautifully redone here. With some songs, the remakes are incredibly subtle, while other tracks such as Overture (the Title Theme) has been completely remade. With Overture, the original choir was incredible, but sadly the music accompaniment was kind of underwhelming. However, the Twilight Symphony version makes the song seem more epic. This is the start of a brand new adventure and it puts you in the boots of the hero. With this song, you want to go out and stop the tide of darkness from washing over all of the land. It motivates you to become a hero. It's an incredible way to start the album.

My favourite song on this album has to be Ilia's Theme. When I think of the original version of this song, I think of group of friends I had when I was younger. We were incredibly close, but as time went on, we slowly drifted apart. The original song brought those happy memories back to me. The ZREO remake of this song pushes the track to new heights. The group dialled the song back and made it feel more personal. I prefer the instruments in this work compared to the original. While the flute work in the original track is wonderful, I find that it can be at times a bit overpowering, drowning out the other instruments. With the ZREO remake, they have dialled back on the woodwinds and have brought in other instruments and vocals to support the song.

Zelda Re-Orchestrated is no more. As a final gift to those who have been loyal fans for the past nine years, they released the Twilight Symphony album as a download. Unlike their other albums, you have to use a torrent to get this album. While I do not endorse pirating music, I do suggest you get this album. Its great to listen to. You can get the torrent off of their website.

For nine years, the Zelda Re-Orchestrated team gave us hours of wonderful music, covering every Legend of Zelda game in that time. My only wish is that they had the time to do a Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword remake.

To my readers who are just learning about this group, please download the albums. You have only until June 12^th 2013 to get the albums. After that, they will be gone forever.

Farewell Zelda Re-Orchestrated, you will be missed.