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Grant Kirkhope (Banjo Kazooie) is composing for Mario+Rabbids

M

Machina

Banned
One detail about this game that I think has escaped a few people since E3, since it wasn't spoken about as much as it should have been in my opinion considering his pedigree.

Grant Kirkhope, of Banjo Kazooie, Kingdoms of Amalur and Viva Pinata fame, is composing for the game.

Here's a little preview of what you can expect. His style should be instantly recognizable to those millions who have a soft spot for Old Rareware. If this thread serves no other purpose, I'd love it if DetectiveGAF could compile any isolated examples such as the one I just linked to of the music as it becomes available on the internet.

http://nintendoeverything.com/grant...abbids-soundtrack-lots-of-orchestrated-music/

Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle has a huge musical talent on board in Grant Kirkhope. Kirkhope worked on many N64 classics back in the day, including Banjo-Kazooie. He’s also more recently been involved with the likes of Yooka-Laylee.

In this month’s issue of GamesMaster, Kirkhope talked about his approach to making music for Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle. Instead of trying to emulate Nintendo’s style with Mario music, he instead “had to try to come up with some kind of way of getting that crazy Rabbids thing into this Mario game – and a little bit of me in there as well”. The game may start out sounding a bit “Nintendo-ish”, but later evolves, and Kirkhope believes that players will be surprised as they reach the end.

Kirkhope told GamesMaster:


“I thought there’s really no point – I mean same with Banjo-Kazooie – there was no point [in] me trying to write in a kind of Nintendo, Mario style, like a poppy, jazzy thing, because I can’t do it very well. And they’re really brilliant at it, I’d be wasting my time. So, I had to try to come up with some kind of way of getting that crazy Rabbids thing into this Mario game – and a little bit of me in there as well…

I think the game at the start does sound very pleasant Nintendo-ish, but as the game progresses (and I can’t go into detail because, you know, it’s one of those thing) it just definitely changes. And I think people will be surprised by the end of it how it’s going to turn out.”

Kirkhope was also asked about how the music was recorded. It looks like we can look forward to a bunch of orchestrated music, which is estimated to be around 45 – 50 minutes or so. The rest of the music was created electronically, but the average player may not be able to tell the difference.

As Kirkhope stated:

“It’s a mix, it’s a bit like Mario Galaxy, but we’re hoping for that mix. So, we recorded 45 minutes, 50 minutes of live orchestra, and the rest of it’s me, samples out the box kind of thing. But I’ve got to say… I was over there yesterday and Wednesday and we were going through the OST release and going through all the tracks, you know, and the mix and the masters [have] been very good, it’s very similar. I think people who aren’t in the know might be slightly confused to what’s live orchestra and what isn’t.”
Click to expand...
 
Z

ZombiePlatypus

Member
I'm not familiar with him but OST's can strongly elevate games or severely hamper them. Nice to hear this ones poised to have great music.
 
SinCityAssassin

SinCityAssassin

Member
Kirkhope is better when he composes his own way instead of trying to emulate something. It's probably why this soundtrack I like better than his contribution in Yooka Laylee.
 
TDLink

TDLink

Member
Honestly I feel like Kirkhope is a bit overrated. He's not bad, and what he did for Banjo was completely on point for what those games were. But his stuff tends to sound very samey and it seems like he's made a name for himself the last few years by contributing a little here or there to a bunch of different indie games... and that becomes a sort of bullet point "Look we got Grant Kirkhope!" Sure, I guess. It just isn't like, something special to get him really.

David Wise was the real musical genius at rare in my opinion. Look at like the Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze OST compared to any of Kirkhope's recent music for a clear example.
 
P

PSqueak

Banned
SinCityAssassin said:
Kirkhope is better when he composes his own way instead of trying to emulate something. It's probably why this soundtrack I like better than his contribution in Yooka Laylee.
Click to expand...

Ironically i would say he was trying to emulate himself in YL, i feel his side of the soundtrack lacked identity because it was too banjo like, which i get that's what they were trying to, but it would have been better that i could hear the music and think "this is Yooka-Layle" and not "this brings banjo memories back".
 
SinCityAssassin

SinCityAssassin

Member
PSqueak said:
Ironically i would say he was trying to emulate himself in YL, i feel his side of the soundtrack lacked identity because it was too banjo like, which i get that's what they were trying to, but it would have been better that i could hear the music and think "this is Yooka-Layle" and not "this brings banjo memories back".
Click to expand...
That's mostly what I mean. He was trying to emulate his own Banjo Kazooie style wholesale, here he's taking more inspiration from a variety of things.
 
daTRUballin

daTRUballin

Member
TDLink said:
Honestly I feel like Kirkhope is a bit overrated. He's not bad, and what he did for Banjo was completely on point for what those games were. But his stuff tends to sound very samey and it seems like he's made a name for himself the last few years by contributing a little here or there to a bunch of different indie games... and that becomes a sort of bullet point "Look we got Grant Kirkhope!" Sure, I guess. It just isn't like, something special to get him really.

David Wise was the real musical genius at rare in my opinion. Look at like the Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze OST compared to any of Kirkhope's recent music for a clear example.
Click to expand...

Only his cartoony stuff tends to sound a bit "samey". They're still great soundtracks though, as the songs themselves are pretty varied within the OST, so you can't really say his music is "samey" (I know what you meant though). And even then something like Viva Piñata is completely different to something like Banjo. Have you ever listened to any of his darker or more serious soundtracks like Perfect Dark or Goldeneye? Completely different from anything else he's done.
 
C

Camjo-Z

Member
Grant Kirkhope is basically what took me from a "well a Mario and Rabbids RPG could be pretty neat" to an instant Day 1 must-buy. I love that man's music.

PSqueak said:
Ironically i would say he was trying to emulate himself in YL, i feel his side of the soundtrack lacked identity because it was too banjo like, which i get that's what they were trying to, but it would have been better that i could hear the music and think "this is Yooka-Layle" and not "this brings banjo memories back".
Click to expand...

SinCityAssassin said:
That's mostly what I mean. He was trying to emulate his own Banjo Kazooie style wholesale, here he's taking more inspiration from a variety of things.
Click to expand...

I feel like I saw a lot more complaints about his Yooka-Laylee soundtrack because he didn't just emulate Banjo-Kazooie. Aside from Tribalstack Tropics and the Totally-Not-Grunty's-Lair hub world music he pretty much did his own thing, something like Glitterglaze Glacier would have never been in a Banjo game. I enjoyed his work for that game personally but to each their own. And honestly the stuff for Rabbids so far has sounded more Banjo-y to me than Yooka did, if you played the Pirabbid Plant song for me out of context and told me it was an unused challenge theme from Nuts & Bolts I'd believe you.
 
P

parkinho

Member
Professor Beef said:
I'll make sure to listen to the OST on Youtube during my free time then, instead of playing this.
Click to expand...

That's great to hear, kiddo.

The whole package is shaping up really nicely, though I don't think I'm going to have the time to play it at release.
One for the Xmas wish list, perhaps.
 
P

PetrCobra

Member
Still waiting for some reviews and impressions to see if I'm buying this game but it's definitely things like Kirkhope doing the music (and, of course, everything I've seen so far looking great) that I'm considering it.
 
W

WillyFive

Member
TDLink said:
Honestly I feel like Kirkhope is a bit overrated. He's not bad, and what he did for Banjo was completely on point for what those games were. But his stuff tends to sound very samey and it seems like he's made a name for himself the last few years by contributing a little here or there to a bunch of different indie games... and that becomes a sort of bullet point "Look we got Grant Kirkhope!" Sure, I guess. It just isn't like, something special to get him really.

David Wise was the real musical genius at rare in my opinion. Look at like the Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze OST compared to any of Kirkhope's recent music for a clear example.
Click to expand...

David Wise did better work than Kirkhope did in Yooka Laylee, but Viva Piñata is a far better piece of work than anything in Tropical Breeze.
 
P

Plinko

Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
Watching the combat gameplay videos, it is blatantly obvious Kirkhope is doing this soundtrack, and it is much better off because of it. It sounds amazing.
 
blu

blu

Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
Great. Now Amazon just need to break that launch date and I'll be very happy.
 
M

Maximo

Member
My eyes widen when listening to that track, god dam won't have a Switch for a long time but when I do Ill most likely end up buying it.
 
Y

Yukinari

Member
My biggest hope is for Grant to make a comeback with more melodic tunes instead of generic Dreamworks sounding stuff, that was one of my biggest problems with YL.

Ever since Kingdoms of Amalur he rarely makes catchy songs like he used to. Viva Pinata is my favorite microsoft era Rare game but im tired of that type of composition.
 
L

Lijik

Member
TDLink said:
Honestly I feel like Kirkhope is a bit overrated. He's not bad, and what he did for Banjo was completely on point for what those games were. But his stuff tends to sound very samey and it seems like he's made a name for himself the last few years by contributing a little here or there to a bunch of different indie games... and that becomes a sort of bullet point "Look we got Grant Kirkhope!" Sure, I guess. It just isn't like, something special to get him really.

David Wise was the real musical genius at rare in my opinion. Look at like the Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze OST compared to any of Kirkhope's recent music for a clear example.
Click to expand...

people tired of writing their own stale hot takes- take this post and swap kirkhope and wise around next time wise is attached to something.
 
A

Azure Phoenix

Member
Going by the song linked in the OP, he's going to be the perfect fit for this game. Not afraid to say that I'm more excited for it than Odyssey.
 
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