Perhaps no historical period accelerated the advancement of fine arts and humanities quite like the European Renaissance. The collective guild system of the Middle Ages was replaced with a surging praise of individuality, and this evolution produced priceless artifacts and paintings. But the Renaissance also incited another significant form of individualism: the signature.
Becoming mainstream during the 1300s, artists and sculptors began placing small traces of personal identity onto works of art. Not only did one’s “signature” authenticate a piece of artwork, but it also spurred popularity and fandom. While the painting and monument communities still embrace the autograph today, another artistic group encounters difficulty in the attempt to “sign” original creations: music.
Although musical composition is inherently idiosyncratic, video game songwriters are often relegated to a few lines of text in the ending credits. Consequently, outside of a handful of musical directors, it is difficult to ascertain the individuality of one’s work. This is the story of a video game composer who broke the proverbial “fourth wall” by ingeniously embedding a musical “signature” into my favorite Legend of Zelda game.
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening released in 1993 for the original Game Boy. At the time, a seven-year-old Matthew was utterly immersed in the wonder and charm of Koholint Island. From the clever puzzles and sprawling dungeons to the enthralling narrative and delightful characters, Link’s Awakening was a riveting adventure unlike any other. But the facet of the game that held my captivation the most was the music.
My childhood self was so infatuated with the music in Link’s Awakening that I recorded the game’s soundtrack on a blank cassette tape. Using an old-fashioned cassette player with a built-in recording microphone, I maximized the Game Boy’s volume and held the cumbersome unit next to the speaker. Upon discovering a new dungeon or overworld area and the corresponding motif, I added tracks to my collection.
It was during a routine visit to Richard’s Villa near Pothole Field that I first discovered the anomaly. With cassette player in hand, I crossed the threshold of the exiled ruler with the intention of capturing the newly discovered melody. As the song drew to its natural outro conclusion, something changed. In fact, something changed dramatically. The slow, melancholy tones of Richard’s leitmotif were quickly replaced with a rather chipper and worry-free pace. Believing the game had an embedded glitch, I moved on to other areas of the world map.
As the years passed, so did my fascination with Link’s Awakening and the recollection of the strange “glitch” in Richard’s Villa. It was not until the remastered release of The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening on the Nintendo Switch that I remembered the strange encounter inside Richard’s Villa. As I once again entered the door of the exiled monarch, my curiosity peaked. Surely, Takashi Tezuka had eradicated the strange bug I stumbled upon in 1993.
Much to my chagrin, the renowned Nintendo director embedded the bizarre tune in the 2019 remaster. Armed with nimble fingers and the power of Doctor Google, I searched for answers to my lingering questions. Why had Nintendo kept this strange tune in the Link’s Awakening remaster? Who was responsible for such an oddity? It was during this investigation that I discovered the ingenious source of my curiosity: Kazumi Totaka.
Kazumi Totaka is a renowned sound director and music composer at Nintendo who is known across the industry for his playful personality. Ever the lover of video game “Easter eggs,” Kazumi was the first notable composer to create and hide a signature melody within a video game. Upon taking a precise set of actions, players could unlock the infamous 19-note melody titled “Totaka’s Song.” In both the Game Boy and Nintendo Switch versions of Link’s Awakening, simply hanging around inside Richard’s Villa for approximately two-minutes and 30 seconds triggers the melody.
But the mystery does not end there. Our friend Jon Cartwright at GameXplain provides two additions methods for triggering the “Totaka Song” in each version of Link’s Awakening. Simply begin a new game and enter the character name of “totakeke” or “ZELDA,” and “Totaka’s Song” will commence.
As I pondered the cleverness and ingenuity of Kazumi Totaka, I could not help but admire his creativity. Much like the artists and sculptors of the Renaissance period, Totaka constructed an astute technique for identifying his work. In fact, the more I researched Totaka’s history, the more I discovered that he left an imprint on multiple Nintendo franchises. For example, did you know that even K.K. Slider from Animal Crossing is a fan of the “Totaka’s Song”? We will not spoil the method for unlocking this Animal Crossing: New Horizons Easter egg, but I personally will never again gloss over the credits of a Nintendo game. For whenever I see Kazumi Totaka’s name as the sound director, I know that melodious secrets await.
