Celebrating the Music of Your Childhood

Whether you know it or not, chances are you've bopped your head to this man's music. Whether you don't know the difference between a Goomba and a Koopa Troopa or consider yourself a hardcore gamer, you've no doubt whistled his tunes in the shower. With his contagious and wildly inventive melodies, Koji Kondo has set a standard for video game composition that few have come close to reaching. And for those of us who grew up with a D-pad placed firmly beneath our thumbs, his scores have acted as the soundtrack of our childhood.

From the original Super Mario Bros. to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time to Star Fox 64 and beyond, Koji Kondo's contributions to the art of video game composition are beyond compare, leaving an indelible mark on the entire industry. Today the man who put a melody to the magical worlds of Mario and Zelda celebrates his 51st birthday. In commemoration of his great contributions to the medium, we're taking a brief look back at the two biggest franchises that Koji Kondo brought to life with his resplendent tunes.

Here's to you, Kondo-san - thanks for the memories.

The Mad Beats of the Mushroom Kingdom

One can hardly hear the word "Mario" without a certain tune running through their brain - you know the one. From the moment you first hear that infectious theme in World 1-1 of Super Mario Bros. for NES, you'll never be able to get that crazy melody out of your head. With incredible creativity and musical prowess, Kondo's music has set the ethereal and psychedelic tone that the Mushroom Kingdom is now known for.

But his contributions to Mario's adventures didn't stop with that initial score. From Super Mario Bros. 3 to Super Mario World, from Super Mario 64 to Super Mario Galaxy - Kondo has helped transition Mario from 2D to 3D, from a castle full of paintings to an entire galaxy of adventure. His music is as intimately tied with the idea of Mario as jumping on a Goomba's head or Bowser's affection for Peach. While the man has already given us enough timeless music to last a lifetime, we very much look forward to another 25 years of incredible, mushroomey tunes.

Pulling Your Heartstrings in The Legend of Zelda

While Kondo's Mario compositions are meant to invoke an aura of pure joy, his work for The Legend of Zelda series is a bit more cutting - tearing at your heart with its sweet melodies and sweeping crescendos. Zelda's music has a way of tearing at your heart - or inspiring a sense of adventure and exploration you simply can't ignore. Ranging from haunting to epic to sweet to unsettling, his scores for Link's adventures in Hyrule add a powerful emotional overtone to each game.

Music has always played an important role in the Zelda series, whether as an instrument for progressing the story (get it?!) or just by lending a sense of magic to the whole affair. It's hard to imagine what Hyrule would be like without Kondo's tunes instilling adventure into the very grass of Hyrule field, adding soul to the inhabitants of Death Mountain, wordlessly conveying the joyful sadness of parting with a childhood friend, or encapsulating the terror of power in the wrong hands. As of now, we still have no idea what Zelda's future holds, as Nintendo makes the leap to its first HD system - but if Koji Kondo has anything to say, you can bet the music will be pitch perfect.

Thanks for joining us as we briefly tipped our hats to one of the greatest musical talents of our time. Now's your turn to chime in! What are your favorite songs by the legendary Mr. Kondo? What has his music meant to you as a gamer, or even just as a person? Share your thoughts in the comments below - then bust out an old Mario or Zelda game in thanks to the man who likely wrote the soundtrack of your childhood.

Audrey Drake is an Associate Editor at IGN and a proud member of the IGN Nintendo team. She is also a lifelong gamer, a frequent banisher of evil and a wielder of various legendary blades. You can follow her wild adventures on her IGN blog and Twitter. Game on!

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The Symmetry of New Super Mario Bros. Wii

You'd think there'd be a difference. Mario's been doing this kind of thing for decades – running, jumping, saving the princess. You'd think he'd have some advantage, some noticeably better skillset than a pair of simple upstarts setting out on their first-ever adventure. But, no. Nintendo decided against that. Nintendo decided that, in 2009's New Super Mario Bros. Wii, the world's most famous platforming hero would be able to be matched step for step, jump for jump by a couple of nameless, personality-less Toads.

From Mario's perspective, it doesn't make a lot of sense. He should run faster. Jump higher. Something. But, from the designers' point of view, it must have been better to make all players created equal.

Realizing a Dream

When New Super Mario Bros. Wii was revealed three years ago and then shipped to stores in late 2009, it sparked a new revival for 2D side-scrolling platformers – but it was a focused one, not just a general revisit to the genre. 2006's first New Super Mario Bros. on the DS had already done that, so the Wii follow-up's larger contribution wasn't just pulling platformers back into the spotlight, but pulling platformers back into the spotlight with a new emphasis on simultaneous multiplayer play.

It was four-player Mario! A design dream that Shigeru Miyamoto had hoped to realize for decades, finally materialized in Nintendo's fifth console generation. At long last you could set out to rescue the kidnapped princess with friends alongside you, having Mario accompanied by his brother Luigi and the two new characters, Blue Toad and Yellow Toad.

Well, calling them new characters is being a bit generous. These two Toads were about as generic as could be, as Nintendo refused to give them any kind of storyline introduction or even their own names. They were simply there to serve as alternate-colored clones of the red- and green-clothed plumbers. Some fans cried foul at the time – why not use established characters like Wario and Waluigi, or the "normal" Toad, or even the Princess herself to fill those spots?

The answer was simple enough – because the designers wanted everyone to play the same.

Symmetry and Asymmetry

New Super Mario Bros. Wii was designed to offer a wholly symmetric multiplayer experience. You've heard the opposite term thrown around a lot recently. "Asymmetric" gameplay refers to games in which different players experience different things while playing at the same time, and it's a big focus for the upcoming Wii U and its new GamePad controller. "Symmetric" gameplay, then, would refer to games in which every player essentially experiences the same thing. Like New Super Mario Bros. Wii.

Whether you're controlling Mario, or Luigi, or Blue or Yellow Toad, your abilities are no different than anyone else's. Everyone runs at the same speed, jumps to the same heights – it's a level playing field for all. And it works well, no doubt about it – New Super Mario Bros. Wii is a brilliantly fun multiplayer experience. It's a good time. Hopping and bopping around, picking up your buddies and tossing them into pits, "bubbling up" when you're about to die and begging your pals to come pop you out so you can keep going. Nintendo's designers picked a good direction for the game.

But it's not the only direction they could have chosen. In the wake of New Super Mario Bros. Wii's success, we got several more examples of ways that four-player simultaneous 2D side-scrolling could be handled with a bit of asymmetry tossed in. Ubisoft's Rayman Origins cloned the approach of pairing two established characters with two generic tag-alongs, but Rayman, Globox and the Teensies all had wildly different animations that made them feel more individual. Kirby's Return to Dream Land took things to the next level by giving each character a different skillset – Kirby could suck up and copy enemy powers as normal, but Meta Knight, Waddle Dee and King Dedede had wholly their own identities wielding a sword, a spear and a giant mallet, respectively.

And Donkey Kong Country Returns, while only two-player, nevertheless made Donkey and Diddy distinct from one another – which enhanced the teamwork element of playing that game with a friend, as you both had your own unique roles to play.

Going Forward

So the question becomes, is there room for a little more asymmetry in the New Super Mario Bros. series, going forward? The upcoming New Super Mario Bros. U will explore one extreme with its "Boost Mode," which will give one player the power to insert blocks into the environment through the GamePad's touch screen while the others run and jump along as normal. Rayman Origins' sequel, Rayman Legends, will similarly invite an extra, fifth player to pick up the GamePad to control the environment-altering new character, Murphy.

But those may be examples of asymmetry taken a bit too far, at least for the crowd who cried foul about the two generic Toad Bros. in 2009 – because the initial expectation for many for a multiplayer Mario design wasn't a game where someone sat off to the side dropping extra bricks into the scene, or even for four players running and jumping around with the exact same skill set. The expectation was more in line with what Kirby's Return to Dream Land delivered – a game in which established individual Mario characters used their established individual skills to each contribute something different to the action.

So you'd have Wario as an option, bulkier and more powerful than the others and unleashing his trademark shoulder-forward bull rushes from his Wario Land series. You'd have Princess Peach, floating through the air with her hovering long jumps, maybe even wielding Parry the Parasol from her standalone platformer Super Princess Peach. Maybe you'd even have Bowser stomping along and breathing fire in playable form, as he has been a time or two in the Mario role-playing games.

The opportunity is there – and, in fact, the template for how it would work was laid down around 25 years ago, way back in Super Mario Bros. 2. Even without letting the villains get into the mix, you've got an established framework for how to make the heroes feel different right there – Mario is the average everyman. Luigi jumps higher than anyone else, kicking his legs wildly in the air. Princess Peach has those floaty long jumps and Toad ("the" Toad) is stronger than the rest. So perhaps it's time for a new Super Mario Bros. 2? (Not to be confused with New Super Mario Bros. 2.)

In Conclusion

The possibilities are there. The template is there. It's just up in the air whether or not Nintendo would ever choose to take New Super Mario Bros. in an asymmetric direction, after setting the definitive symmetric standard three years ago. New Super Mario Bros. Wii was great, and no doubt this year's two new sequels in the series will prove themselves to be solid entries in the franchise as well. But there's an opportunity for Nintendo's designers to refresh this franchise further some time in the future – if they follow the example of games like Kirby's Return to Dream Land and even the old Super Mario Bros. 2, and if they can actually embrace the established diversity of the Mushroom Kingdom's many diverse characters, instead of just tossing us more generic, nameless Toads.

Lucas M. Thomas led the charge to give Blue Toad and Yellow Toad a bit more personality back at E3 '09, and to this day he still personally refers to them as Yvan and Wolley. You can tell him your own nicknames for the Toad Bros by following him on Twitter.

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