A Different Kind of Desert

Not every desert sounds the same. The sitar and tabla are Indian instruments that, in video game music, are almost always used to signify the desert. Not every composer buys into this trend, however, and this episode focuses on desert themes that suggest a different kind of adventure. Track listing: 0:14: Tostarena Ruins / Super Mario Odyssey / Naoto Kubo 3:42: Lethal Lava Land / Super Mario 64 / Koji Kondo 4:07: Through the Desert / Castle Crashers / Matthew Harwood 4:31: Drums of Dalia / Golden Sun: The Lost Age / Motoi Sakuraba 4:53: Kingdom of Nasrad / Skies of Arcadia / Yutaka Minobe and Tatsuyuki Maeda 5:15: Gritzy Desert / Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time / Yoko Shimomura 5:34: Addashi Desert / Okage: Shadow King / Jun-Ichi Doi, Takamitsu Kajikawa, Yoshikazu Kawatani, Toda Kazuhide and Toshiaki Murata 5:55: Dasil, City of Burning Sands / Xenogears / Yasunori Mitsuda 6:16: Desert Ruins (Zone 1) / Sonic: Lost World / Tomoya Ohtani and Takahito Eguchi 6:37: Slipsand Galaxy / Super Mario Galaxy 2 / Mahito Yokota 7:46: The Burning Sands / Final Fantasy X / Masahi Hamazu 9:30: Dhalsim's Theme / Street Fighter IV / Composed by Yoko Shimomura, arranged by Hideyuki Fukasawa 9:55: Desert Hill / Super Mario Bros. 3 / Koji Kondo 10:17: Sandopolis / Sonic the Hedgehog 3 / Various Composers 10:47: Desert Palace / Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds / Ryo Nagamatsu 11:59: The Sunlands / Octopath Traveler / Yasunori Nishiki 15:31: The Withered Forest / Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl / Yuzo Koshiro 20:36: Kalamari Desert / Mario Kart 64 / Kenta Nagata 23:40: Desert Zone / Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap / Composed by Shinichi Sakamoto, arranged by Michael Geyre 29:36: Yucca Desert / Mother / Hirokazu Tanaka 30:29: Super Dry Dance (Dry Dunes Desert) / Earthbound / Hirokazu Tanaka 33:14: Secret of the Arid Sands / Secret of Mana / Hiroki Kikuta 35:19: Harvest November / Seiken Densetsu 3 / Hiroki Kikuta 40:43: The Rosy Setting Sun (El Sol Rosado Del Sol) / Sunset Riders / Motoaki Furukawa 43:06: Advanced Wind (Whistle Version) / Wild Arms 3 / Michiko Naruke 46:06: Teehee Valley / Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser's Minions / Yoko Shimomura 48:18: Desert Flower (Treit, the Desert Oasis) / Tales of Symphonia / Motoi Sakuraba, Shinji Tamura and Takeshi Arai 52:57: Gerudo Valley / Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time / Koji Kondo 55:43: Gerudo Town (Night) / Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild / Yasuaki Iwata 59:49: Oblivia Field (Night) / Xenoblade Chronicles X / Hiroyuki Sawano 63:07: Marmalade Valley / Paper Mario: Color Splash / Takeru Kanazaki, Shigemitsu Goto, and Fumihiro Isobe 66:29: Scorching Dunes (Sunburn Island) / Shantae and the Pirate's Curse / Jake Kaufman 70:58: Sky Sands / Kirby's Air RIde / Shogo Sakai, Jun Ishikawa, Hirokazu Ando and Tadashi Ikegami 73:34: Sand Ocean / F-Zero / Yumiko Kanki and Naoto Ishida 74:50: The Sandy Badlands / Final Fantasy VII / Nobuo Uematsu 75:59: Land of Sand and Time / Bravely Default / REVO Along similar lines, listen to the episode about the phony pan-Asian motif in video game music: https://singingmountainpod.com/episodes/37-chai-kingdom-asian-cliche Drew on Twitter: https://twitter.com/drewgmackie Singing Mountain on Twitter: https://twitter.com/singmopod On Facebook: https://facebook.com/singingmountainpod On iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/singing-mountain/id1252832457 On Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2ISyNLUc1ALxzvjBqw4ru3 On Google Play: https://play.google.com/music/m/Ifofiaeephbs27wb6cqr24dlgl4 On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/singingmountainpod On YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9f9iAcO1ZMTYVH91c2Jsyw Official website: https://singingmountainpod.com Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/tablecakes TableCakes Productions: https://www.tablecakes.com Subscribe to the newsletter: https://tablecakesproductions.substack.com/subscribe