Music in Pikmin 3: Difference between revisions

Heard when the leaders explain how to handle carrying Olimar. From the initial held note this new loop appears, controlled by cellos and a {{w|goblet drum|doumbek}}. The violins waver in their notes slightly, which certainly makes the mood off-putting, but what really drives the tension home is the alien synthesizers that play. A ping-like sound and a synth bass play bits of the [[Mysterious Life Form]]'s theme, which at the moment sounds very strange but which will soon sound familiar. In fact, it could be said that the Mysterious Life Form's theme releases the tension accrued and sustained by this theme.

Heard when the [[Mysterious Life Form]] materializes inside the [[Formidable Oak]]. This is the most {{w|aleatoric music}} in the game, beginning with the reversed sample of an ocean harp (to establish something wrong) and growing into a huge, rich, looping cluster of tension. High strings randomly rise while a horn cluster settles them, eventually just leaving a loop of low strings and horns playing imperceptibly together. The whole loop sounds like one sound, but it is a very rich texture that actually alienates the Mysterious Life Form. The dissonance of this cue makes the Mysterious Life Form seem more monstrous, and less adherent to anything else in the game.

===Mysterious Life Form/Plasm Wraith===

|name=Mysterious Life Form

Heard in the Formidable Oak's interior, while the [[Mysterious Life Form]] is giving chase. While this composition is all about building tension, it also needs to build a mood of futility, as the Mysterious Life Form is invincible and garners a great deal of control over the environment. Thus this piece has a very atonal gesture, the Plasm Wraith's motif, that repeats in two synthesizers. Over this, a theremin solos, creating an avant-garde but still highly tense environment. The futility comes from the fact that this intensity level is kept no matter how far the player manages to get from the Mysterious Life Form, in a way saying that it will always catch up. An added sense of urgency also comes from the constant pounding of bass and tenor drums, along with the off-rhythm triangle-like percussion.

|name=Mysterious Life Form (near Olimar)

Heard when the Mysterious Life Form is close to [[Olimar]]. This theme is extremely tense, perhaps the most tense in the game. In addition to the alien texture heard before, the percussion has been beefed with metal sheets, a polyrhythmic metal bar (perhaps the tensest element of them all), and dissonant staccato notes in basses. A new aleatoric texture has settled over the theme, as if the mood were not dissonant enough. The clutter is enough to give the Mysterious Life Form a real element of fright, and certainly enough to spell out the danger it poses to the Koppaites and Olimar.

|name=Mysterious Life Form (Olimar captured)

Heard when the Mysterious Life Form is escaping with Olimar inside of it. Now the tension and dissonance of the theme has backed down a little, but the Plasm Wraith's motif is still there and now a full orchestra is playing the urgency of rescuing Olimar. Fast brass stabs and string gestures articulate the commotion of quickly battling the Mysterious Life Form, while percussion still pounds on to the same rhythm as before. In addition, a strange choir-like sound can be heard in the background, similar to the ambient noise heard in the [[Formidable Oak]]'s theme. If Olimar is freed, the theme will return to its normal state (far from Olimar) until the Mysterious Life Form rematerializes, after which it can get close to Olimar once again.

Heard when the leaders and Olimar make it out of the Formidable Oak's interior. This is the transition between phases of the boss battle, and although the first phase was tense, this transition cutscene needs to show that it is over. It does this with small iterations of the [[Music in Pikmin 2#Leitmotifs|"Hocotatian motif"]], a motif that is major standing alone but in this context is made an atonal gesture. It does offer a small mood of victory over the Mysterious Life Form, but then the boss appears with its motivic instruments and figures until it transforms into the [[Plasm Wraith]], its appearance accented by a blast of low horns and trombones. After this, the Plasm Wraith absorbs all its excess plasm to become larger, and an ostinato in strings builds new tension for the impending phase of the battle, during which leaders and Pikmin are on the offensive side. Since the player is given power to combat the boss, the texture is of natural instruments and not alien synthesizers associated with the Mysterious Life Form.