ReMix:The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time "Mysterious Woods" 5:33

We're lost in the woods, so you're gonna have to trust Gaspode to lead you through with his entrancing take on a septet of themes from the woodlands of Hyrule! The ReMixer was kind enough to also walk us through how the themes were used:

"I always wanted to do a megamix of forest themes throughout the Zelda series and it took quite some time to finish this. I concentrated on the more strange, eerie sounding themes to give this a dark, mysterious, and sometimes haunting vibe.

To spare you the effort of timing the seven different pieces, here's an overview. According to the timings, it seems the song most used is the »Forest Temple« from »Ocarina of Time«.

»Ocarina of Time« - »Forest Temple« (composed by Kōji Kondō)
1:00-1:18
2:49-3:35
4:12-4:48

»A Link to the Past« - »Forest Theme« (composed by Kōji Kondō)
1:18-2:03
4:15-4:43 (little bits between this area)

»Spirit Tracks« - »Lost Woods« (composed by Toru Minegishi, Manaka Kataoka, Asuka Hayazaki, Kōji Kondō)
Only a 7-note-sequence pitched a few tones up
2:04-2:40
4:21-4:43 (little bits in this area)

»The Minish Cap« - »Minish Woods« (composed by Mitsuhiko Takano)
2:22-2:45

»Twilight Princess« - »Faron Woods« (composed by Toru Minegishi, Asuka Hayazaki)
3:28-4:10

»Breath of the Wild«/»Tears of the Kingdom« - »Korok Forest« (composed by Manaka Kataoka, Yasuaki Iwata, Hajime Wakai)
3:55-4:10

»Breath of the Wild«/»Tears of the Kingdom« - »Maze Forest« (composed by Manaka Kataoka, Yasuaki Iwata, Hajime Wakai)
4:49-5:13"

So many themes... so many trees...

Judge prophetik music not only praised Gaspode's effective writing, but also the sound design he employed to make things unsettling:

"the themes shift through pretty fast, at least to my ears, but they do so in a way that doesn't feel overly medley-ish. the first several, for example, are more snippets and share instrumentation so they really feel like different aspects of the same thing. the overlapping combinations is a really key element to not making this feel like blocks of unfinished remixes mashed together.

the themes really come together nicely throughout. this is an excellent arrangement job. the instrumentation choices are also fun - the obviously synthetic elements are modeled after real instruments which is a neat choice given the highly organic nature of the chosen theme. this is good stuff throughout."

We've always aimed for OC ReMix medleys to have a unified, overarching flow to them instead of just "theme A, then theme B, then theme C..." with little-to-no transitions; judge MindWanderer also signed off on that objective being achieved with style:

"Stellar blending of all these sources. Even knowing them well, it didn't register on me that there were 7 different sources here [...]. It all sounds great; it's an homage, an expansion, and a medley all at once, respecting the tone of the originals while still evolving them into something more. Strong work."

Hard to disagree; everything was seamlessly combined. I enjoyed Gaspode's treatment of "Minish Woods" in particular, which was arguably the only "let-me-up" segment amidst a great deal of tension, but even that section wasn't free from stress. When you have Ocarina of Time's "Forest Temple" as the starting point, it's easy to hear and appreciate how the ReMixer leaned into off-putting sound design to achieve a chilling effect. Short and sweet, nice job, Gaspode!