It’s rare that any of our import soundtrack reviews hail from Europe. It is even more disconcerting that this import soundtrack is for a Japanese title: a Zelda game, no less! But here it is: Ocarina of Time Vol. II – The Lost Tracks. Printed by Nintendo of Europe as a promotional item (after releasing a 2-disc OST that contained tracks from the Japanese OST, now looped), this soundtrack includes songs that cannot be found anywhere else. Though some of them aren’t quite “missing” from the Japanese OST, many are obscure songs.
Usually with these sort of “unreleased” albums, one can expect to find a lot of garbage. There’s a reason why songs get cut from an OST: they’re bad. This seems to be the case for a number of tracks on this album, such as the Ice Cave theme, or Flight of Fairies. In fact, I’d say that most of the first fifteen tracks are pretty bad (though “Tree House” is a classic, and isn’t quite a “lost” song in the first place).
The real treat with this album is the bonus tracks section. Rearranged by the ambiguous “Acoustic Department” at Nintendo of Europe, these tracks are truly phenomenal. Each and every one outperform the officially released “Ocarina of Time ReArrange Album” from Japan, and they are certainly just as good as anything we’ve seen at fan sites such as Overclocked Remix. Check out the two samples; they are truly decent arrangements. I could totally throw a lightswitch rave to these songs.
This little promotional item has become quite the artifact. Don’t expect to get it without having at least $40 handy next time you’re on eBay. It’s not an entirely uncommon item to come by, but it sure is expensive. It may not be worth it just for these arranged tracks though. This one’s for hardcore Zelda fanboys (and fangirls) only).
