Guys, guys, guys. The official Japanese website for the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake has some bonus stuff on it that we didn’t see in the Direct this morning. It’s got some nice character art, and some gameplay clips. And, and it has the first 15 seconds or so of the new remix of the Gerudo Valley theme, which is great!
It’s on this website. You have to scroll down a bit past the Kokiri Forest clip, the Gorons, and the Zoras, to get to Gerudo Town and play the embedded clip. Hell yeah! Here’s the original, for comparison:
Gerudo Valley is one of the best songs in the original Ocarina of Time soundtrack. It plays in the outdoor areas around Gerudo Fortress, a dungeon staffed by the all-woman Gerudo tribe from which Ganondorf hails as the only male, and their king. In Gerudo Fortress, Link has to sneak around and rescue a bunch of captive carpenters, then speak with the Gerudo to obtain a token that will open the way to the real dungeon of this zone, the Desert Colossus. All while jamming to this great guitar melody!
This theme is, I think, criminally underused in the Zelda franchise outside of Ocarina. It really doesn’t appear in full in any other games. That’s largely because the role of the Gerudo hasn’t really been the same in any of the games since. They appear nominally in Twilight Princess, but there’s not really a “Gerudo Valley” location outside of fan theories as to where it might be in relation to the rest of the game. And in Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom, Gerudo Town got an entirely different theme song for some reason, despite Gerudo Valley being right there and both the Rito and Zora tribes getting excellent remixes of their own themes.
There is this fantastic version of Gerudo Valley from Super Smash Bros., and also the version from Crypt of the Necrodancer: Cadence of Hyrule. But that’s it!
I’m just happy to hear Gerudo Valley finally get the musical respect it deserves after all these years. Unfortunately, the clip posted on the official website cuts off right when the song gets to the really good part so I guess I’ll have to wait for the game to come out or whatever to stand in the town and listen to it on loop.