Zelda Theme Song VS Mario’s 1-1 Song – Most Iconic Music

Some of the most iconic music to come from video games are from the two most iconic video game franchises that both originated from the NES. Mario 1-1 song is purely iconic, you can play it to most non gamers and even they will know it. It’s especially iconic since Mario is still that video gaming juggernaut that we know him to be. Zelda, even though has always been extremely popular and well known, it’s never been able to topple Mario as the most iconic Nintendo franchise until the Nintendo Switch where I can at least say they are around equal level, especially since Breath of the Wild and Mario Odyssey has basically sold the exact same amount of copies. But this piece is about the song that made these games iconic, Zelda’s themes song VS Mario’s 1-1 theme song.

 I feel like many people would instantly choose Mario’s 1-1 theme song over Zelda since of course, it’s the most well known song, but I could make a case for Zelda’s theme song since it’s definitely been remade and played in more games than the 1-1 song. The theme song has that sense of timelessness that 1-1 doesn’t have. The Zelda song can be remade over and over again in different styles and games where the 1-1 song is only iconic in its original state. You can find the Zelda theme song featured in most Zelda games where you can’t really find that with the 1-1 song since the main song for Mario games change almost every game.

 One of the reasons I think that the Zelda theme song has but more used overall is since the Zelda music genre has a straight timeline. It’s been very consistent with modern Zelda games using orchestrated symphonies while Mario games have gone from acapella to orchestras to jazz. It’s kind of all over the place and I kind of love it since it keeps it fresh but my personal favourite Mario soundtrack is the Mario Galaxy games. 

 

 The one thing I can say about the Zelda song, is that it’s been in more Mario games than the amount of times 1-1 songs have been in Zelda songs. That’s one thing the Mario franchise will never have over Zelda.