Thorntail Hollow [Night] (Star Fox Adventures [2002])
I ain’t “Fool”-ing anyone here, this is a top favorite without a doubt! Although the linked video says “Early”, I think that’s a mistaken label, since I don’t remember a unique track for the 1st visit to Thorntail Hollow in nighttime itself, only daytime. Point is, I was looking for an upload without the static noise in the way, which is what the otherwise identical uploads titled “Thorntail Hollow Night” have. Having heard some of Rareware’s best, I think this kind of ambience is where they excel, and an area they don’t really do enough of.
My experience with the game itself was mediocre, but that doesn’t prevent me from noticing how this track has one of the strongest Horn melodies I’ve ever heard, surrounded by a soothing Harp rhythm. All other sounds set my personal ideal of what nighttime music should sound like; not a slower or lower-pitch version of the existing track, but a somewhat new composition, depicting what it’d be like to wander out to such a place at night, with all of the beautiful, if also uncertain, parts of the environment affected during such a time, even something as simple as the sky.
If only the game remained as Dinosaur Planet on the GameCube, able to stick through to its fascinating ideas to the very end, maybe it would’ve been more memorable and beloved in everyone’s eyes, whether the gameplay was good or not. At the same time, this exact track (Even with the leitmotif used already being there) wasn’t in Dinosaur Planet from what I know
(Length before loop: 2+ minutes)
