I had intended to share a snow level theme for this edition of the Jukebox (as has been our tradition here at Nintendojo during the month of December), but one particular piece of music has caught my ear recently and deserves some attention, so you’ll have to excuse me for postponing our wintry music celebration a little longer.
Like many others, I’m still playing Pokémon Moon for 3DS. And while I haven’t been entirely enamored with it, one aspect of the game that has been undeniably great is its soundtrack, particularly its remix of the Champion battle theme from Pokémon Gold and Silver.
This isn’t the first time this theme has been remixed; HeartGold and SoulSilver featured an appropriately epic rendition that stands as one of the best battle themes in the series. But what makes this particular remix special is how it sticks out from the rest of Sun and Moon’s soundtrack. While most of the games’ music features breezy melodies that recall their tropical setting, the prominent accordion in this piece lends it a distinctly Parisian flair, which makes it sound more suited for Pokémon X and Y, with their unabashed French influence, than the Hawaiian-inspired locales of Sun and Moon. But that out-of-place feeling is precisely the reason this remix works so well. Like your avatar, Red and Blue are both foreigners in the Alola region, and it’s only fitting that their shared theme sounds exotic within the context of the games’ soundtrack, as though it doesn’t entirely belong.