How Boss Music Works in Pikmin 3 Deluxe

It's time for another look into Pikmin, now that Pikmin 3 Deluxe has arrived! I'll be talking about the variety of boss themes in the game, and how they respond in realtime to the ups and downs of battle. Adaptive music is quite an effective means of making your battle more engaging and cinematic!

This video does contains spoilers for Pikmin 3's bosses, though they are revealed one at a time. And while I cover some music in Pikmin 3 Deluxe's new mode, the Side Stories, toward the end, I do my best not to spoil what happens in that mode!

Thanks to DavoGato for scriptwriting help, and thanks to Nickolox, Sleepy, and Overlorddystroy for helping organize the music clips I used.

{ ? I ♥ }

[ScruffyMusic]

Thanks to several commenters for clarifying this to me: the loop of music I call "unused" in this video actually *is* used in the game! Details contain spoilers for Pikmin 3's bosses, so click to expand this comment...



The Scornet Maestro uses the loop when it commands its Scornets into a formation, right before they attack! I suppose I see why I didn't catch it, since that's usually the time I distract the Scornets with one leader while attacking with the other. Nevertheless, I feel sheepish for not finding it! It's probably not the last discovery to be made about these adaptive systems, but thanks again for helping me clear that up!

[i-win]

My interest for adaptive audio only rises

[big_bm]

He bestows unto us more music juice so that we may understand the funny carrot people on a level we’ve never understood them before

[BlackieSootfur]

It's because of these videos that i even decided to buy pikmin 3 for my switch when it released, im having a really good time!! Stuck on the final boss though... I'll get there eventually
I find it hilarious how you can just. Leave a battle sometimes. You can just turn around and walk right back out the entrance. Idk why i find that so amusing.

[CaliCosmicGal]

I just realized that you didn’t show a single clip from Pikmin 3 and animated it instead that’s amazing good work.

[Noah-gvzj]

I really love the effort to make all of the music sound “natural”. They rarely get credit.

[absolutelyshmooie]

When scruffy uploads: yeah baby!
It’s pikmin: *WOOOO YEAH BABY!!!*

[PeachFromEndor]

My 5 year-old, who happens to be autistic and annihilated this game, was to your video. I was surprised that it kept his attention because of all the explanations. But we sat through the whole thing and then he told me he loved it so much. I did, too. Very awesome and interesting video, sir :)

[cpwcomputerplayerwill]

Its always made me sad that no pikmin battle music is in smash. I like the main theme and all but pikmin needs a little more musical representation.

[gaminwatch]

I remember the Titan Dweevil in Pikmin 2 has a branching song, just like 2’s boss theme / 3’s mini-boss theme. I remember trying to use the musical cues to figure out which weapon it was about to use, and then messing up because the weapons activate faster than I thought lol

[KouTokachi]

I'll be honest, when playing i never noticed all these changes
The fact the changes never occurred to me seems to me like really good design, if it felt so natural I never noticed

[SuperWiiBros]

You really should analyze Spelunky 2's procedural music

[HanSanwich]

Whenever the Sandbelching Meerslug is vulnerable and the music changes, it reminds me of the Molduga fight in Breath of the Wild and how the music gets more frantic once you blow it up with a remote bomb.

[howtodraw]

Scruffy is actually a sound file in pikmin, hence his devout interest in this specific subject

[shopnil]

I'm so glad I wasn't the only one to notice this. The Pikmin 3 boss music is one of the most adaptive and complex video game musics I've seen/heard. I was just listening to the boss musics the other day and loved how indepth they were.

Also, Olimar12345 is a cool dude, him uploading the songs and separating the parts is a dedicating task.

[Boney]

7:28 reminds me a lot of Mario galaxy’s ghost levels, especially the long drones in it, very cool to hear it in used well even if I couldn’t hear it during the game over my panicked running!

[dessibel]

I’d love to see a video where you try to mathematically prove how many possible variations there can be of Pikmin 2’s soundtrack. There’s low health music, Olimar and Louie/President variations, sunset, near enemy, battling, working, and carrying variations. Not to mention the gaggles of dungeon music. It’d be an interesting video!

[magicsword]

14:30 This is conjecture based solely on how the music makes me feel, but I'm inclined to believe this is a sort of "waiting" or "searching" track where the boss has, somehow, lost track of you. You're not in imminent danger, but the boss is still present and lumbering around. The biggest hole in this idea is that none of the current bosses (except maybe phosbat) should really be able to lose you in their arenas. Then again, it seems to be inaccessible in normal gameplay, and if it's derived from the main boss theme, it would have been easy enough to make that they might have had it earlier on in development.

[musicaldoodles]

5:27 I love how he made it look like the logo for the game Hey! Pikmin. xD

[gravity]

Scruffy your'e a LEGEND! I could listen to you talk about Pikmin forever, what a fascinating video! Thank you