Nintendo's Empire of Nostalgia: Music, Memory, Emotion, and Video Games

For approaching thirty years now, Super Mario and The Legend of Zelda have been powerhouse franchises in the world of video games.  The first entry in the Super Mario series was released in Japan on 13^th September, 1985 (though the Mario character had appeared in several games before, first in Donkey Kong (1981) under the name “Jumpman”), and featured an iconic soundtrack composed by Koji Kondo (Nintendo, 1985) (Kondō Kōji in Japanese name order), described by Leonard J. Paul (2013) as “arguably the most recognizable music of any video game in history.”  The following year, The Legend of Zelda was released (Nintendo, 1986), also scored by Koji Kondo.  Since the release of these two games, there have been a further seventeen or eighteen (depending on your viewpoint) Super Mario games excluding spinoffs and remakes, and fifteen subsequent The Legend of Zelda games, very often reusing and re-arranging themes and melodies of the original games in the respective series.  The effects of this technique have been noted anecdotally, but rarely if ever has a psychological basis for these effects been theorised or proposed.  This essay will also speculate as to the motivations behind Nintendo’s on-going use of this technique, whether they be artistic in intent, motivated by a more fiscal, business-oriented mind-set, or some combination of the two.

Music in video games can fulfil several functions, depending on the style of the game, such as easing players into a certain frame of mind, helping to build an in-game world by way of providing sonic details and set-dressing for the world, to react to the actions and successes and failures of the players, as creating a distinctive musical brand for a series, or as to distinguish different locations within the game (Phillips, 2014).  Prominent among these functions of music in games that appear in The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario is the demarcation of locations, e.g. the Kakariko Village theme from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Nintendo, 1998), which reappears in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Nintendo, 2006) in the same location with a different location, which functions both as separating the location from others geographically, while cementing the fact that though some things about this village have changed, this is the same place in a different period of time, or the Underworld theme from Super Mario Bros. which distinguished it from the brighter and more upbeat “Overworld” music, better known as the Super Mario theme (Nintendo, 1985).  Another prominent function is the creation of prominent musical brands, such as what Winifred Phillips (2014) describes as “probably the most venerable example of musical branding in the game industry [in] Koji Kondo’s peppy theme for Super Mario Bros.”  The creation of these brands could potentially have other effects on players, the underpinnings and details of which will now be explored.

Classical conditioning is a phenomenon, discovered and described by physiologist Ivan Pavlov in 1904, in which the repeated pairing of a relatively neutral stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus (that is a stimulus which without any training elicits a reflex response) causes the two to become associated, leading to the (previously neutral) now conditioned stimulus eliciting the same (now conditioned) response as the unconditioned stimulus (Carlson and Buskist, 1997).  This differs from operant conditioning, as described by Merriam-Webster (n.d.) as “conditioning in which the desired behavior or increasingly closer approximations to it are followed by a rewarding or reinforcing stimulus” , because it affects reflex, involuntary reactions rather than voluntary behaviours, and because it occurs on an unconscious level.  Watson and Rayner (1920) demonstrated that that this can apply to emotional as well as physical reactions by pairing the neutral stimulus of a rat with the unconditioned negative stimulus of a loud noise to an infant, resulting in the infant developing a fear of furry objects including a rabbit, a dog, and a fur coat.  This is an example of a CER (conditioned emotional response), specifically a CFR (conditioned fear response).

Peter Larsen (2007) describes film music’s primary emotional function as being “to intensify or articulate moods already indicated with the aid of other effects”.  This suggests that instead of being the primary source of emotion in movies, musical scores or soundtracks are a supplement to the emotional content of the narrative.  It seems reasonable that this would also apply to other audio-visual media (although this is not stated by the author). So whereas standalone music can act as an unconditioned stimulus for an unconditioned response (emotional reaction), when playing a video game, the player's attention is very much focused on the visuals and controlling the player-character, so the music, while possibly supplementing the emotional tone of the narrative or gameplay, is, relative to the gameplay and narrative events, the neutral.  The reason this is relevant to the current discussion is with regards to whether the music in video games can accurately referred to as a neutral stimulus, as music would conventionally be said to be creating emotional responses rather than being associated with the emotional responses caused by coincidental events.

With regards to the franchises of The Legend of Zelda, which will henceforth be referred to simply as “Zelda”, and Super Mario specifically, the recurring melodies ensure that players will hear these sounds repeatedly and in similar contexts, so that the conditioned responses (emotional reactions) associated with these melodies are constantly being both triggered and reinforced.  For example, the melody known as “Secret Sound”, present in the Zelda franchise since the first instalment, is triggered by the successful solution of a puzzle and uncovering of a secret or unlocking of a previously barred path, so the emotional reaction that this sound is paired with is consistently a positive one, specifically one of satisfaction and success.  In the case of Super Mario, the “Starman” melody, has appeared in the majority of games in the series (Nintendo, 1985; 1988a; 1988b; 1990; 1995; 1996; 2007; 2010; 2011; 2013), plus many games in spinoff series, where it predominantly appears when the player-character is invincible, so the feeling associated with this music is one of invulnerability and being powerful.  While it’s true that these melodies are altered in terms of their arrangements and the timbres on which they are played, the effects of conditioned emotional responses are not strictly limited to the exact circumstances of the initial associations, as evidenced by Little Albert’s fear response to objects which are similar but not identical to the white rat (Watson and Rayner, 1920).  If the music is re-used or rearranged in a recognisable form, then it’s possible that the combination of the conditioned emotional response to the music and the unconditioned emotional response to the narrative and/or gameplay events will have a cumulative effect, and be greater than they ordinarily would be alone.

Cue dependent forgetting is when a memory is not able to be recalled, not due to the memory no longer being present, but due to inadequate retrieval cues (Tulving, 1974).  There are three categories of cue, these being semantic; relating to the meaning of the memories stored, context-dependent; relating to the environment in which the person is situated when committing the information to memory, and state-dependent; relating to the physical or emotional state of the person at the point at which they learn the information.  The theory's validity when music is considered a cue was supported by Smith's (1985) experiment into music dependent forgetting, whereby participants were split into three initial conditions and asked to learn a list of words, with one condition listening to jazz, another to Mozart, and the third to nothing.  When asked to recall what they had learned, each group was split into three again, each listening to either jazz, Mozart, or nothing during their recall.  Those who listened to the same music on both occasions showed better recall of information than those who listened to either two different kinds of music, or to no kind of music in either one or both condition(s).  While this does support the hypothesis that music can inspire the recall of words learned in experimental conditions, it's not clear from this study whether the findings can be applied to a more real-world circumstance, such as whether hearing a piece of music can inspire the recall of events in a person’s, rather than just the recall of a list of words in an artificial setting.

There is, however, experimental support for the notion that music can inspire the recall of autobiographical memories, and that the perceived emotional content of songs and the emotional tone of the memories whose recall they inspire are frequently congruent, with a study presenting participants with pop music and asking them if the music inspired the recall of any autobiographical memories, and if so, how familiar they were with the song, and how they felt emotionally about those emotions, found that, to a significant degree, the emotional reactions to the songs were associated with the participant's perception of the memories the recall of which the songs inspired (Janata et al, 2007).  The study labels such music as “autobiographically salient”, a term which I will use from this point forward.

In video games, music is often part of the context of in game events, so that hearing the music could effect better recall of the events occurring when the music was first heard, and possibly even sparking music-evoked nostalgia.  In Zelda and Super Mario games in particular, the recurring melodies could be bringing back memories of previous experiences with these melodies, possibly causing the player to recall other puzzles they solved in previously played games, or to recall the mechanics of a specific game state and the possibilities and tactics made possible by said mechanics, such as the invincibility in Super Mario games and the ability to run through enemies that would ordinarily have to be avoided outright, particularly because of the upbeat tempo and feeling of the Starman music being congruent to the more fast paced and less cautious style of gameplay the game state which the music signifies makes easier to perform.  In Zelda games, the recurrence of the Saria's Song/The Lost Woods music across different games, combined with its upbeat and bouncy rhythm and cheerful Lydian tonality would be particularly effective at causing the player/listener to nostalgically recall the period and events of hearing the music for the first time.

As demonstrated previously, it is theoretically possible to apply the theories of classical conditioning (specifically conditioned emotional responses), cue dependent memory (particularly context-based cues), and nostalgia to the music in video games at large, and particularly to the music of Zelda and Super Mario.  The combined effect of these phenomena would be such that the player of multiple games throughout a series is feeling the echoes of past successes, sensations of invincibility, and pure enjoyment of game mechanics by way of conditioned emotional responses, recalling the information committed to memory during the playing of previous experienced games in their respective series by way of cue dependent memory, and fondly reminiscing about the entire experience of playing these past games and possibly the period of the player's life when they were playing these games as part of music-evoked nostalgia, all simultaneously as a result of these recurring themes and melodies, these themes and melodies acting as conditioned stimuli with regards to emotional responses, as context cues with regards to specific events, and as autobiographically salient music for inspiring nostalgia.

Criticism of this theory comes from the fact that, while possessing a scientific framework by which it may work, it is at the core purely suppositional.  There is no experimental support for this specific phenomenon, nor is there any qualitative research into the people to whom this theory could apply, it is merely a specific application of more general psychological theories.  Furthermore, the classical conditioning and conditioned emotional response aspect, while supported in general, lacks a more specific body of work supporting it, with regards to the possibility of music acting as a conditioned stimulus for natural reflexes in general and emotional responses in particular.  While there are no major logical leaps from the core framework of this theory to application, further research would be necessary in order to firmly state whether or not the theory is true.

In terms of further development of this theory, it would obviously help to support or refute the theory if some kind of primary research.  One form which this could take would be with the a group of participants split into two groups; those of whom have played games in the Zelda franchise before, and those who haven’t.  Each group would be presented with a puzzle, and asked to solve it.  Upon arriving at the solution, half of each group would hear the “Secret Sound” cue of the series, while the other half would hear novel melody.  Participants would then be asked to rate their sense of accomplishment at completing the puzzle, and the results would then be analysed to ascertain whether the presentation of the familiar melody frequently paired with success significantly increased a participant's feelings of achievement when compared to a novel melody fulfilling the same immediate function.

The question remains as to whether this effect was intentional by the creators of the games, as well as the question as to whether if the decision to reuse melodies and themes was an artistic one, a business one, or a combination of the two.  As a business decision it certainly makes sense, feeding into the creation of what is known as a sonic brand, “an entire audio language for the brand based on its essence, values, promise, and personality” (Minsky & Fahey, 2014).  As Brian Schmidt, executive director of the GameSoundCon convention has said: “audio and music is a great branding tool for games” (Crecente, 2014).  This can give publishers an extremely effective tool for marketing games, for example, the use of a familiar melody in a TV spot or trailer for an upcoming or recently released game can feature just a few notes of a familiar melody will instantly alert fans of the series as to what this advertisement is about, and raise the excitement level (Phillips, 2014).  The musical repertoires of Super Mario and Zelda are iconic, instantly recognisable by fans of the series, and each very effectively matches the overall tone of its franchise, while being malleable enough adapt to the varying tones of individual entries in the series.  In this way, the franchises can be said to have a musical brand, though whether this was the intent is known only to Nintendo.  Regardless of intent, it seems that Nintendo have cultivated sonic brands for both Zelda and Super Mario.  The touring live performances of Zelda’s music, “The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses”, strongly suggests that the music has an appeal of its own away from the context of the games, as it’s been successful enough to merit two instalments subsequent to the original (Evry, 2015).  It’s possible that this is part of a hypothetical business plan of creating a body of recognisable and constantly relevant music by reiterating it throughout each instalment in the series, and then capitalising upon that.  It’s also possible, however, that this is just a fortunate happenstance from artistic decisions to create a consistent musical character to match the similarities in the stories of the games, which are based on an endless struggle between either recurring characters in the case of Super Mario, or perpetually reincarnating characters in the Zelda games.

In conclusion, it is possible that classical conditioning, cue dependent remembering, and music induced nostalgia are all interacting within people’s minds when hearing the familiar melodies of the Super Mario and The Legend of Zelda video game franchises not for the first time, i.e. on the second or later experienced entry of a particular franchise.  There is experimental and theoretical support for each component part of this theory, although in varying specificity, and most often in laboratory conditions and lacking in ecological validity and so any conclusions drawn from individual studies are not possible to be definitively applied to real world situations.  Further research would be necessary in establishing this theory with any great degree of certainty.  As far as the motives for the repeated use of these melodies and musical phrases, without officials from Nintendo making any formal statement, it is impossible to say for certain.  It is, however, true that this technique fulfils both artistic functions, such as creating a cohesive musical character which is present throughout the series, and business oriented functions, such as building a distinct and consistent sonic brand for the franchises, which customers are able to recognise easily out of context.  The result is a musical character of the franchises that is alluring to both the publishers and marketers of the series, and to the fans.

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