I noticed one of the songs in the Holiday BGM loop had a familiar beat structure and wasn't segwaying into any other classic Holiday melodies. The real kicker was the immediately recognizable chord progression. It wasn't exactly an original, and it wasn't a traditional Holiday tune; it's a legally distinct version of
Cool Cool Mountain from Super Mario 64!
This isn't out of the question, as the entrance to SNW features a similarly legally distinct adaptation of
Gusty Garden Galaxy, the iconic Mario Galaxy track.
It's
very cool to have these references at all, and the fact that they were approved showcases a level of passion for the IP at a number of levels that rivals my own. I appreciate all of the UDX artists' work a lot here. But
man ... I just really wish we were allowed to have the actual thing. I love Nintendo, but damn are they overly protective of their IP to a fault. I just know in my heart that this was something the UDX team pitched at them, and they shot down immediately.
This is one of the biggest theme parks in the world, ran by a gigantic megacorporation that knows how to properly deal with licensing and showcasing IP at their best, featuring Nintendo as a prominent component of the park. Tell me,
what is the
actual issue with featuring a 4 minute arrangement of Cool Cool Mountain in Celestial Park?? Like, outside of overly steep licensing royalties, what could
possibly go wrong in this scenario? Why can Gusty Garden Galaxy be incorporated into a show moment in the lagoon, but not the entrance to the land itself? It genuinely boggles my mind.
If anything, it just makes it all feel cheaper and far more inauthentic to be playing these knock-off allusionary tracks as opposed to the real thing.
This is my own personal version of "Samus was supposed to be in literal biggest game in the world Fortnite but Nintendo said no", and since I have no
personal recourse or say in the matter, it's a battle that I will just have to forever wage in my head.
It just stinks, man.