Over a decades-long legacy of game development, Nintendo has hidden many secrets in its games, from nods to fellow franchises to developer messages tucked into the code, but none have been more prominent or popular than Totaka’s song. A simple 19-note, 8-bar melody has found its way into many Nintendo games since the 1990s including Mario Paint to even the most recent titles, such as the classic recording in Super Mario Odyssey. Instantly recognizable and a huge find for all the Easter egg hunters in any Nintendo game, Totaka’s song has become one of the most well-known secrets in gaming.
Totaka’s Song is the creation of Kazumi Totaka, a Japanese composer who has worked as a sound designer for Nintendo for decades. The song, of course, takes its name from him and appears in most of the games Totaka has worked on over the years. In most cases, players discover Totaka’s Song while waiting at a certain point in the game, such as a certain menu option, on a pause screen, or during normal gameplay in certain levels. As each instance of the song varies where it is hidden, it has consequently created a history of players looking for each iteration in Totaka’s Nintendo games.
Totaka’s song discovery and history
Totaka’s Song was first discovered on the spin-off Mario game Mario Paint released in 1992. Arguably the most famous version of Totaka’s Song and often how most players are first introduced to the Easter egg, it’s an easy version to find. Among other famous game title screens, Mario Paint‘s own title screen is known for letting its players interact with the various letters of the game’s title. When you click the “O” in Mario, it turns into a bomb, which explodes, and after a short pause, Totaka’s Song begins to play. However, at the time of its discovery, it was called “Mario Paint song” instead.
After this discovery, the song was subsequently found in other Nintendo titles, such as in Yoshi’s story on the trial mode selection screen after waiting a few minutes or in Animal Crossing titles. It was the last to notify Easter egg hunters of the song’s origin, as In-game Totaka’s Song is strongly associated with Animal Crossing‘s KK Slider. Realizing that KK Slider was based on Totaka, it was soon revealed that Totaka had also been working on Mario Paint and Yoshi’s storycausing fans to search his past works and find that nearly all of his games feature his signature tune.
Since then, games that Totaka has worked on have all featured Totaka’s Song in one way or another. It was even revealed that the song predates mario paint, as an earlier version was discovered in 1990 X for Nintendo’s Game Boy, found fifteen years after its original release. But while the earliest versions of this song were well-hidden secrets that only the most patient and diligent fans needed to find, more recent iterations have become much clearer and more readily available, to a point where Nintendo seems to be sharing in the niche legacy of Totaka. has forged.
Totaka’s song in future games
The last confirmed recording of Totaka’s Song has arrived Animal Crossing: New Horizons in 2020, continuing the tradition for future Nintendo games Totaka is working on. Totaka himself is getting closer to retirement age, meaning there’s a real possibility Totaka’s Song will retire with him. However, fans have acknowledged more obvious efforts to add the song to Nintendo games, be it incorporating Yoshi speech lines humming Totaka’s Song as in Mario Kart 8 and Luxuryhide the song in music remixes, or just record it outright in Animal Crossing as “KK’s Song.”
It seems Totaka’s Song has moved from a musical signature specific to the composer to a broad Nintendo signature that has secured itself in the canon of its many games. Even though Totaka will one day leave behind game development and music design, his legacy will live on as a tribute, both to the man himself and a tribute to retro Nintendo games. In addition, since Totaka meets many more different Nintendo titles, many more versions of his song could exist, waiting to be discovered after so many years to join an ever-growing list of past and future games.
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