NOTE: We made and have edited a few errors compiling this list. The link to Toon Link’s page erroneously went to Diddy Kong’s character video. In addition, several of our users have identified songs we missed; we’ve added their names to the tracks they pointed out.
We also added “Training Menu” Wii Fit U, which was suggested by pixltea. But we’re not 100% confident in it as it also only shares the second half of the song like the “Victory Theme A” from the original Wii Fit game and is probably a common theme in the Wii Fit soundtrack.
Last edited: 2:38 PM EST.
Alongside all its characters, stages, and four-player action, Super Smash Bros. is also known for its excellent, exciting music. The tracks cover a wide range of genres, series, and games, and the previous two iterations of the series have tracklists in the hundreds. And with all the videos of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate that have been released since June 12, we have a sizable number of tracks both old and new we can reasonably assume are in the game.
I’d like to thank Nirbion and NantenJex for aiding me with finding some of the music tracks and comparing some older remixes to their use in previous games. This list turned out to be surprisingly more complex than we initially anticipated due to a number of factors. Firstly, along with the fact that we simply don’t know the actual titles of almost all of these tracks – the few we do are bolded and underlined – it’s also worth noting that the E3 build may just be using Wii U music as a placeholder, and that if those tracks do appear it may not be for those stages. Additionally, their use in videos or trailers does not by itself confirm them; one of Smash for 3DS & Wii U’s trailers, “The Future King,” used music from Super Mario Galaxy 2 that was not in the final release.
Finally, the various character videos from the official Smash Bros. site from which we have gathered most of this information plays older songs at a lower volume or pitch than they play in the games from which they came. Some versions have new arrangements that remove entire instrumental sections. It’s unclear if this is an audio quirk on their part – the audio is somewhat quiet, and it’s slightly hard to hear notes – or whether Ultimate will be arranging older remixes at a lower pitch, as Brawl did with many of its Melee tracks. Original tracks appear to be the same, however.
As for the biggest new song, we have the “Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Main Theme.” It should be made clear this is the “E3 2018 Version” used for the “Challenger Approaching” video; due to the inherent difficulty of getting good audio from E3 kiosks, it’s hard for us to grasp what differences are between it and the main version in the game. This version is composed by by noisycroak Co., Ltd. and supervised by Hideki Sakamoto.
Note that these all come from a variety of sources: the music page and character videos from the Direct and official site, and music tracks heard in the E3 build.
Again, I want to reiterate that it was hard to verify whether or not the older remixes were changed because most of them come from the site’s individual character videos; those are both filled with sound effects and comparatively quiet. Because of this, we may be wrong about these. Nintendo Treehouse Live also played a wide array of songs between shows; while many of them were on these lists (such as “Angel Island Zone” or “DK Rap”), others were from prior Smash games but are otherwise not shown here. Those could be used again, or they could just be there as placeholder music.
While I’m unsure of the extent of it, the pitch in quite a number of tracks has absolutely changed, with several losing entire instrumental sections. That’s somewhat disappointing, to be honest; they do make Melee, Brawl, and Smash for 3DS & Wii U’s memorable tracks sound less dynamic. Hopefully this is either an error on the part of the videos (or that Nintendo changed the tracks for the videos, though that makes little sense), or at least that the changes haven’t been too severe. Admittedly, the vast majority of players likely won’t even notice. The changes also vary widely in how severe each one is; while “Yoshi’s Story Ver. 2” is fairly different from its Melee incarnation, the changes to “Meta Knight’s Revenge” and “Jogging / Countdown” are so minute that the latter’s might just come from how quiet the Little Mac character video is. This is not a change across the board; at least “Fire Emblem Theme,” perhaps unsurprisingly given its greater production, sounds the same. Most third party tracks and songs ripped from original games also appear to be unscathed, suggesting Sakurai treats those in a different way.
As for new songs, it’s unsurprising that we’re mostly hearing music from recent games. As the Smash games have gone forward, they’ve moved slightly more to focusing on more recent games, but they’re also drawing from a selection of very major Nintendo titles: Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, and particularly Splatoon. This doesn’t mean, of course, that we won’t hear classic tunes get remixed or brought in directly.
What it all does mean is that, well, music is being approached in a way that’s not dissimilar from previous Smash games. Brawl changed the pitch of virtually all the Melee songs (which 3DS & Wii U changed back), and while we have no idea as to the reason for doing this, that choice appears to be back. Assuming that’s the case, most of the tracks are at least still good, if not necessarily quite as much as prior games. We’re also seeing a number of remixes for tracks that have previously appeared, something 3DS & Wii U did fairly extensively (it also means those pieces aren’t in danger, as most of them stood by their remixes). Of course, we still know very little; it was only yesterday we translated a Famitsu column in which Sakurai stated that the amount of music will be “greater than ever before,” the first concrete indication that My Music will return. Plus, this isn’t even a good sampling; we don’t even have any confirmed new music from Pokémon, Star Fox, Kid Icarus, Xenoblade, EarthBound, or F-Zero. So consider this to be one more speculation piece. We do have a lot of material to go on, but it’s so small; it’s likely just a small fraction of the full playlist.
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Listen carefully and you’ll notice that song in Olimar’s trailer is a remix of Pikmin 3’s Garden of Hope (Afternoon) theme.
Great article – I’ve actually been compiling a similar list over on Smashboards! Here’s a link if you want to check it out: https://smashboards.com/threads/list-of-all-confirmed-music-tracks-work-in-progress-help-wanted.455458/
The song in Olimar’s character video is a remix of Garden of Hope from Pikmin 3 – I almost couldn’t recognize it at first either, they changed it quite a bit!
The song in Wii Fit Trainer’s character video is actually the Training Menu from Wii Fit U: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NCwuiEQ3cU
There seem to be a few other ported songs that are missing from this article, such as “Ink Me Up” on Moray Towers during the night, heard around 15:00 in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpjFpt-7k_Y
I’m glad you guys did this because I’m quite looking forward to seeing new remixes. I can give you a hand with one of them too: Olimar’s trailer theme is a remix of Garden of Hope from Pikmin 3, according to Smashwiki.
Always good to have remixes of songs that appeared in previous games in their original form. Smash 4 has a few examples like Gerudo Valley, but it’s really cool how they did Delfino Plaza and Termina Field since those are the first time Super Mario Sunshine and Majora’s Mask have gotten remixes in Smash. Also glad to the hear the amount of music will be greater than ever before according to Sakurai; compared to Brawl I thought Smash 4’s selection of remixes wasn’t as great, so hopefully this game improves on that.
Will admit though that I’m kinda worried that once again Sonic will get no new remixes, given how they gave him the original Green Hill Zone theme in his trailer. I understand the whole deal about not owning the rights to Sonic 1 and 2’s music, but surely there’s music from later Sonic game’s they could utilise instead?
Also you have no idea how happy I was as a DKC fan when I first heard that Bonus Room Blitz remix in Diddy’s trailer.
Great article! I’ve been compiling a similar list over on SmashBoards, so I can try to contribute a few missing details.
The song in Olimar’s video is an orchestrated rendition of Garden of Hope from Pikmin 3. They changed it quite a bit, I almost couldn’t recognize it at first!
The song in Wii Fit Trainer’s video is actually the “Training Menu” theme from Wii Fit U.
I think there are also a handful of original songs missing from this article, such as “Ink Me Up” from Splatoon, which plays on Moray Towers at night (confirmed in a gameplay video on Nintendo’s YouTube channel)
One song I’m still torn on is “Save the World, Heroes!” in the Mii Fighter character video. It sounds remarkably similar to the version from Super Smash Bros. Wii U & 3DS, but I swear I hear some subtle differences. For example, the little flourish on the flute around the ten second mark sounds like it is accompanied by bells or a celesta of some kind, which I don’t hear in the version from the Wii U soundtrack. But maybe my ears are playing tricks on me.
Either way I look forward to seeing this list grow, Smash soundtracks are always great!
(I tried posting this comment before but I think it might have got removed for spam because it had links in it… apologies if you end up seeing this twice)
Just to note something here. I’m very certain that its “Dixie Beat” not “Bonus Time Blitz”. If you listen to Dixie Beat, it sounds almost identical to the main riff of the song. Yes, Dixie Beat takes nods from Bonus Time Blitz, but its much faster.
https://youtu.be/eV-fBA79z-4?t=18s
Regarding the song heard in the Wii Fit Trainer video, it’s actually one of the menu songs from the original Wii Fit; specifically, the one that appears when checking out the calendar, test results, graphs, etc. Unfortunately Wii Fit music is hard to find, but you can hear it in this gameplay video from 5:30: https://youtu.be/iZpyLP0HCsk?t=330 (the volume is too low, but it’s the best source I could find)