Pokemon Sword and Shield is coming with a lot of surprises for the franchisee, and among them is a soundtrack entirely produced by Toby Fox, Undertale game creator.
Toby had close connections with Game Freak on its recent game, Litlle Town Hero. During that time, the developers worked with Toby to create the game’s complete soundtrack. And with his experience in the game design of EarthBound ROM hacks done via RPG Maker, Toby Fox was very excited about this new responsibility.
A week before the newest Pokemon games came out; Game Freak issued a letter to the official Pokemon website, written by Fox as a medium to reach fans and explain how the partnership happened.
He started by scripting a few lines of his name and poking at how most won’t know his identity. Straight after that, he goes into how the collaboration started in the first place.
The note started like this: ‘Once upon a time, I created an RPG game called Undertale, which for whatsoever reasons the folks from Game Freak ended up becoming fans of this game. Then one day, I noticed Go Ichinose-san, one of the creators for Pokemon, started following me on Twitter, and I was like… messaged him out of thin air.’
To say that this wasn’t where Fox’s breakthrough started would be an understatement. Ichinose has also worked on every Pokemon titles since Gold and Silver. And he was the link that got me to Game Freak.
He then continued: ‘Eventually, we became friends, and I was able to meet many other people from Game Freak, too!’ He added: ‘So, after eating sukiyaki with members of the company one day, we went to a café. There, I requested the waiter to get a bottled green tea. While he processed my order, I selfishly asked if I could make a song for Pokemon someday. To my surprise, they said yes! Right there in the café, after that, they told me a concept for a song I could work on, and, as I walked home, my heart was burning with enough inspiration.’
That was how Toby Fox, got the opportunity to make the soundtrack for Pokemon Sword and Shield. Sometimes asking a simple question in the gaming industry get things like this done!
Listening to the preview, it’s obvious he had a hand in crafting this; it’s like Game Freak gave him the ability to call the shots as pleased, provided he produced a track he was proud of making. Even with the one track he composed for the game, his experience with Game Freak and Nintendo has given him something tangible to work with as he progresses to build Deltarune.
He said happily: ‘I’m very excited and thankful that I was allowed to do this, so please expect the song, and also Pokemon Sword and Shield. Yamper yam yam! Besides—if you enjoy it, please do let Game Freak know. They might treat me to sukiyaki again. (He snorted: would they still do that?)’
Pokemon Sword and Shield comes to screens worldwide for Nintendo November 15.
