
To reproduce these melodies, it takes two players, sometimes three!
Musicians will do all sorts of things when it comes to covering their favorite songs, but since everyone (and their neighbor) are uploading homemade music videos to YouTube, you definitely need a way to stand out from the masses.
Song selection is certainly one way to do so, but how about an enormous xylophone that practically spans the length of a room?
▼ More xylophone means more awesome
when it comes to the Final Fantasy III theme.
HATSU 012 has taken their percussion skills, full xylophone, and a couple of their friends to play some familiar themes from our favorite video games.
Plus we know that they are serious. Just take a look at how many mallets they have in the background of some of their videos!
▼ The opening from Pokémon Red/Green
▼ Relive your Pokémon trainer battles in frenetic fashion.
Donning series-relevant hats, these players expertly match the tunes from Final Fantasy and Pokémon.
However their real passion lies in the world of Dragon Quest, as they have uploaded numerous themes and medleys from Dragon Quest I, II, and III and beyond.
▼ Various pieces from Dragon Quest I
▼ No need to go far in this quest for music from Dragon Quest III.
▼ Gypsy Dance from Dragon Quest IV
Even if you don’t know the Dragon Quest series very well, you can still enjoy the dulcet tones of this wooden xylophone. The energetic plunking sounds remind of us a bygone era where game music composers had to make due with extremely limited hardware capabilities, yet managed to create timeless masterpieces.
▼ Final Fantasy‘s main theme arranged on two xylophones!
We are big fans of HATSU 012, and if you are too, be sure to take a look at their YouTube page for more videos featuring silly hats and some amazing xylophone playing.
And if you want to see some other musical covers of classic video game music, check out Australia’s legendary violinist performing Final Fantasy X’s At Zanarkand, or if you’re looking for something a little more hardcore, the guitar covers of Final Fantasy VII’s One-Winged Angel.
Source, images: YouTube/HATSU 012

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