The only thing better than the original music of the Legend of Zelda series is the multitude of ways each and every beloved track has been reinterpreted, remixed, or broken down into something completely new. Dedicated fans have gone about this practice for years, churning out dozens of genre-spanning versions of classics, and now, in the lauded twenty-fifth year of one of Nintendo's flagship series, two more noteworthy albums look to capture the familiar spirit of the adventures of a boy named Link.

The first, Flyrule, is a beat-centric take on the music of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The intended sound of each song is preserved in its track, though often the rhythm is cut to a beat and layered with in-game sounds (heard in Song of Storms, accenting the smooth melancholy, and in the sprinkling of menu noises over the Title Theme). This approach gives each track, and the album as a whole, a natural, understated quality. 

Notable:

—The hazy sounds of Forest Temple, bound into a tripping, stumbling march of a beat.

—The extraction of workable beats from even the most mundane (and annoying) of sounds in the Bonus Track.

The second, 25YEAR LEGEND, comes from independent VGM institution OverClocked ReMix and a host of indie composers, including Laura Shigihara (Plants vs. Zombies) and C418 (Minecraft). Spanning the length of the series, from The Legend of Zelda to Skyward Sword, the album (OCR's 29th) was created to promote the recent anniversary, and thoroughly does so through a variety of high-quality arrangements.

Notable:

—The tightly tracked drums and electronic pulses of Hey, Listen.

—The smooth, ebbing version of a lesser-known song in To Everything There Is a Temple of Seasons.

—The advance of Thunderstruck from a light drizzle to an all-out maelstrom.