Examples of Uncommon Time signatures in video games.
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A-F
- Ace Combat series:
- Blockade, from the identically-named fourth mission in Ace Combat 04, is in the same 7/8 time and tempo all the way through, but switches from pulse-pounding subdivisions to sustained, two-measure-long notes halfway through, symbolizing the turning tides as the Independent States Allied Force, led by Ace Pilot Mobius 1, consolidate their position and, for the first time in the war, begin to strike back.
- From the same game: Tango Line, in (5+6)/8 with single bars of 4/4 between sections.
- Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown features Archange, played during the second of three Recurring Boss fights. The boss's Recurring Riff is played against a driving 7/8 background, scaffolded by Ominous Latin Chanting.
- Alone in the Dark (1992)'s main theme is in 10/8 for its first half, but switches to common time afterwards.
- In the first Amazon Trail, the theme that plays when you're going down the river is in 5/4 time.
- Lampshaded in Armored Core: Last raven, which features a track called 5 point five, which is in 5.5/4.
- In Atelier Totori: The Adventurer of Arland, the battle theme "Yellow Zone" starts off in 7/4, then one section at 6/4, then it goes into (4+3+3+2)/4 for a bit. The rest of the song is 4/4.
- The battle theme of Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea, Stella Part 2, starts off at (4+5+4+3)/4 twice before going into common time.
- Mana Khemia has Hallucinate Bell, which is in 5/4 (and a bit of 15/8).
- Main theme in Balatro has 7/4 time signature.
- BEMANI:
- "Holic" from beatmania IIDX is in 7/8 time, and later changes to 7/4 and then 4/4.
- 100% minimoo-G is even worse. Songs in IIDX usually have the proper markings for measures, even if they're in a non-4/4 time signature or change signature at some point. If the song has a time signature, it's so alien that the song has no measure markings at all.
- The primary part of "mind the gap" is in 14/16 (7+7).
- 'PentaCube Gt.' is in 5/4, as its title suggests. As is "penta-mode" from pop'n music.
- "Burning Heat!" is mostly in 12/8 time, with the occasional single measure of 18/8.
- Several boss songs from GuitarFreaks and drummania have unusual time signatures to bump up their difficulty on Drums. For example, "DAY DREAM" is mostly in 17/16.
- Vanessa from IIDX 14 GOLD, mostly unusual in that the note chart is timed to 1/3 note beats on a 4/4 scale, instead of the more common 1/4 note beats.
- "Izanami no nageki" from IIDX 24 SINOBUZ is in 7/4.
- "EVANESCENT" from IIDX 26 Rootage has part of its intro in 7/8, and a pair of measures in 3+4/4 followed by a measure in 5/4.
- While most of the Bravely Default final boss song is in 4/4, it has some portions in 7/8.
- The Wasp battle theme from Bug Fables constantly alternates between 11/16 (4+4+3) and 3/4, safe the section near the end switching to 4/4.
- The first level theme from the 1989 Namco shmup Burning Force alternates between 7/8 and 4/4 time, much like the beach theme from Plok. Take a listen.
- Castlevania:
- "Subterranean Hell" from Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow starts out in 7/4 and then alternates between 6/4 and 5/4.
- "Final Toccata" (the baroque-tacular semi-theme-music for the inverted castle, and one of the first appearances of what would become Dracula's signature chord progression) from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is in 5/4 time.
- The Golden Ridge theme from Celeste has a polyrhythm consisting of a 20/16 synthesizer ostinato and a 12/8 piano arpeggio over 4/4 percussion until the last third, where the synth switches to 24/16 and the piano to common time.
- The standard boss theme of Cho Ren Sha 68k, "Chips!!", is mostly in 5/8 with an occasional measure of 7/8, then briefly becomes basic 4/4 before looping.
- The Chrono Cross soundtrack frequently experiments in polyrhythm and unusual meter - "Snakebone Manor" is in 5/8 and 7/8 time, for instance. The most cited example is the game's love-it-or-hate-it main battle theme, "Hurricane" - a polyrhythm of 9/8, 3/4, 4/4, and 5/4 times.
- In Chrono Trigger, the "Sealed Door" (the music that plays when you use a MacGuffin on certain areas) starts in 5/4 time before going to 6/8. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this was one of the songs in the game written by Nobuo Uematsu (see the Final Fantasy section above for more examples), who really likes this trope.
- The final boss theme from Contra jumps gleefully from 11/8 to 5/8 to 6/8 to 4/4 to 7/8 and back to 11/8. It's like Dream Theater had a pop at videogame music.
- The music from level 19 of Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex, Coral Canyon, is in 5/4.
- The first Disney's Magical Quest game has the theme for Stage 4, Pete's Peak, which is mostly in 6/4 (and fairly syncopated 6/4 at that), with the intro in 3/4 and the final section in 4/4.
- The first final boss theme of the second game is partly in 7/4.
- The famous "Moon" theme from DuckTales starts off in 15/16 until the main song gets going, at which point it gains one more sixteenth note beat and turns into straight 4/4. Cover Versions tend to miss this and transcribe the intro as 4/4, but the DuckTales Remastered rendition notably gets it right.
- Factory Town's main theme is in 7/8.
- The Final Dreadnought 2 boss theme from Freedom Planet is in 5/4.
- A few examples from Etrian Odyssey; these Uncommon Time tracks usually indicate that you're in deeeeeep trouble:
- Their mainstay Superboss theme, Scatter About, mixes 5/4 and 6/8.
- Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan: Library of Puppets, the stratum theme in Echoing Library, uses 7/8 signature time.
- Etrian Odyssey V: Beyond the Myth: The battle theme of the Empyreal Bridge uses 5/4.
- Off the Rails in Fashion Police Squad is in 10/4.
- A common occurrence in the Final Fantasy series:
- The boss battle theme from Final Fantasy II has a lot of segments using patterns of seven measures, though it has some with simple patterns of 4/4. When the Black Mages adapted it, it ended up using 14/4 (6+3+5/4) instead.
- Final Fantasy IV has "The Red Wings", part of which is in 7/4.
- The music that plays as Cecil becomes a Paladin on Mt. Ordeals is in 5/4.
- Special mention to "Golbez, Clad in Dark", which is not in 13/4 and doesn't qualify for this trope, but does have an irregular phrasing of 3/4, 3/4, 4/4 and 3/4.
- Nobuo Uematsu used several unconventional rhythms in Final Fantasy VI's music:
- The standard boss theme "The Decisive Battle" employs a great deal of the 3+3+2 "tresillo" rhythm, as does the major battle theme "Battle to the Death". Both are great tension-building rhythms, and make for good listening even when you hear the things many times and often for multiple iterations in a single fight.
- The Esper theme, "Esper World", is 7/8.
- The fourth (and final) movement of the final boss theme, "Dancing Mad", is a remix of Kefka's Leitmotif that uses 4/4, 3/4, 4/8, 3/8, and 7/8 time. The chaotic feeling it creates fits Kefka very well.
- While most of "One-Winged Angel" from Final Fantasy VII is in 4/4, the transition between the intro and the main body of the song has a few measures in 7/8. It's especially notable in the Advent Children version because the time signature shift is punctuated by the sudden entry of electric guitars and percussion, making the section the musical equivalent of a boot to the head.
- Additionally, "Cinco de Chocobo" is in 5/4, swung.
- "Who Am I" consists of three measures of 6/8 followed by one measure of 5/8. This is part of what contributes to the unsettling nature of the piece.
- Final Fantasy VIII used 5/4 time for "Don't Be Afraid", its normal combat music. The boss music "Force Your Way", by contrast, is mostly in 4/4 but has a bar in 5/4 and one in 6/4.
- Final Fantasy IX has "Run!" which plays whenever the party must escape a place within a time limit. It has three bars of 5/4 + two of 6/8 for the main melody, and uses 4/4 + 7/8 in the mid parts. The frequency of the time changes combined with the overall speed of the song is positively frantic - the player knows he's got to get out now.
- "Ambush Attack" is mostly in 9/4, though it has a section in 4/4. This section ends with a measure in 2/4 just to make sure you're paying attention.
- The final battle theme is mostly in 4/4, but there are some extra beats thrown in here and there, so there are some measures in metre signatures like 5/4.
- Final Fantasy X had its share as well. For instance, in the tune "Decisive Battle", the time signature shifts around like crazy. There are long sections in common time signatures like 3/4 and 4/4, but when they start changing every couple bars and throwing in 2/4 and 6/4, things get a little complicated. One section even has (4+4+6+4+4+6+4)/4!
- "A Contest of Aeons" is in 5/4. "Seymour Battle" uses a few bars of 7/4, though it’s mostly in 4/4.
- While most of Final Fantasy XIII's boss theme, Saber's Edge, is 3/4, there are also sections in 5/4.
- The Chaos, the first boss of Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII is in 11/8 time normally, but then when the boss is staggered the song shifts to 12/8 time signature.
- In Final Fantasy Tactics, Trisection starts in 12/8, moves to 5/8, alternates between 7/8 and 5/8 a couple of times, goes back to 12/8 for a bar of percussion only, returns to 5/8, does another bar of 12/8 percussion, then loops.
- The Airship theme from Final Fantasy Tactics A2 is in 10/8.
- The Lynari Desert stage from Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles plays in 7/8, then 9/8, then 7/8, then 11/7 and even 14/8.
- The home menu theme for Fire Emblem Heroes, "Gear Up For...", is in 7/4.
- The songs of Friday Night Funkin' are all in 4/4, with one exception: "Monster", the last chart of Week 2. Featuring a constantly shifting tempo, its time signature goes from 4/4, to 7/4, back to 4/4, then to 7/8, 5/8, back to 7/8, 5/4, and then finally settling once again in 4/4. It fits the ghoulish nature of the Lemon Monster very well.
- The Tricky Mod continues the trend with the appropriately maddening third song, "Hellclown". Nearly four minutes long, this brutal piece shifts between 5/4, 7/4, 4/4, 7/4, 9/4, 5/4, and 7/4, perfect for an improbable battle against an absolutely furious Tricky.
G-M
- "Beyond the Galaxy" from Galaxy Force II is partially in 7/8.
- The song for the second stage of the "Pirates" minigame in Game & Wario is in 5/4. The final stage's track is mostly 4/4, but briefly switches to 5/4 near the end.
- The Golden Sun series is rife with pieces that have uncommon time, but the most notable ones are the final boss pieces: Fusion Dragon and Doom Dragon. Fusion Dragon starts off with two measures of 4/4 before going into four measures of 7/8, followed by two measures of 9/8, and then one measure of 23/16. It settles into 4/4 for a little while before jumping into 7/16 until the repeat. Doom Dragon starts out with four measures of 5/8, one of 3/4, one of 7/8, four of 5/8, one of 6/8, one of 8/8, one of 3/4, then one of 7/8, four of 5/8, one of 6/8, two of 8/8, three of 5/4, five of 6/4, four of 5/8, one of 9/4, then ten of 5/4 before it repeats the whole thing again
- In the SNES version of Gradius III, the final stage theme, "Uncharted Territory", has its intro in 25/16 (or 5/4 divided into quintuplets), and main melody in 20/16.
- "Attack of a Flash" from Grandia 3 is mostly in 4/4 with frequent bars of 7/8.
- The middle eight in the Gran Turismo 5 version of "Moon Over the Castle" is in (3+4+3+4.5)/4.
- Groove Coaster:
- COSIO's "Got" series of boss tracks, which can basically be summed up as "common time signatures and consistant meter are boring, I do what I want!" Fortunately, some blog posts explain these tracks' renegade rhythms:
- "Marry me, Nightmare" also necessitates thorough analysis to figure out what time signature it even is at any given point, though it does manage to remain at 4/4 until the end beginning about halfway through the track.
- Guitar Hero inevitably borrows many of the above music examples, with some twists for engine limitations and simplicity. Specifically, it can't handle anything other than x/4; anything that needs to be charted at /8 (or such) or with a non-integral upper has its BPM adjusted accordingly.
- So Tool's "Schism", with sections allegedly in 6.5/8, is charted at alternating 5/4 and 7/4 at 215(ish) BPM before dropping to 107 BPM for the 5/4 and 4/4 bridge sections... with momentary 3/4 measures at 208 BPM that should really be 6/8. (It's supposed to be around the 105 BPM mark all the way through. The reason the bridge feels so much slower in game than the rest of the song is because it is.)
- Metallica's "Master Of Puppets" is typically 210 BPM 4/4, with the "mystery bar" charted as 5/4 with a leap to 380 BPM to approximate the 21/32 it works out at. (Actual 5/8 would be charted there as 420 BPM.)
- This also explains oddities like the infamous sequence in Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze (Live)", which has been happily pootling along at 120 BPM 4/4 until the second solo - where there's a measure of 2/4 followed by an absurd 512 BPM measure of 7/4, suggesting they should really be combined into something like 15/16.
- The long notes under Bruce Dickinson's scream in "Number Of The Beast" see some really weird stuff. The intro is alternating 4/4 and 6/4 at about 198 BPM, but suddenly there's 397 BPM 3/4 followed by 214 BPM 11/4.
- Fall Of Troy's "F.C.P.R.E.M.I.X.", described above as alternating 6/4 and 9/8 in the bridge, is instead rounded out to solid 3/4, with three measures at 170 BPM followed by one at 347 BPM. The 6/4 therefore becomes 3+3/4, and the 9/8 is split into a 3/4 followed by a 3/8. Makes the end of the bridge feel more frantic, if nothing else.
- Soundgarden's "Spoonman" is a mess, with sections that are supposed to be 7/4 charted as double BPM 4+4+4+2/4. (The Rock Band version makes it normal speed 4+3/4.)
- This all results in some weird side effects, most notably for Star Power. Star Power usage isn't based on time, but the number of measures - a full bar will last eight measures, regardless of how long those measures are (or are supposed to be). It may feel like it runs out faster than you'd think it should if they've used BPM doubling.
- In keeping with Gunpoint's Film Noir influences, the OST is mostly jazz. In particular, Cold Halls and Footfalls is in 7/8 throughout while its cover Stealth Crawls and Dance Halls switches up the time signature quite a bit.
- "Leonidas" from Halo 2 goes 2*(6/4 + 5/4) + 4/4 + 13/8 + 6/4 . The main theme of "Earth City is in 13/8, although the rest of the song is in a more conventional 6/8.
- Blizzard Entertainment's Mascot Fighter MOBA, Heroes of the Storm, has a number of songs in 5/4 meter, typically those played while the teams draft: Cursed Hollow, Dragon Shire, Towers of Doom. Additionally, when one team claims the eponymous Curse on Cursed Hollow, the music changes to another 5/4 track.
- "Ready to Shave" from Hypnospace Outlaw is an Affectionate Parody of prog rock by the Chowder Man. As to be expected from prog, it has an unusual and constantly-switching time signature. Most of the song alternates between 5/4 and 4/4, with brief segments in 7/4 and 3/4.
- In Iji's soundtrack, "Tor" uses 7/4, 10/4, and 5/4 time, while "Seven Four" is named after its 7/4 time signature.
- The Fortress of Solitude's theme from Injustice 2 runs entirely on 7/4 time.
- The Nippius level of Jazz Jackrabbit has several shifting time signatures in it.
- Kingdom Hearts, "Night of Fate" takes the cake by seeming to be in a duple meter (10/4), but actually being in compound: "1&a 2&a 3& 4&." This is also a good example of why numerically large timesigs are hard to read and understand; this song would be easier to play if it was rendered as two measures, one of 6/8 and one of 4/8.
- This isn't that unusual, complex, onalr massive a distribution of beats. A lot of songs notated as 5/4 are really in this, like the Mission Impossible theme. For instance...
- The Force in You (Riku's boss theme) from Chain of Memories.
- "Hollow Bastion" from the first game.
- "Extreme Encounters" from Birth by Sleep.
- This isn't that unusual, complex, onalr massive a distribution of beats. A lot of songs notated as 5/4 are really in this, like the Mission Impossible theme. For instance...
- The Kirby series has many examples of strange time signatures, and series-regular composer Jun Ishikawa seems especially fond of using them.
- Kirby Super Star has several examples:
- Meta Knight's battle theme is in 5/4, very similar to Ridley's theme from Super Metroid. According to Jun Ishikawa, this was a deliberate choice to drag himself away from his original prompt from Masahiro Sakurai, which was to write a rave track in the vein of Juliana's Toyko.
- The Milky Way Wishes world map theme is primarily in 7/8 with some 8/8 (4/4) to complete melodies, while the final part is in 7/4.
- "Meddlesome Marx"... oh, boy. The main song comes in at one measure of 13/8 (7 + 6), then one measure of 9/8 (7 + 2), then one measure of 6/8, then two measures of 5/8, then two measures of 6/8. It sounds like a carnival ride gone off the rails — it has a rhythm, but the rhythm is so demented and off-beat that it seems impenetrable — which aptly describes the boss in question.
- The Ruins theme from Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards is in 9/4.
- "Checkerboard Chase", also from Kirby 64, is in 5/8 (with a brief measure of 6/8 at the end of the loop).
- The Sphere Doomer battle theme from Kirby's Return to Dream Land is in 5/4. Its two remixes from the Magolor Epilogue, "VS Darpa-Dippa-Dupas" and "VS Flock of Doomers", add bars of 4/4 and even 9/4 for a more disorienting experience fit for Another Dimension.
- "Beautiful Prison" from Kirby: Triple Deluxe alternates between 5/4 and 6/4, with brief measures of 3/4 to round it out.
- "Access Ark" from Kirby: Planet Robobot is in 9/8.
- "Echo's Edge" from Kirby Star Allies is in 5/4.
- "The Wastes Where Life Began" from Kirby and the Forgotten Land is in 3/4 and 5/4 with some 2/4 interspersed.
- Kirby Super Star has several examples:
- The theme to the first stage from Klonoa: Door to Phantomile, "The Windmill Song", mostly alternates between 6/8 and 5/8, but has in the intro section (which is mostly in 6/8) one bar of 3/8 followed by three bars of 9/16 before switching back to 6/8.
- A couple of examples from Knights in the Nightmare— "Clash with the Dark King Zolgonark" is written in 5/4, while "Clash with the Fallen Angel Melissa" is written in half 7/8 and half 4/4.
- League of Legends features Ekko's character theme, which shifts between 6/4 and 5/4 at uncommon times, giving the impression of melodies suddenly skipping a beat before instantly restarting. Appropriate, considering he's "The Boy Who Shattered Time" who has this exact superpower in his arsenal.
- The theme from the Tetracyclic Towers (and a few cutscenes) in The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky is in 6/4, divided more or less as 4 and 2.
- Part of the final battle theme, "The Merciless Savior", is in 5/4.
- The theme for the Chapter 3 dungeon in Trails in the Sky the 3rd is also in 5/4 (mostly).
- The Legend of Zelda:
- From the original The Legend of Zelda, the final dungeon music could be considered to be made up of patterns of seven bars, or could be counted as 14/4 or something like that depending on how the rhythms are divided. The unusual rhythm (it feels like part of the piece is missing) further contributes to the unsettling nature of the music.
- From The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Ganon's battle theme starts off in 2/4 for two bars, before switching to 14/16. In the sequel, the track reappears with a 4/4 intro before launching into the 2/4 and 14/16 melody.
- From The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, we have Ganondorf's battle music. It starts out in 4/4, but only stays that way for four bars before switching to a complex pulse of 23/16 (13+10/16).
- "Fairy Flying", Navi's theme, has three sections: two in 13/8 and one in 5/8.
- The boss theme from The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask has several different time signatures. It starts with two bars in 5/4, then proceeds to a section in 7/4, two bars in 6/4, a section in 4/4, three bars in 11/8, one bar in 7/8, and then back to the 7/4 whereafter it repeats.
- "Great Bay Temple" has a polymetric version of this trope: The percussion plays in a steady 4/4 pulse, while two simultaneous organ vamps fade in and out. One vamp is in 3/16, the other is in 5/16.
- From The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, the music that plays during the scene in which Linder reports that Makar fell into the Forbidden Woods alternates between 7/8 and 5/8. The game's title theme is entirely in 9/8.
- There's a section of Ganondorf's battle theme where the time signature is 7/4 for a few bars before switching back to 4/4.
- Stagnox's Theme from The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks changes time signatures A LOT. It usually remains in 7/8, but switches to 3/4 and a few other time signatures as well.
- In The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, "Talo's Rescue" is in 7/4 but with one bar of 3/4 before the song repeats.
- Both versions of the Hyrule Castle music from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild start out in 5/4, have a section that keeps switching between 5/4 and 6/4 and also have a section entirely in 6/4.
- The Lost Woods music is nearly arhythmic, with a time signature that changes unpredictably by the measure. It never lets the listener get comfortable with it, making it fit the misty and mazelike Lost Woods wonderfully.
- The "Shrine Battle" music from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom alternates bars of 11/8 and 13/8 to start with, but it also contains some sections in 5/4, 7/4, alternating 5/4 and 7/4, 6/4, and 9/8.
- "Chomber" from Marathon is in 7/4 time, has a seven-letter title, and plays on the seventh level of the game.
- "Leela" could be counted as slow 10/4 or as five faster bars of 6/8.
- From the first release of the third-party mod Excalibur: Morgana's Revenge, "Future 108" is in 10/4 and "Morgana's Militia" is in 5/4.
- "Suicide Mission," one of the crown jewels of the Mass Effect 2 soundtrack, combines ethereal synths, Orchestral Bombing and Ominous Choral Chanting in a heavy, deliberate 7/4.
- The main theme of Meat Boy and Super Meat Boy is in 7/4 time, as is the world-select version in Super Meat Boy.
- Mega Man:
- The boss theme from Mega Man Zero 3, Scrapped Beat, is partly in 7/8 time.
- Crystal Snail's theme from Mega Man X2 switches between 13/8 and 6/8 time.
- Bubble Crab's stage from the same game is mostly 4/4, but begins with three bars of 6/4 time followed by one of 7/4.
- The Kombinat stage in Mega Man X7 has music in 5/4.
- Burn Rooster's stage from Mega Man X8 is in 5/4.
- The alert theme from Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake is in 7/8.
- The Metal Slug series seems to have made this into a composer in-joke. Most installments include a version of the song Steel Beast. No two versions share a time signature. (Except 2 and 3)
- Metroid:
- The Ridley battle theme is in 5/8, with short sections in 4/8 and 3/8.
- And the Mother Brain theme in Super Metroid is in 7/8.
- "Haggstrom" from Minecraft is played in 7/4.
- In Mother 3, you can rack up damage combos by tapping the attack button in time with the battle music's rhythm after your attack lands. While the majority of the battle tracks are in the standard 4/4 and 3/4 times and are simple enough to follow, this grows difficult later in the game, especially in tracks mostly reserved for bosses. For instance, "Strong One" is in 15/8 time (tapped out something like '1-2-3, 1-2, 1, 2, 3'), while its Masked Man variation skips half a beat via tempo fluctuations, effectively becoming 29/16 time. The songs "Fate" and "Serious" are considered the hardest to combo to (even more so than "Strong One" due to their American Sports cheer beat of "1, 2, 1-2-3, 1-2-3-4, 1, 2" which require precise hits to combo with.
- "Battle with Magus", written by Yasunori Mitsuda, has a segment which alternates between bars of 5/8 and 7/8.
- "Battle Theme #2" from MS Saga is mostly in 5/4 with some 4/4.
O-S
- Octopath Traveler has Stolen Dreams, Lost Light, played in towns that have fallen under oppressive rule. The track is so subtle and gloomy it can be difficult to even notice it's in 5/4.
- Ori and the Blind Forest has "Finding Sein" and "Dash Through Their Home (06:44)" in 5/4, and "The Crumbling Path" in 5/8.
- The beach theme from Plok, showing Tim Follin's progressive rock influences, starts out in 7/8, shifts to 4/4—with rhythmic ambiguity and one bar in 17/16—and then back to 7/8. Since the sound tracker for the SNES can't do time signature changes mid track, the song ends up with a time signature of 4.5/4. Also, "Akrillic" is mostly in 3/4, but has two bars in 13/8.
- The Pokémon composers like this trope to an extent that arguably rivals Uematsu's.
- Pokémon Gold and Silver
- The Unown radio broadcast consists of a quiet and regular hum with sporadic and abstract sound effects over it. Depending on your interpretation, either it's in 1/4 or it doesn't have a time signature at all.
- The first four bars of Gold and Silver's version of the Kanto Gym Leader theme are in 7/8; then it switches to Common.
- The Underwater theme of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire is mostly in 4/4 but also includes periodic bars of 7/8 and 9/8.
- The Eterna Forest theme of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl starts off with a piano intro in 11/8 before switching to 4/4.
- The Wonder Bridge theme of Pokémon Black and White jumps between time signatures, like 4/8, 7/8, and various permutations of 3/4.
- Pokémon X and Y
- The Lumiose City theme is all over the place: 4/4, 3/3, 7/4, and 7/8 are discernible at various points.
- The Victory Road theme is in 7/4.
- The Sycamore's Lab music is in 5/4.
- The Tower of Mastery music is part 5/4 and part 6/4.
- The Pokémon League music is no nicer: it's partially in 5/4 and Arceus knows what else.
- It's only the intro that's in a weird time signature, the rest is in 4/4.
- The Psychic Trainer encounter theme is in 10/4.
- Pokémon Colosseum and Pokémon XD
- The Phenac City theme has a few bars of 5/4 in the non-percussive sections.
- The Relic Forest theme is in part 7/4 and part 6/4.
- The main theme of XD opens with a couple measures of 9/4.
- Pokémon Mystery Dungeon
- The boss theme in Rescue Team is mostly in 6/4 but also includes 7/4.
- Hidden Land from Explorers is primarily in 6/4, with a bar of 5/4 followed by a bar of 7/4 followed by 6/4 again.
- Craggy Coast from Explorers is partially in 5/4 and partially in 12/8.
- "Event Theme 3" of Pokémon Conquest is in 7/8.
- Pokémon Scarlet and Violet:
- The East Province theme alternates between 5/4 and 6/4, except for the bridge, which is fully in 6/4.
- The Elite Four battle theme has occasional 5/4 time signature thrown in.
- Pokémon Gold and Silver
- Project Wingman features the track "Falling Skies," which has a recurring pattern of an emphatic measure of 4/4 followed by another measure of silence. This silent measure tends to be 5/4, leaving listeners looking around wondering where their music went. Later in the track it switches to following the 4/4 with 3/4, increasing the disorientation.
- Zeldrin Starport in Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal switches between 11/8 and Common Time along with some of David Bergeaud's other tracks in the game such as Planet Aridia.
- Norrin Radd's "Battaglia Dietro la Cascata A", featured Retro City Rampage, has a 11/8:6/4 polyrhythm. Better yet, his Anomaly album, a few of whose songs were also in RCR, is comprised entirely of pieces with irregular time signatures, polyrhythms, or both.
- Rhythm Doctor: "Super Battleworn Insomniac", the Stage 1 Night Shift boss music, starts at a frantic 8/8 before switching to 7/8 one-third of the way through.
- Rhythm Heaven usually deals with common time (4/4 and on occasion 3/4), but there are a few exceptions. Remix 3 in the DS installment is in 12/8 time, for example.
- Dreatnaut's theme from RuneScape is 5/8. However, that theme is very disorienting so it's easy to lose beat.
- In SNK's Samurai Shodown, the beginning of Earthquake's theme is in 15/8.
- In Hiroki Kikuta's soundtrack to Secret of Mana, the main boss battle theme, "Danger", bounces all over the place, while the game's third flight theme, "Premonition", is mostly in 5/4.
- The Cut Song "Life" from Silent Hill 3 is 7/8.
- "Vox Nerduli" from The Simpsons Hit & Run is in 7/8.
- The enemy encounter theme from the "Gunboat Graveyard" level of Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus is in 9/4.
- Sonic the Hedgehog:
- "Chaos 6 Battle" from Sonic Adventure is part 7/8 and part 4/4.
- "Fanfare for Dr. Eggman", which sounds more like a Final Fantasy battle theme than Sonic music, is in 7/4.
- "34°N, 12°E," the theme of Mad Space, one of Rouge's levels in Sonic Adventure 2, is in 7/8.
- The intro switches between time signatures as different characters are introduced: 12/4 for Sonic and Shadow, 11/4 for Tails and Eggman, and 10/4 for Knuckles and Rouge. The rest is in common.
- "Mr. Unsmiley," the theme of Sky Rail, one of Shadow's levels, is mostly in 4/4, but one section goes 9/4 + 10/4 + 9/4 + 14/4.
- The Mushroom Hill Zone (Act 1) theme in Sonic & Knuckles starts with 7/8 + 5/8 + 7/8 + 9/8 + 7/8 + 9/8 before switching to Common Time. This is kept in the Act 1 remix for the Nintendo 3DS version of Sonic Generations (though not the Act 2 remix).
- Evil Ending from Shadow the Hedgehog jumps between time signatures a lot.
- "Chaos 6 Battle" from Sonic Adventure is part 7/8 and part 4/4.
- Splatoon:
- "Don't Slip", one of Splatoon 2's multiplayer music tracks, is in 7/8, briefly switching to 4/4 during the chorus.
- None of the music from ω-3, an in-universe band whose music plays in Salmon Run and Big Run, is in common time, to add to the chaotic and disorienting feel of the modes:
- "Deluge Dirge", the main theme, is entirely in 7/8 time.
- "Fishing Frenzy" is in 31/16 time.
- Splatoon 3 adds Frothy Waters, which slowly rises from 10/8, to 11/8 to 12/8, all the way up to 25/8 before it starts juggling 5/8, 7/8, 6/8 and 10/8 before it loops.
- From Splatoon 2's Octo Expansion, "#16 salty" is in 5/4.
- StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void gets in on the action:
- "Valor My Shield" has frantic A sections in 7/8 combined with B sections stately 4/4.
- "Blades of Justice" shifts into 7/8 towards the end.
- "The Golden Armada" has A sections in a heavy 5/4 and Bs in 4/4.
- "Holding Up The Sky" starts out in an angry 7/8 and stays there.
- The boss theme "B" from Star Fox 64 is in 5/4.
- As is part of the asteroid belt/Venom orbit theme from the original Star Fox.
- Sagat's theme from Street Fighter II is in...11/4? There's no real way to break it down otherwise; the melody, the bass line, and the fill all have different sub-phrase patterns.
- The theme for the Labyrinth in Summon Night: Swordcraft Story is in 9/8, and the tournament theme both drops a beat in an early measure and has a later section in approximately 6/4.
- "Prophecy", from the same game. The time signature on this is really hard to figure out. It is 5/4 in the first part and 6/4 in the second part, but the drum and the strings are played in such way to throw you off really easily.
- In Super C (the NES version of Super Contra), The theme played in stages 4 and 7 is in primarily 7/8. It then changes to 6/8, then 4/4, and then finally one bar of 6/4.
- Super Ghouls 'n' Ghosts has the music for stage 5, the ice forest, which is in 5/4.
- Super Mario Bros.:
- The Factory theme in Super Mario RPG has a time signature of 13/8.
- The theme from Bowser's Castle in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga is in 7/8 time, except for the intro.
- The race results theme in Mario Kart 64 is in 11/8, or (2/4 + 3/8 + 2/4).
- Mario Kart 8's Wild Woods is in 5/4.
- In the first Mario Party game, the music that plays over the board results screen is in 7/4 (divided 4+3).
- The World 8 music from New Super Mario Bros. is mostly in 10/4, and the World 3 overworld music is in 8/4 (divided as 3+3+2 or 3+2+3).
- The Lethal Lava Land music in Super Mario 64 doesn't come close to fitting a single coherent time signature, though at times it follows 4/4 or 5/4 for a bit.
- From Super Mario Odyssey, the Lost Kingdom music, Forgotten Isle 2, is in 11/16 (4+3+2+2).
- The boss theme from Yoshi's Island DS is in 6/4.
- "Castle Bleck" from Super Paper Mario cycles through no less than five different time signaturesnote . Approriate, considering the nature of the castle.
- The French terrorists' theme in Syphon Filter: The Omega Strain is a 3*5/4 against 12/8 march.
T-Y
- Tales of Symphonia has one boss theme in 5/4 and another in 7/4.
- "Space Walk", the second stage theme from Thunder Force IV, is all over the place. Three measures of 7/8 followed by one measure of 6/8... and then a bridge in 4/4.
- Perhaps not surprisingly, quite a few commenters on YouTube videos of "Space Walk" have said it reminded them of Sagat's theme...
- Each level in Thumper uses a different time signature, and some of them get a bit out there, like 7/8 and 9/8.
- Touhou Project:
- Part of "Hartmann's Youkai Girl" is in 7/8. The rest is in Common Time.
- Similarly, the intro of "U.N. Owen Was Her?" is in 5/4, with the rest of the song played in common time.
- "Rural Makai City Esoterica" is in 11/4, constantly switching between (5+6)/4 and (6+5)/4.
- The iconic theme of Touhou itself, "Theme of Eastern Story", is in 11/4- three bars of 3/4 and a bar of 2/4.
- "Theme of Eastern Story" has been used at least once in every Touhou game, with varying time signatures!
- In Touhou Chireiden ~ Subterranean Animism, "Hellfire Mantle" alternates between 10/4 and 3/4. ZUN seems to be a fan of oddball time signatures.
- Like "Makai City", the ending theme to Touhou Eiyashou ~ Imperishable Night is in 17/8, switching between signatures of 9 and 8.
- "The Kappa Way as Said ~ One Way Accelerator," the fanmade theme for fanmade character Mitori (though it's written to sound like a ZUN song), is all over the place: 5/8, 6/8, and 3/4, including 5/8 and 7/8 polyrhythms.
- Transistor has multiple songs with odd time signatures, including "Gateless" (5/4) and "In Circles" (5/4 and 6/4).
- Most of the music in Twisted Metal: Black uses uncommon or mixed time signatures. Prison Passage uses 7/8, 5/8, and even 17/16 and 19/16. "Darkness Prevails"(the Freeway battle theme) is 5/4. Minion's theme rotatez between 7/4, 4/4, 7/8+5/8, and 3/4.
- The Scintillus Academy theme of Ultima Underworld II alternates between 5/4 and a chorus in 7/4.
- ULTRAKILL feature several themes that have unusual time signatures.
- The middle section of Dancer in Darknessnote is in 5/4 but the beginning section and the final area theme alternates between 10/4 and 5/4.
- He is the Light in My Darknessnote time signature is 7/4 during the first phase.
- Death Odysseynote switches to 5/4 midway through the song.
- Both Requiemnote and Panic Betrayernote switch between multiple time signatures. Aside from 3/4 and 4/4, it also has 5/4 and 7/4.
- Chaosnote has 5/4 and 7/4 sections with occasional half-beat thrown in.
- Pandemoniumnote starts in 7/8, goes to 4/4, then one measure of 6/4, then back to 4/4 for a spell, another measure of 6/4, and back to 7/8 for much longer, then a single measure of 9/8, then another stretch of 4/4, before finally concluding with four measures of 11/4.
- Uncanny X-Men on the NES has one song that is simply all over the place (just try to keep up with the bass line in the beginning!)
- Undertale does this with a few songs:
- "Here We Are" is 5/4.
- "Alphys" has parts in both 3/4 and 5/4.
- "She's Playing Piano" is 5/4 as well.
- "Your Best Nightmare" has an intro in 6/4, then reverts to standard 4/4 time once the drums kick in.
- In Vanquish, "Freight Train Battle 1" is in 7/4. The intro of "Crystal Viper Battle 1" is in 5/8.
- Wild Woody: Pre-organ part of the final boss theme has a changing time signature, often going into 7/8.
- The World of Warcraft raid Trial of the Crusader was often criticized for its unoriginality, but one of the main musical themes for it had an original time signature of 11/4.
- In ''Ys I & II:
- "Tower of the Shadow of Death" has a 17/16 section.
- Place of Reticent Lava (Segram), from Ys 7, is partly in 7/8.
Other
- All three versions of the Nintendo GameCube intro music are in 7/8. The animation is also timed to the beat. Each corner formed = 1 beat, and the logo is completed on the 7th.
- Motoi Sakuraba likes this a lot, which isn’t surprising given his roots in a Progressive Rock band. Fly Away in the Violet Sky is very conspicuously in 5/4, even to a non-musician, and good luck keeping track of all the time signature changes in the over ten-minute loop time of Highbrow. Unsurprisingly, Sakuraba also worked on Golden Sun, mentioned just above. He has also worked on Dark Souls, Valkyrie Profile, Star Ocean, Baten Kaitos, and quite a number of others.