Various articles
Found during web researches
The history of game music in Japan (Web resources)
When the first electronic games were sold, they only had rudimentary sound chips with which to produce music.
As the technology advanced, the quality of sound and music these game machines could produce increased dramatically.
The first game to take credit for its music was Zebius, also noteworthy for its deeply (at that time) constructed stories.
Though many games have had beautiful music to accompany their gameplay,
the most important games in the history of the video game music are Dragon Quest I-III.
Koichi Sugiyama, a composer whose name was largely unknown at that time,
got involved in the project out of the pure curiosity and proved that games can have serious soundtracks.
Until his involvement, music and sounds were often neglected in the development of video games and
programmers with little musical knowledge were forced to write the soundtracks as well.
Undaunted by technological limits, Sugiyama worked with only 8 part polyphony to create a soundtrack that would not tire the player despite hours and hours of gameplay.
Sugiyama's score, was equally a revolution for console gaming --
he took his cues from classical composers and Wagnerian opera, resulting in a soundtrack that was deeper, heavier,
and emotional than any other Famicom game, despite the hardware's strict limits. It's no accident that Sugiyama
continues to hold yearly orchestral performances of Dragon Quest music in Japan -- there are soundtracks that impress the player more, but only very few are better works of art than his work on this series.
What relationship Chrono Trigger/Xenosaga has with Koichi Sugiyama
(Written by Dragon God from SquareSound)
Excerpt from the Xenosaga OST Review: Take one of the most popular game music composers, Yasunori Mitsuda, buy him a plane ticket
to London, England, and set him up with that city�s own Philharmonic Orchestra and what do you get?
Easy, pure genius, one of the most epic scores ever written for a videogame,
or any musical score for that matter. It has it all, intensity, emotion, variety, power...
If we go back on Mitsuda�s history a bit, we see that he had one MAJOR influence,
when Mitsuda started with Square in 1992, he wasn�t a composer yet, he was a sound engineer,
his very first project being Hanjyuku Hero on the Super Famicom.
Well, if Mitsuda wasn�t composing, then who was?
Koichi Sugiyama, yes, THE Koichi Sugiyama was hired by Square as a guest composer,
and Mitsuda was to assist him in his works, needless to say,
the opportunity to work with a living legend must have been a very enriching experience for Mitsuda.
Since Sugiyama is known to have collaborated with the London Philharmonic in the past to
orchestrate his Dragon Quest scores, it has to be one of the influences that got Mitsuda
to choose to work with the London Philharmonic for Xenosaga.
Note: Later in 1993 Sugiyama even arranged the Half-Boiled Hero OST for Orchestra (Suite-like into 4 Scenes). See the above link for more info.
A few words from the Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu
(Based on an Interview by Eric Steffens from 1997: Nobuo Uematsu Interview)
Eric Steffens: Do you listen to other game music? Are there any game music composers, aside from those at Square, that you enjoy the work of? What about Koichi Sugiyama or Koji Kondo?
Nobuo Uematsu: Yes, sometimes. There are so many geniuses of this world. If you listen to the Ten Plants CD, you will know what I'm talking about.
Koichi Sugiyama is a big boss of game music. I think he was the first person to really pay attention to my works.
I really appreciate him for that. Koji Kondo is also a good man. I haven't seen him for years, but we exchange emails sometimes.
Koichi Sugiyama on the music of Dragon Quest VIII
(from early 2004)
"Right now the image of the music is beginning to take root in my mind.
I haven't gotten the actual call to begin songwriting yet,
but I'm beginning to build the image of what I imagine I'll write.
We are planning a rally of sorts with Yuji Horii over at Level-5's offices next week.
(laughs) Making music for Dragon Quest VIII is very fun work for me. I'll try my best to create good tunes."
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© G. Vallant 2004 | All rights reserved
Dragon Quest� is a product of SquareEnix
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