The Wizard Of Oz: Beyond The Yellow Brick Road – A Second Look

@Avonej: I would add...

Richard Jacques: Mass Effect, numerous Sonic games (Sonic R and Sonic 3D Blast for Saturn, primarily), Jet Set Radio Future

Hideki Naganuma: Jet Set Radio, Jet Set Radio Future, Sonic Rush

Naofumi Hataya: Sonic CD, numerous other Sonic games

Tomoko Sasaki: NiGHTS into Dreams, RISTAR FUCK YEAH

Yuzo Koshiro: Streets of Rage, Y's (!!!), Actraiser, Etrian Odyssey

Akira Tsuchiya: The leader of Gust's sound team, largely responsible for Ar Tonelico I + II

Yoshitaka Hirota: Shadow Hearts (assisted on occasion by Yasunori Mitsuda and Kenji Ito)

Hiroki Kikuta: Seiken Densetsu II & III, Also founded Sacnoth, creator of Shadow Hearts.

Akira Yamaoka: Silent Hill, Bemani

Toshiyuki Kakuta AKA L.E.D. - Bemani, Zone of the Enders, Metal Gear Solid. His Denjin-K album is EPIC.

Shoji Meguro: The Persona series (minus 2), and most Shin Megami Tensei games to have come out in the past ten years.

Hell, most of Sonic Team's musicians and nearly all of Konami's in-house sound team belong on any respectable game music fan's list.

mintycrys is HOT for Bayonetta

@Archaotic: Kenji Ito truly is a god; too bad I've never played a lot of the Saga series so I haven't heard much of his more recent work. But this is one of my favorite video game themes of all time
[www.youtube.com]

beril

@koenn: I love when games have dedicated buttons for essentially useless actions. Like the fart button in the first xbox Oddworld game.

@Avonej: Thanks for the list! You'ved earned a bookmark and a follow (as for you too, Archaotic!).

I've known of Koji Kondo all through the years, so I don't know how I overlooked him, but come to think of it, I've also been a fan of Masato Nakamura, Jun Senoue, of course David Wise, for a while now. I have a few outstanding tracks from Hideaki & Kumatani (PSO1+2), Rayman, and a handful of other composer and tracks (most from the Brawl soundtrack).

Aside from Nakamura & Senoue, Kondo, Wise, and possibly Uematsu, I can't really (make an informed) guess as to who composes what I'm listening to without reading the credits. But again, I say thanks for giving me some people to look for!

I said it before in the last article about this game. Media Vision are solid, and often overlooked developers. The Wild Arms series is incredible, and silently innovated quite a bit back in the day. I look forward to playing this title in a big way.

I got this game when it came out in Japan and I liked it except the track ball movement, i would recommend this

djricekcn

Hell yes, more games need a dedicated "pet dog" button.

koenn

@MC Double Def DP: If you are interested in composers, I would check out these guys:

Christophe Heral ("Beyond Good and Evil", really good use of percussion and interesting use of vocals)

Daisuke Ishiwatari (does all the "Guilty Gear" songs, he gets repetitive after a while)

Yasunori Mitsuda (one of my favorite composers, his style is very varied. He did "Chrono Trigger" and "Chrono Cross")

David Wise (I only like him because of his "Donkey Kong Country" songs, but honestly, DKC1 and 2 had some pretty amazing music)

Noriko Matsueda, Takahito Eguchi (They did a couple of albums together. "Final Fantasy X-2" was one, and even though people seem to not like the game, the music is amazing)

Hitoshi Sakimoto (As mentioned by others. Even though I feel his style get repetitive pretty easily, his "Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2" soundtrack has some of my favorite songs)

Koji Kondo (I'm just going to guess you forgot to mention him. He does Mario and Zelda)

Phillipe Vachey (only for two of his soundtracks, "Little Big Planet" 1 and 2. 2 is outstanding though. I love every song in that soundtrack)

Norihiko Hibino ("Metal Gear Solid". Has a nice mix of techno with orchestra)

Kenji Yamamoto (did the "Metroid Prime" Soundtracks. The choir he uses in some songs sounds way too artificial, but apart from that, he has a very nice and unique style)

Yuka Tujiyoko ("Paper Mario" games. A very quirky and cute style)

Hideaki Kobayashi, Fumie Kumatani ("Phantasy Star Online" games. I really don't know how to describe their style... If you're trying to hear different types of video game music, I would recommend checking them out)

David Bergeaud (I was going to say he was one of the few American composers I like, but I checked and it looks like he's actually French. He did the "Ratchet and Clank" series)

Stéphane Bellanger, Didier Lord (I only know them from one soundtrack. They did "Rayman", which could possibly be my favorite soundtrack of all time)

Tsunku, Masami Yone (Did the "Rhythm Heaven" soundtrack. Tsunku is apparently big in the Japanese music world)

Tomohito Nishiura (Does a bunch of music for Level 5 Games, including "Rogue Galaxy" and the "Professor Layton" games)

Kenji Ito (A behemoth in the world of video game music. Did the "Saga" and "Mana" series)

Jun Senoue (Did most of the "Sonic" games. Including the new ones)

Go Shiina (Did the "Tales of Legendia" soundtrack. While the game definitely wasn't one of the best in the "Tales" series, the soundtrack is my favorite of all the "Tales" soundtracks)

And... that's all I got!

Avonej

@Mayor Wilkins: Essentially, any game he's written the soundtrack for has amazing battle music. The last boss music for the PS2 version of Romancing SaGa and "Battle #5" from SaGa Frontier are specific standouts in my mind.

It's not so much the DS that's gonna kill my hands soon, but the month of September most certainly will. Too many good games.

Booji-Boy

@Archaotic: I agree nothing surpasses FFT but I am a huge fan of Sakimoto's work on Odin Sphere, Valkyria Chronicles, and the anime Romeo X Juliet. Even his DS soundtracks for ASH, FFTA2 and Deltora Quest are better than the soundtrack for this Wizard of Oz game.

As for Naruke, while I really love her Wild Arms soundtracks, I would have to see how she does for another game soundtrack before getting too excited.

Sirusjr

@Char Aznable: This is one of my favorite video game songs ever. For this alone, Uematsu has earned my complete respect. Michiko Naruke, Michiru Yamane, and Motoi Sakuraba are some of my other favorites. Kenji Ito has great battle themes, but I feel that he suffers a bit when it comes to atmosphere. Yasunori Mitsuda is very good, too.

Char Aznable

@LordThayer:

Char Aznable

@Mayor Wilkins: You should check out the Romancing SaGa (PS2) sound track. He crafted like 7+ battle themes for that game and they are all different, and all awesome, ranging from the synth, prog-rock that Uematsu got famous on, to straight up dramatic, orchestral powerhouses.

I haven't really been into anything Uematsu has put out in a long time, and I feel like he has been surpassed by others, but the legacy he left behind is more than enough.

One of my favorites is Yasunori Mitsuda. He did Xenogears, and both Chrono games--among others--and Cross and Gears are two of my favorite soundtracks of all time, right up there with FFT, VII, VIII, Shadow of the Colossus, and Romancing Saga.

@Archaotic: A quick scan of my iTunes reveals that Kenji Ito did several tracks in Chocobo's Dungeon 2, a considerable portion of Culdcept Saga, and SaGa freaking Frontier. I see what you mean about battle themes. What else were you referring to battle-wise out of curiosity?

Mayor Wilkins

@Archaotic: Ah, Wild ARMs. I don't remember the music because I only played my bro's WA3 a few times before he got rid of it, so I guess I'll have to revisit it if I get the chance someday. Thanks for the info :-)

@Archaotic: I have no idea who any composers on are games, I'd rather just enjoy the game myslef

Among the other DS games I'll be getting next month.

September really is the month of the DS games.

@MC Double Def DP: Naruke's best known for the Wild ARMs games and the PS2 remake of the original WA. She also worked on Brawl, as you know. Generally, though, she is the Wild ARMs lady. She's got a really unique style, and she's one of my favorite non-Uematsu composers, alongside Shimomura and the GOD of battle music himself, Kenji Ito.

@GeluAnimus: meh. If they play on the wii/ds and hate stylus/waggle enough to nerd rage about it in the comments of every story about games that make full use of them, then they're probably playing on the wrong consoles.

Somewhere on the internet, there's probably a flow chart for these people.

lostmongoose

@Archaotic: What are some other games I might know that mainly Michiko composed for? I really loved her songs on Super Smash Bros. Brawl and would like to find more by her. Aside from Hideki Naganuma, Nobuo Uematsu, Yoko Shimomura, and Motoi Sakuraba, I'm not really in the know when it comes to game composers, but I'd like to change that.

@Sirusjr: I'm not a huge Sakimoto fan myself. He hasn't ever made a score that surpasses Final Fantasy Tactics, honestly...and he's really no good at battle themes.

He's great at more atmospheric stuff though. Thanks for the update, though. Naruke only doing one song for this one does seem like she's focusing more on another project...I'd love another fully Naruke-composed Wild ARMs. The last few games haven't been the same without her.

@Archaotic: Michiko Naruke only did the theme song. Everything else was composed by Hitoshi Sakimoto and his crew at Basiscape. I am personally not a very big fan of the soundtrack despite being a huge fan of Sakimoto in general. The battle system also looks far too slow and boring.

Sirusjr

Media Vision made this? Huh. No wonder Michiko Naruke composed for it.

I wonder if it's them working on the PS3 Wild ARMs or another developer...hm.

I agree that DS games should utilize the touch screen as best it can, but using a trackball for movement (especially on a touch screen) sounds kind of iffy for me.

It reminds me of those Golden Tee arcade games with the track ball to swing your golf club with. Only more like using a pencil to roll the ball instead of your palm.

Mikolai

Stylis, D-Pad, whatevs.

I like Oz. I'll play it.
(Check out Eric Shanower's oldish graphic novels. Beautiful work.)

aubreyAubrey

Pure stylus dexterity eh? I love that.

Too bad being able to choose between this "ball" and pad is impossible, sorry for the stylus and waggle haters

GeluAnimus