Hitoshi Sakimoto

Hitoshi Sakimoto (崎元 仁) is a Japanese composer and sound producer. He is best known for scoring the video games Final Fantasy Tactics and Final Fantasy XII, though he has composed soundtracks for over 80 other games. Sakimoto first played music and video games in elementary school and began composing music professionally in 1988. He worked at the video game company Square from 1997 to 2002, leaving in order to found the music and sound production company Basiscape.

Early life
Sakimoto was born on February 26, 1969, in Tokyo, Japan. He began developing an interest in music beginning in elementary school, when he taught himself to play the piano and electronic organ and participated in some brass and rock bands. A fan of video games, he began creating his own games in junior high school with some friends. While in his senior high school years, Sakimoto wrote for the computer magazine Oh!FM and compiled data about pieces of music he liked, becoming a self-professed "computer, games, and music geek".

Sakimoto started composing for games when he was 16, and was paid to both create the music and the program to play it for several games. Composing for these games was the first time he had ever composed music for any instrument. His debut as a professional gaming composer came in 1988, when he and his friend Masaharu Iwata, whom he has worked with on numerous later titles, scored the shooter game Revolter, published by ASCGroup for the NEC PC-8801. Sakimoto also created the synthesizer driver "Terpsichorean" to enhance the sound quality of the game's music; the synthesizer driver has been implemented into many games throughout the Japanese game market in the early 1990s. Despite Revolter's success, he continued with his previous goal to become a video game programmer rather than a composer; however, his friends and colleagues encouraged him to continue composing game music. The recognition he gained within the gaming industry jump-started his career.

Career
After Revolter, Sakimoto's music and synthesizer driver earned him immediate recognition in the industry, resulting in him being asked to score several PC-9801 and Mega Drive games such as Starship Rendezvous and Gauntlet IV, as well as use his driver both in the scores he wrote and for other games. Between 1990 and 1992, Sakimoto worked on over 20 different video games for several different companies such as Toshiba EMI, Artec, and Data East. It was during this time that he composed his first solo score in 1990 for Bubble Ghost.

Sakimoto's first encounter with mainstream success in Japan came about in 1993 when he composed Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen. The game was directed by Yasumi Matsuno, and since the release of the title, he has chosen Sakimoto as a regular for his development team at Quest and later Square. Sakimoto also worked on 14 other titles that year, including Shin Megami Tensei and Alien vs. Predator. Over the next few years, he would go on to compose for or work on over 40 more titles such as Tactics Ogre. In 1997, Sakimoto joined Square and composed the score for Final Fantasy Tactics, which made him internationally famous, and was the score he was best known for outside Japan until at least 2006. Although he worked on a handful of titles by other companies over the next few years, his next work for Square did not come until 2000, with the successful Vagrant Story. It was his last score as an employee of Square; although he went on to first compose Breath of Fire V and Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis for Capcom and Quest, after a couple of years of planning he resigned from Square to form his own music production company, Basiscape, in October 2002.

Basiscape
Basiscape is a music and sound production studio founded by Sakimoto in 2002. The company has contributed to video games, anime, and films. Sakimoto says that he left Square to found the company because he wanted more freedom in choosing his projects. At its founding, it had only three members: Sakimoto, Iwata, and Manabu Namiki. Through Basiscape, Sakimoto continued to compose for several different companies, including Square Enix. The company expanded in the mid-2000s with the addition of Mitsuhiro Kaneda, Kimihiro Abe, Noriyuki Kamikura, Yoshimi Kudo, and Azusa Chiba. Members of the company are free to procure personal work as well as collaborate with other members on projects. The company launched a record label in 2009.

Other projects
Sakimoto has also been involved in non-gaming projects during his career. He contributed one track each to the albums Ten Plants (1998) and 2197 (1999), which feature music from various well-known artists. Sakimoto collaborated with singer Lia in 2005 to create the music for the album Colors of Life. He composed the music for two anime series; Romeo x Juliet (2007) and The Tower of Druaga: The Aegis of Uruk (2008); as well as the original video animation (OVA) Legend of Phoenix ~Layla Hamilton Monogatari~ in 2005.

Performances
Sakimoto has made numerous appearances at video game concerts that have performed his compositions. He, along with Yoko Shimomura and Michael Salvatori, were special guests at a July 2006 Play! A Video Game Symphony event at the Orchestra Hall in Detroit. He has developed a strong relationship with the Australian-based Eminence Symphony Orchestra. Sakimoto and Yasunori Mitsuda made guest appearances at their Passion event in December 2006. In April 2007, he appeared at Eminence's A Night in Fantasia 2007: Symphonic Games Edition, which featured three of his compositions. Sakimoto and Mitsuda collaborated with Eminence in July the same year to create Destiny: Reunion, a concert held exclusively in Japan. Eminence released Passion (2006) and Destiny: Dreamer's Alliance (2007), two studio recorded albums that feature various compositions from the Passion and Destiny: Reunion concerts respectively. "Penelo's Theme" from Final Fantasy XII and a medley of pieces from Final Fantasy Tactics A2 were played at the Fantasy Comes Alive concert in Singapore in April 2010.

Musical style and influences
Sakimoto composes his music by playing the pieces "briefly on the piano", and then working on a computer for more detailed arrangements. The style of Sakimoto's compositions is mostly orchestral; he creates the orchestral sound by playing the music through a sequencer instead of using a real orchestra due to the high cost. When composing a soundtrack for a video game, Sakimoto first sits down with the director or producer of the game and works out what emotions they want the game to evoke in the player, and after making a demo for them, sets out to create music that fits that feeling. He claims that his style of composition does not change when he works on non-game works such as anime series, saying that only the tone of the pieces is different. He attributes any changes in his style over the years to his desire to constantly keep growing and learning new styles and techniques, saying that if you have not moved forward in your skill and style over time, "you've wasted your time".

He has stated that his biggest musical influences are "old techno and progressive rock" groups such as the Japanese synthpop group Yellow Magic Orchestra. When he was starting out in the field of music, he went under the pseudonym "YmoH.S", a reference to Yellow Magic Orchestra. He also cites the American jazz musician Chick Corea as a major influence. While creating the music for Final Fantasy XII, however, his biggest musical inspiration was former regular series composer Nobuo Uematsu. Sakimoto enjoys listening to techno and jazz fusion in his spare time. While he sometimes gets inspiration while relaxing at home, Sakimoto feels that his best ideas come to him while he is at his studio concentrating. He cited Vagrant Story as one of his favorite soundtracks.