Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 00:08, 2 August 2023

Yuzo Koshiro古代 祐三
Koshiro in 2006
Background information
Born	(1967-12-12) December 12, 1967 (age 57) Hino, Tokyo, Japan
Genres	Chiptune rock house techno trance symphonic jazz
Occupations	Composer music programmer
Instruments	Synthesizer piano
Years active	1986–present
Website	Ancient Corp.

Yuzo Koshiro (古代 祐三, Koshiro Yūzō, born December 12, 1967) is a Japanese composer and sound programmer. He is often regarded as one of the most influential innovators in chiptune and video game music, producing music in a number of genres including rock, jazz, symphonic, and various electronic genres such as house, electro, techno, trance, and hip hop.

Koshiro and his sister Ayano founded the game development company Ancient in 1990, of which he remains the president. He has been cited as creating some of the most memorable game music of the 1980s and 1990s contributing for games such as Nihon Falcom's Dragon Slayer and Ys series, as well as Sega's The Revenge of Shinobi and Streets of Rage series. The soundtracks for the latter have been cited by some to be ahead of their time.

Biography

Early life

Koshiro was born in Tokyo on December 12, 1967. His mother, Tomo Koshiro, was a pianist. She taught him how to play the piano at the age of three, and by the age of five, he had a strong command of it. In 1975, he began taking music lessons from Joe Hisaishi and studied with him for three years. Everything Koshiro has learned after that has since been self-taught.

While he was still in high school during the early 1980s, Koshiro began composing music on the NEC PC-8801 as a hobby, including mockups of early arcade game music from Namco, Konami, and Sega. The sequencing skills and experience he gained from this would later be utilized in his early video game projects. The video games that influenced him most were The Tower of Druaga (1984), Space Harrier (1985), and Gradius (1985). The video game music soundtracks to these games inspired him to become a video game composer.

In a 1992 interview, Koshiro said that his favorite music genres are new wave, dance music, technopop, classical, and hard rock, and that his favorite Western bands are Van Halen and Soul II Soul.

Nihon Falcom (1986–1988)

Koshiro's first composing job was with Nihon Falcom in 1986 at the age of 18. Falcom used compositions from the PC-8801 demo tape he had sent them in their Dragon Slayer action role-playing game Xanadu Scenario II, for its opening theme and several dungeon levels. He also wrote the opening song in Romancia that same year. His compositions for these early games were influenced by arcade game music and Japanese bands such as The Alfee. He then produced the soundtrack to Dragon Slayer IV / Legacy of the Wizard (1987), which was influenced by the sounds of early Konami games. His most well-known Falcom works are his soundtracks for Sorcerian (1987) and the early Ys games, Ys I (1987) and Ys II (1988). These early music productions mainly featured rock and fusion music. The TurboGrafx-CD versions of the first three Ys games (from 1989 to 1991) are notable for their very early use of Red Book audio in video games. Music from the Ys games were also employed in the Ys anime.

All of these early soundtracks were produced using the FM synthesis sound chip of the PC-8801. Despite later advances in audio technology, Koshiro would continue to use older PC-8801 hardware to produce many of his later video game soundtracks, including the Streets of Rage and Etrian Odyssey soundtracks. His soundtracks for early Nihon Falcom games, such as the Dragon Slayer and Ys series, are widely regarded as some of the most influential role-playing video game scores.

Early freelance work (1988–1990)

Following his separation with Falcom, Koshiro became a freelancer, composing music for many other companies. His early freelance projects included the Sharp X68000 port of Bosconian, Bothtec's action role-playing game The Scheme (1988) for the PC-8801, and Enix's visual novel adventure game Misty Blue for the PC-9801 in 1990. The latter two soundtracks featured early Eurobeat music. His most notable freelance work was for Sega, where he composed music for the Shinobi series and the Streets of Rage series, as well as Quintet, where he composed the soundtracks to ActRaiser (1990) and ActRaiser 2 (1993).

His first freelance work for Sega was the soundtrack to The Revenge of Shinobi (1989), for which he produced house and "progressive, catchy, techno-style compositions" that fused electronic dance music with traditional Japanese music. His soundtrack for ActRaiser (1990), on the other hand, was mainly classical and orchestral. While working on ActRaiser, in order to get around the SNES's 64 KB memory limitation which limited the number of instruments that can be used and prevented the reloading of samples, Koshiro developed a sample loading system that worked with the ROM cartridge memory, swapping samples from the ROM data on the fly. This allowed him to "load parts of the music gradually as needed, and also change it quickly between stages or parts of a stage" which the "original system couldn't do it with its restrictions." A similar system was used by other companies for later SNES games such as Squaresoft's Seiken Densetsu 3 (1995) and Namco Tales Studio's Tales of Phantasia (1995).

Founding of Ancient Corp. (1990–1994)

In 1990, Koshiro helped found Ancient Corp., which contributed to the development of a number of games, such as the 8-bit version of Sonic the Hedgehog and Beyond Oasis. The company was also founded by his mother, Tomo Koshiro, while his sister Ayano Koshiro works at the company as an art/character/graphic designer and was also the art designer for the ActRaiser games. His sister Ayano has designed characters and graphics for several games Koshiro has worked on, including the Streets of Rage (Bare Knuckle in Japan) series, Ys, and ActRaiser.

While working with Ancient, he composed the soundtrack for the 8-bit version of Sonic the Hedgehog in 1991. He adapted several pieces of music from the original 16-bit version, while the rest of the soundtrack consisted of his own original music.

His soundtracks for the Streets of Rage series (known as Bare Knuckle in Japan) from 1991 to 1994 were composed using then outdated PC-8801 hardware alongside his own original audio programming language. According to Koshiro: "For Bare Knuckle I used the PC88 and an original programming language I developed myself. The original was called MML, Music Macro Language. It is based on NEC's BASIC program, but I modified it heavily. It was more a BASIC-style language at first, but I modified it to be something more like Assembly. I called it ‘Music Love'. I used it for all the Bare Knuckle games."

The soundtracks for Streets of Rage (1991) and Streets of Rage 2 (1992) were influenced by house, techno, hardcore techno, breakbeat, funk and ethnic music. He also attempted to reproduce the Roland TR-808 and TR-909 beats and Roland TB-303 synths using FM synthesis. The soundtrack for Streets of Rage 2 in particular is considered "revolutionary" and ahead of its time, for its "amazing blend of swaggering house synths, dirty" electro-funk and "trancey electronic textures that would feel as comfortable in a nightclub as a video game."

His CD soundtracks became best-sellers in Japan during the early 1990s. In 1993, Electronic Games listed the first two Streets of Rage games as having some of the best video game music soundtracks they "ever heard." They described Koshiro as "just about universally acknowledged as the most gifted composer currently working in the video game field."

For the soundtrack to Streets of Rage 3 (1994), he created a new composition method called the "Automated Composing System" to produce "fast-beat techno like jungle." It was the most advanced techno technique of the time, incorporating heavily randomized sequences. This resulted in innovative and experimental sounds generated automatically that, according to Koshiro, "you ordinarily never could imagine on your own." This method was very rare at the time, but has since become popular among techno and trance music producers to get "unexpected and odd sounds." The soundtrack also had elements of abstract, experimental, gabber, and trance music. The experimental electronic music was not very well received upon release, but has since been considered to be ahead of its time. According to Mean Machines, "ironically it pre-dated the 'trance' era that came a short while after release."

Koshiro was one of the first composers credited under his real name in a time when several other Japanese developers were credited under pen names.

Later career (1994–present)

Also in 1994, Koshiro co-composed a well known soundtrack for the Mega-CD version of Eye of the Beholder, a dungeon crawl role-playing video game ported over from the original by Japanese developer Opera House and published by Sega. That same year, his soundtrack for Beyond Oasis utilized a late romantic style of music, which he later also utilized for Legend of Oasis (1996), Merregnon (2004), and Warriors of the Lost Empire (2007).

He also composed the soundtrack for Sega's Shenmue (1999) alongside Takenobu Mitsuyoshi and a few others, with Koshiro contributing fifteen original compositions to the soundtrack. Three other staff members of Ancient also worked on Shenmue. He later composed the soundtracks for the Wangan Midnight series (2001 onwards) and Namco × Capcom (2005). These were the first projects where he wrote the lyrics along with the music. For the Wangan Midnight series in particular, his compositions were mostly trance music, a style he was previously unfamiliar with.

He composed the main theme of the French TV channel Nolife, which launched in 2007. The theme was released as part of the album Tamiuta in 2008. Some of Koshiro's latest work includes music for the Etrian Odyssey series, the Wangan Midnight series, and the 7th Dragon series. In 2018, Koshiro contributed one song to Nobuhiko Okamoto's album Braverthday. He was brought back to compose for Streets of Rage 4 in 2020, along with Kawashima and several others. The same year, he composed the theme song "Koroneraiser Inu-More!" for Hololive's virtual YouTuber Korone Inugami. Koshiro also created the opening and ending jingles for the YouTube channel Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games.

Works

Footnotes

Notes

1. "Main Theme" (The Legend of Zelda) and "Norfair" (Metroid)
2. Motoi Sakuraba, Masafumi Takada, Noriyuki Iwadare, Takahiro Nishi, and Yasunori Mitsuda
3. Hisayoshi Ogura, Motoaki Furukawa, Shinji Hosoe, and Hiroshi Kawaguchi
4. "Battle! (Trainer Battle)" (Pokémon X / Pokémon Y), "Wrath of the Reset Bomb" (Kid Icarus: Uprising), and "PAC-MAN" (Pac-Man)
5. Motoi Sakuraba, Michiru Yamane, Keiki Kobayashi, and Takeshi Yanagawa
6. "Now or Never!" (Splatoon), "Guile Stage" (Street Fighter II), "Psycho Soldier Theme" (Psycho Soldier), "Toys on a Tear" (Minecraft), "Opening-Bombing Mission" (Final Fantasy VII), and "Tiger! Tiger!" (Xenoblade Chronicles 2)

References

1. ^ Chris Greening & Don Kotowski (February 2011). "Yuzo Koshiro Interview: Innovator in Game Music and Sound Design". Game Music Online. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
2. ^ Davis, Jeff. "Interview with Yuzo Koshiro". Gaming Intelligence Agency. Archived from the original on October 7, 2011. Retrieved August 6, 2011.
3. ^ Horowitz, Ken (February 5, 2008). "Interview: Yuzo Koshiro". Sega-16. Archived from the original on September 21, 2008. Retrieved August 6, 2011.
4. Parish, Jeremy (June 19, 2017). "Yuzo Koshiro: Legendary game composer, family business owner". Polygon. Retrieved August 2, 2017.
5. Nintendo Power, Volumes 208–210. Nintendo Power. 2006. p. 102. Retrieved August 5, 2011. Yuzo Koshiro, the musician responsible for ActRaiser's amazing score, is arguably the greatest game-music composer of the 16-bit age. Equally comfortable composing classical or techno, Koshiro built up a faithful fan base by creating some of the most memorable game music of the late '80s and early '90s.
6. Barnholt, Ray (June 2012). "The Magic of FM Synth". 1UP.com. Archived from the original on January 24, 2013. Retrieved August 6, 2012.
7. ^ Santos, Wayne (December 2006). "Songs & Sounds In The 21st Century". GameAxis Unwired (40). Singapore Press Holdings: 39. ISSN 0219-872X. Retrieved August 5, 2011.
8. ^ McNeilly, Joe (April 19, 2010). "Game music of the day: Streets of Rage 2". GamesRadar. Retrieved July 28, 2012.
9. ^ Mustin. "Streets of Rage 2 Original Soundtrack (US): Review". Square Enix Music Online. Retrieved July 31, 2012.
10. ^ Szczepaniak, John. "Retro Japanese Computers: Gaming's Final Frontier". Hardcore Gaming 101. Retrieved March 29, 2011. Reprinted from Retro Gamer, 2009
11. "古代 祐三". Ancient.com (in Japanese). Archived from the original on February 25, 2011. Retrieved August 25, 2020.
12. ^ "TNL Developer Spotlight: Ancient". The Next Level. March 11, 2003. Retrieved May 12, 2011.
13. ^ Kikizo (October 14, 2005). "Yuzo Koshiro Interview". VideoGamesDaily.com. Retrieved August 6, 2011.
14. Interview with Yuzo Koshiro – Game Music on YouTube
15. GameFan, volume 1, issue 1 (October 1992), page 8
16. Kevin Gifford (June 3, 2010). "Xanadu Scenario II". MagWeasel.com. Archived from the original on October 16, 2020. Retrieved March 25, 2011.
17. Patrick Gann. "Falcom Special Box '90". RPGFan. Retrieved September 3, 2011.
18. "Yuzo Koshiro". AllGame. Archived from the original on January 1, 2014.
19. RocketBaby (October 1999). "Interview with Yuzo Koshiro". Square Enix Music Online. Retrieved August 8, 2011.
20. "Yuzo Koshiro – Bare Knuckle II". Discogs. January 21, 1993. Retrieved July 30, 2012.
21. "Interview: Streets of Rage Composer Yuzo Koshiro". Red Bull Music Academy Daily. September 25, 2014.
22. "Computer and Video Games - Issue 192 (1997-11)(EMAP Images)(GB)". November 1997.
23. "Electronic Games 1993-06". June 1993.
24. "Yuzo Koshiro / Motohiro Kawashima – Bare Knuckle III". Discogs. August 24, 1994. Retrieved August 1, 2012.
25. ^ "Streets of Rage 3 review – Sega Megadrive". Mean Machines. Retrieved August 1, 2012.
26. El compositor de Streets of Rage puso su nombre en los juegos porque se lo dijo su madre. Vandal, 12 March 2020
27. Barton, Matt (February 23, 2007). "Part 2: The Golden Age (1985–1993)". The History of Computer Role-Playing Games. Gamasutra. Archived from the original on March 30, 2009. Retrieved March 26, 2009.
28. Andrew Long. "Interview With Shenmue's Composer". RPGamer. Retrieved May 12, 2011.
29. Nolife TV Theme, released on the album Tamiuta
30. "Braverthday【豪華盤】" (in Japanese). Lantis. Retrieved August 22, 2022.
31. Hussain, Tamoor (July 17, 2019). "Streets Of Rage 4's Soundtrack Has Four Legendary Artists Including Yuzo Koshiro". GameSpot. Retrieved July 17, 2019.
32. Koshiro, Yuzo (October 1, 2020). "I'm proud to compose theme music for 'Koroneraiser Inu-More!' as a birthday gift! The music is reminiscent of Filmore from Actraiser as her request is recorded directly from real SFC. Check it out on her YouTube channel" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
33. "The opening and ending jingles for these videos were composed by none other than Yuzo Koshiro. I imagine you've heard them many times by now!". YouTube. Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games. June 8, 2023. Archived from the original on June 9, 2023. Retrieved June 9, 2023.
34. Crider, Michael. "47 New And Notable Android Games From The Last 2 Weeks (5/26/15 - 6/8/15)". Android Police. Retrieved December 6, 2018.
35. Whitehead, Thomas (July 8, 2016). "Gotta Protectors Looks Like an Amazing and Quirky Throwback to '80s Gaming". Nintendo Life. Retrieved December 6, 2018.
36. Kemps, Heidi. "7th Dragon III Code: VFD Review". GameSpot. Retrieved December 6, 2018.
37. "Cosmic Cavern 3671". Gamasutra. Retrieved October 14, 2018.
38. Farrell, Reilly (June 8, 2018). "RXN -Raijin- soundtrack coming this summer". Video Game Music Online. Retrieved October 14, 2018.
39. "Crystal of Re:union". Google Play. Retrieved October 23, 2019.
40. Romano, Sal (September 19, 2017). "A Certain Magical Virtual-On launches February 15 in Japan". Gematsu. Retrieved December 24, 2022.
41. Gallagher, Mathew (November 19, 2017). "Team of arrangers announced for Secret of Mana remake". Video Game Music Online. Retrieved November 21, 2017.
42. Romano, Sal (February 14, 2018). "Chrono Ma:Gia official website opened, animated trailer". Gematsu. Retrieved May 25, 2019.
43. Gallagher, Mathew (April 10, 2018). "Yuzo Koshiro returns for Etrian Odyssey X". Video Game Music Online. Retrieved April 13, 2018.
44. Sounders, Mike (November 7, 2018). "Guile's theme goes Music with anything, including Super Smash Bros. Ultimate". Destructoid. Retrieved December 6, 2018.
45. "コロンバスサークル、MD/MD互換機用ゲームカセット「16ビットリズムランド」数量限定発売決定". game.watch.impress.co.jp (in Japanese). December 10, 2018. Retrieved August 19, 2019.
46. McFerran, Damien (May 15, 2018). "Streets Of Rage Composer Yuzo Koshiro Is Contributing To 198X's Soundtrack". Nintendo Life. Retrieved May 17, 2018.
47. Hi-Bit Studios. "Music for the masses". Kickstarter.com. Retrieved July 18, 2019.
48. McWhertor, Michael (June 26, 2019). "Sega's SolSeraph looks like an ActRaiser spiritual successor". Polygon. Retrieved June 27, 2019.
49. Nelva, Giuseppe (April 5, 2019). "Arcalast by Suikoden Veterans Announced Music with Countdown Website". Twinfinite. Retrieved August 4, 2019.
50. McFerran, Damien (April 2, 2019). "Yuzo Koshiro Confirms He's Involved With Sega's Forthcoming Mega Drive Mini". Nintendo Life. Retrieved May 25, 2019.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
51. Reynolds, Ollie (March 22, 2022). "Gotta Protectors: Cart Of Darkness Coming To Switch, Physical Edition Confirmed". Nintendo Life. Retrieved March 22, 2022.
52. @1thetakeover (August 13, 2018). "A new version of The Takeover has hit Steam Early Access! What's New: - New music track by the legendary Yuzo Koshiro! - A new vertical roll move (much like in SoR3) - New voice samples for all characters! - Plenty of bug fixes!" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
53. "SOUND". rakugaki-kingdom.com (in Japanese). Retrieved May 19, 2020.
54. Komatsu, Mikikazu. "Japanese-Themed Project GIBIATE Unveils Its First Anime PV for Summer 2020". CrunchyRoll.com. Retrieved July 9, 2019.
55. Price, Edward (September 23, 2021). "Dual-genre remaster Actraiser Renaissance out today". PlayStation Blog. Retrieved September 25, 2021.
56. Gray, Kate (August 5, 2021). "Platinum's Retro Sequel 'Sol Cresta' Gets New Trailer". Nintendo Life. Retrieved August 6, 2021.
57. @sin_chronicle (April 26, 2022). #古代祐三 さんご制作の「Hikari・Kibou」 (Tweet) (in Japanese). Retrieved March 25, 2023 – via Twitter.
58. Hagues, Alana (June 7, 2022). "Yuzo Koshiro Confirms He's Back For Vital Mega Drive Mini 2 Music". Nintendo Life. Retrieved July 12, 2022.
59. Hagues, Alana (March 2, 2022). "Mina The Hollower's Soundtrack Gains Streets Of Rage Composer Yuzo Koshiro". Nintendo Life. Retrieved July 12, 2022.
60. @yuzokoshiro (June 16, 2023). "Happy to unveil the official title 'Earthion(アーシオン)' for our MD/Gen shmup currently in development. As the Earth gracefully rotates beneath our iconic logo on the title screen that pays homage to that era, immerse yourself in an unmatched level of coolness like never before" (Tweet). Retrieved June 16, 2023 – via Twitter.

External links

• Ancient Corp. website (in Japanese)
• Yuzo Koshiro on Twitter

• 1967 births
• Anime composers
• Electronic composers
• Japanese composers
• Japanese dance musicians
• Japanese electronic musicians
• Japanese male composers
• Japanese music arrangers
• Japanese techno musicians
• Japanese trance musicians
• Living people
• Musicians from Western Tokyo
• People from Hino, Tokyo
• Video game composers