Tag Archives: Yoko Shimomura

Yoko Shimomura To Compose Her First Mainline Final Fantasy Game

Known for her work on Street Fighter II, the Super Mario RPG/Mario & Luigi series, and Kingdom Hearts, Yoko Shimomura will be at the helm composing music for the newly named Final Fantasy XV. Listening from early trailers of the game, if you have a keen ear for videogame music, you can probably tell that she was composing music for this game from the get go when it was still Final Fantasy Versus XIII. After the reveal of Versus XIII becoming FFXV, Yoko’s gotten a rather noteworthy promotion as far as Final Fantasy games go.

The main Final Fantasy games have been composed by the likes of Hitoshi Sakimoto (Final Fantasy XII, Odin Sphere), Masashi Hamauzu (Final Fantasy XIII, SaGa Frontier 2), and the legendary Nobuo Uematsu (Final Fantasy I-XI and XIV, The Last Story). Yoko Shimomura’s music, at least for the battle themes, is known for its marching drum beats and melodic violins. Other times, she’ll throw in that old-school flair for kicks. I covered her music her week of Composer’s Month, so go over there to get a feel for what her music sounds like.

Night-Time Listenings Wrap-Up: Week of 3/25/13

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Man, these Night-Time Listenings are getting erratic. But another week is passed and this time we got music. This week was all about town themes. We stopped by Violet City from Pokemon G/S/C. Next we got happy in Rose Town from Super Mario RPG. We chilled out to the town theme of Legend of Legaia. Reloaded our ARMs in Wild ARMs. And finally it was a sunny day in Chrono Trigger.

If you want to see the music as it goes up (and not wait every Saturday for these wrap-ups), remember to go to our Tumblr page and follow it. Music for Night-Time Listenings goes up every weekday at 10PM.

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Retro Weekends – Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars

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Super Mario RPG

During my Livejournal days, I remember talking about this game when this segment was still called Retro Gaming Weekends. However, the way it was brought up was very out of place, out of nowhere, and very last minute. While I mentioned Mario’s 25th anniversary in the initial article, it still feels like I didn’t give it proper thought. So I’m bringing it back here to give it the proper attention it deserves. But why am I giving it this much attention? Well, it holds a very special place in my gaming heart, and for nearly a decade has held the #1 spot in my Favorite Games of All Time list. While many games have come and gone — some being better admittedly than Super Mario RPG— they never had the level of impact this game had on my gaming habits and preferences. So sit back and get ready to take turns as on this Holiday Edition of Retro Weekends, we’ll look back at my #1 game of all time, Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars.

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Night-Time Listenings Wrap-Up: Week of 11/19/12

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This week was Thanksgiving, so all this week was about giving thanks to the things videogames did for us. We started the thank-you’s with The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Then we surfed from sewers in TMNT IV: Turtles in Time. Then we climbed The Shard in Mirror’s Edge. Then we searched for the crystals in Final Fantasy IV. And finally we paid a visit to the Mushroom Kingdom in Super Mario RPG.

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Night-Time Listenings Wrap-Up: Week of 8/20/12

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Continuing Composers’ Month, we dived into the music of Yoko Shimomura. We fought Ken in Street Fighter II. We talked to townsfolk in Super Mario RPG. We looked toward the Mana Tree in Legend of Mana. We fought some Heartless in Kingdom Hearts. And finally we fought on the plains of Bionis in Xenoblade Chronicles.

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I Stand On My Soapbox: You Wanted The Game, Now Follow Through

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I Stand On My Soapbox is a series of editorials that cover more specific topics in the games industry and community. These articles are a little more extreme than normal editorials published here, and could just degenerate to outright ranting. Have fun and enjoy the show!

Over the weekend, the Wii community, and JRPGs as a whole, have been celebrating the confirmation of Xenoblade finally making it to the U.S. I’ve been listening to the music all weekend and have added some songs to my daily playlist. I’ve seen the trailer a lot, saw some gameplay footage, and watched a couple of early cutscenes in the game. I’m ready to preorder this baby this week (even though I really hate Gamestop, it’s my only choice. And no I have no means to pre-order from Nintendo). But in the back of my mind, I fear that this game may not sell well in the U.S. But this time, it cannot happen. It mustn’t happen! Continue reading →

Xenoblade U.S. Trailer and new Title Design

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Not too long after the reveal of Xenoblade coming to the U.S., a new trailer was posted. The trailer reveals that the U.S. release will be based on the PAL version, meaning that there will be British voices a-plenty. One thing that has been changed is the title design, which now has “Chronicles” in smaller font and under a line (ignore the IGN thumbnail). I actually like this new design as it’s less busy than the PAL version and downplays the “Chronicles” part of the title (something that many gamers saw as an unnecessary subtitle). You’ll also notice many of the songs that are in the game that are really stunning. I’ve been listening to some of the music all weekend, and it’s really good! Yoko Shimomura (Kingdom Hearts, Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story) and Yasunori Mitsuda (Chrono series, Soma Bringer) are the composers for this game, so you know this is going to be an amazing soundtrack. Xenoblade is set for release in April 2012.

Review: Radiant Historia

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Radiant Historia is Atlus’ latest role-playing game for the Nintendo DS. This time traveling adventure about the world’s grim future, a raging war for power, and the journey to set history on its true path, takes from the RPGs of the past and puts a new spin on them. The result is a deeply engaging story with fun and creative gameplay that may prove to stand the test of time.

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