Summary
Yoko Shimomura is one of the most prolific and beloved music composers in all of video game history, so much so thatshe was awarded the BAFTA’s Fellowshipfor her contributions to video game music. Shimomura has most often composed music for Square Enix games, but she has a few other notable contributions elsewhere as well.
Her most famous works are for the Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy series, with her music being some of the most well-known tracks from video games ever. These are the best games with music composed by Shimomura so you’re able to appreciate her talent, skill, and legacy.
Developed by Atlus for the Nintendo DS, Radiant Historia is an RPG with a heavy focus on time travel, with the number of timelines you explore in the story affecting the ending you receive. Radiant Historia was Shimomura’s first time working with Atlus and she composed the entirety of the game’s soundtrack by herself, totalling 25 tracks.
Shimomura alsodiscussed in an interviewthat it was her idea for the game’s theme song, Historia, to have vocals, and she personally reached out to Haruka Shimotsuki to be the vocalist. Radiant Historia’s soundtrack is beautiful and some of Shimomura’s most underrated work.
Mario & Luigi is a spin-off RPG series starring, as you might have guessed from the title, Mario and Luigi. The series started on the Game Boy Advance with Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga and has several sequels, with Shimomura composing the music for almost all of them.
The only Mario & Luigi game that didn’t have Shimomura as the composer is the Switch entry, Brothership.
Shimomura did an excellent job with the soundtracks across the Mario & Luigi series, blending traditional RPG-style music with the fun and whimsy that the Mario series is known for.
The Mana series has had numerous composers across its many entries, but it was Yoko Shimomura who scored Legend of Mana. The fourth game in the series, it follows a hero’s quest to restore the Tree of Mana.
In an interview on the Square Enix website, Shimomura discussed how some of the inspiration for the game’s battle music came from wrestling theme songs: “One day, when I went to the office, there was a mountain of wrestler theme songs sat waiting on my desk. […] That day, I listened to those songs all day long.” Alongside this style of music, the Legend of Mana soundtrack also has beautiful piano sections with that classic Shimomura feel.
Shimomura also composed Heroes of Mana and wrote a song for Rise of Mana.
Live A Live was the beginning of Shimomura’s journey into making iconic music for RPGs. It was her first RPG project after joining Square in 1993, and it certainly left an impression. The game follows seven characters across different time periods, with the ending linking them all together.
Shimomura revealed thatwriting the music for the Medieval section of the game was the most difficult, but fellow legendary composer Nobuo Uematsu offered to listen to what she had. Considering Live A Live was Shimomura’s first big RPG composition, she made an extremely strong start.
It took a long time for Live A Live to come to the West. The 2022 remake was the first time the game was available outside of Japan.
Though nowadays people know Shimomura because of Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts, it was Parasite Eve that brought Shimomura and her music more into the public eye, especially in the West.
As the story of Parasite Eve begins at an opera,Shimomura said in an interview that she took inspiration from opera music for the soundtrack: “I used opera because it was a very important factor in the story. But opera’s not the kind of music that you can fight to, so I wanted to add a sort of rhythm. I wanted to create something new - not ambient, not techno.”
Parasite Eve’s soundtrack is distinct and different from what you’d expect from Shimomura’s work, as it usually has classical inspirations, but it just shows the depth and range of her skill.
Xenoblade Chronicles is one of the few RPGs that Shimomura didn’t compose alone; she composed the game’s main theme and several other songs, while leading the rest of the music team. The game follows a boy named Shulk who’s determined to take revenge on the Mechon who attacked his home.
Shimomura used the theme of humans fighting machineswhen composing the soundtrack. “The game’s structured around this clash between man and machine, so I’m putting in a lot of sounds I don’t normally use alongside electric guitars to give the music a confrontational nuance."
Xenoblade Chronicles’ soundtrack and Shimomura’s contributions to it are the cherry on top of a well-written narrative and fun gameplay.
Super Mario RPG: The Legend of the Seven Stars is widely regarded as one of the best spin-off Mario games and a great RPG in its own right. Part of its critical acclaim naturally comes from Shimomura’s brilliant soundtrack for the game.
Shimomura included arrangements from Nobuo Uematsu’s work on Final Fantasy 4, as well as Koji Kondo’s music from the original Super Mario Bros. game when composing the soundtrack, truly bridging the game between classic RPGs and Mario.
Fextralife Wiki
Shimomura wasthe lead composer for Final Fantasy 15, starting work on the soundtrack from the game’s inception in 2006, when it was still called Final Fantasy Versus 13. Though she’d worked with Square Enix a lot in the past, both as an employee and freelancer, it was Shimomura’s first time working on a Final Fantasy soundtrack.
At a conference for FF15 reported on by Famitsu, Shimomura discussed following on from his work on the series. “I have a lot of respect for Mr. Uematsu, and I believe that I am here today because I grew up listening to the music of FF. So I vaguely think that if I keep that feeling in mind while I create, I will be able to create FF music without having to think about how to follow the series' style.”
Years later, the Final Fantasy 15 soundtrack has become just as beloved as Final Fantasy soundtracks composed by Uematsu, thanks to Shimomura bringing her own original spin to the series.
Yoko Shimomura is synonymous with the Kingdom Hearts series, composing its iconic soundtrack. Dearly Beloved is one of the most famous tracks in all of gaming, and it’s all thanks to Shimomura.
Out of all the soundtracks she’s worked on, Shimomura says that Kingdom Hearts isthe “most special”to her. Every single soundtrack is the series excellent, with emotional tracks that only serve to emphasize key moments in the story and make you even more attached to the characters.
