You referred to his instrument use as limited without indicating you were talking exclusively about his works. With those works, I think it's evident that Sakimoto can manipulate a wide range of instrumentation beyond just orchestral instrumentation. As for Gradius V, it's worth is debatable and I find it the weakest of his shooter scores, but I wouldn't say it was atypical. As early as his first work, Revolter, those electro-acoustic leanings were evident.

One thing that does bear mention...A lot of the Sakimoto supporters seem to be saying that "the more you listen, the more you understand the music." I have two initial issues with this:

1. This is true of any composer and nearly any piece of music (even so-called "simple" melody-harmony-percussion pieces). Sakimoto is not special in this regard.
2. Normally for a track to be repeated even once by a listener, it has to appeal on a certain fundamental level. Maybe not so much melody...Maybe it'll be the bassline or the instrument usage. Basically, you have to like at least some of a track in order to WANT to replay it. I mean, "Tri-Section", "Electricity Supply Building" or "Apoplexy" didn't jive with me the first time I heard them, but I found at least something moderately appealing in them...all are quite enjoyable now. "Battle for Freedom"...Still sounds like 9 minutes of absolutely nothing and I've heard it 5 times. Same for "Limestone Quarry" and "Factory" (Vagrant Story).

Taisei: What site are you talking about? I've never heard anything about that. I find Sakimoto hate to be pretty normal in accordance with the full list of composers out there and given his output...He has his supporters as well. Frankly, I find him much more popular than he deserves to be.

Goldfish, 1)no it isn't true of any composer. Every composer has a different formula for creating music and therefore styles greatly differ from musician to musician. Whereas some composers provide music which sustains a mood or is successful at first glance, the fact may be that the music only holds that quality for that very initial phase without providing food for thought later on. I find Sakuraba to be one such musician. That is, the sense of discovery in exploring the music is very limited beyond the first playing. It doesn't make Sakimoto 'special' to create music that gets better with analyzation, it does make him unique and off the beaten path, which in my mind at least, sets him apart from various other musicians who are more widely accepted.
2)You partially proved my point. Did you not enjoy these pieces considerably more after spending more time with them?

You seem to have missed the point...I said some of his pieces had enough to them to make me want to replay them. Those listed were some of them and thus, I did end up enjoying them more. The ones listed AFTER them, however, haven't convinced me they're worth a second or third go-around and remain as unappealing as they did the first time. In that sense, Sakimoto is no different from any other composer, band or musician out there. Spending more time listening to his material is not going to make the listener enjoy or appreciate it more if one does not initially find it at least moderately appealing.

My, this thread reminded me of earlier thread of Sakuraba. Just like the thread starter, I feel the composer just doesnt get my taste, in contrast how many people (might) praise him for albums he composed.

Anyway, I am actually fair admirer of Sakimoto's works, especially the Final Fantasy Tactics and Ogre Series. I havent listened much of his earlier works, but I think Sakimoto has distinguished style of neo-classical, and somehow, has atmosphere of celtic and jazz. I love his works especially when he's using woodwind instrument and harp, which is necessary to build mediaval atmosphere.

But I dont like some of his works, for example is Breath of Fire V. I petrified when realizing how Sakimoto composed in different style, and using a lot of dissonants (CMIW) in this album. I only like one track, and eventually I never bothered to listen to the rest anymore. For FFXII soundtrack, I wouldnt say it's really good album. I personally think it has too much ambient music and some really few melodious tracks. But some music are just really good.

I wouldnt dare to label him terrible composer. It's all return to your subjectivity and taste toward VGM composer. I, for example, worshipping Sugiyama and Haneda, but dislike Sakuraba and at the moment still trying to understand music of Yuko Tsujiyoko (Fire Emblem). There is nothing wrong with it, perhaps if you listen a lot of his works, you will eventually appreciate him more.

Also, if you think Sakimoto mediocre, try to listen Tsujiyoko's works, which sounds much like robotic music. Both composers composed music for mediaval-setting game. Sakimoto produced Tactics Ogre+Ogre Battle with mixed atmosphere of mediaval-classical music that are memorable, while Tsujiyoko works sound like "just a BGM".

Its unfair to assume that any given person is going to judge a piece of music only according to a very sketchy initial impression. If I had said, "Oh ya know, I don't really like Prokofiev's Toccata. It sounds too strange! I have heard it once and I think its terrible, so I guess I won't listen to it ever again." Then I would be a great fool and overconfident in my abilities to analyze something properly in due fashion. Music, to me, is a journey.
Certain pieces of music simply require more time to appreciate. Why? Because the musical makeup is such that the beauty present in the music isn't clear at first glance. It requires more time to work its magic.

You are making the claim that we only appreciate what we like up front and that is all that's worthy of examination, and I simply think that is rather false.

Why does that matter in this discussion anyways? The gameplay in Final Fantasy Tactics is such, that the gamer will hear most music in the game multiple times anyways, whether they like it at first glance or not. So, the player is forced to become more familiar with the music.
Furthermore, you are needlessly eliminating an important step from the musical listening process and assuming everyone follows that same standard. Music can and does grow on us through invention. That is the main point I am making...not to be confused with the degree with which we like a piece the first time we hear it.

What isn't? Although most people think of a barren, sandy wasteland when the word "desert" is mentioned, that's really not the case at all. Deserts (unless they are exceptionally dry) are teeming with life, a vital and active ecosystem rife with dangers and discoveries alike. I feel that the song "The Dalmasca Estersand" describes that type of environment very well.

No...My claim is that people will find more to like in music the more they listen to it. Sakimoto's fanboys make this claim, while not realizing it is largely the same across the board for anyone. In that respect, Sakimoto is nothing special. Even a piece I like nothing about, I will understand it better through repeated listening, even if I don't actually like it more. It becomes a matter of economics at that point...Do I REALLY want to waste my time trying so hard to like something I'm hating, even if I AM understanding it more? Doesn't it just make more sense to junk this and move on to something else?

I know...I'm well aware of that. Consequently, I believe Tactics is an OST that works far better out of context. Very few pieces made me like them more by hearing them looped for hours on end. The ones I did enjoy were ones that I took at least some form of liking to at the start. On the same hand, I find Tactics to be comparably one of his more enjoyable OST's...I do not plan on playing Vagrant Story or FFXII, partly based on what I've heard of the music in both (though the actual gameplay is an equal deterant in both cases).

I suppose it would depend on how "inventive" we find Sakimoto's music. I don't particularly find him to be one of the more inventive composers out there who will present new and exciting ways to enjoy music, whereas most of his supporters do. Therefore, my rewards for extended listening are questionable at best and a complete waste of time at worst, since I manage to sense a similar feeling when I dislike a piece of his (that is, a piece will feel underdeveloped or simply too busy and undefined to be enjoyable).

Jesus, this is quite an all around bashing thread with no mentioned composer exempted. I wonder if I should introduce Daniel DeCastro to it?

^^^Sure, why not? Just allow me to keep my cyanide nearby...

It seems I don't deserve the dollar. :( You definitely have a point here. There's no way that I would have been able to pick out the track you uploaded as being The Dalamasca Eastersand (heck, I probably wouldn't know right now if PiccoloNamek didn't make a mention). Guess I'm not very familiarized with FFXII's music yet. My idea of a desert theme is actually very similar to yours, so there's no way I would've associated the track with a desert. I tend to get more of an epic vibe from it, myself. Perhaps I would've guessed that the track plays in a bustling castle town. It has a few passages that seem to suit a battle theme quite well, too.

However... I'd be lying if I said that the music wasn't enjoyable to me. The Dalamasca Eastersand is a really strong track that effectively gives off a feeling of adventure and the power of exploration. Maybe it wasn't concocted with the general formula of a desert theme in mind, but its unique approach is welcomed by me. Just from listening to the track (as I said, I haven't played the game), I'd say that this is music that doesn't mirror the environment per se, but it tends to focus more on the interaction of the characters with the environment.

Oh, and thanks for that SendSpace link, Muzza! I really enjoyed the track. Looks like I'll have to get my hands on Ten Plants sometime soon.

I'm afraid I am going to have to disagree with you, and agree with RainMan. When I heard my first sampling of Sakimoto's music, absolutely nothing about it appealed to me. I hated it. There was nothing about any of the music that made me want to listen to it again. The melodies were not easily discernible and many of the tracks were very dissonant. But against my own will, I forced myself to continue to listen. I thought to myself "There has to be something about this music that causes people to adore it so much.". And I was determined to find out what that something was. So, I burned the FFT soundtrack to CDs and listened to them in the car. In other people's cars. When I was doing the dishes. Whenever I could, really. And eventually, as I began to memorize the content of the tracks, certain ones among them began to stand out. Certain unique rhythms, interesting interplays of instruments, a melody that I didn't notice before.

And before long, without even realizing it, I too had become a big fan of this soundtrack.

It went much the same way with the VS soundtrack. There were a few songs that stood out, but many that I didn't like. But over time, I got to know each and every song, its intricacies, what made it unique. It is still my favorite Sakimoto soundtrack.

Greetings all. I notice that there is a request to speak about what is so special about Hitoshi Sakimoto, but first allow me to introduce. My name is show here so I need not mention that. I am currently in my final semester at New York University as a candidate for an M.A in Music Composition.

I have struggled much to increase awareness of Video Game Music at this particular juncture. I'm not dealing with message board avatars there, I am dealing with academics. Dealing with academics is like dealing with the Roman politicians during the time of Julius Caesar; you have to do alot of begging, lying, and play your cards right without getting killed. Although the risk of getting killed is not there, the possibility of getting a job is, and although I am known there for my passion, and am looked down upon by certain colleagues for my views.

Fortunately, I've been lucky enough to have assisted the music dept. chairman with video game music related issues. He has been very receptive to the idea of game music, and I had to work extremely hard in his classes to be recognized for my academic ability, enough so that I earned his respect for him to offer me a job to aid him in any situations which may involve game music. He has many clients whom are well known in the music field; Eminem, Dr. Dre, Madonna, Elton John, and many others. I cannot say which cases I was involved in, but he's kept me fairly busy.

As for my own musical work, http://www.myspace.com/danieldecastro.

I have an A.S. in Music Theory and Counterpoint, an A.S. in Music Technology, both from Queensborough Community College with honors, a B.A. in Music Composition from New York University (Magna Cum Laude), and now doing my M.A. there as well. Pardon me if some may find this pompous and arrogant of me to list my credentials, but it may help for some. If this does not matter to you, you can disregard this, and my apologies for my hubris.

Let me tell you how my experience has been in trying to create awareness of game music at these academic institutions. If there were a hell, that would be the appropriate description, but it was not without some good intelligent people who realized the worth of this field. Sadly, these were not the people in power at these institutions, and I'm pretty sure that the chairman is bound by some political restrictions to convince the director of the composition department to start at least a seminar in game music composition. I've encountered criticism after criticism from some very good students, and the director. It's led me to question my own intelligence and mental well being at times.

Fortunately, I believe I am a rational thinker, as philosophically, my stance as a freethinker aid me in my confidence to find truth in the claims others make, and thus far, I believe I've found a cauldron of Modernism disguised as Post Modernism amongst certain faculty and colleagues. They seem to like music of the abstract nature there, music in which the academics happen to find "Rock Music" influence where I would find no such things. There is an enormous interest in avant garde electronic music there inspired from composers like Edgard Varese, and a passion for instrumental music inspired by the musical language of Penderecki, Lutoslawski, Ligeti, and other composers of the sort. To many here, the majority of the music from those composers would seem unbearable abstract rubbish. Some call it "Egghead Music". To them it is anything but abstract, and the moment you demonstrate distaste with such a language, you are looked down upon as a "Closedminded" individual by the director at which point he will advise you to "Open your mind".

I consider myself to be one of the most openminded individuals on the planet! I would support the passions and preferences of the fans of the aforementioned composers at the cost of my life! But, why must I be made to feel guilty in being told to "Open My Mind" simply because I do not enjoy the works of their favorite composers? It's almost like the catholic priests I encountered who would tell me to open my mind when I proclaimed my philosophical atheism to them! I ask no such thing from others! But I do ask that as I respect the tastes an views of others, that my tastes are also respected. I take pride in challenging myself! Show me some evidence that god exists I say, and I am told "Oh, but you must have faith." I don't believe in faith I believe in reason! Give me a reason why I should open my mind to your music; "Because it will prepare you to do anything and everything in the music field, in your career". Can you show me evidence of that? No? Well guess what? I have evidence to the contrary. Most great composers of the current day will tell you something different, they will say, "Keep an open mind to all composers, even penderecki, lutoslawski, and ligeti". I hear no such thing from the director, and this man is a highly praised man by the students and faculty. He will smile at you, wave his hand to you, give you hugs, but the times I've shown him the music that I love, he's considered it simplistic, and is always quick to make negative or biased claims towards game music, claims like, "Game music is not concert music", or "It is clear that no one here is interested in learning about game music". He is not the only one of this opinion there, and it frightens me because it is terribly untrue. I've showed him some of the finest works written in game music, works of similar craft and substance as those of the masters we learn about in school.

During my first semester at NYU, I presented music from games to my class. I had selections from Heroes of Might and Magic 3, Final Fantasy 7's "One Winged Angel-orchestral", Final Fantasy X "Decisive battle", Overworld from Final Fantasy 7 orchestral, Siegfried's stage from Soul Blade, and even the work of a colleague that I found came closest to the standards academia might deem worthy of admiration and respect, but apparently, all of this music was too simplistic and was looked down upon by some of the smartest students. I felt very stupid, almost like there was something wrong with me. I gave descriptions to the class about how I felt regarding the atmosphere of the music using word like "Futuristic", "Fantasia", "Pastoral", "Heroic", "Brazen", and several other words, but was asked questions like "What makes music sound futuristic?" I felt terrible that I could not give a better answer at the time.

I tried again to do a presentation, but it was a failure; the equipment would not work as I wanted to set the music to a DVD I had created for the Chairman. I had received support from some of the students, and I knew of some who voiced their distaste with the obvious one-sidedness of the director's tastes at our composer's meeting where we would be subjected to music that the director believes listening to will prepare us for our careers. The majority of the students seem to lack interest in music that has harmonies, melodies, and rhythms derived from a mix of classical music, fusion jazz, pop, and world music. They are more interested in abstract music with use of "Max MSP", "C Sound", and other synthesis programs. So I had to go out of my way to search for music of this nature in games so that I could make a better impression. So I set out to searching, and had to put myself in the shoes of 85% of the students and faculty there.

I went to an underground game music piracy web server located in MIRC and downloaded over 130+ GBS of VG music MP3s. I listened to ALL of it and with the help of my IPaq personal computer, categorized and filed away only the best works in game music literature. Within over 3000 hours of game music, I realized that it is the most diverse source of music in the world. Game music has everything from Hip Hop to classical, Avant Garde to Jazz, and while proponents and fans from these genres may not see game music as the best example of these genres, it demonstrates the enormous potential there is for artists to contribute to meeting the high standards of game music for everyone. (Worry not, along with Sakimoto, Naoshi Mizuta was also on my list of favorite composers; I love them both).

Word spread that I had done this, and the chairman advised me to work on a thesis regarding Video Game Music. I was allowed to do my thesis on game music by NYU, how exciting! I can't say what my topic is, but lets just say that alot of trust was put in me. So I am currently working on this, and just this morning, I checked my e-mail to see that there is argument amongst my fellow game music fans. What a mess this is.. It really makes me sad, but also happy that there is such a passion for game music such that people would express their views about it on a message board like this.

I can go on and on about how much I've had to deal with, how much my feelings were hurt by colleagues and faculty, and how dumb I've been made to feel, but I go on, and I must be honest with the person who started this thread:

Although I love Naoshi Mizuta's work, I'm pretty sure academia will not. If we are to encourage the influence of Naoshi Mizuta's work to spread, We must please the academics, and so far, the academics have been very receptive to the music of Sakimoto, and they find it to be very high quality, including the work in Final Fantasy 12. I agree with them, and respect their knowledge and recognition of ANY game composer, and if Sakimoto helps to do it for them, Sakimoto has my respect. Yoko Kanno was praised and Masashi Hamauzu has been complimented as well. If the academics are please with my work, and one day I am asked to teach game music composition at this institution, Mizuta is definitely someone I will refer to in my lectures.

This is my current situation. If you've any questions, feel free to ask me, and I will answer, but I will do my best to start something new. Also, I encourage fans of game music to express their opinions in a civil manner; some of the comments here may only further fuel the conviction of certain academics that game music is nothing but fluff, kids stuff, and plagiarized music from people like Ravel or other composers of whom we'd be better off studying. If it fails amongst the fans, it will fail through the eyes of the academics, and we will never see great game music scoring courses come to fruition, for the sake of those who wish to seek a career in game scoring, or find it artful enough for personal expression.

I do care about what these people think; I trust that their intents are of a good nature. They wish to see us challenge ourselves and excel. Trust me when I say that some of your favorite composers in game music are some of the most intelligent, open minded, and talented persons on the face of the planet, and I wish for them to also be recognized and known as a fine example of human potential for eclecticism and open mindedness. I would die happy if I knew that academia gave a live concert of game music works as they have done for film music, classical music, and jazz music all of these years. It's high time.

Gradius V and Saga Frontier 2 I LIKE.

A LOT.

A HELL OF A LOT.

They're my favorites of his work followed lightly by FF Tactics. The rest of his stuff doesn't do much for me though. FF12 kinda bored me in spots. But what do I know. =\

Saga Frontier II is not Sakimoto's work.

Okay, so I'll blame Sakimoto for not having the heart to show his diversity in major works rather than for being poor instrumentals-wise.

....its not?


Then the tags I have on this thing are HELLACIOUSLY wrong. XD Who is it?

He tries to use a moderately consistent ensemble of instruments within his works but varies them between them. I guess he feels this is more artistic and I do feel it adds to the authenticity of his OSTs that this is so. However, I'd love Sakimoto to declare to the mainstream just how eclectic he is some day.

Dubble - Masashi Hamauzu.

Masashi Hamauzu.

Edit: Must learn how to spell...

The music was composed by Masashi Hamauzu, Dub (:

But...My point is if you were to force yourself to like ANY music to that extent by literally forcing yourself to have constant exposure to it, you would begin to like and understand it more (especially if a couple of pieces appealed to you in the first place, even to a minimal extent). What you just said was you didn't like Sakimoto's music at first and you forced yourself to end up liking it. If people made that effort for just about any composer, track or album they dislike at first, they would end up enjoying them (or at the least, appreciating them) at the end. I simply find that isn't the case in real life music listening. Hence, Sakimoto isn't an exception.

This thread is a circus!

No... I didn't force myself to like it. That's impossible. I forced myself to listen to it until I discovered just what it was about the music that was likable. It was well worth the effort.

And aside from that, how is my own listening not "real life" listening?

Heh, I understand what you mean. I just think there are way too many intanstly likable stuff in the VGM world to waste time with one just because he made scores to popular games. Because really, what was the initial reason for you to go further than your first impression ?

I wonder in what proportions is Sakimoto's fame due to him working for Square rather than his actual composer talents.

http://img154.imageshack.us/img154/5...72055362vm.gif

Not necessarily. If I don't find the music interesting to begin with, it's unlikely that I'll enjoy it at a future date. It's not a matter of "enjoying" the music for me. I need it to have depth as well.

You can blame college for that, I suppose. ;)