I'm a big fan. I'd actually say that he's my favorite VGM composer at this point. Something about his style tends to resonate with me. It can be epic but it can also be subtle. His music has melody. I wouldn't like it if it didn't. Lack of melodic direction is I think why I can't get into Nakano. Sakimoto blends melody with ambience in a way that appeals to me. I like how he builds up his tracks to that effect. It's like the ambience becomes the melody. Electricity Suppliant Building is a great example. It's the kind of track that I wouldn't expect from any other game music composer and why Sakimoto stands out from the crowd. Perhaps his melodies aren't always as instantly memorable as Uematsu or Mitsuda fare, but he generally knows how to get the most out of them better than those two. Ovelia's Theme is no pushover. Revolt is a true classic. Chaotic Island is just moving. Tracks like those and Lost Forest couldn't possibly be perceived as an emotionless walls of sound. If it's half-assed then the competition must be putting in even less effort.

He's my favorite game composer, now that Mitsuda seems to have dropped off the scene.
His music is just very stirring and moving, and goes along perfectly with what is happening on the screen. (imo no other game composer can make music fit with scenes/settings the way he does)
He also has probably the most distinctive "sound" in game music (along with Sakuraba), and I love that sound.

I think an underrated soundtrack by him is Breath Of Fire 5.. I love this because while it's all composed by Sakimoto, you can easily hear the influence from Mitsuda (who was the music director for the game) in most tracks.. a lot of the dungeon tracks wouldn't sound out of place in Xenogears or Chrono Cross.. the whole game is like a mix of Mitsuda + Sakimoto.
It also proved that Sakimoto can compose very good music for futuristic-esque games instead of the fantasy/medieval ones he usually does.

And FF12, going by the psfs, is probably my favorite work by him so far.
Most of it is done in his trademark FFT/Vagrant Story/Radiant Silvergun style, but at the same time it's also very different and much more refined than those games.

That's weird, I for example never expected a track like this from Sakimoto, because most of his stuff (I've heard) sounds normally more like middleage and not futuristic. But I agree, that this track is excellent and definitely one of my favourite tracks of him (and maybe one of my favourite VGM tracks in general). In fact the whole Breath of Fire V-Soundtrack is one of my favourites along with his work for Final Fantasy Tactics.

I'm not so sure about FFXII, but I don't listened to the psf's so much so far, I will change that soon, probably when the OST comes out. ;)

Overall I can say that I like his work a lot, but I wouldn't call him one of my favourite composers. There are some others, which I like more. ;)

Actually that piece was composed by Masashi Hamauzu for the game Tactics Ogre ;). Unfortunately, it was is only contribution to the series.

What ? Odd... I can't find any info on that, anywhere. I'm sure you're probably mixing his name up with Masaharu Iwata.

Edit: About BoF V, I certainly don't hear any influence from Mitsuda. I never understood why he was hired to be sound director in the first place, Sakimoto is pretty damn competent that he doesn't really need assistance or help. As for Sakimoto having never done good futuristic music... you should try out Soukyu Gurentai.

QFT!

Soukyu Gurentai is one of Sakimoto's great, hidden gems. I really enjoy that album.

Never heard of that, but that sounds interesting, I'm sure I will check this out!

Soukyu Gurentai is awesome. I especially like the track "Otaku Sky"

Isn't "Otaku Sky" the only track on the album done by Manabu Namiki? I could've sworn...

Heck no. It has Sakimoto's style written all over it. Namiki just did sound programming or sound effects on this title.

Haven't got that one ><

Hamauzu did in fact compose Chaotic Island... I will look up a source and post the link, but I'm quite sure Hamauzu scored the original piece.

Your source is wrong. By the time Tactics Ogre was being developped, Hamauzu was already at Square working on Gun Hazard.

yep, Dragon God is correct on this one. Hamauzu has nothing at all to do with the Ogre series.

The way I figure it, his compositional style shows through. It's more similar to Vagrant Story than FFT though.

Well, it was actually Iwata. I thought it was Sakimoto because the track uses Theme of the Black Knight.

As Dragon God said, there's no Hamauzu in the Ogre series. Maybe you were thinking of Hayato Matsuo? He didn't do anything for Tactics Ogre though.

I guess you guys are right. I was mistaken. Thanks for clearing that up for me, though :).

to my surprise, all of you havent given any comment on these works: Treasure Hunter G, Tactics Oge, FFT Advance, and Ogre Battle.

Well, for me they are not really memorable at all. But I wonder what is your opinion of these works.

I like Sakimoto's work in FFT and in the Ogre series. He and Masaharu Iwata have always had a great chemistry together, so 9 times out of 10 when they work together, I enjoy the finished product. I think John Pee did most of the music for Treasure Hunter G so none of Sakimoto's contributions are jumping out at me right now. I'll have to get back to you on that.

Stella Deus is another album that had damn good music. It's unfortunate that the soundtrack release didn't show that because the songs were so short.

Incidentally, Hitoshi Sakimoto will be in Detroit on July 12th at the Play Symphony concert.

I heard about that. Wish I could go. :(

I think Sakimoto's growing on me. The only albums I know of that I have that he did was...well, for a while it was only FFT, most of which I like a lot. The more recent addition is Gradius V. I think it's decent. Particularly "Meteor" and "High Speed" are good in my mind. Even the little "Game Over" theme sounds nice.

Now, bishop743 mentioned that he did Radiant Silvergun, which prompts me to ask this: the shoot-em-up Ikaruga is essentially a sequel to RS. Did Sakimoto do the music for that as well? If that was the case, I guess that'd make 3 albums of his that I have.

No, Sakimoto did not compose the music for Ikaruga. Someone by the name of Hiroshi Iuchi did. However, I believe that Sakimoto worked as a sound programmer or something for it. You can tell he had some sort of hand in it though by the music. It sounds very Sakimoto-esque.

Hiroshi Iuchi is actually the main producer for Treasure. I think that they were a very limited budget when they made Ikaruga (They had to ask the good people at G.Rev to code their 3D/Graphics engine, for one) that they just couldn't afford hiring Sakimoto again so Iuchi took the composing job himself as well as producer of the title.

This is how I see the situation.

Here are some Sakimoto old works that rarely mentioned in VGM community

It's amazing that his style hasn't changed a lot from the SNES day up to his FFXII composition.

I personally recommend you to listen his composition for game called
Horai Gakuen no Bouken! - Tenkousei Scramble
It's a perfect mixture of classical and jazz music.

Here something-

Sakimoto has worked with the likes of Masaharu Iwata, Hayato Matsuo, Yasunori Mitsuda, Michiro Oshima and perhaps a few other composers - to vary his style as some demand, who do you think he would work best next to (keeping in mind, for example, Legaia Duel Saga and Sakimoto's heavy influence with Mitsuda's style)

SO, in summery - team a composer up with Sakimoto - how would you think it would work out?

Hamauzu and Sakimoto. Could be interesting. ;)