Mario Hoops 3 on 3 Game Rip Available (Featuring Square Enix's Masayoshi Soken)

As reported a week ago on Square Music News, Square Enix sound editor Masayoshi Soken is the composer of Mario Hoops 3 on 3. The basketball game, developed by Square Enix for publishing by Nintendo on the DS, features both Mario and Final Fantasy characters. Its score is brief but fun and diverse. Here's a game rip, courtesy of Oddigy:

http://www.squareenixmusic.com/Mario...3%20on%203.zip

A little about the composer if you're interested from Square Enix Music Online's composer compendium:

Quote:

Sound editor and occasional composer Masayoshi Soken started off his career by composing for two obscure sports games developed by Square in 2002. He was the solo composer of the basketball sim Nichibeikan Pro Baseball: Final League and collaborated with synthesizer operator Takeharu Ishimoto on World Fantastista, a soccer game released soon after. Given both games received little attention in Japan and were not released overseas, the nature of Soken's contributions will never be known, their score's nature can only be speculated about; given the nature of Soken's subsequent works, his compositions were likely to be very light-hearted and cheesy, however, perhaps drawing some influences from music for commercials. It's also speculated that Soken may have contributed "Endless Love, Endless Road - Yuna & Tidus" from feel/Go Dream - Tidus & Yuna, having later changed his name from Masayoshi Kikuchi, though this isn't confirmed.

Soken only came into the public eye in 2005 when he was confirmed as a Square Enix resident sound editor. Likely downgraded to the role of sound editor in 2003 in response to his light-hearted styles being inappropriate for Square Enix's more mature games, his only known editing roles are for the 2005's Drakengard 2 (aka Drag-on Dragoon 2 love red, ambivalence black) and Front Mission 5 ~Scars of the War~. More likely to give him public attention, however, is the score to July 2006's Mario Hoops 3 on 3, which Soken solely composed and arranged. A basketball game developed by Square Enix and published by Nintendo for the DS featuring Mario and Final Fantasy characters alike, Soken's score, though brief, maintains a light and fun character while being musically mature and stylistically diverse. He has also contributed compositions and arrangements to the score of Dawn of Mana (aka Seiken Densetsu 4) this year, collaborating with Kenji Ito, Tsuyoshi Sekito, and Junya Nakano.

Aside from these major projects, Soken has contributed to Square Enix's advertisements. The Front Mission 5 ~Scars of the War~ Original Soundtrack featured "Blue Stream," Soken's only original composition on the soundtrack, written in the style of a cheesy sports commercial. Led by The Poors, a choir of out-of-tune hooligans, this repetitive, cheesy, but hilarious composition has both endeared and inspired hatred, especially given it was a major contrast to Hidenori Iwasaki's mature contributions. He also exposed himself half-naked to the world while beaten up by two robots in a Square Enix Pencil Commercial featuring his extaordinarily commercialised music. The product being advertised were Enix's pencils Batoenman, which appear in about a second of the clip. The relationship between the commercial and the product is very vague, though loathers of Soken's music or natural sadists will likely find it highly enjoyable to watch, despite the apparent immorality of schadenfreude.

Soken is a very unusual man, it seems. A producer of hideous advertisement music and a smiling human punchbag, his outward eccentricity and shamelessness ought not to hide his obvious talents in the field of sound editing and his ability to create original and mature compositions intended for gameplay. He is good for an occasional laugh, though his most recent scores show that he could well become an integral part of Square Enix's music team in the near future. Bravo, Batoenman, you silly but talented pencil lover.

In case you're wondering what the Dawn of Mana reference is about, it was confirmed that Junya Nakano and Soken will be composing and arranging alongside Kenji Ito and Tsuyoshi Sekito (the Romancing SaGa -Minstrel Song- duo). It marks a double return for Nakano, who'll be scoring Project Sylpheed with Kenichiro Fukui and Kumi Tanioka (nice sample here in Fukui style I think).

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Yup. People may be interested to know that Kumi Tanioka sung on one track too, which will also be arranged for Dawn of Mana.

There's nowhere I can't reach.