Yuzo Koshiro

[Duddyroar]

Didn't really know which part of the forums to post this in, but seeing as it's generally related to retro titles I thought here was the best place.

Basically, I can't find any sites that sell Yuzo Koshiro CDs.

For those of you who don't know, he was the chappie who did the incredible music for games like Revenge of Shinobi and Streets of Rage/Bare Knuckle.

Any ideas where I can get hold of some of his CDs? I know they were released as they were featured in a few magazines back in the day.

[Yakumo]

Try the Ancient japan home page. I belive this is where Yuzo Koshiro is now or at least was. THis is the company that produced such games as Story Of Thor which also featured Yuzo Koshiro's work. This is the japanese ink but they also have an English section and a game music section. http://www.ancient.co.jp/

Yakumo

[Kotatsu Neko]

Did you know that Koshiro composed the in game music to ShenMue?

Seems the great man is still around.

[Team Andromeda]

Anyone else heard his music score for the Mega CD version of Eye Of The Beholder ?.

It makes the game worth buying just for that. Track 7 is Sensational.

Also I think not only did he help out with the music in Shemue. I sure his Team Ancient also helped aided AM#2 with the games production

[MonkeyJuggleDX]

Don't forget his greatest work - Actraiser!!!

[Team Andromeda]

Don't forget his greatest work - Actraiser!!!

His greatest work was in Revenge Of and Shinobi, and Streets Of RAGE II

[Yakumo]

These are the Yuzo Koshiro musics that I know he made or was at least part of.

SFC - Actraiser
SFC - Actraiser II
SFC - Super Adventure Island
MD - Bare Knuckle
MD - Bare Knuckle II
MD - Bare Knuckle III
MD - Super Shinobi
MCD - Eye Of The Beholder
SAT - Story Of Thor
DC - Shenmue (he only preformed a few tracks for this game)

I'm sure he's done more than the above. Does anyone know what they are?

Yakumo

[Baseley09]

Revenge of Shinobi was amazing musics, Actraiser & SOR were too.

Apart from that its pretty mediocre. (havntheard Eye of the Beholder tho, i'll check that out).

[Pikman]

I happened to buy the original SNES soundtrack CD to Actaiser a few weeks ago, like most people I believe it to be his 'masterpiece'.

[Team Andromeda]

He also did Shinobi on the Game Gear.

Vatlva on the Saturn. Slap Fight on the MD

Think he did Sonic on the Master System/GG.

And there's another Saturn game he did, but can't for the life of me remember what it is

[Duddyroar]

Actraiser!!! I forgot that! Level one's music was awesome...

So, any ideas about where I can get some CDs?

[gossi the dog]

Michael Jackson's Moonwalker

[Wild_Cat]

Yeah, Koshiro rules. While Actraiser has indeed a beautiful score, I've always considered Streets of Rage 1&2 to be his true masterpieces (no, SoR 3 does not exist). The intro music to Streets 1 is one of the reasons why I bought a Megadrive.

The man sure knew how to make the MD's POS chip sound good -- which in hindsight was not such a hard thing to do: you just had to not try to make your instruments sound real.
The SoR score has a very bluesy feel, however you'll notice that no attempt is ever made to conceal the synthetic nature of the instruments.
Add to this Koshiro's talent when it comes to pure composing (see Actraiser or Shenmue for examples of what he can do when he has no technical constraints), and you get the Megadrive's most memorable tunes ever.


Oh, and to answer the original question, I have no idea where you can buy his CD's.

[Molloy]

Didn't some guy who went by the nickname of "Bo" in the credits do the music for Moonwalker? The name mightn't be quite correct but the same fella definately did music for Eswat and a raft of other MD games.

It's very hard to work out which Sega teams worked on what games during the Mega Drive and Master System era. I suppose it's still difficult enough today. I heard they laid off most of the Hitmaker staff in 2001 which accounts for the drop in quality in the Virtual On series after VOOT. Same name perhaps but different team.

Personally I think game music was much better on the MD and the systems before it. The SNES chip was sufficiently good to sort of emulate traditional instruments and it was all downhill from there.

There's an excellent article in Armchair Arcade that I agree wholeheartedly with. Half the games nowadays are just trying to ape a John Williams score. Yuzo Koshiro and the equally talented Jeremy Soule both want to work with orchestras and sound like John Williams (they've both quoted him as inspiration in interviews).

Anyway, very good article. The only decent one I've seen on the subject.

[Wild_Cat]

One thing you're forgetting to take into account, Molloy, is that before the SNES half of the games' scores -- when they *did* have one -- sounded like **** too. And if they couldn't ape John Williams because they didn't have the technical means (which didn't prevent some from trying), they tried to sound like J-M Jarre, Kraftwerk or in some cases like another VG music composer.

We tend to remember good things more easily than bad ones. Thousands of average or downright ****ty games were released for old systems; we don't remember them and don't want to. Same goes for their music. For each Koshiro, Huelsbeck or Hubbard (Rob, not L. Ron) there were fifty no-names who did music just because someone had to (actually, that's how Hubbard started -- but that's beside the point); and most of the time that showed.

Now, I'm not saying that retro music sucks, far from it. I listen to tunes from Secret of Mana, Turrican 2, Sanxion and a couple of others on a regular basis. SIDPlay and a MOD player are in my Dock and not going away.

However, there are a lot of recent (post-SNES) video games whose soundtracks blow my mind. Here are a few examples, from the top of my head:
- Command & Conquer
- Metal Gear Solid
- Deus Ex
- Unreal Tournament
- Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
- Jet Set Radio
- Star Ocean 3
- Final Fantasy 7 (funnily enough, that game has awesome compos, but the poor quality of the PS1's synth ruins most of them -- listen to the reorchestrated versions if you can)
- Katamari Damashii

And I could go on for quite a while. You'll notice that among those soundtracks, only two are symphonic (FF7 and SO3, although that last one bends the envelope by adding rock/metal instruments to the mix) and one is "Hollywoodian" (MGS). DX and UT are Demoscene, C&C is Rock/Industrial/Ambient/RnB with strong Demoscene influences, SotN is Classical/Rock/Jazz/Blues, and JSR and KD are genres on their own. Actually (I haven't played the game yet but I listened to a big part of the OST), my favorite tune in Katamari Damashii, "Lonely Rolling Star", is a chiptune with lyrics!

Oh, and of course there's the obvious, perhaps the single reason why sound in video games was created: Rez.

Video games nowadays keep producing musical gems. A lot of them. Don't be so pessimistic.