Following her BAFTA Fellowship award for her contributions to the video game music industry, composer and pianist Yoko Shimomura (Street Fighter II, Legend of Mana, Kingdom Hearts) expressed her happiness and astonishment at how far the game music industry has come since she first started working in 1988. Talking about her more popular works, she gave insight as to how she approaches creating music for the widely successful Kingdom Hearts – a franchise that blends Square Enix and Disney IPs.
Writing music for Disney worlds was not about expressing personal identity
In an interview published by Square Enix, Shimomura talks about the difficulty of working with properties that already have defined musical identities. Since many of the locations in Kingdom Hearts are Disney worlds, Shimomura had to find a way to honor the music of the original films without resorting to rehashing existing tracks. Her solution was to put herself in the perspective of a Disney fan to figure out what feels right and what feels out of place. As such, Shimomura didn’t actively focus on projecting her musical identity and personality onto the music for Disney worlds.
The visuals of the original worlds helped shape their soundtracks
Shimomura’s approach to music composition for original tracks used in Kingdom Hearts-exclusive worlds like Destiny Islands and Hollow Bastion is a little different. Using the areas’ visuals and backdrops as inspiration, Shimomura would brainstorm music that would best fit the locations. For Hollow Bastion in Kingdom Hearts specifically, Shimomura was given a music-less version of the world to explore. Using Hollow Bastion’s visual impressions, Shimomura created a track that sounds both ominous and (appropriately) hollow.
As a franchise whose core themes include friendship and courage, Yoko Shimomura’s music has elevated Kingdom Hearts to a whole different level. While Kingdom Hearts 4 is still in development, you cannot deny the impact the franchise and its music has on the gaming industry.
