Hitoshi Sakimoto

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Hitoshi Sakimoto (崎元仁) is a video game music composer.

He was born in 1969 and worked freelance beginning in 1990. When he was just starting out in the field of music, he would write his name as "YmoH.S". In 1997, Sakimoto joined Square Co., Ltd.. Later on, in 2000, after completing his work on the action/RPG hybrid title Vagrant Story, he resigned from Square and once again became a freelance musician. He went on to establish Basiscape, an independent provider of audio and music for video games and other media.

As the founder of Basiscape Co., Ltd, Sakimoto has since been composing regularly for a variety of games as well as some commissions for various independent companies. He is currently working on Square's upcoming twelfth chapter in its central franchise, Final Fantasy XII, as well as the upcoming MMORPG Fantasy Earth: The Ring of Dominion.

Also employed with Basiscape Co., Ltd. is Sakimoto's long-time friend Masaharu Iwata, as well as Manabu Namiki, and Mitsuhiro Kaneda.

When Sakimoto's music is theoretically analyzed, one finds that his forms are usually ABCA ad infinitum, however, his transitions from C back to A contain some very unique harmonic/chordal sequences worthy of further analysis for aspiring Video Game music composers. His MIDI orchestration techniques are very colorful and are amongst the most mature of sorts within VG music.

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Notable game credits

Magical Chase (1991): Composer (in collaboration with Masaharu Iwata)
Ogre Battle (1993): Composer (in collaboration with Masaharu Iwata and Hayato Matsuo)
Tactics Ogre (1995): Composer (in collaboration with Masaharu Iwata)
Soukyu-Gurentai (Terra Diver) (1996): Composer
The Adventures of Hourai High School (1996): Composer
Treasure Hunter G (1997): Composer (in collaboration with John Pee, Masaharu Iwata, Toshiaki Sakoda, Yoko Takada, Tomoko Matsui, and Akiko Goto)
Final Fantasy Tactics (1997): Composer (in collaboration with Masaharu Iwata)
Radiant Silvergun (1998): Composer
Vagrant Story (2000): Composer
Tactics Ogre Gaiden (2001): Composer (in collaboration with Masaharu Iwata)
Legaia 2: Duel Saga (2001): Composer (in collaboration with Yasunori Mitsuda and Michiru Oshima)
Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter (2002): Composer
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (2003): Composer (in collaboration with Ayako Saso and Kaori Oukoshi; main theme provided by Nobuo Uematsu)
Gradius V (2004): Composer
Stella Deus: The Gate of Eternity (2004): Composer (in collaboration with Masaharu Iwata)
Final Fantasy XII (2006): Composer (with image song composed by Nobuo Uematsu, main theme composed by Yuji Toriyama and Taro Hakase)

Hitoshi Sakimoto has also done arrangements for a large number of game music albums, including Battle Garegga, DoDonpachi Daiohjou, and Cho Aniki Show II to name a few.

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