

And because of that, I suggested making each theme song based on their background country and culture.” “I would look at the backgrounds and the character descriptions and all that, and I noticed that each character had a unique background. Nishitani would come up to me and show me designs of the characters and explain the personalities of the characters and ask me to make theme songs for each character,” Shimomura told Polygon some years back. “When I happened to be free, I was asked, “I have A, B, and C next, but which one should I choose?”įollowing a chat with game designer Akira Nishitani, who was also behind the Final Fight series, she opted for the now-legendary fighting game, and set about composing tracks to match its international flavour. “At that time, when one job was finished, I felt like I could start the next job without a pause,” she told Pasonacareer. The opportunity to soundtrack Street Fighter II came about somewhat fortuitously, as Shimomura was presented with the option of soundtracking one of several forthcoming video games at Capcom.

I felt that since the head staff were women, it was easier for other women to join the department.” “They were talented and made great music. And both of the top composers were women, then,” she said. “When I joined Capcom originally, the top composers were kind of split into corporate and consumer projects.
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Taking up a ‘sound creator’ position at the software house in 1998, while her first few months were “tough”, as she told Red Bull Music Academy in 2014, it helped that the top video game composers at the company were also female, making life a little bit easier for the then-21 year old. “However, I never dreamed that I would make game music at that time,” she told Pasonacareer earlier this year.

Her first encounter with Capcom, which would go on to make Street Fighter II, was when she took a job at an entertainment centre during her first year of junior college, where she was handing out flyers for Ghosts ‘n’ Goblins. My parents cried, my friends were worried and my teacher was stunned – we’re talking about way back when game music wasn’t as popular as it is these days.” “However, I got accepted! Although my path was already set to become a piano instructor, I chose the path of video games instead. “Several video game companies were recruiting students back then and I applied with barely any hope of getting accepted to any of the companies,” she told RocketBaby in 2002. When asked to compose the music for Street Fighter II at the start of the 90s, however, she was a relative newcomer to the video game scene – her first composition was for Samurai Sword on the NES – and had to choose between a promising early career in classical music or a step into the unknown.

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The music for the game was the work of Japanese musician Yoko Shimomura, who has since gone on to be recognised as one of the most famous video game composers of all time for her work on the Kingdom Hearts series and Final Fantasy XV – performing packed-out concerts in her native Japan and overseas. While the game’s matchplay format undoubtedly added to its allure – “You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance!” – it’s the in-game music that helps the action unfold at a riotous pace, from the funky J-Pop of Ryu’s temple home to the Chinese chimes of Chun-Li’s stage and jungle rhythms of Blanka’s Brazil base.
