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Hiroki Kikuta is the guy who did the music for Secret of Mana and Seiken Densetsu 3.

Duh.

If you didn’t know that, go stand in the corner and think about what you have done.  The rest of you, stay here and listen to what else this guy has done.  Consider yourselves enlightened by this experience.  Hiroki Kikuta also did one other game soundtrack while working for Square.  In 1998 the game Soukaigi came out, and it interestingly it features a track titled “Angel’s Fear Again,”  a guitar and piano bit which does not seem to be similar to the “Angel’s Fear” of the Seiken Densetsu series.  The track, however, does remind me a lot of “Prayer of the Arctic Circle/Meridian Beast” from Secret of Mana.  Perhaps this will be a Monday Music update sometime where you can decide if they are similar.

Around the time he was working on Soukaigi, Hiroki Kikuta became unhappy with the way RPGs were playing out and wanted to create his own RPG to show what the whole deal was really about.  In 1997 he, with the help of SNK and others, founded Sacnoth Co. Ltd. and held the title of President and CEO through the years until Koudelka was released in 1999.  Koudelka was almost completely designed, produced, written and composed by Hiroki Kikuta himself.  The game featured an interesting mix of Survival Horror gameplay mixed with a grid-based battle system. 

Unfortunately Koudelka was not very well recieved, and Hiroki Kikuta withdrew from the business.  SNK would go on to transfer the Sacnoth to Aruze, where they would continue the Koudelka series as Shadow Hearts.  His next adventure in gaming would also end unfulfilled, as the MMORPG Bukyo did not exit the testing stages.

Recently he has released a CD entitled “Lost Files” which contains many never-before-heard tracks from back around the times of Secret of Mana.  Another recent work of his is providing the music to the game “Sora no Iro, Mizu no Iro,” an H game that just came out in 2006 and has spurred an OVA, also featuring his music.  The second episode of the OVA is due sometime in 2007.
If you know Japanese you can check out what Hiroki Kikuta is up to over at his website Angel’s Fear.  There is a blog there and more.

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