Who is Yoko Shimomura?

Post by **Dr. Sheexy** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 6:24 pm

Yoko Shimomura is the composer of the wonderful music in Legend of Mana.

Unlike Hiroki Kikuta and Koichi Ishii, Yoko Shimomura is a bit easier to find info on! But for some reason her "Who Is" update is shorter than their stuff... I guess mystery makes for awesome writing.
Anyways.
When she was five years old her parents enrolled her in piano lessons, and as she went through highschool she just played it even more. She even went off to major in piano playing at a university, and would have been destined to be a Piano Teacher if it weren't for the fact that she liked videogames. So just for fun she sent some music to Capcom, and they were all "You've got the job!"

So Yoko Shimomura did some work on a Megaman game, or a Streetfighter game here and there until Square picked her up in 1993. It was during this time that she would do music for games like Super Mario RPG, Live a Live and other RPGs from the company. She did the music for Parasite Eve in 1998 and then Legend of Mana in 1999.

Her most recent works include the music in Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga as well as the soundtrack to Kingdom Hearts II.

Word on the streets is that she is going to be returning as the composer in Heroes of Mana!

Post by **Tallon** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 9:07 pm

Well if that's true, then her music for Heroes of Mana will be awesome! I own the Kingdom Hearts II soundtrack and I love it! The music is beautiful. It appears that the makers of Seikens know their stuff.

Post by **Hero of Spirits** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 9:26 pm

Yea, the music from LoM was my favorite by far, her work is beautiful, and I'm lovin every second.

Post by **The J Person** » Thu Jan 25, 2007 2:38 am

Don't forget, she also did the music for Brave Fencer Musashi. That had a pretty good soundtrack, as well.

Post by **Deques** » Thu Jan 25, 2007 8:16 am

text stolen from wiki

Code: Select all

    * Nemo (1990)
    * King of Dragons (1991)
    * Adventures in the Magic Kingdom (1992)
    * Street Fighter 2 (1992) (with Alph Lyra)
    * Street Fighter 2: Championship Edition (1994) (with Alph Lyra)
    * Mega Man 6 (1994)
    * Live A Live (1994)
    * Front Mission (1995) (with Noriko Matsueda)
    * Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars (1996) (including arrangements of music by Nobuo Uematsu and Koji Kondo)
    * Tobal No. 1 (1996) (with Masashi Hamauzu, Junya Nakano, Yasuhiro Kawami, Kenji Ito, Noriko Matsueda, Ryuji Sasai, and Yasunori Mitsuda)
    * Parasite Eve (1998)
    * Legend of Mana (1999)
    * Kingdom Hearts (2002)
    * Front Mission 1st (2003) (with Noriko Matsueda)
    * Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga (2003)
    * Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories (2004)
    * Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time (2005)
    * Kingdom Hearts II (2005/2006)
    * Monster Kingdom: Jewel Summoner (2006) (with Shinji Hosoe, Hitoshi Sakimoto, Yasunori Mitsuda, Kenji Ito, Masaharu Iwata, Tsukasa Masuko, Yasuyuki Suzuki, Ayako Saso, and Takahiro Ogata)
    * Final Fantasy Versus XIII (TBD)
    * Seiken Densetsu: Heroes of Mana (TBD)

Post by **Kupo Mog** » Thu Jan 25, 2007 9:33 am

Just wanted to say, great site, I only found it recently but its a great place to come to for my Seiken Densetsu needs, and whilst your news post about Yoko Shimomura was really good, I couldn't help but notice a teeny tiny mistake, so teeny its ridiculous but I just thought I'd alert you to it for correctness.

Site News wrote:She branched away from Square for a bit to do the music for Parasite Eve, but she was back the next year to compose the music for Legend of Mana.

Technically she never branched away from Square for Parasite Eve, since Parasite Eve is actually a Square game. It had quite a lot of famous Square people on the team, including character artist Tetsuya Nomura.

Anyway, yeah. *disappears*

Post by **Deques** » Thu Jan 25, 2007 10:37 am

I was wondering this too. Isnt Parasite Eve a Square game?

Third article, or is it fourth?
Anyway, I guess I make a new section of Who is

Post by **The J Person** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 2:14 am

It appears that I was mistaken; apparently, for whatever reason, I had it in my mind that Yoko Shimomura had done the music for Brave Fencer Musashi (perhaps because her style is so similar to that of the music in that game, but perhaps also because the songs I have from that game list her as the artist).

The proper credit for Brave Fencer Musashi's soundtrack should go to Tsuyoshi Sekito, according to information I located on www.mobygames.com.

Sorry for the confugglagration.

EDIT: And yeah, Parasite Eve IS a Sqaure game (along with PE2, as I recall).
BFM, and its "sequel-that-wasn't-a-sequel-but-was", Musashi Samurai Legend, are also games produced by Square/Square-Enix. This is another possible reason for my earlier inaccuracy.

Post by **Dr. Sheexy** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 2:22 am

Fixed the Parasite Eve thing, thanks J Dude.