When I first set out to write about my passion for game music I immediately had three interview goals tucked way in the back of my mind. I wanted to interview Kenji Yamamoto at Nintendo, Koichi Sugiyama, and Ryuji Sasai. While I had the pleasure of interviewing Kenji Yamamoto when I was over at M4G, I can now mark Ryuji Sasai off the list as we’ve finally tracked him down and tortured him with our relentless list of questions.
I can’t tell you how excited I am about this. His work on Final Fantasy Mystic Quest and Rudra no Hihou is some of my favorite from the SNES era, and I’m honestly shocked by his recollection of pieces that he wrote over 10-15 years ago. We also discussed his work in our recent review of the SaGa Premium Box, so he should definitely sound familiar even if you don’t know his music. While his responses are brief at times, there is some great stuff here, and for me, at least, I am fully content! From the sounds of it, he has a lot of music left in him, and hopefully we’ll see him writing new music in the near future.
In the meantime, sit back and enjoy our interview with former Squaresoft composer Ryuji Sasai after the jump. (more…)