Naoshi Mizuta

Naoshi Mizuta (水田 直志, Mizuta Naoshi, born January 24, 1972) is a Japanese video game composer and musician. He is best known for his work on Final Fantasy XI (with Nobuo Uematsu and Kumi Tanioka), but has also composed music for Mega Man & Bass, Street Fighter Alpha, and Parasite Eve II. He started his career at Capcom before moving to Square (now Square Enix) in 1998.

Biography

Born in Kōchi, Japan in 1972, Mizuta's interest in music began to grow when he "was in the second or third grade".^[1] Although still interested in music, Mizuta studied law and economics at Chiba University. He composed his first song while in his last year there, and after graduating went to work for Capcom in 1995 as a composer. He began his career scoring the Street Fighter series where he was part of the sound team for Street Fighter Alpha in 1995.^[1]

In 1998, while still working for Capcom, Mizuta applied to

For games, Mizuta is primarily focused on creating music that fits the title and the scene at hand, without consideration for how it might sound in isolation.[2]^[3] On older consoles, the hardware restricted composers to three channels of audio. Working within these limitations, Mizuta was challenged to create strong, memorable melodies without the aid of atmospheric and accompanying lines.^[3] Even without such constraints in modern titles, he feels that this style has its merits and is worth preserving. On the other hand, for alternative presentations of his music such as live performances or piano arrangements, Mizuta feels more free to have fun and play it however he likes.^[3] Mizuta is heavily influenced by the work of Ryuichi Sakamoto, as well as Nobuo Uematsu, his superior at Square.^[1] He also draws inspiration from a variety of film scores as well as fan remixes of his work on YouTube.^[1][3]

Works

References

External links

Official website (in Japanese)