Yoko Shimomura (下村陽子) (b. 1967) is likely the most well-known composer from the early video game days due to her work on long-standing game franchises. She was one of the members of the Capcom composing team in the late 1980’s, working on games such as Final Fight and Street Fighter II. Early on in her career, she was sometimes credited as “Shimo-P or by alternate spellings of her name. Shimomura received a classical music education and graduated from the Osaka College of Music right before joining Capcom. In 1993 she left Capcom to join Square Enix (then just known as Square), where she composed the soundtrack for Live A Live and began her now iconic work on Kingdom Hearts, a series for which she continued to compose even after leaving Square Enix to become a freelancer. As of 2022 there have been thirteen Kingdom Hearts games released by Square Enix, and the music has been composed primarily by Shimomura. She also composed the soundtrack for Final Fantasy XV, the most recent release in that series, which is featured in the currently touring Final Fantasy 35th anniversary concert.1 Shimomura has composed for many other games including the Mario & Luigi series, Xenoblade Chronicles, Legend of Mana, and Super Mario RPG amongst others.
Footnotes
- Tour information for Distant Worlds: music from Final Fantasy, https://www.bso.org/events/final-fantasy-distant-worlds.
Image credit: NintendoMovies, “Super Mario RPG: The Legend of the Seven Stars – Full Game,” YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRDC3hgtGuI.