I've been fiddling around with some VGM recently trying to make a few tracklists and it got me thinking about a few of Motoi Sakuraba's soundtracks. I'm curious... has he ever mentioned/been asked why so many of his works use English as far as tracklistings/titles go? I mean don't get me wrong, I absolutely LOVE that there is no debate over the titles of some of his songs but it does strike me as odd considering most soundtrack releases are geared towards their land of origin.

Is there a clear cut answer as to why this is or only theories?

Comes in two varieties: English and completely confusing Japanese (Baten Kaitos, Valkyrie Profile)

I could be mistaken, but I remember hearing that Sakuraba doesn't name his tracks. Instead, they're named by someone else on the game's production team (director, music coordinator, etc.). I believe all the Engrish names come from one particular person that he works with on a regular basis. I could be totally wrong, but that's what I seem to remember. It certainly seems to fit the data!

If that's true I certainly find that odd... you'd think a composer would want first crack at naming his own creations since he probably knows them more intricately than anyone else. But as I think it's been mentioned here before Sakuraba writes a ton of music... he might not have time to fiddle around with naming conventions.

I'm not sure how common it is in the game industry, but I know anime composers rarely name their own tracks. Typically cues get a letter and number system (M23, A4, C11, etc.). Some soundtracks even include these numbers in the tracklist / liner notes. Other soundtracks, such as Evangelion's S2 Complete Works, don't have official track names at all and only use the composer's working designations.

That's the film / anime industry though. I think video game composers tend to be the black sheep.

Boco's explanation is spot on for plenty games as well (as far as internal structures are concerned).

Most infamous "Sakuraba track names" are by Hiroya Hatsushiba (CEO of tri-Crescendo).