Thanks to Jeriaska for this informative interview.

http://www.squarehaven.com/news/?id=1176

(If anyone could dig up any infos, it sure would be neat to see some of his college-era works in the Anime & Illustration fields, just to check them out...)

Hi Carl,

I'm a long time reader of SoundtrackCentral, first time poster.  Thanks for the shout-out on the recent interview.  It was an amazing experience getting to meet Kikuta-san in person.  In a week the website will have up another piece going into further detail on the composer's current projects.  Hope it provides some useful info for fans of his music.

excellent interview! Good work jeriaska!

Question though -- why no mention of all his work after Koudelka? Didn't he do a fair bit of work in the h-game field?

Also, I wonder if Kikuta would ever be interested in writing for Square Enix again. I would love to see him work on another project with them...

Ramza

PS - I *also* majored in cultural anthropology, and I teach a world religions course at a high school right now. Look everyone, I'm cool like Kikuta! ^^;

This is by far the most insightful interview with a video game composer I've seen, thanks both to the knowledge of the interviewer and the candidness and intelligence of the subject.

I just hope Kikuta finds his way back into ambitious projects; it's quite tragic that the commercial failure of his beautiful and mature (but not much of a game) Koudelka sunk his career.

Now that the Aruze has followed its forefather's fate, even in desperately appealing to lower and lower common denominators with Shadow Hearts, maybe the world can realize copying all the wrong elements of an artist's vision, slapping an effeminate vampire wrestler on it, and letting the whole sloppy affair coast on an admittedly equally awesome sound team (minus Kenji Ito) ultimately isn't the way to success.

</rant>

Hi Ramza, HamandSushi,

Kikuta-san just finished a soundtrack for Square Enix, I'm happy to report.  It's for their new MMORPG Concerto Gate, co-composed by Kenji Ito.  The soundtrack will be published by Nostrilia.

Yeah, not so much to report post-Koudelka this time, but we'll do some backtracking for the follow-up article "Lost Files Regained," this coming weekend.  The major reason for the silence, Kikuta spent two years on a project for Enix called Chou Bukyo Taisen, which was a 3D MMO intended to cater to the Asian market.  He not only was composing music but was working on scenario and gameplay, Koudelka style.  Here's a trailer on Youtube if you're interested in seeing what might have been:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apOOo4A4zak

Unfortunately the project was cancelled during beta testing.  We should be hearing more from Kikuta-san in the future, though, beginning with a soundtrack from his pre-Square work in televised anime.

Hope to answer some of those lingering questions in greater detail this weekend when the follow-up article is published.

Is Concerto Gate related to Cross Gate?

Thanks so much for doing all this work jeriaska. What you're doing is great, and I've always had loads of respect for Kikuta.

Ramza

Well, he certainly seems to have an excellent taste in literature.  Orson Scott Card is one of the best science fiction writers I've read in a long time.

I'm glad he's still interested in writing music, and if he's working independently, then the end result might blossom because of it.

Any news on how many tracks or what percentage of the OST Kikuta handled?

Of over 30 tracks, Kikuta composed 13 tracks. I'm not certain how many tracks an OST will have, though.

That's not the ratio that I was looking for, but it's better than having Kikuta compose just the intro or something.

*coughLuminousArccough*

Awesome, thanks for posting, and I look forward to reading the followup article!
Keep up the good work.

I thought the same exact thing!  Even if the prelude was one dazzling little piano number, I got my hopes up for nothing.

Just out of curiosity, were the "Mysterious Story of the Island of Souls" parts 1-6 on "Lost Files" leftovers from that project? It seems like the title and style would fit in with what little I know of the cancelled game.

orion_mk3, I originally thought those Mysterious Island tracks on Lost Files were from Bukyo, but it turns out that they are all original compositions created for the album.  Kikuta owns the rights to the live music he composed for The Legend of Snow White anime project, predating Seiken Densetsu 2, and will be making an album of selected tracks.  The rights to the Bukyo music are partially owned by the Taiwan-based software company, so no sign as of yet of the album seeing a release.

Btw, it's looking like there will be two separate Concerto Gate soundtracks.  (No relation to Cross Gate that I know of.)  Kenji Ito's songs will be published in an OST by Square Enix, while Kikuta's will be released by Nostrilia.

Awesome! That is very exciting.

In case anyone is interested, here is the follow-up: Lost Files Regained.

http://www.squarehaven.com/news/?id=1301

That's surprising his first choice was Falcom and not Square (although he had said he never touched a CONSOLE RPG previously and Falcom was primarily making PC games, so it kinda makes some sense). Shows how different the RPG market was back then. That's pretty wild. Considering the frequency of Falcom's arranged albums and scores back then, it could have lead to some very interesting material...

Wow, never knew he applied to work at FALCOM, that would have been a pretty interesting matchup...  With the boatloads of arrange albums Falcom was cranking out in those days, there probably would have appeared some nice symphony and piano cds of Kikuta stuff as a result (maybe even JDK band versions of his tunes, hehe)

Nice photography for the interview as well.

does anyone know where it is possible to purchase the soukaigi ost? or has it been OOP for a long time now?

It seems Kikuta has a new **Double-CD** coming out in a few weeks titled "Alphabet Planet"

http://www.amazon.co.jp/ALPHABET-PLANET … 869&sr=1-1

I just placed my order, and anyone who wants it better do the same FAST.

The other limited Comik-Market Release (NSLCD-0003) got sold out quickly on Amazon.co.jp (with no later restocks)....  Order quick while you still got a shot!!!

I wish I could read japanese good enough to order it.  When you get it, let us know if it's worth it or not.

Meh original album ;/

What's wrong with that?

I'm excited at the potential of anything Kikuta puts out (and it's a double CD!), but I hope it's more "Lost Files" and not like the recent vocal albums from Shimomura/Hirota...Plus, I would assume it's stuff he's written much more recently, so it wouldn't be like the early stuff from Lost Files either (I liked them, but they paled compared to the Lost Souls tracks later on the album).

Lost Files wasn't all that great. Need more stuff like SD2 instead of SOM+ ;/

Okay...But Lost Files was more SD2 than it was SOM+, so I don't really get what you mean.

I disagree completely.

Need more stuff like Soukaigi. There, fixed.

SD3 > all his other stuff

Discuss.

-Mike

I like SD3 and Soukaigi equally (SD3 just has more tracks I like...which is kind of unfair, but oh well) and SD2 and Lost Files is fine too. I'm not picky when it comes to Kikuta.

skeptical, but can not resist ordering this one!

Exactly, there's a high probability that there is gonna be some awesome tunes out of the ~35 tracks, so why not go for it?!

Any Kikuta material is like a 80%Win-to-20%Loss ratio of Risk assessment, which is pretty much a solid bet in my book.

I thought the synth on SD3 wasn't as good as in SD2. I still like SD3 of course, just not as much as SD2. Dawn of Mana is okay, but Kikuta still needs to return to SD. I wonder how much better a modern SD score by Kikuta would sound, given availability of better synth, or of live instruments, for that matter?

Never got into Koudelka or Soukaigi...

Lost Files was just kind of an "ehh" for me. Already had SoM +.

That'd be nice, but I'd settle for Kikuta just coming back into the fold so his works can be published by major labels and be readily available instead of being promo discs for hentai PC ganes.

Shouldn't be too long before the Concerto Gate soundtrack is released.  It looks as if all of his albums will be published by Norstrilia.

well, considering Lost Files is still in stock, i have decided to take the chance on Alphabet Planet still being available once Concerto Gate is released in order to lessen the blow of Amazon.co.jp international shipping rates.