Naoshi Mizuta


Naoshi Mizuta is a Japanese video game composer and musician. He is best known for his work on the Final Fantasy franchise, most notably Final Fantasy XI, and has also composed music for games such as Street Fighter Alpha, Mega Man & Bass, and Parasite Eve II. He started his career at Capcom before moving to Square 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". 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 1994 as a composer. His first work was composing for Street Fighter Alpha in 1995 as part of a team of composers, and also worked on arranging the music for the PlayStation version later that year.
In 1998, he composed for Mega Man & Bass with Akari Kaida and Toshihiko Horiyama. While still working for Capcom, Mizuta applied to Square as a composer in response to an advertisement and was hired. His first assignment for Square was to score Parasite Eve II, for which he was the sole composer and spent a year and a half working on. The original Parasite Eve game was scored by Yoko Shimomura, and Mizuta incorporated some of the original game's musical themes into the sequel. Mizuta's next role was as the main composer for Final Fantasy XI, with assistance from Nobuo Uematsu and Kumi Tanioka. Mizuta remained with the Final Fantasy XI project for over ten years, serving as the sole composer for the game's subsequent expansions, and considers it his life's work. During this period, Mizuta became involved in The Star Onions, a band composed of Square Enix composers for which he plays bass guitar. Other members of the band, which plays arrangements of songs from Final Fantasy XI, include Tanioka, Hidenori Iwasaki, and Tsuyoshi Sekito. The band has since released two albums, Music from the Other Side of Vana'diel and Sanctuary.
Mizuta has also worked on several other projects for Square Enix, including Blood of Bahamut and Guardian Cross. He has also worked on many other games in the Final Fantasy series, including Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light, Final Fantasy XIII-2, Final Fantasy XIV, Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, and Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII.

Musical style and influences

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. On older consoles, the hardware restricted composers to working with a limited number of channels, which challenged composers to create strong, memorable melodies without the aid of atmospheric and accompanying lines. Even without such constraints in modern titles, Mizuta feels that this style has its merits and is worth preserving in modern games. 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. Mizuta is heavily influenced by the work of Ryuichi Sakamoto, as well as Nobuo Uematsu, his superior at Square. He also draws inspiration from a variety of film scores as well as fan remixes of his work on YouTube. He has cited acid jazz artists such as Jamiroquai, Incognito, and The [Brand New Heavies] as inspirations for his music while working at Capcom.