Hello everyone, this is the first episode of a project that I wished to start for a very long time, my personal vision of a Let's Play in which we talk about some of my favorite games with special guests.
As I wanted to start at full speed and also being a huge fan of Fumito Ueda’s works, today we will talk about The Last Guardian, by far at the top of my personal selection. For the occasion, I’m very honored to have with me today the Composer of the score, Takeshi Furukawa. Takeshi, my friend, welcome to the show!
Hello Francesco, thank you for having me, it’s my pleasure to be here.
You have no idea how much I’m happy to do this thing with you.
Absolutely, the pleasure is all mine!
Having started my career as a freelance journalist interviewing you about your job on The Last Guardian I couldn’t start this project with anybody else. That’s mindblowing somehow, isn’t it?
Yeah, that’s right I’ve just remembered. You very kindly wrote an article about music when you were first starting out as a gaming journalist and then I think I met you in Rome for the Italian Video Game Awards that’s when we first met face to face isn’t it? And then I think I saw you in Cologne afterward?
Yes, that’s correct. The real act of kindness was yours, actually: you accepted to be interviewed by a completely anonymous guy. That thing meant a lot for me on a level you can’t imagine and I’m really excited.
Oh likewise, thanks for having me, let’s have fun today!
Yes, let's begin! Today we will explore The Last Guardian and we will comment together on some key moments using the Composer's Choice Edition of the soundtrack as a guideline and talk about some behind-the-scenes trivia.
This kind of stuff it's always fascinating because it allows us to understand more about the creation of a video game. In particular, soundtracks have the enormous power to fix a moment and create a memory in our heads, they are quite important, isn’t it?
Yeah, sound, music… I think was George Lukas who famously said “Half of the movie is sound” sound and music I’m sure he meant. In video games, what they do is create a world, they create an immersive world for the player.
Naturally half of the experience it’s the visual aspect but the other half it’s the oral component and I’m actually happy that you think music is quite important because I’m one of its biggest proponents.
In my opinion, music is a huge part of the experience while playing. And I like video game music so much that I keep listening to a lot of it in my everyday playlists.
I was thinking that before moving forward it’s better to provide some major info about the game. The Last Guardian, it’s a game, a PS4 exclusive, created by Fumito Ueda and the genDESIGN team, in collaboration with Japan Studio. Basically, it’s a bedtime fairytale, a story that you can tell to your kids.
Takeshi the soundtrack for this game was your first experience in the industry, right?
Yes and no, it was my first solo experience or my solo gig, but before then I had worked for other composers oftentimes starting out as apprenticing for senior composers whether it be an assistant or intern. When I was assisting another composer many years before The Last Guardian we were working on a couple of games so yes, this is my first solo title but not my first time working with video games.
Oh, cool! While we are talking there’s the first track of the selection in the background, called Overture, music that will last for the first part of the intro until the very first encounter between the two main characters, the boy and Trico.
As I wanted to start at full speed and also being a huge fan of Fumito Ueda’s works, today we will talk about The Last Guardian, by far at the top of my personal selection. For the occasion, I’m very honored to have with me today the Composer of the score, Takeshi Furukawa. Takeshi, my friend, welcome to the show!
Hello Francesco, thank you for having me, it’s my pleasure to be here.
You have no idea how much I’m happy to do this thing with you.
Absolutely, the pleasure is all mine!
Having started my career as a freelance journalist interviewing you about your job on The Last Guardian I couldn’t start this project with anybody else. That’s mindblowing somehow, isn’t it?
 |
| Takeshi and I, Gamescom 2018 |
Yeah, that’s right I’ve just remembered. You very kindly wrote an article about music when you were first starting out as a gaming journalist and then I think I met you in Rome for the Italian Video Game Awards that’s when we first met face to face isn’t it? And then I think I saw you in Cologne afterward?
Yes, that’s correct. The real act of kindness was yours, actually: you accepted to be interviewed by a completely anonymous guy. That thing meant a lot for me on a level you can’t imagine and I’m really excited.
Oh likewise, thanks for having me, let’s have fun today!
Yes, let's begin! Today we will explore The Last Guardian and we will comment together on some key moments using the Composer's Choice Edition of the soundtrack as a guideline and talk about some behind-the-scenes trivia.
This kind of stuff it's always fascinating because it allows us to understand more about the creation of a video game. In particular, soundtracks have the enormous power to fix a moment and create a memory in our heads, they are quite important, isn’t it?
Yeah, sound, music… I think was George Lukas who famously said “Half of the movie is sound” sound and music I’m sure he meant. In video games, what they do is create a world, they create an immersive world for the player.
Naturally half of the experience it’s the visual aspect but the other half it’s the oral component and I’m actually happy that you think music is quite important because I’m one of its biggest proponents.
In my opinion, music is a huge part of the experience while playing. And I like video game music so much that I keep listening to a lot of it in my everyday playlists.
I was thinking that before moving forward it’s better to provide some major info about the game. The Last Guardian, it’s a game, a PS4 exclusive, created by Fumito Ueda and the genDESIGN team, in collaboration with Japan Studio. Basically, it’s a bedtime fairytale, a story that you can tell to your kids.
Takeshi the soundtrack for this game was your first experience in the industry, right?
Yes and no, it was my first solo experience or my solo gig, but before then I had worked for other composers oftentimes starting out as apprenticing for senior composers whether it be an assistant or intern. When I was assisting another composer many years before The Last Guardian we were working on a couple of games so yes, this is my first solo title but not my first time working with video games.
Oh, cool! While we are talking there’s the first track of the selection in the background, called Overture, music that will last for the first part of the intro until the very first encounter between the two main characters, the boy and Trico.
We can notice that it’s subtle music, not invasive, a distinctive trait of Fumito Ueda’s games. He seems to prefer silence, isn’t he?
Absolutely, the subtractive ethos is like the trademark of Ueda-san.
(He laughs) I’m gonna be pulling a lot of quotes from famous people today. As you probably know Mozart famously said “Music is in the space between the notes”. Are those silent moments that draw the emotional reaction that makes it magical I think that translates to every medium. We don’t want something that’s always bombarding you with information. You need that space and how better to showcase that than a Ueda-san’s game? Very minimal, very atmospheric. It doesn’t tell, it suggests so it allows the player to be receptive but also to synthesize their own emotion or experience based on what’s subtly suggested. It wouldn’t make sense for the music to go bombarding with emotion in such a context so, yeah, it was only natural to stay very very in the back, very subtle.
Also, it was for a practical matter too because a lot of times video games go through iteration you have to try certain actions, things are not set in stone. So for example this scene I think I didn’t know what the gameplay was gonna be like or where things might stop because the player would need to make certain keystrokes with the controller in such a case you kind of have to plan ahead and I think being sparser helped because you can think practically: loop points, edit points and stuff like that so. It was a combination of both. It was natural to conform to the aesthetic ethos but also there was a practical side as well of trying to make sure that the music is going to work later on when things might change.
That’s a very interesting aspect of the music in video games but I’ll ask more about this thing later. Know I would like to move forward a little bit and listen to another track called The Tower, which is the one that kicks in as soon you go outside and discover the boundaries of the Nest.
I remember this scene. We had done this quite early in the stage of development because this was one of the cutscenes that had been fixed or developed earlier on. Obviously, things like camera angles and stuff like that changed throughout the process. The first one that I and Ito-san - Tsubasa Ito, Audio Director - fixed. A composer deals with the audio director most of the time because the game director himself is so busy overseeing everything from art to sound to music so the daily communication was between me and Ito-san.
I think the first version of this queue I had done was this bombastic… it had like this soaring string melody on top of it and when we tested it, we’ve just got out of the cavern which is supposed to be like a sunshine moment, and we very quickly realized that that version way too much. We’re yelling when we should be speaking softly so that didn’t fly.
It was good that we tried it and we found out that that kind of musical approach was not going to work for the game and battled on the current version which was the second or the third version which makes use of it. A lot of the theme or the motifs for the score are harmonically based, harmonic progressions, there isn’t a lot of what we would normally refer to as leitmotivs in composition, where those things tend to be more melodic. It was more, again, subtly suggesting things with just harmonic transitions and harmonic movements.
Speaking about themes we can spot at least three moods: a sense of wonder, as happened a few moments ago seeing the Tower for the first time for example - a building which is also a smart game design solution to measure the progression of the gameplay as we aim to reach its top and its always visible from every corner of the Nest - a sense of urgency, according to the need to escape from the place and there’s also that sense of gentleness, of peace, that we can perceive during those scenes in which the bonding between the boy and Trico gets stronger and stronger. There were some guidelines while creating the score?
That’s a good question. I actually don’t have an answer off top of my head because I probably did all of what you just said without really realizing or consciously thinking about it. When we were scoring I think one of the things that we were trying to focus on was just the mood that’s associated with each scene so you’re right on point when you say there are several moods when you know you are in peril with Toriko then the mood is gonna be tension and urgency and when not it’s gonna be serenity and just peace.
At the same time we didn’t want to do was to score the character or overtly kind of underscore the emotion too much. I’m not sure if we were really conscious of trying to tie it in with like a location or with a singular reference point like the distance from the tower. I don't think I ever thought of it that way.
Interesting workflow!
Sorry, I’m not sure if I’m answering your question (He smiles)
No no no, that was awesome and very interesting, actually. It’s cool that the whole thing was more heart-driven somehow. I mean, we are talking about making Art after all! Speaking of which, let’s move to another piece that I really like. Soon after this scene, the landscape will open up and we will find ourselves in the middle of a little Forest, which is also the title of the track.
The music here it’s so peaceful and very specific for this moment as it wants to magnify this little moment of calm for the duo, isn’t it?
Tell us Takeshi, what was the relationship between the creation of the score and the creation of the game? I mean, in this case, with Forest that’s so specific for this scene, did you have it ready to be used as a reference or did the developers created the mood later around your music?
No, in this case, the scene came first. Early on between myself and Ito-san we thought it would be cool to try to score this as cinematic as possible, so almost like a film. I’m realising I probably put him into torture for doing this but every week or two, when there was a build update, he would play through the game and record it so we could see the whole picture of the narrative. When we came to this forest area you know it felt like a respite, we’ve been playing for around an hour to an hour and a half to get here and it felt like the end of chapter one. In the game, there isn’t a clear-cut chapter mark, so this was supposed to be as you said very eloquently, a moment of peace.
From that moment on you will also encounter your enemies. The music around them, Sentinel, is kind of funny for me because it gives you some hints that there’s something wrong but while you listen to it, you are not so scared, it’s just a little spooky. How did you come up with this track?
I didn’t really think too hard about it. It came quite naturally. As you probably noticed by listening to the score I’m a big fan of woodwind instruments. I just love woodwinds I love everything about the instruments. I love woodwind players as well.
I jive well with them. Anyhow, whenever I get stuck I think I had to just naturally go for them because they have so much color and character and one of the things that we wanted to do was to create something balanced for Sentinels, with the mission of not trying to make everything just so zero or ten. It’s a refined shade of gray: these guys are a threat but it’s not like they’re coming at you with an AK-47 firing around, if you look at them they are threatening but they are also spooky. There’s something a little bit odd and they seem slow: at first, they scare you but then you kind of mock them the boy is too fast for those guys. So for all these fine layers, a bass clarinet works really well.
As soon as the armors spot you, Sentinel II kicks in and the music becomes haunting, then Trico joins the fight and the music turns epic with the track called Victorious. When you created those pieces of music you had to keep in mind the procedural nature of how they change according to the moment or there was an adaptation to the game in a second moment?
For this particular game I was lucky because Ito-san said to me “Don’t worry too much about it, the audio team will handle it the best they can”. For me, that was in line with what I was more concerned about with the general tone and the mood. Specifically, with this situation, it’s like rock-paper-scissors, once Toriko comes out then it’s all over for the armor, but when you’re a boy all alone, you’re in peril because there’s nothing you can do against the armors so the standoff, this whole mechanic, the fight mechanic, things weren’t really solidified towards the tail end of development as I remember.
Well, we can definitely call combat the next one. I’m referring to the scene in which Trico fights against another beast to protect the boy, ending up severely wounded. This huge dogfight it’s a very intense scene. The music in the background of this incredible moment is Condor Clash. Speaking about urgency, this track is illegal for how much panic it produces! It shouts - he laughs - “make something!”
I’m glad it that because that was the point!
You know, that’s crazy how Ueda and the rest of the team portrayed this clash. In the real life dogfights are terrible. I worked as a dog walker for a while when I was living in London and these fights could begin out of nowhere and you have to be super fast to stop the dogs before they gonna hurt themselves really bad, and that’s crazy how these feelings have been portrayed here. Amazing.
See all the notes the strings are playing, all the chromatic? I was afraid to really stump the orchestral players, that they would never gonna be able to sightread the piece. But of course, it’s the London Symphony, they just whipped through it on the first try.
This score, this was a hard one because I had to really for this one I had to pay attention to the interactive all the cuts to the chromatic, and compose it in a way that gonna work.
That’s amazing how the music becomes more and more dramatic while the two Tricos are falling.
I have a story for you about this. A little bit further down the combat, there’s a part where Trico gets pinned down at the lowest level and the urgency, and Ueda-san really wanted the urgency to step up. I thought “Ok, that naturally needs to step up, but how the heck am I gonna do that?” Because already the full orchestra was playing fortissimo, I did not want to add synths to it. I didn't really want to add drums or percussions to it. I stayed for a week or two sitting there trying all the things.
Most about creating the world and creating colors for it lies in the decision to not add stuff. It's like painting: the more you mix in, the browner it gets. It just becomes one color so, along that lines of thinking, I couldn't really add percussions because drums haven't been really a part of the score up until then and that would be odd. I was really stuck until one day I came up with the solution: Super Mario! When time runs out, when you go below one hundred seconds in Super Mario the music just gets faster. Why didn't think of that two weeks ago?! Of course, that was the solution! I just ramp up the tempo! And that's solved everything.
Amazing! Well, you know, sometimes the best solutions come out in the worst situation.
Here there’s a full U-turn for how gentle the next track is. As the boy stops the fight, his action will also change the mood of the scene and the track Wounded will start soon after.
I think a lot of people did not notice this but there’s a reason why the music kind of gets heroic right there, that’s not just because you saved Trico, but the other one, the darker Toriko, when you drop the cart down you actually broke its horn.
Amazing! Well, you know, sometimes the best solutions come out in the worst situation.
Here there’s a full U-turn for how gentle the next track is. As the boy stops the fight, his action will also change the mood of the scene and the track Wounded will start soon after.
I think a lot of people did not notice this but there’s a reason why the music kind of gets heroic right there, that’s not just because you saved Trico, but the other one, the darker Toriko, when you drop the cart down you actually broke its horn.
Ah, yes and you set it free from the influence of the Master of the Valley, right?
Exactly, you got it, I saw a lot of players kind of being confused about that.
That’s the signature of Ueda’s storytelling. A lot of things are left to interpretation! For example, one of the main speculations about the whole story is how much time the boy spent inside the Nest, and what’s the time span of the adventure. Days? Weeks? See the carts in this scene? If I decide to climb them instead of using the lighting bolt of Trico, a cutscene will be triggered and you will find yourself playing at night, affecting the counting of the time passed until that moment.
I did not know that!
Me neither until the third run! - Takeshi laughs - Damn I’m ruining the moment, this track is so gentle.
Exactly, you got it, I saw a lot of players kind of being confused about that.
That’s the signature of Ueda’s storytelling. A lot of things are left to interpretation! For example, one of the main speculations about the whole story is how much time the boy spent inside the Nest, and what’s the time span of the adventure. Days? Weeks? See the carts in this scene? If I decide to climb them instead of using the lighting bolt of Trico, a cutscene will be triggered and you will find yourself playing at night, affecting the counting of the time passed until that moment.
I did not know that!
Me neither until the third run! - Takeshi laughs - Damn I’m ruining the moment, this track is so gentle.
You can, hopefully, sense my love of woodwinds here again.
Considering the many situations in the game, what's the instrument that you believe represents The Last Guardian better than any other? Strings or woodwinds?
Strings are one of them but the real score’s identity is strings and the Oboe. Piano too! It’s those three pretty much. I was originally thinking if the budget was a concern which luckily it wasn’t, I was thinking I could probably score the whole thing with the piano, small string ensemble, and one Oboe. It didn’t turn up that way but, those are definitely the three cornerstones.
Good for us you hadn’t limitations! (Takeshi laughs)
Speaking again about Condor Clash just for a moment, in that track, I sense John Williams vibes, the Master is one of your inspirations if I remember well, right?
Obviously, he is an inspiration to every single composer on the planet. In fact, I'm touched and flattered that you would even mention my name in the same sentence as John Williams. I think you might have offended him by doing so.
Oh, no I think he can be proud of your work. Your music can easily fit a Jurassic Park movie. Like the starting part of the fight between the two Tricos, that’s so John Williams.
I used to score Star Wars: The Clone Wars the animated tv show so some of that I am sure is part of my music lexicon as well.
I can totally listen to your music in the background of a scene with a T-Rex chasing people.
(He laughs) Thank you!
We are very close to the end of the game now, this is the part where the last fight happens.
Yes, when you reach the top of the radio tower.
And I presume that the title of the track, Apex, has a layered meaning, right? It’s a Latin word that means Top and here we are at the top of the tower, reaching the climax, with the storytelling at the highest peak, against apex predators too. Did I get it?
I’m trying to imagine the brief behind the development of this scene because is insane. With Ueda and the team explaining to you that this is a super creepy moment where the situation is about exploding into an even bigger dogfight and you have to sum all these things into one soundtrack! How did it actually go?
So there’s a lot happening in the scene, the story really unfolds and this is kind the twist. Yes this scene right there, my gosh… Originally we did a version where the music very closely follows the narrative, it was not exactly like “DAN DAN DAN” when you find out the dark secrets, we didn’t want to do that but it was something close to that. We were following everything that was happening on screen and again Ito-san and I looked at it and we noticed it wasn’t working.
We decided that the best thing to do was just to lay a carpet of just that creepiness, subtle creepiness, and let the strings play their ominous melodies, without synchronizing with anything that’s happening on screen. It should just be wallpaper but not in a pejorative way, in a good way, staying out of the way. We just let the story unfold, and that worked out better because we weren’t trying to chase and tell everything that was happening on screen.
Quite interesting, especially this part where we can listen to the ominous mood building up somehow.
Oh yeah and this is an accelerando that happens from the very beginning, you start off very slow the whole tempo-thing again.
That’s a very dramatic moment, the first time I was playing it I was holding my breath. There’s a lot to process because of the twist of the sacrifices, and all of a sudden you have to put on stand-by that shock because Trico is trying to protect you once again and you are so powerless, so little, but you have to find once again a way to solve the situation. There’s a twist of the music as well here, where the boy free falls. Also, this part is SO JOHN WILLIAMS.
(Takeshi laughs) I’m flattered
I think that Ueda-san and the rest of the team in this scene were trying somehow to replicate the same feeling of fighting the colossus as in Shadow of the Colossus. Looks like a cameo to me, somehow. Also, the way the music keeps growing according to the flight of the feral Toriko is insane!
Well if that’s the case it was either the fortuitous timing and Ito-san been timing that because I don’t think I saw a picture when I was writing this piece. All I had was a black placeholder that says “Boy falls from the sky”.
So the scene was not ready for you…
Yes, I don’t think, I don’t remember, I don’t think I saw a picture of it, yeah.
Or things were at least changing.
That’s fascinating. I mean, the outcome that came out from just so few details is quite impressive! Also, speaking about impressive things we are about to listen to probably one of my favorite tracks of the score. Soon after the fight, there’s the track Suite, or at least a part of it. The actual version is seven minutes long if I remember well, but looks like the team cut the music to fit it better with the scene, right?
Oh no what happened here was we had a couple of switches in the music. The way it’s presented in the soundtrack was the way it was originally composed for the scene. And then Ueda-san asked for a switch. I'm flattered how he caught easily what plays in the Suite better so we transplanted this track to this scene instead. And I happily agree with him, I do agree with him, he made the right choice the other one would have probably been too “Disney” I think.
I HAVE GOOSEBUMPS! I love this part!
It’s oboe, speaking of which... I gush about the London Symphonic Orchestra because to me they’re one of the top Orchestras in the world. What you are hearing here it's a take one, just first read.
Really?
Yep, we put on the music and their manager came back to me and said “this is the sound of the LSO”. This soaring it’s just epic.
Wow!
Obviously we did safety takes but the first take was the best take, it was the most emotionally charged so that’s why we ended up using it.
How many times did it happen to get a good result at the first take while recording?
It does happen quite often because most of the time you only have time to do one taking.
You have a certain amount of time to record a certain amount of music, and you have no choice, if there’s a mistake you just have to move on with or you just have to accept that it’s not going to be perfect but again, in this case, it’s a perfect performance, they play the music they just don’t read the notes.
Awesome, the choices made with the music here are so on point. The bittersweetness of this moment was very hard to handle at first, especially because you don’t know what happen to Trico until the very end of the game. That post-credit scene, with that music.
Yes, the epilogue.
That’s my favorite one, let’s listen to it but I feel sorry to skip the credits, I don’t want to skip them. Let’s buy them some time, with an extra question. (Takeshi laughs) How much time did it take to record everything?
Well, it took about… the project as you know was going for about ten years, the whole game. I was working on it for about five but really only intensely for about two and a half to three, and then in terms of realizing the final recordings we went to London twice for a total of about six days so three days and three days.
Wow, that’s a very short time, considering the whole development I mean...
Yeah, you know, we often compare ourselves to like athletes. We were writing in the studio for three years, more, sometimes, and our moment of glory, so we consider it when we record the live orchestra, it’s so short. Just like, you know, athletes at the Olympics.
This is actually one of the first pieces I wrote I think.
How did you get the job?
So for something like this, they always audition composers or collect demos, obviously is not an open call because, they don’t want to get ten thousand submissions but it was a small audition, we were five composers maybe. What I submitted is not in the game, so what the demo piece was was completely different but…
You had some guidelines, I suppose…
They just showed us the early image, you know that still picture with the boy on the cliff and Toriko standing? Like very early items they just showed us that and said okay we’ll put music to this, what kind of music inspires you? What does this do to your music?
Oh, I see. Is it hard to provide a brief for music? I mean, visual things like character design and level design are easier to explain somehow, but to explain what music you want it’s another story, isn’t it?
Yes, but some people when they audition composers take it at face value, so they want music that exactly fits what they are thinking of. They have the picture in front of them. For Ueda-san it was more about trying to figure out what kind of musical language would the composer use and his ethos. Things did not have to be spot-on perfect as long as he knew that we could get along together. Because we were going to make this game together for many years so…
Finally! Here comes Epilogue! That’s definitely my favorite!
This is where percussions come in for the first time, that’s why it feels very different from the rest of the score.
You know, since 2016, every time I’m coming back from a trip or travel, this is the music that plays in my mind. It gives me this feeling of…
Familiar like you’re back home
That’s it!
Wow, that’s the entire point!
Did you know, there’s an easter egg in this part. If you keep pushing the circle button until the end of the scene, you will see the horns of Toriko glowing-
Here at the end?
Yes, there, in the darkness. And from this, you understand that that’s YOUR Toriko, that it’s still alive!
I actually did know that but I think there was another easter egg that was implemented earlier on but I don’t if it ever made it into the final version.
Do you mean the puppies?
Oh, so it is in the final version?!
Yes, they are very hidden behind this beam of light. Actually, you can see one of them but somebody on the internet found out how to switch off the light and it turns out that there's a whole family.
That’s amazing so it did make it into the final version!!!
Yes, that’s the happy ending that everybody was hoping for! And with these six letters, we finished our journey.
Cool! Oh, we got through the whole game!
That’s awesome, isn’t it? Takeshi, it was amazing, thank you so so much for joining me on this journey, I’m so grateful!
Thank you for having me. It was fun! Wow, that hour really flew by really quickly!
It always happens when you are listening to good music and you are in good company!
That’s all folks! Thanks for reading, I hope to come back soon with a new special episode, until that moment take care. Bye
Yep, we put on the music and their manager came back to me and said “this is the sound of the LSO”. This soaring it’s just epic.
Wow!
Obviously we did safety takes but the first take was the best take, it was the most emotionally charged so that’s why we ended up using it.
How many times did it happen to get a good result at the first take while recording?
It does happen quite often because most of the time you only have time to do one taking.
You have a certain amount of time to record a certain amount of music, and you have no choice, if there’s a mistake you just have to move on with or you just have to accept that it’s not going to be perfect but again, in this case, it’s a perfect performance, they play the music they just don’t read the notes.
Awesome, the choices made with the music here are so on point. The bittersweetness of this moment was very hard to handle at first, especially because you don’t know what happen to Trico until the very end of the game. That post-credit scene, with that music.
Yes, the epilogue.
That’s my favorite one, let’s listen to it but I feel sorry to skip the credits, I don’t want to skip them. Let’s buy them some time, with an extra question. (Takeshi laughs) How much time did it take to record everything?
Well, it took about… the project as you know was going for about ten years, the whole game. I was working on it for about five but really only intensely for about two and a half to three, and then in terms of realizing the final recordings we went to London twice for a total of about six days so three days and three days.
Wow, that’s a very short time, considering the whole development I mean...
Yeah, you know, we often compare ourselves to like athletes. We were writing in the studio for three years, more, sometimes, and our moment of glory, so we consider it when we record the live orchestra, it’s so short. Just like, you know, athletes at the Olympics.
This is actually one of the first pieces I wrote I think.
How did you get the job?
So for something like this, they always audition composers or collect demos, obviously is not an open call because, they don’t want to get ten thousand submissions but it was a small audition, we were five composers maybe. What I submitted is not in the game, so what the demo piece was was completely different but…
You had some guidelines, I suppose…
They just showed us the early image, you know that still picture with the boy on the cliff and Toriko standing? Like very early items they just showed us that and said okay we’ll put music to this, what kind of music inspires you? What does this do to your music?
Oh, I see. Is it hard to provide a brief for music? I mean, visual things like character design and level design are easier to explain somehow, but to explain what music you want it’s another story, isn’t it?
Yes, but some people when they audition composers take it at face value, so they want music that exactly fits what they are thinking of. They have the picture in front of them. For Ueda-san it was more about trying to figure out what kind of musical language would the composer use and his ethos. Things did not have to be spot-on perfect as long as he knew that we could get along together. Because we were going to make this game together for many years so…
Finally! Here comes Epilogue! That’s definitely my favorite!
You know, since 2016, every time I’m coming back from a trip or travel, this is the music that plays in my mind. It gives me this feeling of…
Familiar like you’re back home
That’s it!
Wow, that’s the entire point!
Did you know, there’s an easter egg in this part. If you keep pushing the circle button until the end of the scene, you will see the horns of Toriko glowing-
Here at the end?
Yes, there, in the darkness. And from this, you understand that that’s YOUR Toriko, that it’s still alive!
I actually did know that but I think there was another easter egg that was implemented earlier on but I don’t if it ever made it into the final version.
Do you mean the puppies?
Oh, so it is in the final version?!
Yes, they are very hidden behind this beam of light. Actually, you can see one of them but somebody on the internet found out how to switch off the light and it turns out that there's a whole family.
That’s amazing so it did make it into the final version!!!
Yes, that’s the happy ending that everybody was hoping for! And with these six letters, we finished our journey.
Cool! Oh, we got through the whole game!
That’s awesome, isn’t it? Takeshi, it was amazing, thank you so so much for joining me on this journey, I’m so grateful!
Thank you for having me. It was fun! Wow, that hour really flew by really quickly!
It always happens when you are listening to good music and you are in good company!
That’s all folks! Thanks for reading, I hope to come back soon with a new special episode, until that moment take care. Bye
