Hiroyuki Iwatsuki
May 6th, 2008 Posted in InterviewsHiroyuki Iwatsuki is a videogame composer who has been working since the Famicom and Super Famicom console eras. His first published videogame music album, to Chaos World, came out in the Halcyon days of the Nintendo Entertainment System.
Iwatsuki’s recent score to the XBox Live Arcade game Omega Five marked his first solo project for Natsume in some years, and the soundtrack received an album release in Japan, complemented by several arrangements by Super Sweep. Many of the songs on the album are available in three versions–original soundtrack mode, nostalgic retro mode, and remixed arrange tracks. More information can be found at the VGMdb database page.
Retaining the pattern of threes, I collaborated with fellow videogame music enthusiasts Kaleb Grace of VG Frequency and Godai of #gamemp3s on an interview with the composer. The Q&A centers on the technical details behind the Retro Mode and also touches on the musician’s many contributions to the Natsume game company. The article can be found at Siliconera, it was subsequently linked to by Brian Ashcroft at Kotaku, and the Japanese-language version translated by Jiro Sato has been posted to Super Sweep’s Sweeprecord blog.