An interview with Legends series music composer

[OKeijiDragon]

Brought to you by DASH Republic, an exclusive interview with Mega Man series composer Makoto Tomozawa, posted on March 18th.

www.dashrepublic.org/2012/03/18/exclusive-interview-with-makoto-tomozawa-dash-series-music-composer/

In the middle of summer last year, just around the time of the catastrophe, I had a chat with Makoto Tomozawa on Twitter, composer of several Mega Man titles, including Mega Man X, Mega Man 7, the two main Mega Man Legends entries (Tron Bonne was handled by another person with some cool talent).

This interview goes over those games, plus Resident Evil on PS1, up until the middle of DASH1's development. Unfortunately, we only stop at that point but we did got some cool info about his input into DASH1. Surprisingly, to me at least, he types very decent English.

Here are some highlights of the conversation.

- The Legends series are among his favorite games to have composed music for.
- Specifies which tracks he composed for Mega Man X1 and MM7's soundtrack.
- Calls out Mega Man X3 (PSX) Intro theme for being "unrefined."
- For Resident Evil, we talk about the ending theme, "Still Dawn."
- "...all of titles and tunes are just like my children."
- We briefly go over the music rights for Resident Evil.
- Capcom never knew about the infamous voice actors they hired for Resident Evil.
- Volnutt was planned to have his own theme music (Cleveland Rock asks about this as well).
- There was no special meaning behind MegaMan Juno's theme. It was made to be flashy.
- Capcom's perception in Legends 1's release.

I hope you get to enjoy this as much as I did having the pleasure speaking with him!

[Loken]

That's pretty cool. That man must have composed alot of music in his time to not be able recognize his own! Very interesting conversation.
Japanese schools must teach english well. I have taken 3 Spanish classes and I can't understand most of it.

[Dashe]

I'm glad he went with the Bonnes theme over Volnutt's. It's my favorite track in the game!

[SketchMan3]

I just ran into this article myself searching for "ammo", and was just rushing over to post it, lol. The music of DASH brought me back to MMLS.

This is so cool. I didn't know he'd composed for MMX. It's cool to hear how the different styles of MMX and MML music overlap each other.

I know people here are pretty open-minded about music, and like things other than metal and rock, but I can't help but notice a very "metal" or "hard rock" feeling coming from some of the tracks in this game, particularly "With Vengeful Feelings" and "City Hall Under Siege".

I've been taking flack on youtube for posting that in the comments, lol...

I mean, I know Megaman+Hard Rock has been done to death, but I don't think that's any reason to NOT do it anymore, lol. Especially considering MML hasn't been put through the paces yet...

But It's good to know that I at least have the fact that Tomozawa at least LIKES metal and rock to back me up on my claims... lol

Mar 31, 2012 0:01:10 GMT -5 OKeijiDragon said:

- There was no special meaning behind MegaMan Juno's theme. It was made to be flashy.

In the next two lines of the interview, he clarifies that it was "A flash of inspiration".

I'd take personal offense if he said it was just to be flashy... haha. That was one of the most meaningful parts of the game, to me, though I can't explain how or why.


Edit:
If anybody ever gets to interview Tomozawa again, please ask about the influence of rock and metal in his tunes for Megaman Legends, specifically the above mentioned songs. I find it fascinating the way rock, metal, classical, jazz, and other genres seam to be interwoven throughout his work. And also, the Fusion sample is awesome. Where is the full version T_T

[Deleted]

Wonderful article. Love learning what Makoto Tomozawa thought of his music for the Legends series. It's interesting that while the theme of Glyde's Base from Legends 2 sounds similar to X1's stage select theme, he didn't work on both of them.