Yoko Shimomura

is a Japanese composer and pianist known for her work in video games. She graduated from the Osaka College of Music in 1988 and began working at the video game studio Capcom the same year. Shimomura wrote music for several games there, including Final Fight, Street Fighter II, and The King of Dragons. She left Capcom and joined Square (now Square Enix) in 1993, with her first project there being Live A Live. There she would compose the music for games such as Super Mario RPG, Legend of Mana, and Parasite Eve. Shimomura received the BAFTA Fellowship award in 2025.

Shimomura would later become better known for writing the music for the Kingdom Hearts series. She left Square to become a freelancer in 2002, continuing to work with them on later games such as The 3rd Birthday and Final Fantasy XV. Other well-known games she worked on include the Mario & Luigi series, Radiant Historia, and Xenoblade Chronicles. Her works have been performed in multiple video game music concerts, with her music also published as arranged albums and piano scores. Shimomura is a member of the music label Brave Wave Productions.

Early life Shimomura was born on October 19, 1967, in Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. She developed an interest for music at a young age, and started taking piano lessons "at the age of four or five". She began composing her own music by playing the piano randomly and pretending to compose, eventually coming up with her own pieces, the first of which she says she still remembers how to play.

Career

While working for Capcom, Shimomura contributed to the soundtracks of over 16 games, including the successful Street Fighter II, for which she composed all but three pieces. The first soundtrack she worked on at the company was for Samurai Sword in 1988. Final Fight, in 1989, was her first work to receive a separate soundtrack album release, on an album of music from several Capcom games. The first soundtrack album to exclusively feature her work came a year later for the soundtrack to Street Fighter II. While she began her tenure at Capcom working on games for video game consoles, by 1990 she had moved to the arcade game division.

Kingdom Hearts was highly successful, shipping more than four million copies worldwide; Shimomura's music was frequently cited as one of the highlights of the game, and the title track has been ranked as the fourth-best role-playing game title track of all time. The soundtrack has received two albums of piano arrangements. She has built on the work she did while at Square, continuing to compose music for all eleven Kingdom Hearts games, and branching out to Nintendo's Mario & Luigi series. She has also worked on many other projects, such as Heroes of Mana and various arranged albums. She performed songs from games such as Kingdom Hearts, Live a Live, and Street Fighter II. During the Beware the Forest's Mushrooms performance from Super Mario RPG, Shimomura was joined onstage by fellow composer Yasunori Mitsuda, who played the Irish bouzouki. She is also a member of the music label Brave Wave Productions.

Works Video games Composition

Arrangements

Other

Legacy Shimomura has been cited as one of the most well-known video game music composers. In March 2007, Shimomura released her first non-video game album, Murmur, an album of vocal songs sung by Chata. Legend of Manas title theme was also performed by the Australian Eminence Symphony Orchestra for its classical gaming music concert A Night in Fantasia 2007.

Music from the original soundtrack of Legend of Mana was arranged for the piano and published by DOREMI Music Publishing. Two compilation books of music from the series have also been published as Seiken Densetsu Best Collection Piano Solo Sheet Music first and second editions, with the second including Shimomura's tracks from Legend of Mana. All songs in each book have been rewritten by Asako Niwa as beginning to intermediate level piano solos, though they are meant to sound as much like the originals as possible. Additionally, piano sheet music from Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts II has been published as music books by Yamaha Music Media.

Shimomura's first dedicated concert performance outside Japan was held at the Salle Cortot in Paris in November 2015. Later that same month, she performed at the El Plaza Condesa in Mexico City. In September 2016, some of her music for Final Fantasy XV was performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra at Abbey Road Studios in London, as well as in Boston, with Shimomura herself performing on piano. Her work was performed by the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and filmed at the Stockholm Concert Hall in 2021, with more performances in other locations starting in 2022.

Shimomura was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2024 Game Developers Choice Awards and the BAFTA Fellowship award in 2025.

Musical style and influences Shimomura lists Ludwig van Beethoven, Frédéric Chopin, and Maurice Ravel as some of her influences on her personal website. She has also stated that she has enjoyed "lounge-style jazz" for a long time. Despite these influences and her classical training, the diverse musical styles that she has used throughout her career and sometimes in the same soundtrack include "rock, electronica, oriental, ambient, industrial, pop, symphonic, operatic, chiptune, and more". She draws inspiration for her songs from things in her life that move her emotionally, which she describes as "a beautiful picture, scenery, tasting something delicious, scents that bring back memories, happy and sad things... Anything that moves my emotion gives me inspiration". Shimomura has also stated that she comes up with most of her songs when she is doing something that is "not part of [her] daily routine, like traveling." Although her influences are mostly classical, she has said that in her opinion her "style has changed dramatically over the years, though the passion for music stays the same." Shimomura has said that she believes that an important part of "the creative process behind music" is to "convey a subtle message, something that comes from your imagination and sticks with the listener, without being overly specific about what it means", rather than only writing simple themes with obvious messages. She stated her favorite composition was "Dearly Beloved" from Kingdom Hearts.