Starting an Investigation: The True Composers of the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Soundtrack

[MilkyPixels]

I'm sure I'm not the only one here that listens to the PMD soundtracks often. Especially PMD2. I thought that Arata Iiyoshi was the composer for the first 2 games' soundtracks, but I recently became aware that Keisuke Ito and Hideki Sakamoto also contributed to the soundtrack. But I'm deathly curious as to who did which song so we can have fully accurate credits for the soundtrack we all love so much. I've been scouring the composers' Twitter accounts and websites and all sorts, but I haven't found anything useful apart from someone mentioning that Keisuke Ito said on his (now unfindable) website that he did all the music that was introduced specifically for Explorers of Sky, but it seems like he did music for the base Time & Darkness games too. Arata Iiyoshi seems to be the only composer for PMD1, therefore one could maybe assume that any tracks from PMD1 repurposed for PMD2 are also by him. As for Hideki Sakamoto, it says here on his company's website that he worked with Keisuke Ito on the Time & Darkness soundtracks, but which ones?

I really want to know. This feels like a detective mystery that I just don't have the Sherlock powers to solve. I need help and more people to think how to tackle this problem! If not, my OCD will never let me forget, lmao. If anyone has a crack at solving this case and uncovers any kind of nugget of information, please let me know here. I think the first step would be finding Keisuke Ito's old website! I know Wayback would be the solution, but I don't even know what his website URL was.

 

[MilkyPixels]

Here are some Tweets and Wayback links I've dug up that give some clues. I've found some decent information, but not nearly enough to get a full idea of the credits.

• Keisuke Ito's website claims he composed and implemented all the songs that were new to Sky and not in Time/Darkness.
• Keisuke Ito's website claims he wrote 'dozens' of songs for Time/Darkness and implemented all songs into the game.
• Keisuke Ito says that the answer for who wrote what song is 'private' and that the composer of Dialga's Fight to the Finish remains a secret. What this means is unknown.
• Keisuke Ito mentions how he's seen people be able to play PMD songs by ear, to which he says that he couldn't imagine doing something like that to tracks like Waterfall Cave or Battle Against Dusknoir. Could these be his own songs he's referencing?
• Keisuke Ito notes that his style of using folk instruments in compositions started with Explorers of Time/Darkness.
• Keisuke Ito notes that he used to write the songs for the future world of darkness while in complete darkness in his room.
  • The same thing is mentioned here.
• Keisuke Ito and Hideki Sakamoto are implied to have collaborated together, rather than just working together.
• Hideki Sakamoto takes credit for Craggy Coast.
• Hideki Sakamoto describes his musical style in detail (helpful for song guessing)
• Hideki Sakamoto seems takes credit for his company noisycroak writing Dialga's Fight to the Finish (this implies that Hideki and/or Keisuke composed the track).
• Hideki Sakamoto seems to be taking credit on behalf of both himself and Keisuke for the whole Time/Darkness soundtrack here (before Sky). Arata Iiyoshi isn't even mentioned.
• Hideki Sakamoto informs someone that there are loads of new songs in Sky as opposed to Time/Darkness. This could mean that he was involved, but also could just be general knowledge he was sharing despite not being involved.

 

[silurica]

Hi, hello! I'm the person from Discord who had some Thoughts about Arata's music. I wanted to collect them neatly, but the more I thought about it the less sure I became about where the line between genre and personal style is drawn. I may try to tackle this again later, but today I'm here to give that update.

That and to drop this post by Arata from a while ago, saying he's unfortunately unavailable for PMD-related questions. Although he maaaaay be able to answer without saying specifics whether he was involved in the PMD2 project beyond songs carried over from PMD1? He could say he wasn't involved in PMD DX.

All that said, I'll leave some of his songs as S.S.D.FANTASICA in the Bemani franchise here, so even if I never came back with more thoughts, at least you can know where I'm drawing them from. And if nothing else, they're neat songs. (There are even more songs out there listed here, but I'll focus on the ones with Celtic feel in them.)

Spoiler: YouTube links

FANTASCAPE Act.1:

• PRISONER OF "FANTASICA"
• BALLAD THE FEATHERS
• BRIDAL FESTIVAL!!!
• BROKEN EDEN (in collaboration with NIHILISTICA, note the more techno sound)
• Claiomh = Solais (in collaboration with DJ Yoshitaka, though Yoshitaka said they prioritized S.S.D.'s style and sensibilities in the making of this song. The use of beat and cymbal is typical of Yoshitaka.)
• JOURNEY TO "FANTASICA"

Never collected in an artist album:

• A MINSTREL
• ユミル (in collaboration with NIHILISTICA, same note as before)
• アエル

I mainly referenced FANTASCAPE Act.1 because the original compositions dated between 2006-2010 and the original PMD2 was released in 2008 -- roughly the same period of time. The other songs came after FANTASCAPE Act.1 was released.