Music of Kingdom Hearts - Creation and Influence

Creation and Influence

Yoko Shimomura composed the music for the three main Kingdom Hearts games and their remakes. She began composing video game music in 1988, and joined Square in 1993, but left in 2002 to work freelance. In creating music, Shimomura gathers inspiration from different things outside of her daily routine, like traveling or when she is emotionally moved. She has a respect for solo and orchestral pieces, such as Piano Sonata No. 7 by Ludwig van Beethoven, Ballade No. 1 by Frédéric Chopin, and La Valse by Maurice Ravel. Shimomura was initially hesitant to handle the music for the first Kingdom Hearts; the mix of a Square-style story and Disney characters made it hard to imagine what the game would be like, which made it difficult to compose the music. Many of the musical pieces are arrangements of Disney themes, which Shimomura stated she enjoyed arranging. Shimomura felt a great deal of pressure working on such recognizable tunes, and made an effort to maintain the original mood and atmosphere of them while complying with the technical specifications of the PlayStation 2. For example, the original orchestrated tune to The Nightmare Before Christmas was impossible to reproduce on the PlayStation 2's sound system. To keep aspects of it intact, Shimomura used a trial and error method to arrange the piece.

In creating original music, Shimomura wanted to create compositions that would make players feel good while playing to accompany the action aspect of Kingdom Hearts. She played the game and looked over scripts and illustrations for inspiration. After coming up with ideas, she discussed them with director Tetsuya Nomura and the game planners. For the PlayStation 2 re-release of Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, she and her team spent much of their time working on the fight music; Shimomura wanted the different fight music to reflect different emotions such as happiness and sadness. To handle the large workload for Kingdom Hearts coded, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days and Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep, Shimomura composed the most prominent themes, while the rest was created by other composers. In retrospect, Shimomura has stated that the Kingdom Hearts series combined the scenes and music well, and she felt very honored her music has entered into people's hearts. She has also commented that she enjoyed working on the project, despite its hardships, and is proud of the work.

The two main theme songs were written and performed by Japanese American artist Hikaru Utada. She wrote two versions for each, one in Japanese and one in English; the latter is used for international releases of the games. "Hikari" and "Passion" are the Japanese version theme songs for Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts II respectively, while their English counterparts are called "Simple and Clean" and "Sanctuary". Utada was the only singer Nomura had in mind for the first Kingdom Hearts theme song. He considered Utada an iconic young singer whose music could break language and international barriers. Her involvement, along with the first song's Japanese title, was announced in January 2002. Utada's involvement with the sequel was announced in July 2005. Nomura chose not to have a different singer perform the second theme song because he believed fans associated Utada with Kingdom Hearts. Utada derived her inspiration from the worlds and characters in Kingdom Hearts; she also received written explanations of the stories from Nomura. Nomura stated that the vocals of the second theme tie in more closely with the game's story than "Hikari"/"Simple and Clean" did with Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. Conversely, Nomura commented that Utada's theme songs influenced several factors in creating the games.