Hiroki Kikuta - Musical Style and Influences

Musical Style and Influences

Kikuta finds composing music to be natural, "like breathing". He considers it to be his "vocation", and contrasts it with designing and creating video games, which he calls his "wish" and finds to be very difficult to do in comparison to composition. Kikuta does not worry about the style of music that he composes, considering it to only be a tool or method. As a result his music is frequently composed of combinations of styles mixed together. He is inspired to create his music by things that he has seen, especially while traveling; he credits much of the musical imagery in Secret of Mana and Seiken Densetsu 3 as being inspired by several islands in Fiji he has visited. Rather than trying to be a "pure artist" that creates art for art's sake, Kikuta says that his primary goal in composing is to entertain the listeners. He has not been influenced by other video game composers, though he claims to admire Hitoshi Sakimoto, whom he worked with at Square. He has named Pink Floyd as his single biggest musical influence, and guitarist Allan Holdsworth as the artist he would most like to collaborate with. Kikuta's favorite song that he has composed is "Overture" from Concerto Gate.