Biography
Born in Osaka, Japan, Ryuji Sasai began his musical career at the age of 15 playing instruments and forming a band. In 1982, he joined the rock band Novela; he was an instrumentalist and songwriter for several of their albums. During his stint with the band, he composed music for the anime series The Mysterious Cities of Gold (1982) and Adventures of the Little Koala (1984). After Novela dissolved in 1984, he provided the score for the 1986 film Windaria alongside Satoshi Kadokura. He became a member of the band Action in 1988, where he was a bass guitarist and a backing vocalist; the band were active for a decade.
His debut as a video game composer came with Crystal Software's Mugen No Shinzo III in 1989 with Chihiro Fujioka. After sending his demo tapes and résumé to every software house and game company listed in the PC-specialized magazines, he got one response from Micro Cabin. He went on to compose music for three Xak games along with Tadahiro Nitta: Xak: The Art of Visual Stage, Fray in Magical Adventure, and Xak II: The Rising of the Red Moon. During this time, he was working as a freelance composer. In 1991, after Fujioka had been hired as a director for Square, Sasai was invited to join the company as they needed composers to assist Nobuo Uematsu and Kenji Ito. His first assignment was to create the soundtrack to the Game Boy title Final Fantasy Legend III. Sasai composed the majority of the score, with director Fujioka handling four pieces.
His subsequent work for Square was 1992's Final Fantasy Mystic Quest (known as "Mystic Quest Legend" in Europe), which he composed with Yasuhiro Kawakami; it was the first game in the Final Fantasy series not to be composed by regular series composer Uematsu. After a hiatus during the peak of Action's activity, Sasai was assigned as the sole composer for the Japan-exclusive game Rudra no Hihō (1996). Afterward, he contributed the track "Character Select" for the score to the multi-composer game Tobal No. 1; the track was featured in the game's arranged album, Tobal No. 1 Remixes Electrical Indian, arranged by the team, GUIDO.
After completing the score to Bushido Blade 2 and Action dispersed in 1998, Sasai left Square. He was originally going to score two role-playing games after Bushido Blade 2, but due to circumstances with the company, it did not come to pass. Since he had been given no other assignments by the company, he decided to leave Square. Under a pseudonym, he subsequently composed and arranged music for bishōjo games, pachinko machines, and bands. Sasai is currently a bass guitarist for the Queen tribute band, Queen Mania, and the rock band Spiders from Cabaret.
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