History Music / HirokiKikuta

* ShoutOut, [[TitledAfterTheSong Titled After the Band]], LiteraryAllusionTitle: Seemingly a quarter of his song titles with more than one word are examples of these tropes. Amongst them are "Literature/WhereAngelsFearToTread" (which actually comes from a line from Alexander Pope, "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread", making it a LiteraryAllusionTitle twice over), "Literature/HeartOfDarkness", "EternalRecurrence", "Literature/TimeEnoughForLove" (or possibly "[[Literature/BookOfEcclesiastes A Time for Love]]" - it can be credibly translated as either), "Literature/TheLongGoodbye", "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_to_Forever Return to Forever]]", and so on. Some of these may not actually be obvious to English-speaking audiences because the official English translations don't match the source material ("Heart of Darkness", for example, was translated in the American soundtrack release as "In the Dead of Night", but the song's Japanese title, "闇の奥" ["Yami no oku", literally meaning something like "The Inner Depths of Darkness"], matches that of the most common Japanese translation of Conrad's novel. The same goes for "Time Enough for Love"; "愛に時間を" ["Ai ni jikan o"] was used for Heinlein's novel in its Japanese translation).

* ShoutOut, [[TitledAfterTheSong Titled After the Band]], LiteraryAllusionTitle: Seemingly a quarter of his song titles with more than one word are examples of these tropes. Amongst them are "Literature/WhereAngelsFearToTread" (which actually comes from a line from Alexander Pope, "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread", making it a LiteraryAllusionTitle twice over), "Literature/HeartOfDarkness", "EternalRecurrence", "[[Literature/BookOfEcclesiastes A Time for Love]]" (or possibly "Literature/TimeEnoughForLove" - it can be credibly translated as either), "Literature/TheLongGoodbye", "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_to_Forever Return to Forever]]", and so on. Some of these may not actually be obvious to English-speaking audiences because the official English translations don't match the source material ("Heart of Darkness", for example, was translated in the American soundtrack release as "In the Dead of Night", but the song's Japanese title, "闇の奥" ["Yami no oku", literally meaning something like "The Inner Depths of Darkness"], matches that of the most common Japanese translation of Conrad's novel).

* ShoutOut, [[TitledAfterTheSong Titled After the Band]], LiteraryAllusionTitle: Seemingly a quarter of his song titles with more than one word are examples of these tropes. Amongst them are "Literature/WhereAngelsFearToTread" (which actually comes from a line from Alexander Pope, "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread", making it a LiteraryAllusionTitle twice over), "Literature/HeartOfDarkness", "EternalRecurrence", "[[Literature/BookOfEcclesiastes A Time for Love]]" (or possibly "Literature/TimeEnoughForLove" - it can be credibly translated as either), "Literature/TheLongGoodbye", "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_to_Forever Return to Forever]]", and so on. Some of these may not actually be obvious to English-speaking audiences because the official English translations don't match the source material ("Heart of Darkness", for example, was translated in the American soundtrack release as "In the Dead of Night").

* ShoutOut, TitledAfterTheSong, LiteraryAllusionTitle: Seemingly a quarter of his song titles are examples of this. Amongst them are "Where Angels Fear to Tread", "Literature/HeartOfDarkness", "EternalRecurrence", "[[Literature/BookOfEcclesiastes A Time for Love]]" (or possibly "Literature/TimeEnoughForLove" - it can be credibly translated as either), "Literature/TheLongGoodbye", "Return to Forever" (named after the seminal jazz fusion band), and so on. Some of these may not be obvious because the official English translations don't match the source material.

* RecurringRiff: A frequent video game trope, and his work is no exception. "Fear of the Angels", the main theme for ''Secret of Mana'', gets rearranged several times over the course of his two contributions to the series. In ''Seiken Densetsu 3'', "Innocent Sea" and "Innocent Water" are two different arrangements of the same melody. One of the melodies from "The Meridian Festival", the final boss music for ''Secret of Mana'', got reused for "Meridian Child" in ''Seiken Densetsu 3''. "Holy Invasion" and "Prayers and Whispers" from ''Secret of Mana'' use the same melody. And so on.

* EpicRocking: Some of his tracks, while qualifying, still aren't extreme examples even by video game standards; for instance, there are several on the ''Seiken Densetsu 3'' soundtrack[[note]]specifically, "Ancient Dolphin", "Female Turbulence", "Weird Counterpoint", and "Electric Talk"; "Another Winter" would also be around five, as would "Pure Land" from ''Secret of Mana''[[/note]] that would be around six minutes if they were looped properly (most of them fade out after about one and a half playthroughs), and then the final battle song "The Sacrifice, Part Three" (8:05) and the final credits song "Return to Forever" (8:39) are even longer. But ''then'' there's the arranged album ''Secret of Mana +'', which consists of a single 49:27 track. To be fair, it's something of a medley of ''Secret of Mana'' and ''Seiken Densetsu 3'' songs (interestingly, since the latter game wouldn't even be released for nearly two years afterwards).[[note]]There's no official list of what songs are included, but the ''Seiken Densetsu 3'' songs seemingly include "Secret of Mana" (starting at about 6:43), "Ancient Dolphin" (18:08 and again at 32:22), "Meridian Child" (22:50), "Weird Counterpoint" (26:48), "Return to Forever" (34:18 and again at 44:35), and "Obsession" (40:42). The ''Secret of Mana'' songs include "Fear of the Angels" (3:17), "The Boy Heads into the Wilderness" (9:36), and vague elements of "Steel and Snare" and "Where the Wind Rests" at various points (the former seems to be merged with the "Boy Heads into the Wilderness" passages and the latter with the "Return to Forever"). However, some of these are so radically different from their appearances in the games as to be almost unrecognisable, so this list should be considered a work in progress. Incidentally, if you rip the CD as a disc image with software like X Lossless Decoder or Exact Audio Copy, you will get a cue sheet that has fifteen indices. Most of these correspond to significant stylistic shifts within the music, but a couple of the musical shifts are not included in it. Also interestingly, different pressings appear to have slightly different indices; there are at least three known sets of indices. See discussion [[https://vgmdb.net/db/albums-discuss.php?id=722 on the VGMdb forum]].[[/note]]

* RearrangeTheSong: In addition to the typical video game {{Recurring Riff}}s, there are several arrangement albums for ''Secret of Mana'' and ''Seiken Densetsu 3''. "Secret of Mana +" is a particularly bizarre example that incorporates ElectronicMusic, ProgressiveRock, and {{ambient}} influence and runs as a single track (and, unusually for this trope, includes melodies from the latter game almost two years before its release; see EpicRocking above). There are more traditional examples as well, like the ''Seiken Densetsu 25th Anniversary Orchestra Concert CD''.

* RecurringRiff: A frequent video game trope, and his work is no exception. "Fear of the Angels", the main theme for ''Secret of Mana'', gets rearranged several times over the course of his two contributions to the series. In ''Seiken Densetsu 3'', "Innocent Sea" and "Innocent Water" are two different arrangements of the same melody. One of the melodies from "The Meridian Festival", the final boss music for ''Secret of Mana'', got reused for "Meridian Child" in ''Seiken Densetsu 3''. And so on.

* EpicRocking: Some of his tracks, while qualifying, still aren't extreme examples even by video game standards; for instance, there are several on the ''Seiken Densetsu 3'' soundtrack[[note]]specifically, "Ancient Dolphin", "Female Turbulence", "Weird Counterpoint", and "Electric Talk"; "Another Winter" would also be around five, as would "Pure Land" from ''Secret of Mana''[[/note]] that would be around six minutes if they were looped properly (most of them fade out after about one and a half playthroughs), and then the final battle song "The Sacrifice, Part Three" (8:05) and the final credits song "Return to Forever" (8:39) are even longer. But ''then'' there's the arranged album ''Secret of Mana +'', which consists of a single 49:27 track. To be fair, it's something of a medley of ''Secret of Mana'' and ''Seiken Densetsu 3'' songs (interestingly, since the latter game wouldn't even be released for nearly two years afterwards).[[note]]There's no official list of what songs are included, but the ''Seiken Densetsu 3'' songs seemingly include "Secret of Mana" (starting at about 6:43), "Ancient Dolphin" (18:20 and again at 32:22), "Meridian Child" (22:50), "Weird Counterpoint" (26:48), "Return to Forever" (34:18 and again at 44:35), and "Obsession" (40:42). The ''Secret of Mana'' songs include "Fear of the Angels" (3:14), "The Boy Heads into the Wilderness" (9:36), and vague elements of "Steel and Snare" and "Where the Wind Rests" at various points (the former seems to be merged with the "Boy Heads into the Wilderness" passages and the latter with the "Return to Forever"). However, some of these are so radically different from their appearances in the games as to be almost unrecognisable, so this list should be considered a work in progress. Incidentally, if you rip the CD as a disc image with software like X Lossless Decoder or Exact Audio Copy, you will get a cue sheet that has fifteen indices. Most of these correspond to significant stylistic shifts within the music, but a couple of the musical shifts are not included in it.[[/note]]

* EpicRocking: Some of his tracks, while qualifying, still aren't extreme examples even by video game standards; for instance, there are several on the ''Seiken Densetsu 3'' soundtrack[[note]]specifically, "Ancient Dolphin", "Female Turbulence", "Weird Counterpoint", and "Electric Talk"; "Another Winter" would also be around five, as would "Pure Land" from ''Secret of Mana''[[/note]] that would be around six minutes if they were looped properly (most of them fade out after about one and a half playthroughs), and then the final battle song "The Sacrifice, Part Three" (8:05) and the final credits song "Return to Forever" (8:39) are even longer. But ''then'' there's the arranged album ''Secret of Mana +'', which consists of a single 49:27 track. To be fair, it's something of a medley of ''Secret of Mana'' and ''Seiken Densetsu 3'' songs (interestingly, since the latter game wouldn't even be released for nearly two years afterwards).[[note]]There's no official list of what songs are included, but the ''Seiken Densetsu 3'' songs seemingly include "Secret of Mana" (starting at about 6:43), "Ancient Dolphin" (18:20 and again at 32:22), "Meridian Child" (22:50), "Weird Counterpoint" (26:48), "Return to Forever" (34:18 and again at 44:35), and "Obsession" (40:42). The ''Secret of Mana'' songs include "Fear of the Angels" (at the beginning), "The Boy Heads into the Wilderness" (9:36), and vague elements of "Steel and Snare" and "Where the Wind Rests" at various points (the former seems to be merged with the "Boy Heads into the Wilderness" passages and the latter with the "Return to Forever"). However, some of these are so radically different from their appearances in the games as to be almost unrecognisable, so this list should be considered a work in progress. Incidentally, if you rip the CD as a disc image with software like X Lossless Decoder or Exact Audio Copy, you will get a cue sheet that has fifteen indices. A couple of the musical shifts within the album are not included in this sheet, however.[[/note]]

* RecurringRiff: A frequent video game trope, and his work is no exception. "Fear of the Angels", the main theme for ''Secret of Mana'', gets rearranged several times over the course of his two contributions to the series. In ''Seiken Densetsu 3'', "Innocent Sea" and "Innocent Water" are two different arrangements of the same melody.

* MusicalPastiche: An awful lot of ''Secret of Mana +'' comes across as "what if Music/PinkFloyd had composed a video game soundtrack?", from the very David Gilmour-esque guitar solos to the use of sound effects and transitional passages.

* EpicRocking: Some of his tracks, while qualifying, still aren't extreme examples even by video game standards; for instance, there are several on the ''Seiken Densetsu 3'' soundtrack[[note]]specifically, "Ancient Dolphin", "Female Turbulence", "Weird Counterpoint", and "Electric Talk"; "Another Winter" would also be around five, as would "Pure Land" from ''Secret of Mana''[[/note]] that would be around six minutes if they were looped properly (most of them fade out after about one and a half playthroughs), and then the final battle song "The Sacrifice, Part Three" (8:05) and the final credits song "Return to Forever" (8:39) are even longer. But ''then'' there's the arranged album ''Secret of Mana +'', which consists of a single 49:27 track. To be fair, it's something of a medley of ''Secret of Mana'' and ''Seiken Densetsu 3'' songs (interestingly, since the latter game wouldn't even be released for nearly two years afterwards).[[note]]There's no official list of what songs are included, but the ''Seiken Densetsu 3'' songs seemingly include "Secret of Mana" (starting at about 6:43), "Ancient Dolphin" (18:20 and again at 32:22), "Meridian Child" (22:50), "Weird Counterpoint" (26:48), "Return to Forever" (34:18 and again at 44:35), and "Obsession" (40:42). The ''Secret of Mana'' songs include "Fear of the Angels" (at the beginning), "The Boy Heads into the Wilderness" (9:36), and vague elements of "Steel and Snare" and "Where the Wind Rests" at various points (the former seems to be merged with the "Boy Heads into the Wilderness" passages and the latter with the "Return to Forever").[[/note]]

* EpicRocking: Some of his tracks, while qualifying, still aren't extreme examples even by video game standards; for instance, there are several on the ''Seiken Densetsu 3'' soundtrack[[note]]specifically, "Ancient Dolphin", "Female Turbulence", "Weird Counterpoint", and "Electric Talk"; "Another Winter" would also be around five, as would "Pure Land" from ''Secret of Mana''[[/note]] that would be around six minutes if they were looped properly (most of them fade out after about one and a half playthroughs), and then the final battle song "The Sacrifice, Part Three" (8:05) and the final credits song "Return to Forever" (8:39) are even longer. But ''then'' there's the arranged album ''Secret of Mana +'', which consists of a single 49:27 track. To be fair, it's something of a medley of ''Secret of Mana'' and ''Seiken Densetsu 3'' songs (interestingly, since the latter game wouldn't even be released for nearly two years afterwards).

* EpicRocking: Some of his tracks aren't extreme examples by video game standards; for instance, there are several on the ''Seiken Densetsu 3'' soundtrack that would be around six minutes if they were looped properly (though most of them fade out after about one and a half playthroughs), and then the final battle song "The Sacrifice, Part Three" (8:05) and the final credits song "Return to Forever" (8:39) are even longer. But then there's the arranged album ''Secret of Mana +'', which consists of a single 49:27 track. To be fair, it's something of a medley of ''Secret of Mana'' and ''Seiken Densetsu 3'' songs (interestingly, since the latter game wouldn't even be released for nearly two years afterwards).

* ShoutOut, TitledAfterTheSong, LiteraryAllusionTitle: Seemingly a quarter of his song titles are examples of this. Amongst them are "Where Angels Fear to Tread", "Literature/HeartOfDarkness", "EternalRecurrence", "[[Literature/BookOfEcclesiastes A Time for Love]]", "Literature/TheLongGoodbye", "Return to Forever" (named after the seminal jazz fusion band), and so on. Some of these may not be obvious because the official English translations don't match the source material.

* DarkReprise: There are a few. "I Won't Forget You", a minor-key rearrangement of "Fear of the Angels", is a notable one. Sometimes he'll also throw in a more subdued version of a theme that doesn't entirely qualify as ''dark'', but certainly isn't as triumphant as the main version. "Angel's Fear" from ''Seiken Densetsu 3'' (note the different title) and "Breezin" both qualify as examples of these for "Fear of the Angels"

Hiroki Kikuta is one of the more eccentric video game music composers. His discography has not been very long, but it has been punctuated by extremely notable works, especially the music of ''VideoGame/SecretOfMana''. His early game music work was for Creator/SquareSoft, but after he left, he branched out into game design, founding the company Sacnoth (later renamed Nautilus) which developed the ''VideoGame/ShadowHearts'' series. In addition to game music, Kikuta has also composed some anime soundtracks. While at Sacnoth, Kikuta fiercely resisted ExecutiveMeddling from publishers -- this earned him something of an AuteurLicense reputation, whether or not he actually deserves it.

* ''VideoGame/{{Indivisible}}'' (2015)

Hiroki Kikuta is one of the more eccentric video game music composers. His discography has not been very long, but it has been punctuated by extremely notable works, especially the music of ''VideoGame/SecretOfMana''. His early game music work was for SquareSoft, but after he left, he branched out into game design, founding the company Sacnoth (later renamed Nautilus) which developed the ''VideoGame/ShadowHearts'' series. In addition to game music, Kikuta has also composed some anime soundtracks. While at Sacnoth, Kikuta fiercely resisted ExecutiveMeddling from publishers -- this earned him something of an AuteurLicense reputation, whether or not he actually deserves it.

Hiroki Kikuta is one of the more eccentric video game music composers. His discography has not been very long, but it has been punctuated by extremely notable works, especially the music of ''VideoGame/SecretOfMana''. His early game music work was for SquareSoft, but after he left, he branched out into game design, founding the company Sacnoth (later renamed Nautilus) which developed the ''ShadowHearts'' series. In addition to game music, Kikuta has also composed some anime soundtracks. While at Sacnoth, Kikuta fiercely resisted ExecutiveMeddling from publishers -- this earned him something of an AuteurLicense reputation, whether or not he actually deserves it.

* ''{{Kaijinki}}'' (2006)
* ''{{Koudelka}}'' (1999)
* ''NidzumaWaSailorFuku'' (2005)
* ''SakuraRelaxation'' (2005)

* ''ShiningHearts'' (2010)
* ''SoraNoIroMizuNoIro'' (2004): An {{Eroge}}.
* ''{{Soukaigi}}'' (1998)

* ''TenninSoKitan'' (2006)

* ''SeikenDensetsu3'' (1995)

* ''ConcertoGate'' (2007, along with KenjiIto): Kenji Ito had composed ''[[VideoGame/FinalFantasyAdventure Seiken Densetsu]]'', and Kikuta composed the second and third games.

Hiroki Kikuta is one of the more eccentric video game music composers. His discography has not been very long, but it has been punctuated by extremely notable works, especially the music of ''SecretOfMana''. His early game music work was for SquareSoft, but after he left, he branched out into game design, founding the company Sacnoth (later renamed Nautilus) which developed the ''ShadowHearts'' series. In addition to game music, Kikuta has also composed some anime soundtracks. While at Sacnoth, Kikuta fiercely resisted ExecutiveMeddling from publishers -- this earned him something of an AuteurLicense reputation, whether or not he actually deserves it.

* ''ConcertoGate'' (2007, along with KenjiIto): Kenji Ito had composed the first ''WorldOfMana'' game, and Kikuta composed the second and third games.

* ''SecretOfMana'' (1993): His first video game music composition, and by far his most recognized work.

** Samples: "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45UNgxi2Gd4&hd=1 Leave Time for Love]]"[[hottip:*:AKA Give Love Its Rightful Time]], "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jshaqzPXaA Flight into the Unknown]]", "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wwsyJ6DP7A Into the Thick of It]]", "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab3xENvUyd8 Meridian Dance]]", "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3-qxHGz0zc Calm Before the Storm]]" [[hottip:*:AKA Orphan of Storm]], "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcpB_ygKSBM Secret of the Arid Sands]]", "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKRjFDRnh4Y The Dark Star]]"[[hottip:*:AKA Star of Darkness]], "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KKHBtHTTss Danger]]".