Kenji Ito (born July 5, 1968) is a video game music composer, most well known for composing the vast majority of the
SaGa series, as well as some of the
World of Mana series and various other games. Most of his work has been for
Squaresoft or SquareEnix, but he is now a freelance composer. Ito specializes in a style of music that encourages peaceful relaxation, especially in happy moments. In a game's less happy moments, his music is often known for its wandering, yearning style.
Video Game Music
- Children of Mana (2006, along with Takayuki Aihara and Masaharu Iwata): Ito's return to composing original music for the World of Mana series.
- Chocobo's Dungeon 2 (1999, along with Yasuhiro Kawakami, Tsuyoshi Sekito and Kumi Tanioka)
- Chocobo Racing (1999)
- Concerto Gate (2007, along with Hiroki Kikuta): Together, these two composers composed all the music for the first three World of Mana games, and this was the first time they both composed original music for a new game together.
- Cross Gate Power Up Kit 2 Heavenly Eggs (2003)
- Cross Gate Power Up Kit 3 Heavens' Knight and Fortune's Songstress (2004)
- Culdcept Saga (2008)
- Culdcept Second (2001)
- Dawn of Mana (2006, along with Ryuichi Sakamoto, Tsuyoshi Sekito and Masayoshi Soken)
- Devil Survivor 2 (2011)
- Gekikuukan Pro Baseball: The End of the Century 1999 (1999)
- Guitar Freaks V6 Blazing!!! and Drum Mania V6 Blazing!!! (2009, along with many others)
- Hanjuku Hero 4: 7-Jin no Hanjuku Hero (2005, along with Nobuo Uematsu)
- Hero Must Die (2008)
- Hyperdimension Neptunia V (2012, alongside Earthbound Papas)
- Koi Wa Balance: Battle of Lovers (1995)
- Lux-Pain (2007, along with Yasuyuki Suzuki)
- Monster Kingdom: Jewel Summoner (2006, along with Shinji Hosoe, Masaharu Iwata, Tsukasa Masuko, Yasunori Mitsuda, Takahiro Ogata, Hitoshi Sakimoto, Ayako Saso, Yoko Shimomura, Yasuyuki Suzuki)
- Ookami Kakushi (2009)
- pop'n music 13 Carnival (2006, along with many others)
- pop'n music 16 Party (2008, along with many others)
- Reflec Beat Colette -summer- (2013, along with many others)
- Romancing SaGa (1992): This marked Ito being the exclusive composer for the SaGa series for four consecutive titles.
- Romancing SaGa 2 (1993)
- Romancing SaGa 3 (1995)
- Romancing Sa Ga Minstrel Song (2005, along with Tsuyoshi Sekito)
- Final Fantasy Legend II (1990, along with Nobuo Uematsu); Ito's first composition credit. And the other two games? Uematsu composed the first game, The Final Fantasy Legend, but none of the later games in the series. Final Fantasy Legend III fell to Ryuji Sasai and Chihiro Fujioka. Ito's next SaGa composition would be Romancing SaGa.
- SaGa 2: Hihou Densetsu (2009): Ito returned to rearrange the soundtrack for the DS remake.
- SaGa Frontier (1997): Ito's final exclusive composition in the series. For SaGa Frontier 2, he was replaced with Masashi Hamauzu.
- Final Fantasy Adventure (1991): The first World of Mana game had Ito's mark. He would not compose for any future World Of Mana games until over a decade later.
- Shadow Hearts: Covenant (2004, along with Ryo Fukuda, Yoshitaka Hirota, Tomoko Kobayashi and Yasunori Mitsuda)
- Super Smash Bros. Brawl (2008, along with many others)
- Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U (2014, along with many others)
- Terra Battle (2014, alongside Nobuo Uematsu et al.)
- Tobal No. 1 (1996, along with Masashi Hamauzu, Yasuhiro Kawakami, Noriko Matsueda, Yasunori Mitsuda, Junya Nakano, Ryuji Sasai and Yoko Shimomura)
- Wild Card (2001)