How Chrono Trigger made composer Yasunori Mitsuda cry

Now, I’m not making fun of Yasunori Mitsuda here. He’s a musical hero of mine. Hell, he’s a God damned game music legend, known for his work on Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, Xenogears, Xenosaga, and Shadow Hearts and many other epic scores. He makes amazing music. I was even a member of his Japanese fan club!

But it has to be known that the end of Chrono Trigger made him cry… like a little bitch! Kidding, Yas! I got pretty emotional when I saw the ending, too. 

In a recent interview with Weekly Famitsu, Mitsuda talked about his days as a composer newb, working on the original Chrono Trigger.

“I couldn’t even count all the memories it brings up,” he recalls. “I was in a slump because I couldn’t compose anything, I was going to the hospital regularly for stomach ulcers while I worked, I had a hard-drive crash and lost nearly 40 in-progress tracks…great, I guess I’m only remembering the negative things! But when the entire staff gathered around to watch the ending, I wound up crying anyway (a lot of other staffers were just as deeply moved). I think all of us put a lot of our emotion into the game.” 

Now Mitsuda is a major player in the game music field. He returns as the Chrono Trigger DS sound director. 

“When I first heard about this, my first response was ‘Finally!’,” he says. “That’s partly because it was my debut work, but it’s still a very deep, very high-quality game even when you play it today. I’m very interested in seeing what kids today think about it when they play it, so from that perspective, it was a very happy piece of news.” 

Finally, it looks like the Chrono Trigger DS team is going for authenticity. Mitsuda says that he made sure to make the new DS music “stay as close as possible to the SNES original.” That’s a great thing in my book.

[Via 1UP — Thanks, Jayson]