Yuzo Koshiro on remastering Etrian Odyssey’s music and having fun with old hardware

theverge.com:

There are few video game composers that are well known by name — and even fewer with as eclectic a catalog as Yuzo Koshiro. He’s best known for the iconic soundtracks of the Streets of Rage series but has worked on everything from Revenge of Shinobi to Ys to ActRaiser. He even wrote the jingles for Smash creator Masahiro Sakurai’s excellent YouTube videos.

In 2007, Koshiro composed the soundtrack for the dungeon-crawling RPG Etrian Odyssey and has gone on to score every title in the series since then. More recently, he’s had a chance to revisit that music for the new Etrian Odyssey remastered collection, an experience he says brought “a sense of nostalgia.”

With the new collection out, I had the chance to ask Koshiro a few questions about updating the music, why he posts so much about old hardware, and what he still wants to accomplish in the future. “My aim is to utilize these skills to create a new style of music that people have never experienced before,” he explains.

What has it been like for you revisiting these tracks so many years later? Did anything stand out to you when relistening to these songs?

Whenever I listen to the music of the Etrian Odyssey series now, I feel a mix of emotions. There’s a sense of nostalgia, remembering the time when I was in a difficult mental state and the challenge I faced to compose the game music in the late ’90s to the early 2000s. There’s also a sense of gratitude toward [Etrian Odyssey director Kazuya] Niinou-san, whose passion and enthusiasm for the project inspired me to overcome my concerns and give it my best. Listening to these tracks, I can perceive the transformation I underwent, from uncertainty to confidence, and it’s a powerful reminder of how far I’ve come and the