In 2010, a journalist sat down with Hidenori Shoji at Sega's headquarters in Japan. The interview was about Yakuza 3. Partway through, the journalist reminded him that years before Yakuza, he had written music for F-Zero GX, and asked whether he had played the original Super Nintendo F-Zero. 'I played it all the time when I was in Junior High,' Shoji said.
Hidenori Shoji was born on January 7, 1975, in Mito, Ibaraki. He joined Sega in 1996, and his name appears in the credits of the company's arcade games of those years, among them Virtua Fighter 3 and Fighting Vipers 2. Arcade music of that era had one job: to catch a passer-by within seconds and keep playing, loop after loop, for as long as the coins kept coming.
In 2001 came Super Monkey Ball, and a sequel the next year. In 2003 came F-Zero GX, the GameCube racer Sega built with Nintendo. Shoji wrote music for it, and the F-Zero he had played as a schoolboy was now a project on his own desk.
In the same interview, he said it was unbelievable to be working on a soundtrack he had listened to in his youth. He also said that with less pressure he could have enjoyed the work more. It is an ordinary thing for a working composer to say, and he said it plainly.
The journalist asked whether any music from the Super Nintendo game stayed in his memory. Shoji did not name a fast track. He named a slow one. 'Hearing that calm, almost melancholy piano melody made such a strong impression on me,' he said. He added that he later wrote an arrangement of it for the end credits.
In 2005 the first Yakuza game arrived, and Shoji was part of its sound team. Over the next two decades, he would be credited as sound director or music director on a long run of the series and of its spin-off Judgment. In that 2010 interview he described what he wanted from the work: 'I've always wanted rock music to find its place in games as it has in the movies.' On respecting Sega's musical past, he was blunter: 'I express my appreciation for the company's traditions by committing heresy against them.'
That interview also touched on how he finishes things. Many game tracks are built to loop, and he said that for a track with a three-minute loop, 'all that's required is an ending.' Shorter tracks were harder, so he rebuilt them. His stated reason was the listener: he thinks about how to make the album the most enjoyable listening experience as a standalone experience.
In 2022, talking about Yakuza 0, he described how he directs other composers. He gives the overall intention of a piece, he said, and then 'the best approach is to offer some direction and then leave the rest to them.' He does not want to suffocate what each musician brings. He has worked at Sega for three decades.
In the 2010 interview, the loudest thing he said about his own taste was about the quietest music he named. A piano melody from a game he played as a child was still in his head when he sat down to write its sequel. What did you hear quietly, long ago, that you are still answering?