How come Mitsuda doesn't freelance with companies like S-E anymore? He could easily have a higher profile but he doesn't. Bad blood there?
Well, this is his studio:
http://www.procyon-studio.co.jp/ For what it's worth, Procyon has done a lot of stuff. He's mostly doing production as opposed to mainly composing. I would imagine that he prefers doing production lately. that said, the last major major thing he did was this album:
http://vgmdb.net/album/45130. I haven't listened to it before, and I'm not about to order a bunch of albums from Amazon Japan in bulk yet. I'd like to, just to see if he's been decent lately. There aren't a lot of opportunities to hear his stuff as of late
because most Procyon Studio albums credit him as a producer or supervisor... or he does some vocal insert songs or OP/ED themes on some rare soundtracks (ex: Black Wolves Saga, Xenoblade, etc.).
I know he arranged a few classical themes on the Hyakunen Senki Euro Historia OST but I haven't had a chance to hear that one either.
I hate to say it, but I felt like he peaked with Chrono Cross and Xenogears. The last albums I really liked with his material on it were Arc Rise Fantasia's album and some of the stuff on Soul Sacrifice's soundtrack (though in that case, I know the themes out of context). Even then, you can still hear his own motifs or his own brand of sound that he used at least 10+ years ago and I'd like to hear more experimentation on his part.
You know this is a Mitsuda piece without even looking at the liner notes in the CD because it sounds exactly like something he'd compose and arrange since it sounds like something off Trigger/Cross/Xenogears despite using different (it's the underlying string melody along with the steady increases of the other instruments that make it a dead giveaway)
This is just a bit of a surprise until you realize some of the instruments used.
I think this piece is just dope. It isn't often that we get to hear piano out of Mitsuda and I wish he'd use it more often.
I just think this piece is neat since it's slightly different even though he uses some certain notation styles and some samples that he's known for using (the synth flute, the synth "vocals", etc.).
Don't get me wrong; I don't dislike Mitsuda. I like his stuff a lot. It's just that he hasn't produced a lot of pieces and cohesive soundtracks since Cross/Xenogears, so it's tough to give him as many accolades as before based on his current output. I think what he does at Procyon is great, and the composers who work with him should get as much recognition has he does because their work is super-awesome. Yuki Harada, who worked on the Arc Rise Fantasia album for instance, should have gotten a lot more recognition than he did because his pieces on that album were pretty unique and a lot of his work was consistent.
Basically, I see Mitsuda as a good composer who can bring out a lot in others.
