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Fans of JRPGs know the name Yoko Shimomura as the composer of the Kingdom Hearts series and one of the composers of the recent Final Fantasy games, but she’s been a figure in the video game industry for over three decades. While she’s best known for the soaring compositions that accompany RPGs, it was a classic fighting game, Street Fighter II, that cemented her as a unique talent in the industry.

“That’s when the tide started to turn,” Yoko Shimomura explained in an interview shortly after she received the prestigious BAFTA Fellowship. Talking about the release of Street Fighter II, the incredibly successful fighting game that she composed the music for, she said, “It sold so much, and so many people knew it and became familiar with my music, that it was a really significant title for me. I certainly think it’s why I ended up working with Square on titles like Live a Live and Front Mission – because the bosses there knew me from Street Fighter."

While at Square, Shimomura would go on to work on music for RPGs such as Legend of Mana and Mario RPG before her work on the Kingdom Hearts series proved she could bring her classical training and dramatic flair to the JRPG genre. Since then, she’s become one of the main composers of the Final Fantasy series. However, it seems like none of that would have been possible if her work on Street Fighter II hadn’t given her career a massive boost back in the early 90s.

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