Yoko Shimomura

Taken from the insert to Super Mario RPG: Original Sound Version

As I reach the alphabetical end of my music collection, I reach several Japanese video game composers whose names start with "Y." I don't have any official physical releases by these composes, but I figure I'll do a quick tribute to each. Yoko Shimomura is the first of these, and I primarily know her as the composer for 1996's SNES RPG classic, Super Mario RPG. For this classic Square RPG, Shimomura has the unenviable task of being one of the first people not named Koji Kondo to score a major Mario console game.
Shimomura acquits herself with aplomb, her work here paving the way for future composers. She is not only able to successfully incorporate Kondo's classic Mario themes, but also add her own spin to the franchise. Her battle music is fun, energetic, and urgent, her town themes are appropriately whimsical, yet not in any way twee, and she's able to capture the nostalgia already associated with Mario in new pieces, like the rollicking "Let's Go Down the Wine River." Also, Shimomura is able to fully utilize the SNES soundchip to create some beautiful and mysterious music, particularly on her most famous piece, "Beware the Forest's Mushrooms." Again, the line of "this has to sound like Mario, but also something new" is so delicate and hard to walk, but 25 years ago, Shimomura showed exactly how it's done.