Yuzo Koshiro is a Japanese game music composer. Between the 1980s and 1990s, he composed the soundtracks for popular Mega Drive games such as The Revenge of Shinobi, Streets of Rage and Beyond Oasis, following a successful career with the soundtrack for ActRaiser, for the Super Nintendo. Later works include compositions for acclaimed games such as Shenmue and Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune 2.
Koshiro is partly responsible for composing the original soundtrack for Ys, a popular RPG series, but does not own the copyright to these compositions. This makes him somewhat bitter about the international recognition of the soundtrack.
He is also one of the pioneers in releasing albums of his soundtracks. The live orchestral version of ActRaiser was one of the first of its kind. A live performance can be heard in 2004 at the second Symphonic Game Music Concert in Leipzig, Germany, and in 2005 at the first Chamber Music Game Concert in the same city.
He has participated in several other global game music events, such as PLAY! The Video Game Symphony, and has also performed as a DJ around the world. His arrangements of music from the game Sonic the Hedgehog have been part of each of his concerts.
Despite not having adapted well to the transition in audio technology between the fifth and sixth generations of consoles, Koshiro remained recognized as one of the greatest game music composers in history.
