Junichi Nakatsuru: Why you should know who he is

Junichi Nakatsuru is a name not commonly recognized in the video game landscape. Whenever the discussion of elite video game composers arises, you'll never see his name listed, either. Which is a shame.



Nakatsuru works for Namco, and he's been involved in most of their big properties in some way or another. He composed the beautiful ending theme for Ridge Racer 2 (whose uploader sadly disabled embedding), and he's composed for the Ace Combat flight sim combat games.



He's most well-regarded for his work on the Soul Calibur franchise, though.



Nakatsuru's work is booming and orchestral, climactic and energetic, which makes his music perfect for medieval showdowns such as those found in Soul Calibur.

His musical repertoire extends to pure fight jams, however, as he's more than capable of composing pieces that can be quite heartfelt and saddening.





This post was really sort of a filler between now and the upcoming pre-E3 post I'm planning. I'm not going to expound as much as I did to Yuzo Koshiro's music in my Etrian Odyssey blog post; I just wanted to spread some love to a musician who quietly does his job.