Livestream channel official comments
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Time flies. This year marks the 30th anniversary of Chrono Trigger, but I hope that this work will remain an important piece to everyone even as it celebrates its 40th and 50th anniversaries. [Yasunori Mitsuda]

The theme song for Chrono Trigger was created at the first general meeting attended by Yuji Horii, Akira Toriyama, and Hironobu Sakaguchi. I recorded it on tape and showed it to everyone, but there was no reaction at all, which was quite a shock. [Yasunori Mitsuda]

After the meeting, the producer called me and said, "Mitsuda, more than 2 million people will listen to the theme song for this game. You have to surpass Yumi Matsutoya." And then he told me it was scrapped. [Yasunori Mitsuda]

However, I was convinced that this theme song had never been used in any other game before and was definitely something new, so I decided to let it sit for a while and then play it again about six months later. Then, I got the OK right away (laughs). [Yasunori Mitsuda]

During the development period, I often went fishing at night to refresh myself, but on this day I fished until the morning. I remember that the melody for "Peaceful Days" suddenly came to me as I was watching the sunrise, so I immediately went back to the office and typed it into my computer. [Yasunori Mitsuda]

[About "Gato's Song"] During development, you could get gold for defeating Gonzales [Gato], but due to a change in specifications, it became points. Because of this, the melody I had written to match "gold" no longer matched (cry). [Yasunori Mitsuda]

[About "Memories of Green"] Shunan City, Yamaguchi Prefecture (formerly Kumage County before the merger) where I was born and raised is a place rich in nature, with streams and hills, and the scenery that can be seen is truly beautiful and remains vivid in my memory. This is a song I wrote while remembering such scenery. [Yasunori Mitsuda]

By the way, the Super Famicom can use up to eight sounds, but initially, there was an idea to include the ambient sounds of the field, so all the field music was made with only four sounds. [Yasunori Mitsuda]

After that, the feature to play this sound effect was abolished (cry). If eight sounds had been used, the arrangement might have been different. [Yasunori Mitsuda]

[About "Secret of the Forest"] Although the song only plays for a split second in the game, it's actually quite long for a game. At the time, ideas for the development were popping up one after the other and I couldn't stop writing. I just thought, "Oh well, let's just keep going," and one loop ended up being this long. [Yasunori Mitsuda]

[About "Frog's Theme"] Frog has a sad past and has become desperate, but he regains his pride by meeting Chrono and his friends. In order to express the sadness and the pride of a hero, I used G#-minor as the base for the sadness... [Yasunori Mitsuda]

This song is written with all major chords except for the root chord (except for the root chord of the original key: G# minor). This makes it a positive, heroic, and powerful song, rather than a sad one. Sorry for the technical details. [Yasunori Mitsuda]

I had been working on sound effects and manipulators for a long time, so I said to myself, "Please let me start composing," and when I was asked to be in charge of Chrono Trigger, I couldn't believe my eyes. I was so happy I cried. [Yasunori Mitsuda]

I think it was when the development was halfway through, but all the data for over 200 songs I had sketched was lost, and I was heartbroken. I was so shocked that I got a stomach ulcer. [Yasunori Mitsuda]

I developed a stomach ulcer, went to the hospital in the morning, worked late into the night, and then went back to the hospital the next morning... My boss couldn't stand to see me like that, so he asked Nobuo Uematsu to help me out with a few songs. [Yasunori Mitsuda]

Mr. Uematsu, thank you so much for all your help at that time. I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to you after 30 years. I still vividly remember how encouraged I felt at that time. [Yasunori Mitsuda]

I'm sure that all of our fans will be digging up old memories as they listen to this song ["Underground Sewer"]. I hope that all of you fans will enjoy the music while reminiscing about your memories from that time and sharing them with each other. [Yasunori Mitsuda]

Has anyone noticed that the songs "Magus' Castle", "Confusing Melody" and "Battle with Magus" sound similar to other songs? That's right, since ●●●●● is the prince of the Kingdom of Zeal, I wrote the songs to match the atmosphere of "Zeal Palace." [Yasunori Mitsuda]

Also, the sound effect of a baby laughing was included to imply that if his mother had been a decent person, he might have been able to go through life with a smile. I think this is also what he wishes for. [Yasunori Mitsuda]

The most distinctive sound of "Schala's Theme" is the bell sequence pattern. This sequence pattern not only expresses the mysticism of the magical kingdom, but also expresses Schala's feelings. [Yasunori Mitsuda]

The song is in the key of B♭-minor, but the sequence pattern does not contain any D♭ notes, which gives it a minor feel. This makes the intro feel neither bright nor dark. [Yasunori Mitsuda]

Then, in the A-melody, the melody of "Schala's Theme" comes in, and for the first time we realize that it is a minor key song. We are confronted with the problems that Schala is facing. [Yasunori Mitsuda]

In addition, to emphasize that this song is related to the field song "Corridors of Time" from the Magic Kingdom Zeal series, a similar sequence pattern is used to create a sense of unity. [Yasunori Mitsuda]

The key of "Corridors of Time" is F#-minor, but the song progresses mainly in D Major, so it expresses an indescribable sense of floating and sadness. The melodies of my songs are often created using a technique called modes. [Yasunori Mitsuda]

When the two songs for the final boss (World Revolution, Last Battle) were completed, the first version was set to play the "Last Battle" song when fighting the boss itself, and "World Revolution" when fighting the boss's core. [Yasunori Mitsuda]

During the debugging period, Uematsu-san was playing the game in the booth next to me, and after the second stage of the final boss battle, he suddenly ran over to the planner and said in a very angry tone, "This song is the wrong one!" [Yasunori Mitsuda]

In the end, the title for the boss itself became "World Revolution," and the title for the boss's core became "Last Battle." In response to this, the background for the boss's core was changed to an image with even more of a sense of speed. [Yasunori Mitsuda]

The chord progression of the opening song "Presentiment" is Dsus4 → Esus4/F# → Dsus4/F, but when it starts to progress from Dsus4 to Esus4/F# (when the bass is ascending from D to F#), the next chord is intentionally changed. [Yasunori Mitsuda]

By using the Dsus4/F chord, "time" goes back (the bass goes back from F# to F), and I chose this progression to give the player a sense of premonition, a sort of time travel experience. [Yasunori Mitsuda]

And "To Far Away Times" is in D♭-Dur, but if you make it the same key as "Presentiment" for easy understanding, the chord progression of the A melody will be Dsus4→Esus4/F#→Dsus4/G. [Yasunori Mitsuda]

The chord following Esus4/F# goes up to Dsus4/G (the bass goes from F# to G), which conveys the idea that time is moving forward (starting to move forward). [Yasunori Mitsuda]

In this way, "To Far Away Times" expresses the movement towards the future using the same chord progression and theme, but there is another important element hidden in "To Far Away Times". [Yasunori Mitsuda]

The tempo is 60 BPM (one beat per second), twice that (for the two characters, Chrono and Marle), making it 120 BPM. In other words, the game ends, and we return to the concept of time we use, signaling the end of the adventure. [Yasunori Mitsuda]

I actually composed "Presentiment" and "To Far Away Times" in the same key, but I wanted to express a little more sadness, so I changed the key from D-Dur to D♭-Dur. I think this gave it an even more memorable sound. [Yasunori Mitsuda]

"To Far Away Times" is filled with feelings for a close friend who died when he was a high school student. Some of the motifs were written when he was a high school student, and I felt that there were some overlaps with Chrono, so I decided to use some of them. [Yasunori Mitsuda]

[About "CHRONO TRIGGER Orchestral Arrangement"] Several arrangers arranged the music while keeping in mind their own image of "Chrono Trigger". The Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra also gave a wonderful performance. Thank you very much. [Yasunori Mitsuda]

The music of Chrono Trigger has blank spaces to allow for various interpretations. If there were 100 arrangers, there would be 100 different interpretations, but I think that they would all be correct at this point. [Yasunori Mitsuda]

I was invited to perform on stage as a guest at "CHRONO ORCHESTRA Wings of Time," and seeing all the fans listening to the music and reminiscing about their past moments made me feel the passage of time and gave me an indescribable feeling of joy. [Yasunori Mitsuda]





Yasunori Mitsuda live comments
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[About "Corridors of Time/Schala's Theme" in the album "CHRONO TRIGGER Orchestral Arrangement"]  "This arrangement makes it clear that "Corridors of Time" and "Schala's Theme" are one and the same."

[While music from "Square Enix Jazz - Chrono Trigger -" was playing] "As I mentioned before, the image of Chrono Trigger is actually JAZZ. So it goes very well with JAZZ arrangements. The Super Nintendo only has eight notes, but it has a lot of tension notes (chords often used in JAZZ). So if the bass disappears, you lose the sense of tonality. So I gave the bass the highest priority so that it wouldn't be drowned out by sound effects."

"When I was asked to do an arrangement version of Chrono, I wanted to make it jazz, so I created "The Brink of Time." It was too ahead of its time, so no one understood it...lol."

"Frog's Theme was previously mentioned in the official comment, but even though it's a minor key song, the chord progression doesn't feel minor. This song makes heavy use of substitute chords."

[During "Guardia Millennial Fair" in the album "Beer SQ"] "I wrote this song with a Spanish dance-like image in mind. Some people are enjoying themselves at festivals, but others are immersed in memories. In that sense, I wanted to express something like brightness and loneliness."

[About "Battle with Magus" in the album "Square Enix Acoustic Arrangements"] "I was trying to insert a new line and it was sent! Sorry! This is a wonderful arrangement for five people: two violins, one viola, one cello, and one double bass!"

[During Yui Morishita's piano performance of "Corridors of Time"] "I'm back. Was that Yui's piano? So wonderful. Playing the sequence pattern with a delay-like sound is a godsend. As expected."

"By the way, when I first met Yui-san and we were recording, I suddenly asked him if he would like to appear at the Xenogears concert. And he said he agreed to appear on the spot. What a pushy guy 😃"

[During Mitsuhiro Ohta's acoustic guitar performance of "Battle with Magus"] "Ohta's arrangement is really cool. It's got that Ohta feel to it."

"Is everyone having fun? However, I am very grateful for all the arrangements you all made. I never imagined something like this would happen when I was in my 20s. I am truly grateful."

[During Yuka Fujino and Chiaki Umeda's duo performance of "To Far Away Times"] "I met Yuka-chan when I was about 27 years old, and she still plays wonderfully. And there is a strange story that Ume-chan invited her to join her in a live performance to celebrate his 20th anniversary as a composer, even though she had never heard her before."

"Yuka-san and Ume-chan, your duo is amazing."

[Referring to showing Chrono Trigger's main theme at the first general meeting] "Nobody really said a word. He was completely out of touch with the situation."

[About Chrono Trigger's main theme] "In the opening, the opening part is repeated three times, but actually, it was going to be repeated twice. Two times is the original."

[About "Memories of Green] "I feel like the way the strings are moved is very much my style. I want each line to have a proper singing melody."

"I actually wanted to add more delay, but the field was limited to only four sounds, so I used psychoacoustic techniques. Humans have the characteristic that when they perceive an initial delay, they hear the sound as if it was delayed even after the sound has disappeared (of course, there are frequency limitations)."

"Yes, this is a technique that uses the illusion of sound."

[During "Guardia Millennial Fair"] "For this "Ha!", we gathered all the Square staff together and had them say "Ha!" together. One graphic designer who I was close to had the loudest voice, so I can't help but think of him. 😉"

"The same goes for this applause."

[Referring to "Gato's Song" during development] "By the way, it started out as 20 gold."

[Referring to the idea to include field ambient sounds on "Memories of Green"] "(Additional notes) When approaching the sea, the sound of the sea would play, and when approaching the forest, the sound of birds would play. Although we added a volume ID to the map, the character's movements were too fast, so the sound did not play as expected. Moreover, since the character would quickly enter a town or a forest, there was no time to listen to the environmental sounds, so this feature was removed at the end."

"Because of this, there wasn't enough time and the song was released as is without expanding the 4 notes into 8 notes."

[About "Secret of the Forest"] "When you slide the conga, it makes a sound like an owl’s cry. I guess that’s when I started to like owls. 😀"

[During "Courage and Pride"] "Music data is stored in a format called MML (a notation format used for old cell phone ringtones), but adding dynamics increases the file size. However, I wanted to value the dynamics of Chrono Trigger's music, so I always tried to make the music data as small as possible.

[During "Silent Light"] "I believe this was the first song that Uematsu wrote. I remember thinking how amazing the sound on the Super Nintendo was, as expected."

"Listening to it now, the key changes are amazing (laughs). It's one of my favorite songs."

[About "A Shot of Crisis"] "It's difficult to make a loop with a crash cymbal, but the crash cymbal in Chrono Trigger is a special way of making a loop by reversing half of it and mixing it, and then making a loop between the overlapping sounds (so that it becomes uniform). When I joined the company, I was a manipulator, so I liked thinking about things like that. Now, I don't need these techniques (laughs).

"Actually, there was a good chance that I wouldn't have been in charge. However, the other writers were all busy, so I think it became a case of "we have no choice but to let Mitsuda do it." Either way, it was fate."

[During "Far Off Promise" (Arrange Version 1)"] "I remember that Sekido-san arranged this part. (I wonder if that's right?)"

"No, no, I joined as a full-time employee, not as a part-timer. As for Itoken's information... (bitter laugh) There was also a false rumor going around that Shimomura had joined the company first. After Uematsu, Itoken and Kikuta joined, and then me. After I did, Shimomura joined midway... that's how it went."

"And since we didn't have an engineer, we decided to hire some part-time sound effects artists. I brought in some of my friends to work on the sound effects, but we ended up needing someone to manage them, so we hired a manipulator. That's when Square started to have a division of labor. It was because I threw a tantrum (laughs)."

[About "Ruined World"] I wanted to emphasize the floating feeling of the future as much as possible, so I expressed it through chords rather than melody. I thought that this would make a stronger impact when the robots and Lavos appeared.

[About the loss of song data halfway during development] "I only restored in my head the songs that remained in my memory from the lost data. Zeal Palace was one of them. I think the Zeal Palace that you're listening to is probably cooler than the lost data. Yes, everyone, make sure to back up your data frequently!"

[About "Lavos' Theme"] "There are two versions of Lavos' theme: one from Lavos's point of view, and one from the people's point of view. This song is from the people's point of view."

[About "Battle 2 (Unreleased track)"] "This was one of the songs that disappeared, but we were able to successfully bring it back."

"By the way, the trumpet sound was also sampled from an actual instrument."

[About "Delightful Spekkio"] "To create this indescribable groove, the shaker on the left is delayed by about one tick (a quarter note is 48 ticks).

"Boss Battle 2 was also once rejected, but we forced it back (laughs). This type of boss battle wasn't really well received at the time."

"I'll be away from my seat for about 20 minutes, but please continue to enjoy the show. I hope to come back before the ending..."

[During "Corridors of Time"] "I'm back. I went back to six notes for this song. However, the song still works even if the percussion is drowned out by sound effects. In the end, the sound effects were not used..."

"Lavos's perspective is from the intro to the part where the electric piano plays, and then the section where it gets intense again after the quiet portion."

"I made it in time for the ending."

[About "Zeal Palace"] "In Xenogears, I used this "droning" sound you hear on the right a lot, but if you lower the pitch of the tambourine, it becomes this really cool tone."

"It was on the left, not the right. Sorry."

[Referring to the official notes about "Schala's Theme"] "(Additional note) Furthermore, the use of tabla (an Indian percussion instrument) in both "Schala's Theme" and "Corridors of Time" creates a sense of unity with the Kingdom of Zeal.

[About "Undersea Palace"] "The intro to "Undersea Palace" contains a phrase from a certain person. I won't go into detail because it would be a spoiler for the game, but there is a motif in about two bars.

[About "Wings That Cross Time"] "At the time, games were based on loops, so if you changed the key, you naturally had to return to the original position. It was sometimes difficult, but I was able to return to the original position beautifully in this song."

[About "Black Omen"] "Since I couldn't use a lot of sounds, the bass moves around quite a bit. When I listen to it now, I wonder if it really moved that much.

[About "World Revolution"] The tambourine was actually meant to be a snare, but I really wanted to use a "bong" sound to lower the tambourine's pitch that I wrote earlier, so instead of the snare, I used a tambourine (playing on the right). We were already at capacity.

"That's right. The tambourine on the right has a slightly higher pitch and a shorter release."

[About "Last Battle"] "It's a strange song. Like, 'I wonder how he managed to write such a song.' By the way, it's not my scream. 😀

"The synth bass-like sound is made using two tracks with slightly shifted pitch."

[About "First Festival of Stars"] "The first "Millennial Age" is in 6/8 time, but this one is in 4/4 time to make it sound more like a march. The melody line is now in tune."

"Millennial Festival = Millennial Age"

[About "To Far Away Times"]"At first it was just the music box, but when we realized the performance was going to be long, we decided to add strings from the music box and create another development."

"I still can't get through this song. It brings tears to my eyes. I wrote this song with this thought in mind: to always be positive even when things are tough."

[About "Ending - Burn! Bobonga! – Frog's Theme – To Far Away Times (arrange version)"] "This is a version that [Tsuyoshi] Sekito made for Chrono Trigger on the PS. It's an interesting medley."

"By the way, the bonus song that comes after this ["Far Off Promise" (arrange version 2)] is not my song, but someone else's. I think it was made to fit the worldview of Chrono."

"The song I had the most trouble with was the ending, "To Far Away Times." But I think we were able to end it in the best possible way."

"For now, I'm glad I got to hear the ending. I'll be away for a while due to work, but please continue to enjoy it. Thank you."





Yasunori Mitsuda end-of-livestream live comments
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"Thank you everyone for listening for such a long time. Also, thank you to Square Enix for this fun event."

"I was able to talk about things that I don't usually talk about (even in interviews). As with Chrono Trigger, I try to make music with meaning so that I can properly tell the backstory of all my works. There are many hidden messages in my other works as well, so please listen to them if you are interested."

"That's right. The fact that there isn't much to see in Yamaguchi Prefecture is actually a great thing about it. Please do visit Yamaguchi Prefecture. Akiyoshidai in particular is a wonderful place that really stirs the imagination."

"Maybe Xenogears next? If I get the chance, I'll tell you some behind-the-scenes stories about Xenogears."

"Frog's theme was originally written with an intro, but I wanted the chorus to start straight away, so I cut the intro from the game. But I liked it so much that I included the intro on the CD."

"So that's it for now. See you again soon. It was fun!!"





Livestream video final text
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[One screen missed]
"Chrono Trigger has now left my hands, but I believe it resides deep in the hearts of all of its fans. I believe that it will become a memory that will never fade and will continue to be a great source of strength and support for you in every aspect of your life for the foreseeable future. When you get stuck on something, remember Chrono Trigger. Chrono is definitely moving forward into the future.

--Yasunori Mitsuda, Composer"