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Old Aug 30, 2009, 02:24 AM
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CHz CHz is offline
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Default OPUS INC. (#3277)

ALRIGHTY

So all I was planning to do was add performer credits to one, just one album and now three hours later I've learned that two sound companies I've been familiar with for a while are actually the same company and now my whole life is UPSIDE DOWN

This is going to be a long one, so let's start at the top.

In the beginning, there was GOBLIN SOUND. They produced the soundtracks for several games, probably most notably the Japanese-only NES version of Tetris developed by Bullet Proof Software. GOBLIN SOUND had at least five members: Hiroshi Taguchi, Hisashi Yotsumoto, Takayuki Suzuki, Hiroki Nakayama (unconfirmed reading, although there are credits as "H. Nakayama" and "Hiro Nakayama" so I'm feeling pretty good about that one), and K. Hasegawa (長谷川健, given name should be Ken or Kenji).

There may have been more members; in particular, I suspect Koji Hayama may have been one for at least a short period of time. The EGG MUSIC page for Lightning Vaccus ~ The Knight of Iron (X86K version) credits GOBLIN SOUND with the music for the game, but according to GMCL and elsewhere, Hayama did the music for that. There are other soundtracks where GOBLIN and Hayama are credited separately, so I'm not really sure what the deal is there.

EGG MUSIC files all of the GOBLIN SOUND works in their system under that blanket name, but they do give specific composer credits for some of them in the album blurbs, so that's where a few of my recent album edits came from. For example, the page for Hisou Kihei X Serd lists Taguchi and Nakayama, which agrees with GMCL's credits for the game.

In 1990, they stopped being GOBLIN SOUND and became Opus, which started doing a bunch of other game-related dev things in addition to sound production. At this time, they apparently also jettisoned their entire sound team, going with Masanao Akahori and Jun Enoki for their projects immediately after. I couldn't find any evidence of Akahori or Enoki doing any projects for GOBLIN before the switch or any of the GOBLIN people doing stuff for Opus (which one exception, see later), but I admit that I didn't really do a thorough research job on that.

These companies seem to be pretty different. The sound team changed completely, and Opus doesn't list any GOBLIN SOUND works on their website. So how do I know they are the same? Well, there are several game series that they produced music for as both GOBLIN SOUND and Opus:Several EGG MUSIC pages also make reference to them being the same, like this one: "ガブリン・サウンド(現オーパス)の鈴木隆志氏" ("Takayuki Suzuki of GOBLIN SOUND (now Opus)"). A few of the album pages do as well, because the Opus soundtracks are still filed under GOBLIN SOUND. For example, Assault Suits Valken, which was very composed by Masanao Akahori during the Opus days (and still kicks ass <3333). There are several other references to them being the same elsewhere on the interbutts, like at GDRI (I have no idea how reliable these guys are, as this is the first time I've ever heard of this site).

The final piece of the puzzle is the one common employee, Takayuki Suzuki. Who is this guy? Well, first off, let's talk about his name. GMCL says his name is 鈴木隆志 and read as Takashi Suzuki, and EGG MUSIC has 鈴木隆志 without a reading all over the place. BSM and Anison give his name as 鈴木隆之, without a reading. Let's see if we can iron that one out.

He worked on several GOBLIN SOUND projects, like the aforementioned Assault Suits Leynos, occasionally credited as Taka Suzuki. There are both Taka Suzukis and Takayuki Suzukis who have been credited as part of Opus. GMCL is the only place that gives the reading of Takashi (aside from Project 2612, which borrows heavily from GMCL), so Takayuki is seeming more likely.

In fact, if we mosey on over to the Opus Studio company profile, we see that Takayuki Suzuki is the CEO himself. And on the Japanese side, his name is written as 鈴木隆志.

Last edited by CHz; Aug 30, 2009 at 02:41 AM.
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Old Aug 30, 2009, 06:20 AM
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Nice research and exploration, CHz.
I can practically see the "light bulb above your head" moment when reading through this.
Glad you got to piece together your mystery!
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Old Aug 30, 2009, 06:56 AM
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haha, amazing thread. this had been touched on before here, good to have some solid confirmation.
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