As one of the most highly-regarded indie game composers, Rich Vreeland aka Disasterpeace has made his name on the soundtracks to Fez , Hyper Light Drifter , Solar Ash , and many more. And as it turns out, that work was partly inspired by Square Enix’s classic Chrono Cross . Below, as part of Polygon FM — our week-long look at the intersection of gaming and music — he talks about being inspired by Chrono Cross , how he composed the track “Ford the River”, and how we put together the sound for Hyper Light Drifter .
(If you want to go deep on his work, Vreeland has also written extensively about his process on his personal site .) Was there a game soundtrack or song that inspired you to pursue creating game music? One example that comes to mind is the soundtrack of Chrono Cross . My foray into game music was heavily motivated by my rediscovery of the music of the games I played growing up.
There was something unique about Yasunori Mitsuda’s music — the way he combines contemporary influences with world styles...
just in that one game I can hear Celtic sounds and melodies, folk influences, patterns that remind me of the minimalist Steve Reich , and complex time signatures like you might hear in Fusion or Prog Rock. It’s a pretty rich tapestry of things, and I found the music extremely unique and memorable at the time I first played the game back when I was about 13 or 14 years old. It still stands out and has some of the most unusual and beautiful chord progressio.