Yoko Shimomura
Image: @Official_GDC

The Game Developers' Choice Awards has revealed that it will be honouring the legendary Capcom & Square composer Yoko Shimomura with a lifetime achievement award.

Shimomura is a Japanese composer and pianist who is probably best known for her contributions to games like Kingdom Hearts, Final Fight, Street Fighter II, and Super Mario RPG.

She began her career at Capcom back in 1988, shortly after leaving the Osaka College of Music with a Piano major, and stayed with the company until 1993 working on a string of classic fighting games.

From there, she ended up joining Square, where she composed the soundtracks to a bunch of classic games, including the RPGs Live A Live, Parasite Eve, and Legend of Mana, before eventually leaving in 2002 to go freelance.

As a freelancer, she continued working closely with Square (and subsequently Square Enix) on various Kingdom Hearts titles, the DS title Heroes of Mana and the mainline Final Fantasy game Final Fantasy XV. She also contributed to a ton of Mario games too, including the Mario & Luigi series and Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope.

The awards, which are part of the annual Game Developers Conference, are set to take place on Wednesday, March 20th at 6:30 pm PT, and will also be broadcast simultaneously on Twitch.

[source gdconf.com]