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The former Namco composer Asuka Sakai has recently revealed how her work on the Klonoa sequel, Lunatea's Veil, helped her open up after her experiences on R4: Ridge Racer Type 4.
The composer spoke about the subject in an interview with the "hidden gem" YouTube channel Tasty Bits about her 30-year career, covering her work on series like Ridge Racer, Klonoa, and Katamari Damacy, as well as more recent games like 2025's to a T.
In this interview, the composer described how Ridge Racer Type 4 was one of the first games she worked on at the company. Prior to working on the game, Sakai admits she hadn't played Ridge Racer much and didn't know much of the music she was being asked to listen to, describing the experience as being “suddenly thrown" into experiencing "drum and bass and acid jazz tracks", and "all kinds of techno music and fast-paced music..." that she'd never heard of before. As a result, she was given a huge stack of CDs by her seniors at the company and asked to study them.
As she states, according to her bosses, the music for the game had to be "something stylish, urban", "a different kind of vibe" from previous entries in the series, which was an approach she liked, having enjoyed the music of artists like Squarepusher and Jamiroquai. However, after submitting her first track, the "rhythm wasn't quite fast enough" and "the bass wasn't quite there", so the music needed to be made "stronger" and "more 'masculine,'" with the composer stating a revision was needed to close the gap between her own musical stylings and that of her seniors on the project. On Klonoa 2, on the other hand, things were apparently less tightly controlled, giving her more opportunity to deviate from the initial brief, leading her to let loose and experiment with "darker", more "challenging" music. This is something the host Rudy later described as a "small revolution."
"With Ridge Racer, it had to be cool, “tight”," said Sakai. "I had to keep myself in check, keeping it controlled. Then came Klonoa, and Klonoa was the opposite, suddenly opening up everything I’d held back during Ridge Racer. With Klonoa, I could go more melodic, more playful… The opposite of cool. It was refreshing.
"Klonoa started with this amusement park concept, happy stuff. But as I worked on it, I wanted to write something more complex. How can I say it? I thought it would be good to have a track that feels more ‘challenging’ to make, and from there, I went towards darker music, like for the Boss Fight themes, for instance. Something that’s more ‘dub’. In the end, I went back to that kind of music again."
To illustrate this, Tasty Bits showed a clip of the track "King of Sorrow's Theme," which is the music played upon encountering the game's true antagonist, and is a lot more subdued and atmospheric than you might expect from that original "amusement park" concept.
Asked what her coworkers and seniors thought of this approach while development was ongoing, Sakai joked that they weren't able to "say anything", as she was already too invested in the approach she'd taken, and everyone would be too busy with their own tasks to worry about what she was doing.
"They just can’t say anything!" said Sakai. "At first, I would check with my seniors and get directions from them. At the beginning, that’s how it goes, but as you get into the groove, you move at your own pace. Even if you ask your seniors, they simply can’t say anything anymore. Because you are so invested in what you’re making in that moment. Towards the end, everyone is too busy with their own tasks, and there’s just too much to focus on…"
You can watch the full interview here, if you'd like to hear more.