During and After Falcom: Hirofumi Matsuoka

Hirofumi Matsuoka (Dec 8, 1968-Oct 20, 2015 [46 Years Old])

Hirofumi Matsuoka was a composer, arranger, programmer, etc, for Falcom beginning sometime during 1992 until he left the company during the early 2000's. He is the first from this group of composers to have passed away. He debuted in 1992 in Brandish 2 alongside Masaru Nakajima, Takahiro Tsunashima and Naoki Kaneda. The two songs bellow are by Matsuoka:

Following this, he'd contribute songs to The Legend of Xanadu. Some of the songs give a small hint of the type of musical direction Matsuoka would turn to after leaving Falcom:

To hear more of him as an arranger, he was also in charge of the Sega-CD and Super Famicom versions of Popful Mail. Matsouka also worked on the Legend of Heroes remakes on the Mega Drive:

Later during his time at Falcom, he became the leader of the sound team for projects such as The Legend of Heroes V: A Cagesong of the Ocean and others. After his departure, he composed briefly for the first Gruppo One game alongside Takahiro Tsunashima, and afterwards began working on "folk pop" projects with vocalist Momori on his own. He would compose and arrange the tracks, and have Momori perform the vocals. This is a huge departure from his compositions at Falcom, but a pleasant evolution of his musical style. The following are from his original work titled "Fermata." It's a compilation of his work over the years:

みち

ふゆのひ

あるくこと

星になって

さいしょのきもち。

夏の途中

ほろほろ

Towards the end of his life, he found out he had a an advanced type of stomach cancer. Around this time, I was trying to interview him for VGMonline. In the end, I should had tried to contact him myself because over the next following months he would suffer greatly, eventually discontinuing treatment. He passed away on October 20, 2015.

Thank you Hirofumi Matsuoka, for your contributions to Falcom and your work afterwards.