Pretty shocking. I was a fan of his work.

Hope he moves on to better things.

Like someone said in another thread, not surprised seeing that Leona Lewis replaced his theme for the International version...!

No seriously, I'm sure he had his reasons to leave. Like Jin said, he probably wants to work with new people and experience other music styles for different kind of games rather than just RPGs.

What the hell...

Honestly, now an days i look at Sega, Tri-Ace, From Software and Level-5 to be the JRPG leaders this gen of gaming, ever since the end of the PS2 days, it was the end of the Square days imo.

It does strike me as a bit strange to see this many people leaving Square-Enix.
Japanese business generally works quite differently from in many other parts of the world (in my case the U.S.) in that people will quite often spend their entire career working for a single company. I wonder if it's due to being in a more technical industry that may not have many of the traditional values.
I only recently saw this in my technical writing textbook so at least that course isn't going to waste.

Whoa, that sucks! Wonder where he will go next.

I love the FFX music!

I wonder what he'll do next.

Will he go independant and have his own studio taking offers from various companies?
That might be possible and I wouldn't put it past him. He's certainly got it. His name should be big enough by now.

Anyway, the Saga of Masashi Hamauzu continues:

~~

The official website of the FFXIII OST has also been updated with new samples, a promotional video and the 1st of three video messages by Hamauzu himself!

There will also be comments for each track and they are very interesting so far.

Well, he may end up like Uematsu and just go freelance. Probably better money, but less job security. But I'm sure a man of his talents need not to worry about that.

That song was FANTASTIC!!!!! Hamauzu is truly a musical genius.

what did Wada do now?

@ Soriku

I didn't like Dragon Quest 8's music