Y.T

Y.T
Employment history: Sega of Japan
Role(s): Composer, Musician

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Y.T, also known as Dolphin (ドルフィン), was a composer at Sega, best known for his music in Gain Ground, Golden Axe and several falling block puzzle games.

Career

Y.T's earliest known soundtrack is the original Sega System 24 game Gain Ground, which he composed the 3 best-known songs for, all of them being the songs with sheet music printed in the first album release of Y.T's music, Crack Down/Gain Ground.

His next and most famous work was Golden Axe, making this Y.T's debut on the Sega System 16 hardware. He was directed by Makoto Uchida to base the game's soundtrack off of Conan the Barbarian, being made to sit down and watch it for reference despite disliking the film. Uchida later decided the dark atmosphere didn't suit the game anyway, so asked Y.T to instead create a brighter, happier soundtrack for the game. While he has only been explicitly credited for composing music debuting in the arcade version, his commentary on the song "Wilderness" for the album Hyper Drive devotes time to discussing "Showdown", the theme of the final boss exclusive to the Mega Drive port, which suggests it is also a song he created.

Like Crack Down/Gain Ground, he wrote commentary for another double-feature album next, that being Flash Point/Bloxeed, where he provides the sole commentary for both games, but only explicity comments on (and spoke in more detail about) Flash Point, so since then has only been credited for that one game's music. Though unmentioned, the other composer, and also a composer for Bloxeed, is Tohru Nakabayashi, who had developed sound for Golden Axe.

Rather than being joined by Nakabayashi, Y.T's last two known soundtracks, ESWAT: City Under Siege and Columns II: The Voyage Through Time, were composed with Takayuki Nakamura during his phase doing part-time work for Sega, so Y.T taught Nakamura many things about how to create soundtracks.

Identity

Their identity has been debated for many years. Since the release of Golden Axe The Music in 2008, their work has been attributed to Tohru Nakabayashi, but some websites have corrected this information since the release of Sega System 16 Complete Soundtrack Vol. 3 where the two are mentioned separately, and in fact are both mentioned to have composed music for Flash Point. He has also been speculated to be Yasuhiro Takagi, but there is no further evidence beyond matching initials and both debuting in 1988.

Multiple Sega composers of the time, such as Masaru Setsumaru and Takayuki Nakamura have confirmed his surname to be Takada. From 2014 to 2022, their full name was thought to be You Takada (高田 陽), mistakenly given by Yosuke Okunari when mixing him up with a reviewer of that name for the magazine MSX Fan. Another first name suggested is Yuzo, reportedly given by Tokuhiko Uwabo and possibly a store named VGM World selling Kouryaku Chronicle Series Gain Ground & Crack Down.

Production history

• Gain Ground (System 24; 1988) — Music by (as Dolphin)
• Golden Axe (System 16; 1989) — Music
• Flash Point (System 16; 1989) — Composers (as ドルフィン)
• ESWAT: City Under Siege (Mega Drive; 1990) — Iron Fist Sound (as Dolphin)
• ESWAT: City Under Siege (Mega Drive; 1990) — Music by (as Dolphin)
• Columns II: The Voyage Through Time (System C; 1990) — Music (as ドルフィン)

Song credits

Main article: Y.T/Song credits.