Masashi Hamauzu (濱渦正志), born September 20, 1971 in Munich, Germany, is a video game music composer who has worked for Square Enix for nearly a decade. Hamauzu's works are often reminiscent of Chopin, Ravel, and Debussy compositions. They frequently incorporate deliberate dissonance to provide an artistic and mood-setting effect. After pattern and harmony have set in, the elegance of the dissonance becomes apparent; the listener's perception of dissonance evolves into a perception of consonance integral to the music.