Hidenori Shoji burst onto the gaming music scene with the Nintendo Gamecube and several of its top-sellers. After co-designing music for the widely-successful party game Super Monkey Ball, Sega brought him back along with Haruyoshi Tomita for the sequel and its handheld version to design the upbeat and happy tunes to be heard throughout the various stages. Therefore, it seemed unlikely to have him design the heavy metal tracks for the F-Zero AX/GX races, but he accepted the challenge and came through.