He learned to play several instruments at a young age, and joined Square directly out of college as a composer in 1990 at the advice of a professor.
Since leaving Square, Ito has composed soundtracks to over a dozen games, and has branched out into composition and production of music for plays and albums for other performers.
Pieces of his from the SaGa and Mana series have been arranged as piano solos and published in sheet music books.
[3] By the time he began composing at the age of ten, he had learned to play alto saxophone, clarinet, and piano, and was interested in becoming a singer/songwriter.
During March 1990, after applying to several video game companies including HAL Laboratory, Ito began working at Square.
[4][5] His first project was a co-effort that same year between himself and Nobuo Uematsu for the Game Boy title Final Fantasy Legend II (SaGa 2).
[7] Shortly after in 1991, he composed his first solo work, the soundtrack for Final Fantasy Adventure (Seiken Densetsu), another Game Boy title.
[8][9][10] Ito was originally scheduled to continue on with the Mana series and compose the soundtrack to Seiken Densetsu 2 (Secret of Mana), but was forced to hand the project off to Hiroki Kikuta as his first score due to the demand on his time for scoring Romancing SaGa.
[14] Two compilation books of music from the series as a whole have also been published as Seiken Densetsu Best Collection Piano Solo Sheet Music first and second editions, with the first edition including tracks by Ito from Final Fantasy Adventure while the second added tracks he composed from Dawn of Mana.
All songs in each book have been rewritten by Asako Niwa as beginning to intermediate level piano solos, though they are meant to sound as much like the originals as possible.