[3] While attending Meiji University, Sakuraba began to take music composition seriously and formed the progressive rock band "Clashed Ice" in 1984, consisting of him on keyboards and Genta Kudo on drums and vocals.
[4] After the duo had graduated the following year, they were noticed by music producer Shingo Ueno, and ending up signing with Made in Japan Records.
This and other early games in the Tales series primarily featured Sakuraba and fellow Wolf Team co-worker Shinji Tamura as composers.
Also in 1995, former Wolf Team director and producer Jun Asanuma, as well as Tales of Phantasia writer and programmer Yoshiharu Gotanda, founded tri-Ace with financial backing from Enix.
In 1999, long time Sakuraba sound designer and programmer Hiroya Hatsushiba, a former member of Wolf Team and tri-Ace, founded tri-Crescendo.
Together with Monolith Soft, tri-Crescendo started working on Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean; Namco provided the financial backing.
In 2007, Sakuraba was selected to join a long list of video game composers to arrange music for Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
Sakuraba then continued to write music for games in franchises he has worked with before, including Star Ocean: The Last Hope,[6] Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, Mario Tennis Open, Mario Golf: World Tour, and many Tales series games, including Hearts, Graces, Xillia, Xillia 2, Zestiria, and Berseria.
The first six tracks that Sakuraba and his band played were sold at the event as a preview CD for his then-upcoming solo album After all..., which was released by Strange Days Records on October 19, 2011.
[11] A selection of Sakuraba's music from the Dark Souls and Tales series was performed live at the Salle Pleyel concert hall in Paris in February 2017.