Koudelka is a console role-playing game for the PlayStation. It is the first game in the series that would become Shadow Hearts. Hiroki Kikuta, most known for composing the music to Secret of Mana (Seiken Densetsu 2) and Seiken Densetsu 3 while working at Squaresoft, created Sacnoth in 1997 with funding from the video game company SNK. Unhappy with what he considered as the disjointed, juvenile, and stagnant nature of most RPGs, Kikuta had intended to take the genre in a whole new direction. Koudelka was to be his magnum opus, the game that would show the world just how far RPGs could go.