Its returning staff from Mother (1989) included writer/director Shigesato Itoi and lead programmer Satoru Iwata, as well as composers Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu Tanaka. Suzuki and Tanaka incorporated a diverse range of popular and exotic styles into the game's soundtrack, including salsa, reggae, and dub music, writing enough music as to fill two compact discs. Most of the other staff members had not worked on the original Mother, and the game came under repeated threats of cancellation until Iwata joined the team.