Animation · blog · Manga · Proxymité Japon ·

Hironobu Sakaguchi Director - Final Fantasy

Hironobu Sakaguchi is a Japanese video game designer and the creator of the world-renowned and best-selling video game Final Fantasy . While best known for his video game design, he is also a writer, producer, director, and film director. In addition to the Final Fantasy games, he is known for his achievements in directing the computer-animated science fiction film Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within and is also linked to several other successful non-mainline Final Fantasy game titles, such as Chrono Trigger and Chocobo Run .

Sakaguchi left Final Fantasy franchise creator Square Enix in 2004 to open his own game studio, Mistwalker. However, his legacy and contribution still live on as the Final Fantasy series will continue to inspire future cosplay, None fan art, None spin-offs, None merchandise and apparel , None figures , film, television, and a host of other content.

Early life

Sakaguchi was born in Hitachi, Ibaraki, Japan, in 1962. He originally planned to become a professional musician and book venues while in high school; he even sold tickets for shows by hand. He initially pursued a degree in electrical engineering at Yokohama University, but before graduating, he dropped out in 1983 along with Hiromichi Tanaka, another well-known Japanese game developer. He went on to achieve great success in the video game industry, eventually becoming Senior Vice President of Software Development at Square, producing Final Fantasy XI , the company's first massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), among other famous titles.

Career

While pursuing his engineering and programming studies, Sakaguchi wanted an Apple II computer, but because the price was too high, he ended up buying a counterfeit one in Akihabara, a well-known otaku and computer district in Japan. To buy software and finance himself, he looked for part-time work and was eventually offered the opportunity to work at Square, a subsidiary of Denyusha Electric Company. At this point, he still wanted to be a musician, but felt that working at Square would give him the programming experience he needed.

“I had a lot of fun when I first started working at Square. At the time, the development studio was in a rented apartment. Since I was very poor, I often stayed in their offices because they had a bathroom and air conditioning. I never really went home…”
-Hironobu Sakaguchi

Square became an independent company in 1986, and although Sakaguchi was hired as a full-time employee, his title was Director of Planning and Development. Initially, the games he was responsible for were not successful. Wondering if he had chosen the right career path, he vowed to return home and finish his studies; if Final Fantasy , the game he had pitched and spent most of his time on, failed. The game was a great success and spawned the beginning of a major franchise for Square. Sakaguchi was promoted to Executive Vice President and continued to direct games in the series until Final Fantasy V. After Final Fantasy V , he acted as a producer for the various other Final Fantasy projects that were released. In 1995, he became president of Square's North American division, and the last game he produced was Final Fantasy IX. He also worked on other popular titles, including Vagabond History , None , Parasitic Eve , and Kingdom Hearts . Sakaguchi left Square Enix in 2004.

Mistwalker and the present work

In 2004, Sakaguchi founded his independent game studio Mistwalker in 2004 with funding from Microsoft Game Studios. He published one of his works known as Blue Dragon in 2006, and The Lost Odyssey in 2007 for the Xbox 360, and ASH: Archaic Sealed Heat for the Nintendo DS. He developed an action RPG called Cry On, but the project was canceled in 2008. Sakaguchi then began work on a large-scale project, announced in January 2010 as "The Last Story," co-produced with Nintendo for the Wii. It was his first game since Final Fantasy V. The game was well received by critics, but some noted its lack of originality within the RPG genre. In 2016, he announced the opening of a new development company, "Dawnwalker," in Tokyo.

Working on the last story

Following Hironobu Sakaguchi's departure from Square Enix, Sakaguchi made several attempts to create new role-playing games through his own company, Mistwalker. He released Blue Dragon in 2006 and Lost Odyssey in 2007. Most recently, Sakaguchi released Last Story in 2011, an RPG built on the mistakes made during the development of previous titles. Along with designer Takuya Matsumoto and a few more well-known names such as Nobuo Uematsu , they created a more traditional role-playing game. This game was meant to recapture the pioneering spirit that Sakaguchi brought to Final Fantasy. However, it also added elements of faster-paced combat, tactical control, and third-person action.