| Daisuke Watanabe | |
|---|---|
| Born | March 11, 1974 Yokohama City, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan |
| Nationality | Japanese |
| Occupation | Scenario writer of video games at Square Enix. |
Daisuke Watanabe (渡辺大祐 Watanabe Daisuke) is a Japanese video game scenario writer that has been an employee of Square Enix since September, 1998. He is mostly known for his work on the role-playing video game series Final Fantasy and the action role-playing video game series Kingdom Hearts.
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Watanabe says that he has no fixed writing style. From drama to comedy, romance to politics, his writing style is broad.[1] The way he writes for a specific video game is dependent on how the original story writer wants their story to be portrayed in a script.[1] He believes that his strength is his ability to create a screenplay that portrays the exact vision of the original story writer.[1]
Final Fantasy X was the first Final Fantasy game that Watanabe worked on. Kazushige Nojima has stated that he was assisted by other staff to create the scenario for the game.[2]
Watanabe was initially not part of the Final Fantasy XII development team. However, he was brought in to finish the script when the original scenario writer Yasumi Matsuno left Square Enix three quarters into development of the game due to sickness.[3] Watanabe joined the development team in November 2004.[1] He was supervised by Jun Akiyama, who had been working on the game as the event director since January 2002. Akiyama had also worked as the event director and scenario planner for Vagrant Story, so Matsuno specifically appointed Akiyama to be in charge of all story related aspects of Final Fantasy XII when he left the project.[1]
When Daisuke Watanabe joined the project to write the script in Yasumi Matsuno's place, Jun Akiyama showed him a draft script already written by Matsuno and told Watanabe to just add more depth to it in a similar writing style to Matsuno. At the time Matsuno left, the full story was already finished but Matsuno had only written a rough draft of the script to be used in the final game.[1] Akiyama described the overall finished script Matsuno was aiming for as, "A dignified drama about Ivalice's nobility, viewed through the eyes of a commoner." In other words, the theme of the story was about the royalty and aristocracy of Ivalice and the drama and politics between them, and all this was to be viewed through the eyes of Vaan, a commoner.[1] Due to this theme for the story, Watanabe only gave the aristocratic party members major plot development, such as Ashe. Watanabe also put more effort into writing about the aristocratic non-playable characters in the game, such as the Judges.[1] Both himself and Akiyama also decided to make it so there was no main character out of the party members and instead made them an ensemble cast that functioned as one main character; the group was the main character of the story and not just one person.[1] However, despite this, they still kept Vaan as the player's point of view to the story as Matsuno had originally intended.[1]
Daisuke Watanabe believes that by Vaan getting barely any story focus and not having a major character arc, he felt more like a "transparent character", and therefore an empty shell for the player to put themselves into and see the world and story first-hand.[1] Jun Akiyama added that the script was written so that, although it was an ensemble cast, Balthier was the main male protagonist and Ashe was the main female protagonist; Vaan was written to be the player.[1] Akiyama clarified this statement by saying that Vaan was added by Yasumi Matsuno to be a character that would be a representation of the player in the game; he would both learn about the world of Ivalice and see it for the first time in sync with the player. He was the player's avatar in the game world.[1] Akiyama says that Matsuno didn't want the player to just be a spectator or passive observer watching the game on a TV screen while controlling the main characters Balthier and Ashe; he wanted the player to feel like they were actually inside the game and directly participating in this grand adventure alongside the main characters Balthier and Ashe.[1] Akiyama and Watanabe believe Vaan is one of the most unique characters in the Final Fantasy series due to this story perspective, and they state that he's more similar to a player's character in Final Fantasy XI than any other Final Fantasy character.[1]
Jun Akiyama states that in past 3D offline Final Fantasy games, the main characters mindsets changed tremendously over the course of the game without the players input or say in the matter. This made it hard to actually role-play as the main characters and feel as if you were in their worlds. He states the player experience in these games felt more like watching a film than actually role-playing. As a result, he believes some Final Fantasy players have forgotten what role-playing actually feels like and instead expect the story in Final Fantasy games to be presented like a film.[1] With the introduction of Vaan as a player avatar that has barely any story focus and no major character arc, he encourages players to try to once again experience what role-playing feels like and therefore feel as if they are actually in Ivalice and directly involved with the adventure and story.[1] Akiyama concluded that all of the dialogue in the game said by Vaan or told to Vaan was written with the aim of him being an in-game representation of the player. So when Baltheir or Ashe tells Vaan something, role-play as Vaan and imagine they're telling it to you. When Vaan says or asks something, role-play as Vaan and imagine you're the one saying or asking it.[1] Daisuke Watanabe added that if players do this correctly, they will feel an even closer connection to the other party members and particularly the main characters Balthier and Ashe. By the end of the game, instead of feeling an indirect emotional attachment to all the party members like in past 3D offline Final Fantasy games, they will instead feel like they've been on an adventure with real people that actually existed.[1]
Jun Akiyama gave Daisuke Watanabe creative freedom when writing the script and would only tell Watanabe to make changes if he felt he didn't match the writing style of Yasumi Matsuno.[1] During this process, Akiyama and Watanabe also came up with many ideas for additional story scenes, but ultimately most of these never made it into the final game.[1] Hiroshi Minagawa, the director, says the creation of these story scenes had to be dropped so the game could be meet the deadline for the Japanese release. Minagawa expressed his regrets about this and wished he could have included all of their story scenes as he felt it would have made the story even more exciting for the player.[4] Watanabe has said that Penelo is his favorite character due to her having the most amount of story scenes he wrote that never made it into the final game.[1]
Watanabe was given very precise direction from Motomu Toriyama, the scenario designer, when writing the scenario for Final Fantasy XIII. Toriyama was very specific on what he wanted the script to be like and Watanabe recalls that there were numerous times that parts of the script had to be redone as Toriyama was not happy with it.[5] The theme for the story of Final Fantasy XIII was, "A dramatic story focused on the emotions of the characters." Toriyama wanted some scenes to show more emotion, and other scenes to show a more contrasting difference between the personalities of the party members involved.[5] Watanabe feels that creating the scenario for Final Fantasy XIII was the most challenging project he has worked on at Square Enix to date. However, he feels that the experience he gained working under the specific demands of Motomu Toriyama has planted seeds for future growth in his work as a scenario writer.[5]
Watanabe has worked on every single Kingdom Hearts game released to date. Tetsuya Nomura, the creator of the series, personally finds Watanabe creating the scenario for the games very natural. Nomura believes that Watanabe's outlook on the overall story of the Kingdom Hearts series is in line with his own.[6] Nomura recalls that when he first showed Watanabe an image of Ventus from Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, Watanabe instantly knew that the story would involve the heart of Ventus going into Sora and lead to the physical image of Ventus becoming Roxas. When Nomura realized that Watanabe already knew how it would all work out without him needing to explain it, he felt that there was another staff member that completely understood his logic behind the Kingdom Hearts mythology.[6]