| Hiroyuki Ito | |
|---|---|
| Born | Japan |
| Nationality | Japanese |
| Occupation | Producer, director and designer of video games at Square Enix. |
Hiroyuki Ito (伊藤 裕之 Itō Hiroyuki), also credited with the spelling Hiroyuki Itou, is a Japanese game producer, game director and game designer who has been working for Square Enix since 1987. He is famous for being the creator of Active Time Battle (ATB), Ability Points (AP) and Active Dimension Battle (ADB). He is also famous for being the director and game designer of Final Fantasy VI, Final Fantasy IX and Final Fantasy XII.
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Hiroyuki Ito joined Square in 1987 just after finishing college.[1] He was initially aiming to join a large software development company but could not find any work. As a result, he joined Square, a small company at the time, as a debugger to help pay his bills while he continued to look for work at a larger company.[1]
The first game Hiroyuki Ito worked on was Rad Racer.[1] After this game was released, Square was planning to close due to the poor sales and reception of their games. They decided to develop one last game called Final Fantasy. While debugging this game, Hiroyuki Ito played the game earnestly and sometimes did not sleep for over 24 hours as he was worried that if the game was unsuccessful that Square would close and he would lose his job.[1] The game was a success when released and saved the company from bankruptcy. Ito went on to be a debugger for the sequel Final Fantasy II and then participated in other projects in various roles other than debugging.[1]
For Final Fantasy III he was responsible for the sound effects used in the game.[1][2] He also served as a debugger and took a deep interest in the Job system.[1] After the release of Final Fantasy III, he decided to stay at Square permanently and no longer look for work at another software company.[1]
He was given his first major role in Rad Racer II where he was the game designer. He had a huge enthusiasm for Formula One since before he joining the company.[1][3] While designing Rad Racer II, he would watch Formula One as much as possible so he could better understand the sport and what makes racing enjoyable to people. The discoveries and acquired knowledge he gained were put into the game.[1] When it was eventually released, it was well received by critics but didn't sell very well, so it was decided by management to not make any future games in the series.[1]
His next major role was as battle system designer for Final Fantasy IV.[1][3][4] The game was the first for the Super Nintendo and was initially being designed to have a turn-based battle system.[1][3] However, Ito was watching a Formula One race one day and upon seeing the racers pass each other at various speeds, he came up with an interesting idea of each character having a speed value and that affecting when it will be their turn.[1][3][5] He began to create an in-depth article with illustrations that explained his idea and the underlying gameplay mechanics that would make it function.[3] He also took a lot of inspiration from the gameplay rules and mechanics of the NFL.[3][6] He called this new battle system, Active Time Battle (ATB).[1][3][7] Hiroyuki Ito felt that the jump in power from NES to SNES should also mean that the battle system in Final Fantasy makes a similar jump.[1][3] When Final Fantasy IV was eventually released, the ATB system was very positively received by critics ad gamers. Square filed a Japanese patent application related to the ATB system on July 16, 1991 and a corresponding US application on March 16, 1992. One Japanese patent (JP2794230) and two US patents (US5390937 and US5649862) were granted based on these applications.[8] Hiroyuki Ito next worked on Final Fantasy V, where he refined the ATB system and also created the Ability Point (ABP) system and a new, fully customizable Job system.[7][9][10][11] He also introduced the ATB gauge that appears on the right side of the battle menu.[1][9]
Hiroyuki Ito next worked as the game designer of Final Fantasy VI, where he was responsible for all the gameplay aspects such as the ATB system, Esper Magicite system, Relic system, the unique gameplay attributes of each of the playable characters, and all the various items, equipment, relics, espers and spells obtainable in the game.[1][12] He decided to change the acronym of the ABP system to AP system as he felt the acronym should only include the first letter of the words 'Ability Point' like the acronym ATB for 'Active Time Battle'.[1][12] He was also responsible for the structure, pacing and flow of the entire game and tried to strike a balance between the gameplay and story so the game didn't feel too story-driven. He did this by mixing event scenes with gameplay and also making the player constantly have to explore the world map to get to new areas that would advance the story.[1][12] An example of him mixing event scenes with gameplay is in the Opera House. The player has to interactivity enter the correct lyrics for Celes Chere and also perform some of her stage movements; they then have to run around the building as Locke Cole to reach and battle Ultros, a comic relief enemy he created, who was attempting to sabotage the show. The original event scene for the Opera House by Yoshinori Kitase had no player interactivity apart from pressing the "A" button after each dialogue box and Ultros didn't even show up at the location. Ito decided modify it by adding more player interactivity in an effort to balance the story with gameplay.[12] Another example is the dinning meeting with Emperor Gestahl. The original event scene by Kitase had the player going straight into the dinning room and taking a seat and then just pressing the "A" button after each dialogue box until the dining meeting was over. Ito modified it so the player had to first explore and speak to all the soldiers within a time limit, some of which would even want to battle. After the time was up, they then automatically participated in the dinning meeting and were given various choices of dialogue to say to Emperor Gestahl during the course of the conversation. Depending on how many soldiers they spoke to before the dinning meeting and their dialogue choices to Emperor Gestahl during the conversation, they were given a number of rewards by the Emperor's attendant after the meeting was over.[12] Hiroyuki Ito believes that making events scenes require player interactivity allows for greater player immersion and therefore makes the world feel more like a real place and not just a backdrop of a story.[1][12] He eventually became the co-director of Final Fantasy VI when the original director Hironobu Sakaguchi stepped down due to being too busy with other commitments.[1][13]
The next game Ito worked on was Chrono Trigger. The game was in development at the same time as Final Fantasy VI but by a different development team. When developemnt of Final Fantasy VI was complete, Hironobu Sakaguchi moved Hiroyuki Ito and Yoshinori Kitase over to the Chrono Trigger team as he wanted to speed up the games development so it could be released early the next year.[1] Sakaguchi appointed Ito and Kitase to be co-directors alongside the existing directors Takashi Tokita and Akihiko Matsui.[1] While Ito checked the current content and progress of the game, he noticed that all the event scenes in the game only required the player to press the "A" button after dialogue boxes. As a result of noticing this, he decided to step down as a director and instead become an event planner.[1] The reason was so he could put all his time and effort into modifying the event scenes in the game to require more player interactivity like he had done to the event scenes in Final Fantasy VI.[1] Although he was an event planner, he was also responsible for the locations of enemies on the field map and how it would seamlessly transition into a battle when a player approached where they were located.[10] Due to battles taking place on the field map, he also had to create a short event scene for when every battle started that would transition the gameplay from exploration to battle.[10] His experience working on the battle transitions in Chrono Trigger made him want to continue making games without random battles.[10]
In September 1995, Yasumi Matsuno and a group of other fomer Quest Corporation employees joined Square.[14] At the time, Hironobu Sakaguchi was a huge fan of the game Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen and he had been privately encouraging the director Yasumi Matsuno to join Square.[14] Sakaguchi promised Matsuno he would provide him with his best staff to help him develop games for Square. However, Sakaguchi had not told anybody else about this arrangement, so when Matsuno the other Quest staff first arrived at Square, everybody was surprised as they never knew they were joining the company.[14] Hiroyuki Ito and Yoshinori Kitase believed that these new staff members were going to be part of a new development team Sakaguchi was founding, but they thought nothing threatening of it and continued working the early concept and planning of Final Fantasy VII for the PlayStation.[14] Around a week later, Sakaguchi came to Hiroyuki Ito and Hideo Minaba and took them to one side and told them he was pulling them out of the Final Fantasy VII project so they could help the Quest staff make their game.[14] Ito and Minaba were both hesitant at first as the Quest staff were complete strangers to them, but Sakaguchi pleaded as he really loved the work of Matsuno and wanted to give him his best staff to help make his games.[14] Ito was Sakaguchi's favourite game designer and Minaba was his favourite artist.[14] Ito and Minaba eventually agreed to pull out of Final Fantasy VII and join the former Quest staff to help develop their game.[14] Sakaguchi gave Ito the responsibility of being the game designer of the game so the gameplay felt like a Final Fantasy game.[14] Minaba was given the responsibility of designing the maps so the game looked like a Final Fantasy game.[14] However, Sakaguchi specifically instructed them to give Matsuno complete freedom to write whatever story he wanted, even if it didn't feel like a Final Fantasy game.[14] This game eventually went on to become Final Fantasy Tactics.[14] Hiroyuki Ito was the game designer and battle system main planner for the game where he created the Charge Time Battle (CTB) system and further evolved the Job system he created for Final Fantasy V to have even more customization.[14][10][15] Although he left the Final Fantasy VII project very early in development, his creations the ATB and AP systems were both still used in the game.
He made his return to the main Final Fantasy series with Final Fantasy VIII, where he was initially the game designer and battle system designer.[1] However, during this time, Sakaguchi was developing the film Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within at Honolulu and decided he also wanted to develop a Final Fantasy game at the same location. He pulled Hiroyuki Ito out of the Final Fantasy VIII project and brought him over to Honolulu to to be the director and game designer of the game.[1] Due to being pulled out of the Final Fantasy VIII project, Ito was only the battle system designer of the game and his contributions were the battle system and Junction system.[1] He also created the concept and blueprint of the Triple Triad card game, which went on to be developed for the game by another staff member when Ito left the project.[1]
When Ito arrived in Honolulu he met up with Hideo Minaba, who had already been brought over by Sakaguchi. Ito was to lead development on a game that was to be titled Final Fantasy Gaiden.[1] Ito was to serve as the director and game designer, while Minaba served as the art director. Sakaguchi had envisioned the game to be a spin-off Final Fantasy title that was a reflection of all past games in the numbered series.[1] However, although a spin-off title, Sakaguchi gave Ito a team of staff even larger than the team working on Final Fantasy VIII back in Tokyo. Added to this benefit, over half of this team were Hollywood CGI artists and animators, some of which had previously been employed by Industrial Light & Magic.[1] As development progressed under Ito's direction, the amount of locations and content of the game grew exponentially.[1] Sakaguchi eventually felt that the quality and scale of the game had surpassed both Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VIIII. As a result of this, he decided the game should be called Final Fantasy IX.[1] Ito's work on the game involved him being responsible for all the gameplay aspects such as the ATB system, Equipment Ability system, the unique gameplay attributes of each of the playable characters, and all the various items, equipment and spells obtainable in the game.[1] Also, as with Final Fantasy VI, he was responsible for the structure, pacing and flow of the entire game and tried to strike a balance between the gameplay and event scenes so the game didn't feel too story-driven.[1] In further pursuit of this goal, he created the Active Time Event (ATE) system as a means of making the event scenes more interactive and part of the gameplay experience.[1]
The scenario for Final Fantasy IX was written by Sakaguchi but it was largely edited and modified by Ito during the course of development to eventually became the one used in the final game.[1] Ito also wrote the lyrics for the theme song, "Melodies of Life".[1] He reintroduced Trance from Final Fantasy VI into the battle system of the game as he felt the Limit systems of Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VIII could be easily abused by the player.[1] Trance was triggered automatically when the Trance gauge was full and therefore could be not be saved for another battle against a more powerful foe, as was possible with the Limit system in Final Fantasy VII. It also could not be used as much as a player liked when a characters health was low, as was possible with the Limit system in Final Fantasy VIII. He made these changes as he wanted players to be victorious in battle by relying more on their skill and battle strategies rather than on a Limit system.[1] Ito initially wanted the ATB system used in Final Fantasy IX to be the fastest version of it used in the series.[1] He managed to get a demo of it running that allowed characters to perform commands at the same time rather than wait for the previous one to finish their turn. Also, the ATB gauge only took 1 second to fill on the fastest speed setting. However, getting this running on the PlayStation hardware made the frame rate significantly low.[1] When he showed the battle system to Sakaguchi, he liked the concept but felt it was straining the processor of the PlayStation too much. Sakaguchi then decided that due to Final Fantasy IX being a reflection of all the past numbered Final Fantasy games, the ATB system should be slowest iteration of it used in the series so it feels like a hybrid of ATB and the traditional turn-based used in the first three Final Fantasy games. Ito therefore changed the battle system to the one that appears in the final game.[1] Ito also created the Mognet system with the aim of making save points more interesting. He also created the Chocobo Hot & Cold mini-game.[1]
When development of Final Fantasy IX and Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within were finished, Hironobu Sakaguchi, Hiroyuki Ito, Hideo Minaba and other Square staff returned to Tokyo.[1] Sakaguchi heard that Vagrant Story had become the first game developed by Square to get a perfect score from Famitsu. Sakaguchi felt a huge sense of pride about this and praised Yasumi Matsuno as a game director and game designer.[16] He played through Vagrant Story and took a deep interst in the seamless battle system, free camera, emphasis on dungeon exploration, and political story. As a result of this, he decided that he wanted to make a main series Final Fantasy game that was like Vagrant Story.[16] He made Ito and Minaba become permanent members of Product Development Division 4 to help develop the game. As with development of Final Fantasy Tactics, Sakaguchi gave Ito and Minaba the rule that they should give Matsuno free reign to write whatever story he wanted, even if it didn't feel like a Final Fantasy game.[16] In terms of the initial staff structure, Hironobu Sakaguchi was the producer and he appointed Yasumi Matsuno and Hiroyuki Ito to be co-directors. Hideo Minaba was appointed to be art director with Hiroshi Minagawa. Akihiko Yoshida was the character designer.[16] Development of the game was officially started in December 2000 as a small core team doing early concept and planning.[16] At Square's business strategy meeting in January 2001, the game was officially announced for PlayStation 2 as Final Fantasy XII and was stated to be in the early stages of development.[17]
During the first year of development, a rough story was written by Matsuno with Basch Rosenburg as the main character. However, during this time the game was being planned as a dungeon crawler similar to Vagrant Story and the character models were planned to be in a deformed shape.[16] After Matsuno and Ito had seen and played Final Fantasy XI, they came up with an idea of the game instead having the player explore a vast, fully realised world which had a detailed history, mythology, sociology and ecosystem.[16] They presented their ideas to Sakaguchi and he was surprised by the scale of their ambition. He warned them that it would be very difficult to surpass the world scale of Final Fantasy XI in a single player game, especially seeing as they had no access to a hard drive for possible expansions.[16] Matsuno and Ito were up for the challenge and stated that they wanted to make the game have the same scale as Final Fantasy XI even with all its expansions included. Sakaguchi green lighted their idea and jokingly said that if they pull it off, it will be impossible for any future single player Final Fantasy game to surpass Final Fantasy XII.[16] Matsuno then proceeded to scrap his original story idea for the game. Due to this new game concept of players exploring a vast, fully realised world with a detailed history, mythology, sociology and ecosystem, he decided to set the game in Ivalice, the world he created for Final Fantasy Tactics.[16] Matsuno added Vaan and Penelo to be male and female avatar characters for the player. They would see and learn about Ivalice in sync with the player over the course of the game but would not be deeply connected to the story.[16] Basch Rosenburg was left in the game but his age, personality, back story and character design were completely changed. The male and female protagonist roles were transferred to Balthier and Ashe and the story was completely rewritten to encompass this.[16] In late 2001, while this new concept was still being developed, producer Hironbu Sakaguchi voluntarily left Square due to the poor performance of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within at the worldwide box office. The development team were greatly saddened by his decision. Matsuno took Sakaguchi's position of producer while still being co-director with Hiroyuki Ito.[16]
While Matsuno continued to work on the story and the history, mythology, sociology and ecosystem of Ivalice, Ito began to create the game design and battle system. He took influence from his game design in Final Fantasy VI, Final Fantasy Tactics and Final Fantasy IX. He also took influence from Matsuno's game design in Vagrant Story.[18] The basic gameplay concept Ito came up with was for the game to prioritise exploration of a vast, fully realised world.[18] The reason for the long development cycle was due to Ito needing a large amount of time to create the large, interconnected maps and also the new seamless battle system to be used in the game.[18] During the early days of creating the battle system, he would visit Product Development Division 3, where the Final Fantasy XI team were based, and play with its battle system and analyse its design. He would also discuss with the battle data designer for the game, Akihiko Matsui, who Ito had worked with when creating the seamless battle system of Chrono Trigger. They discussed the complications and challenges of making a seamless battle system in a 3D Final Fantasy game.[18] The initial plan of Ito was to use the same battle system as Final Fantasy XI and make changes and modifications to it for use in Final Fantasy XII. However, Matsui made it known that the Final Fantasy XI battle system engine required the the added memory and storage of a hard drive to be able to run. Realising he didn't have this feature to use, Ito decided to develop a new battle system from scratch that didn't require a hard drive but would surpass the one used in Final Fantasy XI.[18] As with when he created the ATB system, he took a lot of inspiration from the gameplay rules and mechanics of the NFL.[18][6] This battle system went on to take 4 years to develop and get running smoothly on PS2 hardware without it needing the PS2 HDD to be able to run it.[18] Ito called this new battle system Active Dimension Battle (ADB). The ADB system eliminates random battles as enemies are now fully visible on the field map before they are engaged in battle, this giving the player some choice of if they want to fight them or not.[18] The battles take place on the field map and there's no separate battle maps used. There is also no transition between exploration and battle via an event scene like there was in Chrono Trigger. ADB makes everything completely seamless.[18] The ADB system also includes the ability for the player to still have full control over character movement while currently engaged in battle.[18] The distance between party members and enemies also influences battles due to various spells and abilities having an Area of Effect (AoE). The addition of AoE simply means that party members and enemies need to be within a certain range of each other for their spells and abilities to hit.[18]
Hiroyuki Ito initially had given the game a Job system called Zodiac Job System. This worked by there being multiple License Boards and each one represented a unique Job. A character could swap between different License Boards at any time to learn various spells and abilities across multiple different Jobs. He regarded the Zodiac Job System as an evolution of the Job system he created for Final Fantasy Tactics. However, Ito eventually decided to drop this feature from the final game as he felt by including both the ADB system and Zodiac Job System, the gameplay would become too complicated for players. As a result, he made it so there was only one License Board and all the spells and abilities in the game were available on this board. His design philosophy behind doing this was to give players the freedom to make characters the way that they want to.[18][19] However, he hoped that despite each character being able to learn eveything, players would still give them unique Jobs by giving each character unique Gambits.[18] Gambits were a system that gave the player in-depth customization of all their party members AI.[18] Ito was initially not going to allow the player to put Gambits on the party leader. The party leader was originally always player controlled and it was compulsory to enter commands for them using the battle menu. However, Ito felt that some players may want to grind and chain enemies without having to enter the same commands over and over for the party leader. Therefore, as a result of taking this into account, he made it possible for the player to put Gambits on the entire party.[18]
In late Summer 2004, Yasumi Matsuno fell ill and stepped away from the games development.[16] At this point in time the game was roughly 80% complete.[16] Matsuno appointed Hiroshi Minagawa to take his place as co-director and appointed Jun Akiyama to also become the scenario writer in his place.[16] In November 2004, Akitoshi Kawazu joined the project as producer. Daisuke Watanabe was also brought in to help and assist Jun Akiyama with completing the script.[16] Though he joined the project as producer, Kawazu had no influence on what actually went into the game. His role was simply to motivate and support the existing development staff working on the game.[20] At the Square Enix Party 2005 event on July 30, 2005, the Japanese release date of Final Fantasy XII was announced to be March 16, 2006.[21] On August 1, 2005, Square Enix announced through the official Final Fantasy XII website that Yasumi Matsuno had left the company but would still be acting as a consultant on the game.[22][23] Matsuno included a statement where he basically apologised for how long Final Fantasy XII has been in development. However, he ended off by saying that development for the game was in the hands of excellent staff that he trusts such as Hiroshi Minagawa, Hiroyuki Ito and Jun Akiyama.[22]
When the game was eventually released in Japan, it received high praise from multiple Japanese newspapers and magazines. It also became the first Final Fantasy game to get a perfect score from Famitsu.[24] Due to this critical acclaim, Hiroyuki Ito, who was the director of the game right from the beginning of the project, was offered a promotion to the position of game producer by Yoichi Wada, president of Square Enix. However, Ito declined the offer as he still wanted a hands-on role in game development. As a result, rather than Wada retracting the offer, he instead gave Ito a promotion to the position of Producer/Director, which was a hybrid of both game director and game producer. At the CESA 2006 Japan Game Awards held on September 22, 2006, Ito accepted the "Grand Award" and "Award for Excellence" for Final Fantasy XII as the producer of the game.[25] Upon receipt of the "Grand Award" at the award ceremony, he said that he was not expecting the game win two awards due to some gamers not liking the ADB system.[25] He stated that he felt that the changes in gameplay introduced in Final Fantasy XII were necessary to keep Final Fantasy being a series that was relevant and prominent in the constantly evolving global gaming market.[25] He thanked all the people who voted for the game to be nominated and also thanked the judges for selecting it as their winner.[25] After the award ceremony, pages for all the awarded games were launched on the official 2006 Japan Game Awards website.[26] The page for Final Fantasy XII has a section titled "Comment from the Game Producer" and it contains the following statement from Hiroyuki Ito:
| “ | I did my best to bring new and innovative elements to this work. I'm very happy that something like this, which was one of the more challenging games to create in the Final Fantasy series, has received this award. To return the favor to the users who've played this game and who regard it so highly, I'm determined to continue creating by always reminding myself of the need to rise to new challenges.[27] | ” |
Shortly after the award ceremony, Wada decided to trial the position of Producer/Director he had given Ito. He gave the Ito the task of creating an International version of Final Fantasy XII.[10] Ito was to lead a small team of 10 people to create the game. He would lead development of the game as a director but also report on the progess of the game directly to Wada as a producer.[10] At the Square Enix Party 2007 pre-conference meeting in May 2007, Ito was introduced on stage as the producer and director of the newly announced Final Fantasy XII International Zodiac Job System. The game has a wealth of new featues and changes from the original Final Fantasy XII. The most notable being that Ito added back the Zodiac Job System he removed from the original game.[10] Wada has told Ito he feels that by cutting out an extra person in the communication channel, he was able to directly communicate with the person directing the game. This allowing him to therefore be told the specific current completion status of the game and also the actual game design and content it will have.[10] therefore get a better grasp of the game's actual content and current completion.[10] Wada has since also given the position of Producer/Director to Naoki Yoshida, who he placed in charge of Final Fantasy XIV when he restructured the development team due to the negative reception of the initial Windows version.
During the creation of Dissidia 012: Final Fantasy, the battle system director, , attempted to consult with Hiroyuki Ito about the fighting style of Vaan. However, due to Ito being very busy working on a large unannounced project and also not being an employee of 1st Production Department, he could only reach Ito via e-mail. He sent a playable demo file of Vaan and asked Ito for his opinion and if he wants anything added to the way Vaan plays in the game. Ito replied two days later saying he received the e-mail and that he will try and make time to play the demo despite his busy schedule. A further two weeks later, Ito replied again saying, "Vaan is great! You even gave him my favourite victory pose. Good job!"
In November 2011, Yoshinori Kitase confirmed that Hiroyuki Ito was still working for Square Enix.
Hiroyuki Ito has directed the most critically acclaimed Final Fantasy games released as of present date, according to Metacritic. The three Final Fantasy games that Hiroyuki Ito has directed have the highest aggregate review scores out of all games in the series.[28] Final Fantasy IX, which Hiroyuki Ito directed by himself, is the most critically acclaimed Final Fantasy game ever made, according to the website.[29] It is also the favorite Final Fantasy game of series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi and renowned series composer Nobuo Uematsu.[30][31] Final Fantasy XII is the first game in the series to get a perfect score from Famitsu magazine.[32] It is also the only game to make the highly regarded Japanese list, "New Japanese Styles Top 100" (Shin Nihon Yoshiki 100-sen), which is an elite list praising Japanese creativity and new innovations.[33]
When directing a Final Fantasy game, Hiroyuki Ito avoids making it story-driven; he instead balances the story with an equal amount of RPG gameplay.[1][34] After producing Final Fantasy XII International Zodiac Job System, he expressed a desire to evolve the gameplay ideas he created for Final Fantasy XII and use them in various places.[10]
The following credits belong to a different Hiroyuki Ito who was a former employee of Jupiter Corporation.[35][36] He has now been working for Square Enix since September, 2008:[37]