Yoshinori Kitase

Yoshinori Kitase

At the E3 in Los Angeles, California in 2009
Born September 23, 1966 (1966-09-23) (age 45)
Nationality Japanese
Alma mater Nihon University
Occupation Video game producer
Employer Square Enix

Yoshinori Kitase (北瀬 佳範 Kitase Yoshinori?, born September 23, 1966) is a Japanese game producer and former game director that has been working for Square Enix since April 1, 1990. He is mostly known for his work on the role-playing video game series Final Fantasy and is currently the manager of 1st Production Department.

Contents

Biography

Kitase wanted to become a film director after seeing the movie Star Wars at the age of 12, when it was released in Japan. After earning a degree in cinema from the Nihon University College of Art, he worked for a small animation studio, producing animated cartoons for commercials and television programs. In 1990, after one year of employment, he decided to join the video game company Square, despite having no computer knowledge.[1]

Kitase is best known as the director of Final Fantasy VI (with Hiroyuki Ito), Final Fantasy VII, and Final Fantasy VIII. Kitase described his first ten years of work at Square as that of an "event scripter", directing the characters' movements and expressions on the game screen as well as setting the timings and music transitions. He has compared this work to that of a stage director.[1]

Kitase became a producer when Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of the Final Fantasy series, chose him to be producer of the main series Final Fantasy games developed by Product Development Division 1. In this new position, Kitase would go on to be producer of Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy X-2, Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy XIII-2. In turn, Kitase specifically chose Motomu Toriyama to be his successor as director of main series Final Fantasy games developed by Product Development Division 1 after the positive reception to Final Fantasy X, which was Toriyama's directorial debut. At the South Korean launch event of Final Fantasy XIII, Yoshinori Kitase said that he wanted to continue working closely with Toriyama on main series Final Fantasy games.[2]

Game design philosophy

Yoshinori Kitase defended choices made with Final Fantasy XIII, saying that it was more important for the player to be engaged with the story and characters before allowing them to get involved with elements of gameplay such as the battle system, character customization and world exploration.[3] In the case of Final Fantasy XIII the team chose to implement a classic encounter system as opposed to a seamless battle system. The reason for this is because a seamless battle system would have had to compromise the visual quality of the world and the effects due to the amount of processing power needed.[4] He believes that that it's important for Japanese role-playing games to evolve and that Final Fantasy XIII has taken steps to evolve the battle system gameplay from traditional turn-based to something more action-based while appealing to traditional tastes.[5] He also tries to reach out to as many fans as possible when releasing a main series Final Fantasy game. Knowing that the Xbox 360 has a large worldwide audience, his goal was to reach out to it when making Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy XIII-2 multiplatform.[6]

Kitase believes in expanding the definition of "fantasy" in the main series Final Fantasy games he works on.[7] Many players responded to the sci-fi setting of Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VIII by requesting a more medieval European world. He counteracted this by deciding to try to expand the scope of what the word "fantasy" meant to these people and this led to Southeast Asia being the backdrop for Final Fantasy X.[7] When adding summons that have appeared in previous installments of Final Fantasy, Kitase thinks about how to design them so it’s a fresh experience for the player.[6] For the enemy characters, he's always careful not to create villains that are all evil, and instead ones that have their own motivations and beliefs above what their actions are. There’s no complete sense of evil, according to him, but the villain simply having their own way of thinking.[6]

With regards to the creation of the actual gameplay in a new main series Final Fantasy game, Kitase looks at past titles to see what he can do differently, rather than look at past titles to evolve their ideas.[6] The concept of the "Paradigm Shift" system in Final Fantasy XIII was to let the player change party roles during battle, rather than doing it before the battle, as was the case in Final Fantasy XII. Kitase says this change was added as being able to change everything during the battle was more exciting, in his opinion.[6]

Kitase has also stated that the difference in game design philosophy of each production team results in them competing with each other to make the best games.[8] Kitase added that this rivalry acts as a way of boosting motivation of each production team during game development.[8] The difference in game design philosophy between Yoshinori Kitase and Hiroyuki Ito, who works for Product Development Division 4, can be seen in the major game design differences between Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy XII.

Personal life

Yoshinori Kitase is a fan of first-person shooters.[8] He has two children.[9]

Works

Game Released System(s) Credit(s)
Final Fantasy Adventure 1991 Game Boy Scenario
Romancing SaGa 1992 Super Nintendo Entertainment System Field map designer
Final Fantasy V 1992 Super Nintendo Entertainment System Field planner
Final Fantasy VI 1994 Super Nintendo Entertainment System Director, scenario planner
Chrono Trigger 1995 Super Nintendo Entertainment System Director, scenario planner
Final Fantasy VII 1997 PlayStation, Windows Director, scenario planner
Ehrgeiz 1998 PlayStation FF VII staff
Final Fantasy VIII 1999 PlayStation, Windows Director, scenario planner
Final Fantasy X 2001 PlayStation 2 Producer
Kingdom Hearts 2002 PlayStation 2 Co-producer
Final Fantasy X-2 2003 PlayStation 2 Producer
Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII 2004 Mobile phone Producer
Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories 2004 Game Boy Advance Co-producer
Final Fantasy VII: Technical Demo for PS3[10] 2005 PlayStation 3 Supervisor[11]
Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children 2005 DVD, PlayStation Portable Producer
Kingdom Hearts II 2005 PlayStation 2 Co-producer
Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII 2006 PlayStation 2 Producer
Final Fantasy V Advance 2006 Game Boy Advance Supervisor
Final Fantasy VI Advance 2006 Game Boy Advance Supervisor
Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII 2007 PlayStation Portable Executive producer, event planner[12]
Sigma Harmonics 2008 Nintendo DS Producer
Dissidia: Final Fantasy 2008 PlayStation Portable Producer
Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete 2009 Blu-ray Disc Producer
Final Fantasy XIII 2009 PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 Producer, Crystal Tools development staff
The 3rd Birthday 2010 PlayStation Portable Executive producer
Dissidia 012: Final Fantasy 2011 PlayStation Portable Special thanks
Final Fantasy Type-0 2011 PlayStation Portable Producer
Final Fantasy XIII-2 2011 PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 Producer
Final Fantasy Versus XIII TBA PlayStation 3 Co-producer

References

  1. ^ a b Ookoshi, Yutaka (November 25, 2009). "「ハリウッド映画に負けていますか？」" (in Japanese). Kodansha. http://gendai.ismedia.jp/articles/print/54. Retrieved February 24, 2011. 
  2. ^ "FF13을 통해 전하고 싶었던 것은" (in Korean). GAMESHOT.NET. 28 May 2010. http://www.gameshot.net/common/con_view.php?code=GA4bff9d7e42c0e. Retrieved 31 March 2011. 
  3. ^ Tim Ingham (February 16, 2010). "Final Fantasy XIII boss responds to review scores". Computer and Video Games. http://www.computerandvideogames.com/235030/news/final-fantasy-xiii-boss-responds-to-review-scores/. "Yoshinori Kitase: We try not to listen to the critics too much. Most of the criticisms have come because the first half of the game is very linear. But we've got a story to tell, and it's important the player can engage with the characters and the world they inhabit before letting them loose..." 
  4. ^ Lynch, Gerald (19 February 2010). "Final Fantasy XIII 's Motomu Toriyama and Yoshinori Kitase - Interview". News. Tech Digest. http://www.techdigest.tv/2010/02/final_fantasy_x_1.html. Retrieved 31 March 2011. "Yoshinori Kitase: The battle scenes in Final Fantasy XII had their own merits and were great in their own right, particularly in how seamless the transition from the field to the fight was. The downside is, because of that, both the field map data and the battle system data had to be squashed into a limited amount of memory for it to work. As a result, though it was seamless, it was sometimes lacking in the "wow" factor previous Final Fantasy games have had. We set out to create something with a greater visual impact, something more spectacular that is only possible when you separate the field and the battle data. It may not be quite as seamless as what you've seen in Final Fantasy XII, but it will be a lot more visually captivating." 
  5. ^ Gordon, Jonathan (20 August 2009). "GC09: Final Fantasy XIII Interview (page 1)". NowGamer. Imagine Publishing. http://www.nowgamer.com/features/394/gc-09-final-fantasy-xiii-interview?o=0#listing. Retrieved 4 April 2011. 
  6. ^ a b c d e Gordon, Jonathan (20 August 2009). "GC09: Final Fantasy XIII Interview (page 2)". NowGamer. Imagine Publishing. http://www.nowgamer.com/features/394/gc-09-final-fantasy-xiii-interview?o=1#listing. Retrieved 4 April 2011. 
  7. ^ a b "Beyond FINAL FANTASY - Interviews". FINAL FANTASY X Bonus DVD. Square Enix Co., Ltd. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tzf-baZ1Bc. Retrieved 4 April 2011. "Yoshinori Kitase: For Final Fantasy VII and VIII, the setting was sci-fi and many players responded by saying that they preferred a simple fantasy world. They seemed to have a fixed notion of what fantasy means to them, and to them, it consisted of a medieval European world. I wanted to change that idea. I wanted to expand the definition of what the players thought the word "fantasy" implied." 
  8. ^ a b c Cheng, Justin (19 May 2005). "E3 2005: Yoshinori Kitase Interview". E3 2005 Games Coverage. IGN.com. http://uk.ps2.ign.com/articles/617/617474p1.html. Retrieved 4 April 2011. 
  9. ^ "The Producer::Yoshinori Kitase". Square Enix. Archived from the original on 2008-04-16. http://web.archive.org/web/20080416033645/http://www.square-enix-usa.com/games/FFX/btg/creators.html#1. Retrieved 2008-11-24. 
  10. ^ "The complete video of Final Fantasy VII: Technical Demo for PS3". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bp_B6ucB-yQ. 
  11. ^ "FFX producer developing PS3 Final Fantasy?". GameSpot. June 8, 2005. http://uk.gamespot.com/news/2005/06/08/news_6127146.html. "Yoshinori Kitase: As a hint, one thing I can say is that the FFVII technical PS3 demo was supervised by me and created by Toriyama and his team staff." 
  12. ^ Martin, Joe (26 April 2008). "Crisis Core: Interviewing Yoshinori Kitase". Interview. bit-tech. http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/ps3/2008/04/26/crisis_core_interviewing_yoshinori_kitase/3. Retrieved 4 April 2011. "Yoshinori Kitase: Nibelheim. It was a huge part of the story in the original game and marked the turning point for many of the characters like Cloud, Sephiroth, Zack in this game and Tifa to a degree too. We really wanted to revisit that place and relay the event from a different perspective. In fact, we took such great care to do it that we actually reused all the same camera angles as we did in Final Fantasy VII. Even though I was the executive producer, I stepped down to the role of event planner for that section and actually worked that entire section myself too. That was definitely the area we wanted to look at the closest." 

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