Hironobu Sakaguchi

Name: Hironobu Sakaguchi

Notable creations and work: Final Fantasy Series

Born: November 25, 1962

Biographical Summary

Hironobu Sakaguchi was born in Hitachi, Ibaraki, Japan. He graduated from Mito Senior High School and went on to study Electrical Engineering at Yokohama National University. He soon dropped out along with his buddy Hiromichi Tanaka in 1983. He then became a part time employee at Square which currently was a branch of Denyusha Electric Company. Square then became it's own company in 1986 he became a full time employee as the Director of Planning and Development. As a last effort to save the company when it was going down hill, he used the last of Squares money to create a game called Final Fantasy. It was released in Japan on December 18th, 1987 for the NES. Final Fantasy was so successful that under Sakaguchi's watchful eye and helping hand many sequals and spin offs were created.

Work

Hironobu's first notable position was in 1986 when Square became it's own company and Sakaguchi became the Director of Planning and Development. Square had a really rough start, and riding on it's last hope which as ironically named Final Fantasy, the little company boomed with it's releases' success. After that many squalls and spin offs were created such as Final Fantasy Tactics and Final Fantasy Anthology. He's a well distinguished among the game developer world by creating such a successful series selling over 80 million units worldwide. He is also know for bridging the gap between games and movies with his creating of Final Fantasy: Spirits Within. He became a major supporter of this bridge because of the story telling tactics that movies allowed while games allowed for the playability. Financially Final Fantasy: Spirits Within was a horrible failure. This greatly affected the budget that Square had for future games. As a possible result this was why Squares competitor Enix was created. In 2000 Sakaguchi because the third person inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame. He then resigned from Square and founded his own gaming company called Mistwalker. Mistwalker partnered up with Microsoft Game Studios for financial backing. Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey were created by Mistwalker who, though partnered with Microsoft, created games for multiple consoles.

Main Body of Work

Final Fantasy I

Final Fantasy II

Final Fantasy III

Final Fantasy IV

Final Fantasy V

Final Fantasy VI

Final Fantasy VII

FInal Fantasy IX

Final Fantasy X

Final Fantasy XI

Alternate Titles

Rad Racer

Final Fantasy Tactics

Xenogears

Parasite Eve

Parasite Eve II

Brace Fencer Musashi

Vagrant Story

Front Mission: Gun Hazard

The Last Story

Blue Dragon

Lost ODessey

Project

Intro Clip to Final Fantasy I:

Final Fantasy Series

Founder and creator of the Final Fantasy series. This Fantasy Role Playing Game was created because, as Sakaguchi said "I don't think I have what it takes to make a good action game. I think I"m better at telling a story." He wanted to create a game with a huge world map which allowed the player to explore the vastness of the world he created for them and be enveloped in the story that unfolded around them. The development team was composed of seven people while the other team at Square had about twenty. The games logo was cdesigned by Yoshitaka Amano, the scenario was written by Akitoshi Kawazu and a freelance writer Kenji Terada, a freelance programmer named Nasir Geballi, Hiromichi Tanaka, Koichi Ishii, and Kazuko Sibuya as game developers. Final Fantasy has been rated the 63 best game ever created as of 2007 in Famitsu Magazine. Final Fantasy played a major role in creating what a typical Role Playing Game should be.