Akitoshi Kawazu

河津 秋敏 Akitoshi Kawazu
Basic Information
Born	November 5th, 1962 Oguni, Kyushu Japan
Residence	Japan
Occupation
Company	Square Enix
Position	Director, Producer 1985 - Present
Work
Video Games	SaGa Final Fantasy
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Akitoshi Kawazu is a long time staff member at Square Enix, having created the SaGa series and directed several titles in the Final Fantasy franchise.

Bigoraphy

Kawazu was born in Oguni on the fifth of November in 1962. Self-described as a rowdy lad who never saw his own short comings, he would spend his youth in the small town surrounded by volcanic caldera and mountains. First introduced to the genre of science fiction by the release of Star Wars in his middle school years, Kawazu picked up an interest in the style of fiction quickly and found himself watching dubbed episodes of Star Trek. When a licensed Apple II computer game based on the tv series was released, he found himself mesmerized by the fact that ship-to-ship combat was being displayed on a television screen and under his own control.

Being a fan of board games for years, Kawazu was drawn to several published by the company Avalon Hill in his college years, and would play everything from war games set in World War II, Napoleonic wars, and even economic simulation games. At the behest of a friend, he joined the gaming news periodical Beep! as a writer and became further immersed in the industry, covering topics such as role-playing games being developed in America to arcade hits being released at home in Japan.

Earlycareer at Squaresoft

Kawazu joined Squaresoft Co. in 1985, first working on the Nintendo Entertainment System title Rad Racer as the programmer for the credits sequence and post-credits score board. With the smash hit of Enix's Dragon Quest sending shockwaves through the industry and proving that Nintendo's 8-bit machine was home to more than just action games, Kawazu worked with co-worker Hironobu Sakaguchi to create an RPG of their own and strike while the iron was hot.

Contributing the thematic elements of crystals that correspond to the elements of fire, wind, earth, and water to the plot, Kawazu's main task was developing the battle system for the game. Working with Iranian-American programmer Nasir Gabelli and communicating genre terms in broken English, the design focus was to adhere to the intricate standards of the board game RPG genre first and foremost instead of keeping game balance in mind. This lead to a few bugs in the game's first release, but it helped give Final Fantasy a distinct air and contrast to the more manga-esque look and simplified gameplay of Dragon Quest. The game proved a success, and Kawazu began work on the sequel with the rest of the original's team for the 1988 holiday season.

Final Fantasy II proved to be a watershed moment in the man's career, as the decision to do away with classes and levels gave him free-reign to implement his own design philosophies for the first time: Makai Toshi Saga. Features that would later define the SaGa series, such as character growth determined by ability usage instead of experience points, a open world map that could be freely traversed at any time, and an operatic plot were all originated in Kawazu's design work on Final Fantasy II.

Origins of SaGa

Kawazu's next major project would not be the third entry n the Final Fantasy series, but instead a debut project on the small screen: an original RPG developed for Nintendo's newly released Gameboy hardware. Intrigued by the prospect of a portable console emulating tv-based hardware by having it's own interchangeable cartridges instead of having games pre-programmed to specific models, Kawazu began to consider the possibilities the new system offered. Wanting to condense the RPG experience into a concise package that could be completed over the course of a seven hour trip (the usual flight time between Narita and Honolulu, specifically), development began.

Because the project was to be a wholly original work with a distinct setting from Final Fantasy, the development team brainstormed for an appropriately fresh setting. Deciding that "saving the world" was passe, the team crafted a scenario in which a team of unusual allies would have the choice to descend underground to kill a demon or climb a babylonic tower and defeat a god. Due to the desire to include transforming monsters as playable characters and the limited memory capacity of Gameboy cartridges, the demon scenario was scrapped in favor of ascending the tower of god. As deicide was unheard of in video games at the title, the team broke further ground by including science fiction elements such as cybernetic enhancements, espers with psychokinetic powers, and a post-apocalyptic landscape in one area of the game. The game proved to be a smash success upon release, being Squaresoft's first million seller and a contributing software to the Gameboy's early popularity. Having established SaGa, Kawazu would focus on the series almost exclusive for the majority of his career with Square hence forth.

Dawn of Romance

Makai Toshi SaGa would see two more sequels on the Gameboy, with Kawazu serving as director and scenario writer with the first and as a general supervisor on the second. With development of the third game wrapping up in 1991, Nintendo's Super Nintendo Entertainment System had an entire year to establish itself as the premier hardware in the Japanese market. Feeling he had accomplished all he could with the Gameboy's capabilities thrice over, Kawazu proposed to the chairmen of Squaresoft for a full-color SaGa game, and was given the green light to begin production on a new title.

Returning to fantasy roots with no science fiction elements present, the project was titled Romancing SaGa to reflect this purity. The elements originally found in Final Fantasy II were taken to the next level on the leagues-more powerful hardware, allowing for a plot that was almost entirely controlled by the player's actions. Players took control of one of eight characters to lead the journey, whether with the remaining seven at their side or by themselves. A major addition to the series was the ability for characters to be struck with sudden inspiration and learn new skills in the midst of battle. This created a higher intensity for battle and encouraged players to continue even in the face of insurmountable odds.

Romancing SaGa proved to be another feather in Kawazu's cap, selling 1.3 million copies and being voted by Japanese players as the 53rd video game of all time in Famitsu's top 100 list in 2006. Though no English release was planned for the SNES version, Western players would be able to experience the game through a 2005 Playstation 2 remake dubbed Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song. This version included fully three dimensional environments to explore, and voice acting for every single line of dialogue.

Romancing SaGa would be followed up with two SNES sequels, neither of which would revive international releases until the 2016 and 2019 remasters, respectively. Once the hardware generation moved on to Sony's Playstation, the Saga series followed suit with the SaGa Frontier duo.

The crystal chronicles

TBA