Toshiro Tsuchida
| 土田 俊郎 Toshiro Tsuchida | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Basic Information | |
| Born | 1964 |
| Residence | Japan |
| Occupation | |
| Company | Square Enix |
| Position | Director, Producer 1997 - March 11th, 2011 |
| Work | |
| Video Games | Front Mission |
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Toshiro Tsuchida was an employee of Squaresoft under the sixth development division, wherein he supervised the strategy RPG Front Mission games. In addition he contributed to a variety of the company's high-profile series in a variety of roles, most notably as the battle director for Final Fantasy X & Final Fantasy XIII. Beyond his work with Square Enix, he is most famous for creating the Arc the Lad serious of video games for Sony Computer Entertainment.
Early career
Tsuchida began his career in the industry by working as a producer for the company Masaya, where he supervised the development of licensed titles based on popular properties such as Ranma ½. His most notable projects during this period include Langrisser and Cybernator in 1991 & 1992 respectively. These titles, being a strategy RPG with considerable depth and an action-platformer staring mecha piloted by military personnel, would prove to be formative titles for Tsuchida that would greatly contribute to the creation of the Front Mission series.
Front Mission & joining Squaresoft
Tsuchida would remain with Masaya until 1993, where he would depart to create an independent development studio with Shinji Hashimoto by the name of Cobra Team. The small-scale studio that focused on producing licensed titles based on popular manga such as JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and Dragon Ball.
During this period Tsuchida would also establish a company called G-Craft for the purpose of handling his personal intellectual property. The first personal project was created under the working title of "Hundred Mission", with a planning document that detailed the general out line of a full-scale military conflict in the near future that would be fought with piloted robots instead of traditional heavy ordinance. The document was completed in Autumn of 1993 and was pitched to several studios, but no offers were extended on the project due to the recent burst of the Japanese bubble economy and an assumption that robot-centric video games would not be profitable.
The project would be turned down by several companies until Tsuchida secured a meeting with Squaresoft, aided by Shinji Hashimoto whom had recently been hired on as a producer thanks to his financial successes with Cobra Team. The initial proposal was met with skepticism by Squaresoft management due to all of their games being developed in-house up to that point and the genre of their body of work remaining securely in the realm of fantasy RPGs--a strategy RPG featuring hard science-fiction mecha would be a considerable departure from the norm for the company and it was unsure how fans would respond. Thanks to G-Craft acquiring an SNES dev kit and building a functional prototype, as well as Hironobu Sakaguchi being a fan of mecha himself, the proposal was accepted and Squaresoft would collaborate with G-Craft on the project.
Development would continue through 1995, with the project christened to Front Mission and Tsuchida serving as the producer while Hashimoto and Sakaguchi contributed their own additions. G-Craft handled the bulk of the programming with Squaresoft contributing the graphics and sounds, making the project Squaresoft's first collaborative effort. Front Mission would prove to be a financial success and the start of a lucrative partnership with G-Craft until Squaresoft purchased the company during the development of Front Mission 2 in 1997. The studio would be internally renamed to Product Development Division-6, with Tsuchida serving as the head. Beyond working on the producer and supervisor of the Front Mission series, Tsuchida's largest projects would be acting as the battle director for Final Fantasy X & XIII, designing and testing the boss AI for Final Fantasy XI, and producing the wiiware spin off Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King.
Separation from Square Enix
Tsuchida would depart from Square Enix in 2011 with no official statement for his departure. In 2013 it was announced that he has become an employee of the Japanese social game company GREE, where he has since worked on a variety of titles, most notably reviving the long-dormant Arc the Lad series in 2018 with Arc the Lad R for Android and iOS systems. Tsuchida has also revived the G-Craft name as his personal studio.