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.

Biography

Kawazu was born in Oguni, Kumamoto Prefecture on November 5, 1962. In his own words, he was a "rowdy" and brutally honest teenager, even towards adults. During his high school years at Kumamoto Prefectural High School and his college years at the Tokyo Institute of Technology's Science School, he became interested in games such as Space Invaders and Avalon Hill-published board games. Kawazu was set for employment at Sony after graduating from the Science School, but dropped out due to unspecified personal issues.

He got his start in the games industry after being invited to work as a writer for the magazine Beep, where he covered games ranging from American computer RPGs to Japanese-made arcade titles. After seeing an advertisement for Suishō no Dragon, Kawazu applied for a job at the game's publisher Square, and was hired as a part-time employee after being interviewed by Hiromichi Tanaka, then by Hironobu Sakaguchi.

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 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, an open world map that could be freely traversed at any time, and an operatic plot 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 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 throughout 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 exclusively for the majority of his career with Square henceforth.

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.

The resulting game, Romancing SaGa, would sell 1.3 million units in Japan and begin its trilogy of titles on the 16-bit hardware, establishing Kawazu as a certified hit-maker for Squaresoft. Though niether of these three games would see releases overseas unlike Secret of Mana and Final Fantasy IV, this would change with the SaGa Frontier duo for Sony's Playstation console. Released in the light of Final Fantasy VII then-realistic graphics, the chibi sprites of the two games were met with askance in America but exposed Kawazu's work to a new audience and earned the man a greater international appreciation.

The SaGa series would continue on the Playstation 2 console with Unlimited Saga, a highly unorthodox game that challenged the genre rules of RPGs, and Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song--the 3D remake of the original Romancing Saga game and the first of the trilogy to be released overseas. The series would enter hibernation in 2005, reviving in 2016 with the release of SaGa: Scarlet Grace for the Playstation Vita and the multiplatform release of an updated Romancing SaGa 2.

The crystal chronicles

During the financial disaster of the Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within film, Sony purchased a 19% stake in Squaresoft that resulted in an exclusivity contract for mainline, numbered titles of the Final Fantasy series for Sony hardware. With Squaresoft's finances still precarious even after the financial aid from Sony, the decision to broaden the company's console representation was implemented and a shell corporation known as The Game Designers Studio was set up in 2002 as a way to traipse around this contract stipulation via legal loopholes. This was possible with Squaresoft holding only 49% of the rights to the studio while Kawazu held the remaining 51%, and the fact that Kawazu was an employee of Squaresoft was written off as pure coincidence.

Being intrigued by the connectivity of the Gameboy Advance and the Gamecube through the link cable technology, Kawazu petitioned that the studio's premier project would be a title that capitalizes on the unique playstyle presented by the connectivity. A brainstorming session with the assembled team was held, and a cooperative multiplayer action RPG was decided upon. Player freedom was considered a core aspect of the game, and thus character creation was chosen over pre-written characters.

The game would be titled Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles and would be released on August 8th, 2003 in Japan and early Spring in the rest of the world. Though the reliance on each player owning a Gameboy Advance to participate was harshly criticized, the game proved to be financially successful and shipped 1.3 million copies worldwide. This surprise hit would lead to the establishment of the Crystal Chronicles as a sub-series of Final Fantasy, with Kawazu serving as the executive producer for each title.