Hironobu Sakaguchi
Sakaguchi actually founded the company "Square" with Masafumi Miyamoto, sadly their first few games sold badly and with their remaining money, a last attempt was made at saving the company, "Final Fantasy". Is sold very well and sequels were made but Sakaguchi was demoted after his directorial role in the film "Final Fanatasy: Spirits Within", a movie that I personally enjoyed very much, possibly due to the "Uncanny Valley". It is a situation where graphics are real but not to the extend that it looks exactly like reality but somewhere in between. The "likeableness" of graphics actually rises significantly until a certain point where it drops, very drastically. As seen in "The Polar Express" the company tried to create realistic graphics but The realism of it makes the film look kinda creepy( In my opinion). But "The Incredibles" had realistic scenery but "cartoonish" characters which makes it all the more appealing than when someone fails to create totally lifelike characters. The spirits within had some glitches in there motion capture and animation and does not substantially show the result of a force. It does not cater to mainstream audience. The spirits within lost a startling $120 million and is the second most amount of money lost in a box office movie. Square Pictures was forced to shutdown and Square merged with Enix, a once rivalling company in order to salvage their loses. Sakaguchi then resigned and started his own company, Mistwalker, that is funded by Microsoft Games Studios. His name was the third to be added to the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences' Hall of Fame, a feat by itself, in the year 2000. In 2005, it was decided that Mistwalker would be making rpg games for xbox360, Blue Dragon, Lost Odysey and Cry On. Blue Dragon was extremely well received in Japan, obvious from the sales of the game after the pre-order version sold out in its first day being released. Nobue Uematsu is composing the songs for the game and the creaters of Chrono Triggers are designing the game. Most of the art will be done by Akiro (it is akiro tori
something but I am too lazy to check), creater of Dragon Ball and illustrator of Dragon quest. The games promises spectacular gameplay and compelling storylines on par with the Final Fantasy series. Lost Odyssey will hopefully be released in the first half of 2007( I am looking forward to it!). Kiyoshi Shigematsu is in charge of the story while a company "Feel Plus", subsidised by Microsoft, is taking care of the codes. Nobue Uematsu is also hired for song composition and Takehiko Inoue, a famous comic artist, is doing the character designs etc so great songs and characters is definitely expected. Cry On is a game that is most probably scheduled for a later date as little is known about the game( by 'little' I mean no insider info, :'() except that the songs are to be once again written by famed composer Nobue Uematsu. After Sakasuchi's resignation from Square, a lot of great games that may be better then the Final Fantasy series of the playstation will be released on xbox360, a welcome gift for all final fantasy lovers who support Microsoft.
Banchou
2:37 AM
