Curated category
Square Enix people
- Koichi IshiiKoichi Ishii received an invitation to work on the original Final Fantasy in 1986. He joined Square shortly after that call arrived.
- Shinji HashimotoShinji Hashimoto helped create two of the most beloved franchises in video game history, and one of them was born in an elevator.
- Mitsuto SuzukiIn the early 1980s, Mitsuto Suzuki's life changed when his older brother brought home a synthesizer. The instrument became a playground for the young boy who…
- Naoshi MizutaNaoshi Mizuta grew up in Kochi, Japan, and by the time he was in second or third grade, something had already taken hold. Not law. Not economics. Music.
- Yoshinori KitaseYoshinori Kitase was eleven years old in July 1978 when he saw Star Wars for the first time. The film left such an impression on him that he tracked down the…
- Hiroyuki ItoHiroyuki Ito joined Square in 1987 as a debugger, tasked with finding bugs in the original Final Fantasy. Few entry-level jobs in gaming feel more invisible…
- Daisuke WatanabeDaisuke Watanabe wrote the dialog for the Zanarkand Ruins in Final Fantasy X almost entirely in a single night. That moment of compressed creativity stands…
- Masashi HamauzuMasashi Hamauzu was born in Munich, Germany, into a household where music was not an elective subject but a household language. His mother taught piano.
- Yusuke NaoraYusuke Naora was born on the 9th of January 1971. He began his professional life at Toaplan, a Japanese video game developer known for arcade shooters.
- Kazushige NojimaKazushige Nojima has written some of the most emotionally charged scripts in video game history, yet most players who wept over Cloud Strife or Tidus have…
- Akihiko YoshidaAkihiko Yoshida has spent decades shaping how players see the worlds they inhabit. Born in 1967, he joined Square in 1995 and spent nearly two decades…
- Junya NakanoJunya Nakano was three years old when his parents signed him up for electronic organ lessons through the Yamaha Music Foundation.
- Hiroshi MinagawaHiroshi Minagawa, known by the nickname Nigoro, began his career at Quest Corporation in 1991. He worked alongside colleagues Yasumi Matsuno and Akihiko…
- Hitoshi SakimotoHitoshi Sakimoto was born on the 26th of February 1969 in Tokyo, Japan, and by the age of 16 he was already being paid to compose music for video games.
- Kumi TaniokaKumi Tanioka grew up in Hiroshima listening to video game music, not because she was a gamer herself, but because her younger brother was.
- Hironobu SakaguchiHironobu Sakaguchi named the lead character of his debut film after his dead mother. Aki Ross, the protagonist of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, carried…
- Yoko ShimomuraYoko Shimomura was born on the 19th of October 1967, in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan, and started taking piano lessons "at the age of four or five".
- Kazuko ShibuyaKazuko Shibuya was born in 1965. Her creative journey began during middle school years when she started drawing illustrations and animations inspired by…
- Naoki YoshidaNaoki Yoshida, known to millions of players as Yoshi-P, inherited one of the most troubled games in the history of Japanese role-playing: a massively…
- Nobuo UematsuNobuo Uematsu was born on the 21st of March, 1959, in Kochi, the capital city of Kochi Prefecture, Japan. He never took a single formal piano lesson.
- Masayoshi SokenMasayoshi Soken composed the music for an entire expansion of Final Fantasy XIV from a hospital bed. For most of 2020, while his colleagues were working on…
- Tetsuya NomuraTetsuya Nomura was born in 1970 and applied to Square after seeing a job advertisement featuring artwork by Yoshitaka Amano.