Yusuke Naora

• 1. Introduction

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  Yusuke Naora returned from Bali, Indonesia, carrying images that would reshape his work for years. He had seen seaside towns, temples, and people in distinctive clothing handing out tropical flowers. Those impressions became Besaid Village in Final Fantasy X, a game he described as a "journey." Naora was born on the 9th of January 1971. His first credited role as art director was Grind Stormer in 1993, made during his time at Toaplan. He moved to Square within a year, and his career would eventually run through thirty titles across more than two decades. His last Square Enix credit, Cosmos Rings in 2016, listed him as key visual arts.

• 2. Building the Look

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  Final Fantasy VI in 1994 was Naora's first Square credit, where he worked as a field graphic designer. Chrono Trigger followed in 1995 in the same role. Treasure Conflix in 1996 listed him as visual designer.

  Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII in 2004 returned him to art director. Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song and Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children both listed him as art director in 2005. Front Mission 5: Scars of the War, also from that year, listed him as character designer. The Code Age franchise, developed in parallel, would become his first full producing credit.

• 3. The Code Age Experiment

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  Code Age Commanders took three years to complete. Naora assembled a group specifically for the project, calling them "War Head," and he personally contributed some of the drawings. The game was conceived to be something entirely unlike Final Fantasy. The team designed it to exist across three formats: a PlayStation 2 game, a manga, and a cell phone game. Multiple buttons were used in combat to simulate two-handed fighting. The game was also designed around the Western desire for game customization.

• 4. Bridging Two Audiences

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  Fallout 3's popularity caught Naora's attention. He observed how it reflected the growing gap between Japanese and Western role-playing games. Rather than avoid that gap, he used it as the foundation for The Last Remnant. His approach was to build the game "from the ground up" to work for both audiences at once. He conducted extensive research into American gaming desires and tastes. He served as art producer and character designer on the project.

  Song Summoner: The Unsung Heroes in 2008 also listed him as character designer, one of many credits from this period that ran alongside larger commitments.

• 5. Fourteen Characters

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  Naora joined the initial team working on Final Fantasy Type-0 in 2006 as one of a staff of three. Development could not begin in earnest until 2008, delayed by ongoing work on Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII. Full development did not start until 2009, delayed again by The 3rd Birthday.

  Among his responsibilities was writing backstory and building individual life histories for all fourteen of the game's characters. He also designed the country layouts and the main game visuals.

  Lufia: Curse of the Sinistrals in 2010 and the Chaos Rings trilogy across 2010 and 2011 each listed him as character designer. He took on these credits while Type-0 was still in production. The project ran from 2006 through its 2011 release, a span of five years.

• 6. Closing Credits

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  Crystal Conquest listed Naora as art director. The Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster in 2013 brought a different kind of challenge. He supervised color correction, fixed visual errors, and oversaw an increase in the games' resolution.

  In 2015, he delivered a lecture at SMU Guildhall titled "The Visual Evolution of Final Fantasy." It traced how building game characters had changed from working with pixel graphics to constructing three-dimensional figures.

  Final Fantasy XV had involved Naora since the game's title was changed. He described creating a trailer for it as both exciting and nerve-wracking. That trailer was set to appear on copies of Final Fantasy Type-0 HD. On the 1st of October 2016, he announced on Twitter that he had left Square Enix. He stated he would continue contributing to the company's games as a freelancer.