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Hiromichi Tanaka (FF11) leaves Square Enix

D

duckroll

Member
Tanaka is one of the founding members of Squaresoft. He worked on the earliest FF and SaGa games, and was also responsible as producer for the early Secret of Mana games, Xenogears, Chrono Cross, and has been the main driving force behind FF11. After the failure of the FF14 launch he vanished from the public eye substantially.

Today we have reports that he has officially left Square Enix due to "health reasons".

Edit:

hongcha said:
In this interview with Famitsu, he says he is afflicted with an incurable disease. That's why he's stepping down. Seems like a nice guy, from the interview. Sorry to hear he was forced to retire due to this illness.
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Yoshichan

Yoshichan

And they made him a Lord of Cinder. Not for virtue, but for might. Such is a lord, I suppose. But here I ask. Do we have a sodding chance?
:( That sucks... hopefully everything turns out good.

Tanaka is a genius.
 
C

cosmicblizzard

Banned
So, that's it for the original team, right? :(

Good luck to him wherever he goes.

Edit: Wait, eye cancer? Jesus, that sucks. Hope he makes it through this.
 
R

Regulus Tera

Romanes Eunt Domus
cmCTK.png
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IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE

or

Rest in peace, hero of heroes.
 
@

@MUWANdo

Banned
Nibel said:
Okay, that is just fucked up, dude.

Wish him the best and that everything will be fine.
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I wasn't trying to suggest that he's not actually sick or whatever, I'm just "amused" by the way the official line always makes it sound like some spontaneous bout of ill health when the reality is that they've been pressured or overworked to the point where it's affecting them physically.
 
K

Karsticles

Member
Nibel said:
Okay, that is just fucked up, dude.

Wish him the best and that everything will be fine.
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I took him to be saying that SE and Capcom both have quality employees that are having health problems, not that he was being snarky about Tanaka and Ono's health. I read the jab as being aimed at the companies and how they are faring.

Regardless, this is unfortunate.
 
A

Aeana

Member
Please don't take the eye cancer thing seriously. It was a tongue-in-cheek reference to Matsuno's departure from SE. "Health reasons" is a very common reason given for departure from a company in Japan. It could mean any number of things, some of which not actually related to health. I don't intend to make light of the situation if he is actually ill, of course.
 
D

Darte

Member
Oh shit, I made a post about being glad he was leaving. No idea he had health reasons. I don't like the way he balanced things in his online games but I wish him the best in getting that treated.
 
C

cosmicblizzard

Banned
Aeana said:
Please don't take the eye cancer thing seriously. It was a tongue-in-cheek reference to Matsuno's departure from SE. "Health reasons" is a very common reason given for departure from a company in Japan. It could mean any number of things, some of which not actually related to health. I don't intend to make light of the situation if he is actually ill, of course.
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It's 4 AM here and I tend to take things more seriously than I should (though I'm still pretty gullible when fully awake too).
 
R

Regulus Tera

Romanes Eunt Domus
You cannot joke about the eye cancer without mentioning Wada himself injecting it into the victim's eye! Otherwise people think it is for realz.
 
S

Shamdeo

Member
One of Square's founding members. :(

Final Fantasy I through IV left me with great memories. I guess people have gripes with him for FFXI or FFXIV stuff, but whatever. Bitch, bitch, bitch. At least some games are a bastion to the never-ending sea of World of Warcraft clones.

Hope he makes a swift recovery.

I will miss him.
 
E

Eusis

Member
Terminal case of boredom?

EDIT: Seriously though, it's a travesty how badly FFXIV decimated SE's veteran crew.
 
R

Rpgmonkey

Member
So Kawazu's the only one of that group still holding on?

I guess he's only one who hasn't had any extremely disastrous screw ups or gotten too annoyed with the company (yet)? :p
 
C

cosmicblizzard

Banned
Rpgmonkey said:
So Kawazu's the only one of that group still holding on?

I guess he's only one who hasn't had any extremely disastrous screw ups or gotten too annoyed with the company (yet)? :p
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I'm thinking how Crystal Chronicles has been received in the end is a decently sized screw up. Maybe not disastrous though.
 
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Regulus Tera

Romanes Eunt Domus
Rpgmonkey said:
So Kawazu's the only one of that group still holding on?

I guess he's only one who hasn't had any extremely disastrous screw ups or gotten too annoyed with the company (yet)? :p
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Only because he hasn't had the chance to fuck up SaGa yet.

edit: Crystal Chronicles was awesome. :mad:
 
A

Anteater

Member
What are the horrible things he has done for FFXI and XIV? I didn't really keep up with the inner workings of FFXI and always assumed all decisions were made by the same dude who was a bit schizo
 
A

Aeana

Member
Valnen said:
You shouldn't want Nomura to leave, he's the only one doing anything good at the company right now.
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Define "good." His game is still not out and has no signs of being released any time soon! I can't imagine that's "good" for SE as a company at all.
 
D

Darryl

Banned
I really liked some of the games this helped create. FFXI, Threads of Fate, Secret of Mana, and Chrono Cross were all brilliant and top the list of my favorite childhood games. I have a hard time believing FFXIV was entirely Tanaka's fault, there were some brilliant ideas being used in that game. I've always figured it was more due to budget problems/forcing him to use crystal tools. Not even the new team could handle that old engine.

Instro said:
Time to go join up with MistWalker or Monolith.
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I hope he does.
 
S

Seventh

Member
Hopefully he recovers and lands on his feet if he really is sick.

But, if he ever returns to video game development, hopefully it's for a position far, far, faaaar away from anything related to MMOs. After what he "contributed" to FFXI and FFXIV, the genre would be much better without him.
 
A

Aeana

Member
Seventh said:
Hopefully he recovers and lands on his feet if he really is sick.

But, if he ever returns to video game development, hopefully it's for a position far, far, faaaar away from anything related to MMOs. After what he "contributed" to FFXI and FFXIV, the genre would be much better without him.
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Did you ever like FF11? Because he was there from the beginning. Whether or not he was responsible for negative changes, he was also there for the good stuff. But it seems that that is something that people will gleefully ignore.
 
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