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Akihiko Yoshida (FFT, TO, Vagrant Story, FFXII) confirms that he has left Square Enix
- Thread starter duckroll
- Start date
metalslimer
Member
I just really hope 15 and KH3 turn out amazing. I don't think I can take SE's pretty much only console games being shit
Perfo
Thirteen flew over the cuckoo's nest
Why of all people Sakaguchi left? Ok they basically fired him but that could happen to Nomura too in case XV/KH3 bombs, he doesn't get paid enough, stress, de-promotion ect ~ you really never know.
LOL. As if Spirits Within and FFXIV 1.0 didn't do worse. What an exaggeration. If anything Versus XIII is doing even worse to it with its infinite delays. Toriyama actually tried his best to keep the series relevant when his collegues where screwing up big if anything. Thanks god S-E aknowledges this and put him in the committee to make the series loved again.
KyanMehwulfe
Member
So now Team Ogre is free to join Vanillaware and make a Vagrant Story x Dragon's Crown hybrid successor? I mean, the Sorceress was clearly always, ahem, Ogre Battle's pumpkin-loving witch Deneb. I got a good feeling.
But it's also OK if Konami hires Matsuno and Yoshida to make Suikoden VI.... that'd be OK, too. But... I've got nothing else to report.
Maybe a new Kickstarter that is.... cyberpunk... yeah, cyberpunk... small-scale turn-based shadowruns and large-scale corp politics.. ala Syndicate or Shadowrun. This is the way.
Or something with the Gooch. Yeah, S-E. I said The Gooch. Blame yourself... or Eye Cancer.
But it's also OK if Konami hires Matsuno and Yoshida to make Suikoden VI.... that'd be OK, too. But... I've got nothing else to report.
Maybe a new Kickstarter that is.... cyberpunk... yeah, cyberpunk... small-scale turn-based shadowruns and large-scale corp politics.. ala Syndicate or Shadowrun. This is the way.
Or something with the Gooch. Yeah, S-E. I said The Gooch. Blame yourself... or Eye Cancer.
zerokoolpsx
Member
SE's huge loss.
Exactly. If he's pushed to leaving you know we'll have crossed the event horizon of SE's collapse.
RagingAvatar
Member
Well, that's it for Square-Enix.
I'm still good as long as Yuji Hori lives.
I'm still good as long as Yuji Hori lives.
Perfo
Thirteen flew over the cuckoo's nest
Well I mean he is growing old too, I think S-E should just hire new people instead of relying too much on these few. Isn't Naoki Yoshida sort of new in there? He did great. There's talent to scout out there, let people from Sakaguchi's leacy leave and find some new talent. This people are not going to be immortal anyway so they have to do it eventually.
It's true that Spirits Within was when Sakaguchi made his fatal mistake. And that FF14 appears to have been Yoichi Wada's fatal mistake.
Yosuke Matsuda is the man to watch now and I assume he's probably going to do anything he can to get everything profitable again, and that means, yep, the dreaded focus on portables and mobiles.
Sometimes I wonder how disorganized the company must be since they clearly cannot manage teams.
No one even knew who Naoki Yoshida was 2 years ago. Now everyone wants him to make more mainline FF games.
The same people will not be running any game company for 10-25 years. People should be more aware of normal transition in workforce. Even Nintendo is constantly talking about grooming new directors and de-emphasizing Miyamoto all the time.
Exactly. I honestly don't know if people even realize this, given some of the responses here.
Well, that's true. Does seem to be kind of a problem with the Japanese game industry in general though, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of fresh new blood.
Incidentally the one name that came to mind for fresh blood! Still, it almost seems like he's the exception rather than the norm, and I'm not sure how well he'd do in charge of a non-MMO. Not that I expect we'll find out any time soon if ever.
So continues Square-Enix's dissolution. The company really has lost much of the creative power that it had collected in the mid-90s that made it a powerhouse. It now really does seem to be a husk of its former self.
Has any company really stepped up to the place since then? We've seen many of the talent that's gone out forming their own companies, and while some of the people have remained prominent in the scene (Basiscape comes to mind), others haven't really been part of any zeitgeist that we've seen for a while.
Has any company really stepped up to the place since then? We've seen many of the talent that's gone out forming their own companies, and while some of the people have remained prominent in the scene (Basiscape comes to mind), others haven't really been part of any zeitgeist that we've seen for a while.
Matsuno x Yoshida has to happen now
Palette Swap
Member
Just create an independent structure around the holy trinity of Matsuno x Yoshida x Sakimoto.
KoopaTheCasual
Junior Member
There's Tabata, as well. I think the two of them are the future of FF, as they're already proven in a short time they are very capable. But yes, there needs to be a push to groom more young talent.
Glass Rebel
Member
Well, anything can happen, sure. "Fear" implies that there are signs why he would leave. He's working on two of the Japanese side's biggest projects.
Yeah, I suppose they may actually be in a moderately better position than a decade ago for talent refresh, though they also came out with a lot of great handheld support just a few years later. And still had much of this old guard that's been vacating the company since.
Yeah, I do think if he leaves sooner than later it'll be the single most troubling sign we'll see, but I don't think it's likely to just happen within the next few months or anything. It'd at worst be just before one of those games came out, a Matsuno-esque meltdown. Though XV HAS been cooking longer than XII at this point, nevermind how long people waited for KH3 while prequel after prequel hit.
Unless FFXV is a monumental flop on par or even exceeding Spirits Within and shareholders force him out, Nomura ain't leaving. After FFXV he still has KHIII and based on how he has talked about the future of the franchise post-III, he has no plans to leave after that game either.
Femmeworth
Banned
I expect him to do the designs for an Idea Factory game eventually.
Pretty much. The way the guy talks, I wonder if he actually experiences the passage of time at the same speed we do. 10 years for him seems like nothing. I don't think he's going anywhere. He's talked about XV not being the whole story too, with sequels clearly in mind. That's 3 major console games he's planning, minimum. And he's talked about TWEWY 2 as well.
Risk Breaker
Member
Really sad news, not for him as I'm sure he'll be a lot better anywhere else, but the reality of Square Enix is really depressing.
Damn.
Damn.
Not to mention the inevitable ff7r
I bet SE will have him on even more projects if they can
He ain't going no where
Risk Breaker
Member
No. XV hasn't been delayed without reason. S-E chose to focus on Toriyama's turds for an entire generation and turned the series from AAA to B level single-handedly.
At this point though, I'm pretty sure you're either trolling or just a reincarnation of Rahxephon91.
Jesus, S-E is a huge mess. :/
Meccanical
Member
Pfft....SE cannot retain good people for shit.
DXB-KNIGHT
Member
If it's mobile they seek then SQEX is the best place to be.
These kinds of posts are just pathetic. How is this any different from various artist types going freelancer (even during the so called golden years)yet still having the occasional projects with SQEX? If anything, this is good for both parties. Perhaps this will give new talent the possibility to rise and now people will hopefully get to see Yoshida's art a bit more often.
And what exactly is so rotten about a company that has projects like Bravely Second, Theatrhythm Curtain Call, KHIII, FFXV, Drakengard 3, KH2.5HD and such under development? Yeah, they are publishing more mobile games, almost none of which are actually developed by them, so I don't really see the problem.
MoogleWizard
Member
Another hole in the sinking ship.
Glass Rebel
Member
shut yo mouf
He should work with Matsuno, Atlus and Sega on a Shining Force reboot.
Magicpaint
Member
Their loss :\
This isn't a huge loss, guys. All this says is that he'll have an opportunity to work with other and better companies. Also remember Amano isn't employed by Square anymore either, yet he still does a massive amount of stuff. Basically Yoshida is likely to do something similar to that, but unlike his previous employment he'll be self-employed and be able to do other things.
foxuzamaki
Doesn't read OPs, especially not his own
first responding to the responses to my post, Im sure its contractual and I agree, what I meant is bravely second might be the last one he felt fully obligated to do, Im sure the game has atleast started work on it before he left so he's probably knee deep into the game's development already and probably isnt reacting like he left at all, atleast for that project, if htis makes sense.
and want to correct you eusis, nintendo is fully open to any indies in japan as of some months ago, whatever issue they had before has been resolved.
Another thing to note that ALOT (mostly squaresoft) of squareenix employees are now working for nintendo.
Hamauzu is freelancer. And both Sakimoto and Uematsu have composed for Square Enix after leaving, and Amano continued to do some art for them as well.
Really, it makes absolutely NO SENSE whatsoever for art people like Yoshida or music people like Sakamoto to stay at one developer nowadays (no matter if that is Level 5, SQEX or Sony) if they want to spread their work on as many projects as possible. The fact & realities of the matter is that as projects have become bigger and as they take more time to develop, there's really no need to have composers & art designers around full-time. I mean, I don't think any western developers even have in-house composers and the art designer types move around a lot.
Based on some interviews, Ito has had at least one big project in pre-development/early development, but they just haven't advanced with it because of XIV2.0 taking almost all of the workforce. Now that XIV2.0 is out of the way, I'm sure things have started progressing for other projects behind the scenes and they just haven't announced at least a few of their upcoming games yet, since they might be so early.
And don't be silly, there are a lot of talented people at SQEX still apart from Ito. He is one of the best, but SQEX didn't need him for a lot of their great games they've released since FFXII.
I'm not seeing those "lot of great games", honestly. I know that there are talented people there, but when the ones I like the most start leaving and people like Toriyama ruins everything, I can't really care about them anymore. I'm hyping Final Fantasy XV and Kingdom Hearts 3, but that's it. And the hype is level is quite low.
Bran Ketra
Banned
I liked the art style Akihiko Yoshida used for Final Fantasy Tactics. It assisted in making the world of Ivalice more distinct from other Final Fantasies. I say the same for Final Fantasy XII. The art style of FFXII was actually the only thing besides the voice acting which I liked about it. I hope Yoshida-san continues to work in the video game industry.
pillowtalk
Member
Come on Street Fighter V...