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Akihiko Yoshida (FFT, VS) joins CyDesignation, CyGames to announce new title soon

D

duckroll

Member
http://dengekionline.com/elem/000/000/936/936165/

Famed character designer and art director Akihiko Yoshida has joined CyDesignation as a member of their board of directors. CyDesignation is a subsidiary of Cygames, working on art design and content, mostly for the parent company. Cygames is best known for Rage of Bahamut, the popular f2p social card game for mobile.

Hideo Minaba is the president of CyDesignation. If I recall correctly, he actually started the company independently as Design Nation or something, and it was eventually bought by CyGames? Not sure, but it's Minaba's design studio.

More info about the company at their site: http://www.cydesignation.co.jp/

duckroll said:
http://www.cygames.co.jp/news/?p=3171&s_year=2014&s_month=10

Both the Dengeki article and CyGames' press release also states that a game which Yoshida is working on as Art Director will be announced soon. :eek:
Click to expand...
 
N

Nibel

Member
So it's that Square Enix guy.. this is pretty huge, isn't it?

It's interesting that even though SE works on their own set of mobile games he still jumped ship. He's a fantastic artist, that's for sure. Good for Cygames!
 
K

kadotsu

Banned
Finally we will get games that look like his concept art. As in, they'll copy paste his concepts art on some cards and add a rarity to it.
 
S

Sou

Member
Yoshida is one of the biggest loss in recent Square history. Hopefully this allows someone else to step up as I am sure the place is full of artists just as talented.
 
N

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
To note, CyGames is also a fully owned subsidiary of CyberAgent (a notable Japanese mobile publisher) who has a Western presence, so the odds for global release of the things he works on aren't bad, especially given that Rage of Bahamut did really well in the West once upon a time.
 
H

Hedge

Member
Well I hope he will still do big game projects. Wandering around in his artistic vision in XII, BD and XIV is such a pleasure.
 
D

DMiz

Member
Amazing get. Square-Enix just hemorrhaging their talent slowly, either to other companies or because people are starting their independent studios.
 
N

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Outside of Rage of Bahamut, CyGames' newest title is Granblue Fantasy, which, if nothing else, does have very nice art.

It's kind of an older style mobile game though IIRC. Curious to see if how they evolve their game making style going forward.

key_gbf_05.jpg


key_gbf_03.jpg


screen406x722.jpeg
screen406x722.jpeg
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N

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Pennywise83 said:
In which terms does he represent a big get?
Click to expand...

Well the studio does two things IIRC.

1.) Make the art for CyGames' titles (and perhaps CyberAgent's in general?). In Japanese mobile games, art can be a pretty big draw.

2.) They also do some contract work, so getting more staff that brings in good contract work business is strong for an art studio.
 
F

ferr

Member
If I was rich as hell from Rage of Bahamut money, I'd hire Yoshida as well. Get him together with Matsuno and Sakimoto and make yourself an awesome game.

Forget Chrono Trigger's team, that's my dream team right there.
 
N

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
DJIzana said:
Interesting. Let's hope his talent doesn't go to waste! Make the game in the vein of Granblue Fantasy but on PS4 and that'll do it for me. ;)
Click to expand...

To note, in the context of that announcement, he talks about how the lines between console and social are blurring, so I think it's probably still some kind of f2p title, but more core oriented.
 
D

DJIzana

Member
ferr said:
If I was rich as hell from Rage of Bahamut money, I'd hire Yoshida as well. Get him together with Matsuno and Sakimoto and make yourself an awesome game.

Forget Chrono Trigger's team, that's my dream team right there.
Click to expand...

I'll never forget the Chrono team. I'll agree in that it certainly would be an epic team to work with but I think there's one team that'd be just as good.

Sakaguchi working with Tetsuya Takahashi. This is something that could actually happen!

Nirolak said:
To note, in the context of that announcement, he talks about how the lines between console and social are blurring, so I think it's probably still some kind of f2p title, but more core oriented.
Click to expand...

Anyways, more on topic... hopefully we'll see or hear about it soon. If the character design / art style is just as good as Granblue Fantasy, as I said, I'm sold. Just curious as to what exactly they mean by blurring the lines between the audiences though. Seems a little vague.
 
D

duckroll

Member
CyGames has actually made some pretty unusual moves lately. Aside from the announcement at CEDEC that they're developing a PS4 title, they've also been investing pretty heavily into a Rage of Bahamut anime series in the past year or so. They announced it back in December last year, and the broadcast only behinds next Monday, so they certainly gave a lot of lead time for the production. It also looks very good in terms of production quality and staff, with the Tiger & Bunny director in charge. It'll be in 5.1 surround too.

http://shingekinobahamut-genesis.jp/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-meX7dpotzA

Why would a social mobile company be so eager to make a high production value dark fantasy TV series out of their card game IP which has waned in popularity in recent years? The timing seems a bit suspect. Either it's a coincidence, or they have bigger ambitions for the IP in the near future.
 
D

DJIzana

Member
duckroll said:
CyGames has actually made some pretty unusual moves lately. Aside from the announcement at CEDEC that they're developing a PS4 title, they've also been investing pretty heavily into a Rage of Bahamut anime series in the past year or so. They announced it back in December last year, and the broadcast only behinds next Monday, so they certainly gave a lot of lead time for the production. It also looks very good in terms of production quality and staff, with the Tiger & Bunny director in charge. It'll be in 5.1 surround too.

http://shingekinobahamut-genesis.jp/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-meX7dpotzA

Why would a social mobile company be so eager to make a high production value dark fantasy TV series out of their card game IP which has waned in popularity in recent years? The timing seems a bit suspect. Either it's a coincidence, or they have bigger ambitions for the IP in the near future.
Click to expand...

yakuza0_take97s5j.gif


That's all I have to say. Both Rage of Bahamut have such a good direction... wonder what their definition of "soon" is to know more about this title (or the PS4 one if it's not the same thing).
 
S

SatelliteOfLove

Member
That "red mage" character up there is astoundingly good.

duckroll said:
CyGames has actually made some pretty unusual moves lately. Aside from the announcement at CEDEC that they're developing a PS4 title, they've also been investing pretty heavily into a Rage of Bahamut anime series in the past year or so. They announced it back in December last year, and the broadcast only behinds next Monday, so they certainly gave a lot of lead time for the production. It also looks very good in terms of production quality and staff, with the Tiger & Bunny director in charge. It'll be in 5.1 surround too.

http://shingekinobahamut-genesis.jp/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-meX7dpotzA

Why would a social mobile company be so eager to make a high production value dark fantasy TV series out of their card game IP which has waned in popularity in recent years? The timing seems a bit suspect. Either it's a coincidence, or they have bigger ambitions for the IP in the near future.
Click to expand...

I dunno, but these multi-media firms and young mobile firms making investitures in traditional gaming lineages like this puts my heart at ease. Perhaps they feel an emptying niche exists there?
 
G

Gbraga

Member
Good for them.

I hope S-E is still willing to go through the design company stuff so we can have his designs in FF XVI.
 
P

Pennywise83

Banned
Nirolak said:
Well the studio does two things IIRC.

1.) Make the art for CyGames' titles (and perhaps CyberAgent's in general?). In Japanese mobile games, art can be a pretty big draw.

2.) They also do some contract work, so getting more staff that brings in good contract work business is strong for an art studio.
Click to expand...

Problem is, "in Japanese mobile games art is a big draw" doesn't mean Yoshida's art will be a big draw. If you look at the top mobile games, you can see totally different artstyle that range from generic to ultra-generic, because what draws the vast majority of consumers is not fine art.
 
H

Hero Prinny

Member
Duckroll, is final fantasy your favorite franchise of all time? I ask because anytime there is a new thread about anything even slightly related to ff you're always the thread maker.
 
S

SatelliteOfLove

Member
Pennywise83 said:
Problem is, "in Japanese mobile games art is a big draw" doesn't mean Yoshida's art will be a big draw. If you look at the top mobile games, you can see totally different artstyle that range from generic to ultra-generic, because what draws the vast majority of consumers is not fine art.
Click to expand...

This is true world-wide as well. They are definately aimed at being "comfortable" and not rocking the boat.
 
S

studyguy

Member
MORE THIGH HIGHS, STOCKINGS, ZR AND BUTT WINDOWS FOR EVERYONE!
Yoshida is clearly a leg and butt man. Dude after my own heart.

Also he still gets contract work everywhere, doubt that'll change much.

tumblr_static_1w8ozhg0u6aswc8ogckc4cs00.png
Click to expand...
 
KyanMehwulfe

KyanMehwulfe

Member
Isn't CyberAgent privately held, and he joined a subsidiary of a subsidiary? Was it actually the board of directors or he just became a director? I can't seem to find CyDesignation even having stock or a board. I found other news saying he just become a company director though, not that he joined the board. Would seem like an odd choice to put an artist on a board. In any case, just curious as what the role is... one of the links mentioned that CyGames has an upcoming PS4 title, so maybe they're recruiting bigger name talent for that. There's so much money in mobile though that it could just as easily be that, too, I guess.
 
W

wmlk

Member
PS4 could also mean a meaningless multiplat like Wonder Flick.

Is that even on PS4 yet? Don't think so.
 
S

SolidSnakex

Member
wmlk said:
PS4 could also mean a meaningless multiplat like Wonder Flick.

Is that even on PS4 yet? Don't think so.
Click to expand...

It's set for basically every platform. But I believe duckroll said that the mobile launch was such a mess that L5's has had to fix that rather than release any other versions of it.
 
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