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[foxuzamaki]

When squaresoft merged into enix, alot of the old developers of soft started to leave the company, some instantly, some over time, but one thing I discovered over the years, is alot of them ended up at nintendo in one form or another.

The people behind the mario and luigi RPGs were apart of squaresoft before becoming Alphadream, and monolithsoft, the guys behind chrono trigger and xeno games, gears and saga, and I know some individuals are spread out on different teams, like one guy helped with the art of mother 3, who is all that went into nintendo's studios?

 

[Ninja Dom]

Paging Shikamaru Ninja: If anyone here on Neo GAF knows the answer to this then it's gonna be him.

Check out his web page, you may find something there.

http://kyoto-report.wikidot.com/

 

[Glass Rebel]

For the record, AlphaDream isn't a Nintendo subsidiary, they're just very close partners.

 

[jgmo870]

The guys at Monolith weren't behind Chrono Trigger.

 

[Psycho_Mantis]

The guys at Monolith weren't behind Chrono Trigger.

I was going to say this lol. No way did the guys behind CT make Xenoblade. I mean the story was just soo much worse in Xenoblade.

They made Xenogears, saga and baiten.

Alos as a poster said above Nintendo does not own Alphadream. All that was absorbed seems to be Monolithsoft.

 

[wsippel]

The guys at Monolith weren't behind Chrono Trigger.

Both Honne and Takahashi worked on Chrono Trigger: Tetsuya Takahashi as graphics director and Yasuyuki Honne as a map designer. Some former SQEX staff now at Monolith:

Tetsuya Takahashi:
Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes (1989): Art
Final Fantasy IV (1991): Battle Graphics
Romancing SaGa (1992): Field Graphics
Final Fantasy V (1992): Field Graphics
Secret of Mana (1993): Map Graphic Design
Final Fantasy VI ( 1994): Graphic Director
Front Mission (1995): Graphic Design
Chrono Trigger (1995): Graphic Director
Seiken Densetsu 3 (1995): BG
Final Fantasy VII (1997): Concept Art
Xenogears (1998): Director, Scenario Writer

Yasuyuki Honne:
Front Mission (1995): assistant graphic designer
Chrono Trigger (1995): map designer
Treasure Conflix (1996): main graphic
Xenogears (1998): art director, map textures
Chrono Cross (1999): art director, map painter

Makoto Shimamoto:
Chrono Trigger
Radical Dreamers
Xenogears
Threads of Fate

Masato Shimajiri:
Front Mission 3

Akinobu Yamakawa:
Xenogears
Threads of Fate

Norihiro Takami:
Parasite Eve
Final Fantasy VIII
Chrono Cross

Tadahiro Usuda:
Chrono Trigger
Radical Dreamers
Xenogears
Threads of Fate

Katsunori Itai:
Ehrgeiz

Akinobu Yamakawa:
Xenogears
Threads of Fate

 

[OryoN]

The guys at Monolith weren't behind Chrono Trigger.

I was going to say this lol. No way did the guys behind CT make Xenoblade. I mean the story was just soo much worse in Xenoblade.

Some main members at Monolith Soft - like TetsuyaTakahash and some others - absolutely were involved with Chrono Trigger.

Edit: umm, yeah... what wsippel said! ;D

 

[Sophia]

Yeah a number of Monolith Soft's staff consists of people who worked Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Cross, and Xenogears. Hard to say how much of their current staff was from Square, but key people at least had their hands involved with one of the aforementioned games or more.

 

[Kouriozan]

Don't Nintendo has most of the Mana team too?
I think I saw that the last time someone asked this question.

 

[Psycho_Mantis]

Some main members at Monolith Soft - like TetsuyaTakahash and some others - absolutely were involved with Chrono Trigger.

Edit: umm, yeah... what wsippel said! ;D

OP said guys behind CT. I see these guys as the people who had notable say in the game. How many of them are at Nintendo?

Takashi Tokita
Yoshinori Kitase
Akihiko Matsui
Kazuhiko Aoki
Hironobu Sakaguchi
Akira Toriyama
Masato Kato
Yuji Horii
Yasunori Mitsuda
Nobuo Uematsu
Noriko Matsueda

Sure they a couple of people who hand their hands in the game but dat dream team was something else.

 

[Dark_castle]

While it's true that Monolith Soft consists of staff members behind CT and CC, a lot of them are still in Square. Guys like Kazuhiko Aoki, Yuji Horii, Yoshinori Kitase, Takashi Tokita, Akihiko Matsui, Hiroki Chiba, Hiroyuki Ito, Keisuke Matsuhara, Kiyoshi Yoshii, Tetsuya Nomura, Shuichi Sato and so on.

 

[wsippel]

OP said guys behind CT. I see these guys as the people who had notable say in the game. How many of them are at Nintendo?

Takashi Tokita
Yoshinori Kitase
Akihiko Matsui
Kazuhiko Aoki
Hironobu Sakaguchi
Akira Toriyama
Masato Kato
Yuji Horii
Yasunori Mitsuda
Nobuo Uematsu
Noriko Matsueda

Sure they a couple of people who hand their hands in the game but dat dream team was something else.

You didn't list a single designer. Just producers, the writer (who works freelance and wrote Baten Kaitos), some composers (all freelance, Mitsuda works on most Takahashi games in some capacity), and a character designer. From the CT design team, two people went to skip (Kenichi Nishi and Keita Etoh), Shimamoto is at Monolith, and Toshiaki Suzuki is at Nintendo EAD. And Takahashi was one of directors.

Anyway, what actually happened is that several key members of the Xenogears team also happened to work Chrono Trigger.

 

[sörine]

Don't Nintendo has most of the Mana team too?
I think I saw that the last time someone asked this question.

Brownie Brown (now 1up Studio) was made up mainly of ex-Mana/Saga team artists I think. The rest of the Mana team left SE later to form Grezzo who Nintendo works closely with now too.

 

[Oregano]

Isn't Skip led by a former Square guy?

They're not Nintendo owned though.

 

[Rich!]

Regardless of how much they absorbed, they took on the right amount to end up with a game far better than anything Square-Enix has released in over a decade.

Obviously talking about Xenoblade.

 

[Hyperactivity]

From the Where is the Platinum Games to Square-Enix's Capcom? thread

Brownie Brown
Monolith Soft
Sacnoth/Nautilus
Alpha Dream

So Nintendo... bought Square?

Basically.

The head of the Mana series now works on Zelda games, too.

Seriously.

They can have an entire legion of ex-Square RPGs at their disposal, let's count the ex-Square companies they work with often:

Monolith Soft (owned by Nintendo, ex-Chrono and Xenogears folks, worked on Xenoblade and now X)
1-UP Studio (owned by Nintendo, ex-Mana folks, formerly Brownie Brown, worked on Magical Starsign, now a support group)
Brownies (ex-Mana, successor to Brownie Brown, likely NOT owned by Nintendo, working on Fantasy Life Link)
Alpha Dream (ex-Mario RPG folks, work on the M&L series)
Grezzo (formed by the creator of Mana and the characters Chocobo and Moogle, worked on Line Attack Heroes, Four Swords DS and OOT3D)
Mistwalker (formed by Gooch, creator of FF, worked on The Last Story)

Those are all from the top of my head, some ideas:

Grezzo + 1UP + Brownies to create the true successor of Mana on 3DS or Wii U, it's too perfect an opportunity.

Mistwalker + Monolith Soft could make something AAAA as it were, can you IMAGINE?

Half of the above have made original RPGs (MW = The Last Story, MS = Xenoblade, BB = Magical Starsign) but others haven't (AD, Grezzo, Brownies, 1UP (as a support team, don't count on it)).

Nintendo SO under-utilizes what resources they have, it's mind-boggling.

Edit: Count Skip and Vanpool as well, Skip does Chibi-Robo and Vanpool does Dillon's Rolling Western, more famous for their Love-de-Lic days. Don't remember their Square games, I think they did Mario RPG?

 

[Kouriozan]

From the Where is the Platinum Games to Square-Enix's Capcom? thread

Ah yes, that was the thread I was talking about, thanks for the quotes.

 

[cafemomo]

They should get Mistwalker. I know it's a shell of a studio (and not even a real studio), but I want a Last Story II

 

[Muchi Muchi Pink]

They should get Mistwalker. I know it's a she of a studio (and not even a real studio), but I want a Last Story II

Totally. Too bad mistwalker just works on iOS games now, right?

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

Both Honne and Takahashi worked on Chrono Trigger: Tetsuya Takahashi as graphics director and Yasuyuki Honne as a map designer. Some former SQEX staff now at Monolith:

Tetsuya Takahashi:
Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes (1989): Art
Final Fantasy IV (1991): Battle Graphics
Romancing SaGa (1992): Field Graphics
Final Fantasy V (1992): Field Graphics
Secret of Mana (1993): Map Graphic Design
Final Fantasy VI ( 1994): Graphic Director
Front Mission (1995): Graphic Design
Chrono Trigger (1995): Graphic Director
Seiken Densetsu 3 (1995): BG
Final Fantasy VII (1997): Concept Art
Xenogears (1998): Director, Scenario Writer

Yasuyuki Honne:
Front Mission (1995): assistant graphic designer
Chrono Trigger (1995): map designer
Treasure Conflix (1996): main graphic
Xenogears (1998): art director, map textures
Chrono Cross (1999): art director, map painter

Makoto Shimamoto:
Chrono Trigger
Radical Dreamers
Xenogears
Threads of Fate

Masato Shimajiri:
Front Mission 3

Akinobu Yamakawa:
Xenogears
Threads of Fate

Norihiro Takami:
Parasite Eve
Final Fantasy VIII
Chrono Cross

Tadahiro Usuda:
Chrono Trigger
Radical Dreamers
Xenogears
Threads of Fate

Katsunori Itai:
Ehrgeiz

Akinobu Yamakawa:
Xenogears
Threads of Fate

Huh; I had no idea he was at Falcom for a bit. Neat.

Learn something new every day.

 

[KtSlime]

Totally. Too bad mistwalker just works on iOS games now, right?

Works out for me okay. I like playing RPGs on my iPhone.

 

[Caronte]

Works out for me okay. I like playing RPGs on my iPhone.

They don't make RPGs.

 

[Christhor]

Works out for me okay. I like playing RPGs on my iPhone.

But do you like surfing games?

 

[cafemomo]

Works out for me okay. I like playing RPGs on my iPhone.

Hope you like a surfing RPG then

 

[Codeblue]

Hope you like a surfing RPG then

If only it were an RPG.

 

[KtSlime]

I liked time surfer, but haven't played party wave. Looks cute.

 

[foxuzamaki]

Thanks for the replies guys, went to sleep soon afterwards so didnt get the chance to say anything else.

 

[foxuzamaki]

And yes just to clarify I didnt mean to imply the entirety of monolithsoft worked on chrono trigger, just alot of key members were involved with it.

 

[L Thammy]

She's freelance, but Yoko Shimamura regularly composes for the Mario & Luigi series. She used to be with Square and composed for Super Mario RPG, Parasite Eve, Kingdom Hearts and some other stuff before she left.

Also, the scenario writer of Final Fantasy VII and VIII wrote for Glory of Heracles DS, apparently Subspace Emissary as well. Though, that's probably more related to his work at Data East.

 

[foxuzamaki]

She's freelance, but Yoko Shimamura regularly composes for the Mario & Luigi series. She used to be with Square and composed for Super Mario RPG, Parasite Eve, Kingdom Hearts and some other stuff before she left.

She also did some tracks for xenoblade.

 

[manueldelalas]

There's also Genius Sonority made by ex Dragon Quest Staff.

 

[Shogun1337]

Both Honne and Takahashi worked on Chrono Trigger: Tetsuya Takahashi as graphics director and Yasuyuki Honne as a map designer. Some former SQEX staff now at Monolith:

Tetsuya Takahashi:
Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes (1989): Art
Final Fantasy IV (1991): Battle Graphics
Romancing SaGa (1992): Field Graphics
Final Fantasy V (1992): Field Graphics
Secret of Mana (1993): Map Graphic Design
Final Fantasy VI ( 1994): Graphic Director
Front Mission (1995): Graphic Design
Chrono Trigger (1995): Graphic Director
Seiken Densetsu 3 (1995): BG
Final Fantasy VII (1997): Concept Art
Xenogears (1998): Director, Scenario Writer

Yasuyuki Honne:
Front Mission (1995): assistant graphic designer
Chrono Trigger (1995): map designer
Treasure Conflix (1996): main graphic
Xenogears (1998): art director, map textures
Chrono Cross (1999): art director, map painter

Makoto Shimamoto:
Chrono Trigger
Radical Dreamers
Xenogears
Threads of Fate

Masato Shimajiri:
Front Mission 3

Akinobu Yamakawa:
Xenogears
Threads of Fate

Norihiro Takami:
Parasite Eve
Final Fantasy VIII
Chrono Cross

Tadahiro Usuda:
Chrono Trigger
Radical Dreamers
Xenogears
Threads of Fate

Katsunori Itai:
Ehrgeiz

Akinobu Yamakawa:
Xenogears
Threads of Fate

Huh. Well, there's my new favorite company. Everyone, lets start worshipping Monolith Soft *unzips fly*

 

[D-e-f-]

Huh. Well, there's my new favorite company. Everyone, lets start worshipping Monolith Soft *unzips fly*

You're already late to the party on that front

 

[Lihwem]

Paging Shikamaru Ninja: If anyone here on Neo GAF knows the answer to this then it's gonna be him.

Check out his web page, you may find something there.

http://kyoto-report.wikidot.com/

Holy shit that's very impressive and interesting !

 

[D-e-f-]

Holy shit that's very impressive and interesting !

I wish it got updated, though. A lot of stuff missing. But it's still a great resource!