Yoshinori Kitase Director - Final Fantasy

Yoshinori Kitase is a Japanese video game director and producer who has been employed by Square Enix since 1990. He was born in the year 1966 in Japan and is best known for his involvement as the director of games in the Final Fantasy game series, having directed Final Fantasy VI (1994), Final Fantasy VII (1997), and Final Fantasy VIII (1999). He also worked on various other successful games such as Chrono Trigger and the first three entries in the Kingdom Hearts series.

As a way to recognize all of his contributions to Square, Kitase was eventually promoted to the position of producer by Hironobu Sakaguchi. He made his debut in this position with Final Fantasy X (2001). Since then, he has produced Final Fantasy X-2 (2003), the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII (2004–2009), the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy (2009–2013), Mobius Final Fantasy (2015) and the forthcoming Final Fantasy VII Remake (2020). Currently Kitase is the Vice President of Square Enix and a member of the Board of Directors and an Executive Officer.

Life and Career

At eleven years old in 1978, Kitase watched Star Wars, which ended up making a great impression upon him early in his life, eventually sparking his interest in video production and the film industry in general. He went on to attend the Nihon University College of Art and majored in film production and screenwriting. Although he was rather keen on filming, Kitase quickly realized that he was rather passionate about the post-production process of editing as well, as it allowed an editor to completely redesign footage from the ground up and give it a completely different context and meaning when compared to the original shot. He went on to work at a small studio that created various kinds of animated television programing and TV advertisements. After playing the original Final Fantasy on the Famicom (Nintendo Entertainment System in America), he was further inspired to delve into the video game industry, as he believed that it had a lot of potential than film, animation, and writing alone.

Kitase had virtually no software development experience at all, but he decided that he would apply for a position at Square (which would later become Square-Enix) and was eventually hired in March 1990. Kitase began working as an “event scripter”. This position had Kitase directing movements of characters and their facial expressions as well as setting times for music transitions and other related activities. He continued to direct cutscenes even as he made his way up the company. Once he became a producer, however, he began to take on many more responsibilities that prevented him from working on cutscenes directly.

Present Day and Work On The Final Fantasy VII Remake

FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE is a reimagining of the iconic original game that goes much deeper into the world and characters of FINAL FANTASY VII than ever before.
Our goal with this project is to rebuild FINAL FANTASY VII for a new era. We’re not making a straight 1:1 copy or a simple remaster of the original game.
It’s a huge volume of work and data to re-imagine this world. Each game in the project will have a volume of content comparable to a standalone FINAL FANTASY. The disc version of the first game is actually a 2 Blu-Ray Disc set. This approach allows us to remake the original without having to scale back on everything players loved.

-Yoshinori Kitase on the Final Fantasy VII Remake

Yoshinori Kitase is currently engaged in production for the Final Fantasy VII remake, an upcoming reimagining of Final Fantasy VII, the seventh title of the flagship series Final Fantasy. The original release was launched on the Playstation in the year 1997 and quickly became one of the most successful and influential games of the series. The remake’s release date on the PlayStation 4 was set for March 3rd, 2020, but was later delayed to April 10th, 2020. Trailers for the game show that some of the series’ most iconic characters including Cloud Strife, Tifa Lockhart, and others will return once again, but with significantly improved graphics. While the game will stay true to the original plot, new combat systems and gameplay will be introduced to create an entirely new experience. The first release of the remake will only cover one portion of the original game, though there are more planned for eventual release in the future.

Kitase stated he was unsure how many entries the remake will span, but he and his team are working on making the Final Fantasy VII remake more than just a “remake”. He has stated that what makes the Final Fantasy franchise and series so successful is innovation and pushing boundaries, which they use to create games that end up surprising players. Kitase also views the remake as the next title in the mainline Final Fantasy flagship series, rather than a simple remake or spin-off.

Links

Square Enix Official
Yoshinori Kitase Final Fantasy VII Interview