Number 1 – Tetsuya Takahashi
Ah, Tetsuya Takahashi, how I wish things would have turned out different to him. His story is so ill-fated and downright unlucky, it almost bears the same traces of tragedy which his games revolve around… It’s a long winding narrative that would transform one of the most visionary storytellers of a stale, immature genre into an almost unknown figure. To this day, he only lead two projects – “Xenogears” and “Xenosaga Episode I”, and much to my dismay, neither of his titles were ever released in the old continent. Both were received with relative disregard, only establishing themselves as cult classics in a very strict niche of J-RPG lovers.
Takahashi’s career is small, but impressive. After several collaborations in art and graphics departments, of the best Square titles of the early nineties (“Final Fantasy IV”, “V”, “VI”, “Chrono Trigger”, etc.), Takahashi rose to the director’s chair in “Xenogears”. And it’s no accident that his first project is such a landmark in J-RPG history, so oft revered as one of the best games ever made in its genre. Comparisons with “Evangelion” abound, and with good reason, for besides featuring similar themes and aesthetic elements, they both represent strong signs of a mature intellectual discourse in what are otherwise immature means of expression. “Xenogears” clearly shows that for Takahashi, story is not a complement to game-design as much as it is the other way around. Which is not to say that his games’ RPG mechanics aren’t good, quite on the contrary, but the focus is ever the story. The infamous second CD of “Xenogears”, bearing almost no actual gameplay, is the ultimate proof of Takahashi’s commitment to telling stories. Though many attribute it’s existence to a lack of funds (a startling parallel to what happened to the ending episodes of “Evangelion”), I personally feel it was the right call for the game, as the gameplay-thin second CD is actually one of the most memorable parts of “Xenogears”.
The grand scale of the plot-line is “Xenogears” most powerful aspect, with hundreds of different threads weaving together into a fabric that touches so many different areas of human knowledge – philosophy, religion, science -, while maintaining classical narrative structures and themes – love, betrayal, death. It’s a testament to both Takahashi and his wife (co-author of his games), that in the end, all of it makes sense, with every storyline fitting perfectly into a sprawling network of events covering thousands of years, deep in meaning and subtext. In their games, every dialogue counts, and there’s always a new revelation hiding beneath each word. Add a flavour for the erudite, with constant references to Nietzsche, Wagner, Jung, Kubrick’s “2001″, “Soylent Green”, amongst many others – and you have the sort of work that is especially rewarding for those who appreciate deep ramblings [i.e.: me]. Sure, there’s always an element of adolescent pretentiousness in such writing madness, but it beats teenager mediocrity everyday.
But it’s not just the script, as its conveying that makes Takahashi’s stories so powerful. His cutscene direction gave a whole new meaning to the term operatic, with stylized framing of characters giving them a theatrical poise which transformed every line, movement and scene into a small piece of cinematic magic. And considering that in 1998 Takahashi already employed in-game cutscenes with such finesse, gives him all the more value [see an example below, and notice how, with such meager means and technology, the cutscene still manages to retain such a dynamic flow]. Yasonuri Mitsuda was critical in this aspect, as his compositions always added a great deal of dramatic effect, manipulating pathos through the delicious alternation between melancholic lullabies and heavy brass lines in pounding tempos, making you jump out of your seat in anticipation for the each upcoming twist.
Alas, a whim of lady luck would have Takahashi release his masterpiece less than a year in “Final Fantasy VII’s” wake, eventually casting his game in the shadow of the most beloved Japanese role playing game of all time. His game was never given a chance, despite being superior in many ways to Kitase’s own breakthrough. With a tighter budget, Takahashi not only delivered a far more profound narrative, but also a 3D world unlike anything at the time, much more lively and interactive than “VII’s” beautiful, yet static, pre-rendered backgrounds. But unlike “VII”, “Xenogears” lacked mind-blowing CGI, and wasn’t accessible to the younger audiences of Playstation, as its flair for the erudite, complex and operatic made it too obscure and obtuse for younger audiences.
Despite lacking George Lucas’ commercial success, Takahashi seemed to share similar delusions of grandeur – “Xenogears”, an epic game if I ever saw one, was actually the fifth tome of a grand saga of six episodes, a fact revealed in the last of the credits screen, and further dissected in the “Perfect Works” art-book. But despite positive reviews and moderate commercial success on part of “Xenogears”, Square never supported Takahashi to pursue his original creation and design the remaining 5 episodes of his saga. Surely feeling betrayed by the fact, he left Square with other dissidents to found a new company, “Monolith Software”, lead by Hirohide Sugiura, and funded by Namco.
Despite being unable to continue his saga directly, for Square remained adamant in upholding author rights over the original “Xenogears”, Takahashi was now granted the creative freedom to pursue his original work… or so he thought. He started working on “Xenosaga”, a six tome work very much like the one of which “Xenogears” was part of. It was a re-write of sorts, different enough only as to not be made the subject of a copyright’s quarrel between Monolith and Square. But once again, Takahashi suffered at the hands of fate, releasing “Episode I” a year after the big Square title of the time, Tsuchida and Toryama’s “Final Fantasy X”. Comparisons were drawn, and “Episode I” sit inevitably on the short end side of the stick: it lacked the mainstream appeal and, let’s be honest, the budget to be able to compete in the same league with “Final Fantasy”. Critics were dismissive, and it failed to sell. Personally, I find but one element that detracts from Takahashi’s work in “Xenosaga”, and that’s in the aesthetic department, with its super deformed anime aesthetic which made a serious work look seriously childish. As to the rest, I find it as clever and provocative as “Xenogears”, though few seem to agree with me.
Namco was not pleased with the results and decided to take charge of the project. As a result, “Episode II” wouldn’t be handled by Takahashi or his wife, Soraya Saga, as both were removed from any involvement with the project. With them, also left Yasunori Mitsuda, series composer and long time friend of Takahashi, and Kunihiko Tanaka, character designer. In an attempt to make the game commercially viable, Namco changed character design and voice-overs to become more western-friendly, and ordered a complete re-write of the script penned by Saga. The result was a plot-thin, fast-paced, action-heavy sequel to “Episode I”. Irony of ironies, Namco’s aggressive posture would get them no credit. Takahashi’s fans felt betrayed and were disappointed with the end-result, and new-comers wouldn’t be drawn in to the series. Sales were poor, critics remained unmoved. Curiously, by some random act of production policy, the second episode was actually released in Europe, with a cutscene filled DVD to make up for “Episode I”. This was obviously a huge disservice to Takahashi’s vision, and a commercial failure nonetheless.
“Episode II’s” failure convinced Namco that “Xenosaga” was beyond commercial success – it was too niche, too outside the box, too uncommercial for its own sake – and so, the following episode would be the last, the remaining three canned. An attempt at compromise between the teams from previous episodes was made for the final whisper in Takahashi’s grand opus, and he was re-instated as creative consultant. As a positive outcome, he tried to recover Saga’s original scripts, and in what must have been a gargantuan task, attempted to wrap up the saga by fitting all remaining episode plot-lines into one neat finale. Despite being a convoluted mess, it almost felt like a Takahashi game. Once again, his six-episode saga remained untold, only this time, it will likely remain so forever.
Eventually, Namco sold its share of Monolith to Nintendo, with whom the company had had good relationship regarding the “Baten Kaitos” series. It is doubtful that Nintendo, a very conservative company, will ever award a big enough budget and amount of creative freedom that would allow Takahashi to continue his works in the same line as before. From an economical perspective, his career is a total flop. And so, under Nintento, Takahashi limited himself at producing “Soma Bringer”, a DS RPG… only released in Japan. Meanwhile, the J-RPG genre continues to decay: increasingly generic, unwilling to break from its tropes and juvenile tone, and lacking commercial appeal to westerners, it is a genre slowly waiting to die. Simultaneously, a visionary remains unheard, a man who I am sure could have taken the J-RPG genre to a new level, with his (and his wife’s) superb writing and storytelling capabilities. If he already delivered one of the most mature and thought-provoking games of its genre, more than a decade ago, who knows what he would be able to come up with today, with different (dare I say, more mature?) audiences and advanced technology and storytelling mechanisms? I’ll keep on hoping that history will give him a chance, and prove me, and Takahashi, right. It is a vain hope, I’m afraid.
Number 2 – Yasumi Matsuno
“Final Fantasies” have always been tales about love, friendship, family, protecting the world and the conquering of evil… until Yasumi Matsuno took over FFXII and changed the series upside down, that is. Final Fantasies’ mass audience probably didn’t know (or comprehend) Matsuno-san, and so the change of style from FFX to XII (XI is a side note) was probably a shock to many people; to most I’d go as far to say it was downright heresy. Yet, his long career of successes made him, from a commercial point of view, a natural successor to Kitase and Sakaguchi in Square’s long winding series.
He started his career in the Atlus’ “Ogre Battle” series, by directing “March of the Black Queen” and the most notable of all “Ogre Battles”, “Let Us Cling Together”. These strategic RPG’s were quite important in the means, establishing most of the rules the genre still uses today, like dark, political intrigue stories and turn based battles in gridded isometric landscapes. His big chance was when he was chosen to direct “Final Fantasy Tactics”, a series spin-off that was essentially, Square’s response to… the “Tactics Ogre” series; and what better way for Square to beat their competition than buying it out? And though “Final Fantasy Tactics” tried to capitalize on the series’ brand name, at its core, was a spiritual sequel to “Let Us Cling Together”, even if it had a streamlined approach to a difficult and challenging genre. It also featured appealing, stylized and more colorful graphics than previous games, which helped sell the game to the less-hardcore audience established by FFVII. A few years after, “Vagrant Story” arrived, a game that took place in the same universe as “Tactics”, but opted for a more cinematic language, which ended up granting the game with the nickname “Metal Gear Fantasy” from reviewers. Despite its difficulty and somewhat cumbersome interface (no doubt a legacy from his strategy-RPG background), the game was widely acclaimed, and even managed to receive a perfect score from Famitsu. So, when he was chosen to write and direct FFXII, it seemed a natural choice, even if from an artistic point of view, he clearly had divergences in approach with the classical standards of the series. Unfortunately, Matsuno-san got sick before he could finish the game, being replaced by Hiroyuki Itô (co-director of FFVI and director of FFIX) and Hiroshi Minagawa (Matsuno’s games’ Art Director), thus, some of his influence was diminished in the final product. Yet, that didn’t stop from making the game a true sequel to “Vagrant Story”, even if with some shortcomings.
But what really defines Matsuno as a game-artist? In a sense, Yasumi Matsuno is the “anti-Sakaguchi”: his tales are always very cold and cynical, his gameplay mechanics are very complex and most often than not, original and groundbreaking, and the art design in his games is far less joyous than the classic “Final Fantasy” trademark.
Matsuno’s narratives deal primarily with social, political and religious themes, and are often very rational and analytical, completely in opposition to the lyrical nature of Sakaguchi and Kitase’s works. The emotional aspects of his characters are always secondary to the unfolding of the story, having a much more functional aspect than in classic dramatic narratives: they merely help advance the plot. That is probably why many people disliked FFXII: it lacked emotional depth and impact; there was no love interest, no epic story of friendship, no weeping for the death of fallen loved ones, no environmentalist tale about saving the world, and apart the traditional royal family intrigue, even the bounds of family were somewhat absent. But that is exactly what I love about Matsuno: he doesn’t deal with a naive world, where love and happiness always triumph over evil; Matsuno’s worlds are cruel, twisted places where good and evil are hard to distinguish and where anyone, even your loved ones, can stab you in the back. It’s a cruel and harsh reality, but a much more realistic one, nonetheless. It becomes all the more powerful because of the Shakespearean tone of his stories that adds a welcome sense of tragedy, hopelessness and irony to the plot. Unfortunately, that might have gone unnoticed in “Tactics Ogre” and in the first release of “FF Tactics”, because of the atrocious translations. Gladly, from “Vagrant Story” on, Square’s translators understood that the right way to localize his tales was to use 16th century Shakespearean British; the result is marvelous: Shakespearean tragedies set in modern high-fantasy Universes.
The art design, leaded by Akihiko Yoshida, also translated Matsuno’s cynical view of life, by using a palette of mostly drab colors that went to the point of an all-out baroque aesthetic for “Vagrant Story”. In other aspects, like character design, Yoshida’s style wasn’t that far off from the already canonical anime aspect of the series, with the expected large blue-eyed hero with spiky hair, and a funny mix of j-pop clothes with historically influenced wardrobe (no doubt a dream for any “cosplay” fanatic). Still, it was definitely more bold and stylized than Nomura’s by-the-numbers act, with hand drawn graphic-effects and a more mature tone giving it a certain edge. Also, Ivalice, the world/kingdom where Matsuno’s games are located, is filled with desert, sand and a lot of middle-eastern inspired architecture, which also contrasts with the blend of oriental and sci-fi architecture design of RPG’s in general. The soundtracks of his games are also slightly different from the FF series, with scores from Hitoshi Sakimoto and Masaharu Iwata which, besides being more epic and opulent, also feel more ascetic than Uematsu’s scores, mostly lacking ballads and more intimate songs to balance the epic compositions.
Matsuno is a progressist: he moved the genre forward when he appeared, and continued to explore its potential with every single game. Like Kitase and Sakaguchi before him, he broke many of the previously established conventions, managing to create a singular style that is clearly identifiable in all of his games. He is acclaimed by critics as one of the genre’s best creators, and in my opinion, with great merit. And even if today he’s misunderstood by the majority of the RPG fan base, I think that someday people will understand the critics better, and comprehend what makes Yasumi Matsuno’s games absolutely amazing.
Number 3: Yoshinori Kitase
Of all the developers in this list, Kitase should’ve been the one with the most notorious name, but sadly, he got completely overshadowed by his mentor: Hironobu Sakaguchi. Kitase, as a writer and director, is behind the 4 more influential and well regarded RPGs in gaming history: “Chrono Trigger”, “Final Fantasy VI”, “VII” and “VIII”. So you see why he should be better known to the grand audience: just as Sakaguchi had been the father of the classic RPG genre, Kitase became the father of its modern current. And though his style feels like an evolution of Sakaguchi’s, he improved on many aspects of the formula and added a few twists of his own.
The first thing that pops up when you look at Kitase’s RPG’s, is the change of a predominantly high-fantasy scenario to a mix of sci-fi and fantasy. In earlier “Final Fantasies” technology existed, but magic clearly had a more important role in the development of the plot; with Kitase, technology and magic were seen side by side, as two faces of the same coin. Though this is probably a shallow change, since the allegoric meaning of magic or technology remained the same (a representation of Man’s power and thus, a danger to the planet and Humanity), the fact is that it ended up establishing an iconic, aesthetical and conceptual trademark that would later be replicated in nearly every other RPG.
But what really made him a great developer, was the way he deepened the narrative aspects of the genre. Though he followed Sakaguchi’s approach, of focusing the narrative on emotional “motifs”, he also complicated the plot mechanisms used to move things along. When you look back, Sakaguchi’s stories were no more than simple bed-time fantasy stories, where an evil man wants to destroy the world, and a couple of specially gifted magic-users fight back. All you had to do, as a character, was to follow the trail of the big baddie, from point A to point B (repeated “ad infinitum”), until you could terminate the threat; along the way the big bad evil monsters would destroy villages and kill some of the good guys, but in the end, good would triumph over evil; all in all, it was a very simplistic, straightforward narrative (even if at the time, it was the best you could find in a console). Kitase’s narratives are much more complex and above all, are highly manipulative, in an “Hitchcockian” kind of way: they’re conceived so that the flow of information can be controlled, allowing the director to effectively influence the gamer into believing certain facts, while hiding important plot details for a grand, exciting twist afterwards. From the memorable destruction of the Earth in “FFVI”, to the multiple fates of “Chrono Trigger”, not forgetting Cloud and Sephiroth’s mysterious past, every Kitase story is filled with complex and interesting plot twists. These are, of course, essential in capitalizing the focus of the audience, which becomes all the more engrossed if the stories are twisted and unpredictable. Add to that the emotional side of Sakaguchi’s stories, and you can begin to understand why everyone who played his games, fondly remembers Cloud and Barrett’s environmentalist struggle to save the world or Squall’s undying love for Rinoa (in what is probably the only good love-story ever to grace a videogame).
Story-telling also took a slight shift from Sakaguchi’s games; Kitase opted for an epic and operatic overtone in his games, in direct opposition to Sakaguchi’s more intimate and somewhat “fairy tale-ish” approach. This tone was largely imbued in the cutscenes that bolstered a cinematic flair into the game, turning it into a more dynamic and touching way of getting across to players. It is hard to forget such memorable moments as the openings or endings from his “Final Fantasies”, or the all too famous death of Aeris. Of course, without the technology he had at his disposition, it would be hard to convey what he did, but still, he potentiated the means at his disposal with a far greater success than anyone else. He also deviated the style of the art department from Sakaguchi’s lines, by using a more anime-like art design, in charge of Tetsuya Nomura, and a more epic and grandiose soundtrack by series’ veteran Nobuo Uematsu. The result blended perfectly with Kitase’s more cinematic and epic outlines, giving the franchise exactly what it needed: a slightly more mature aesthetic.
In the end, whatever your view of Kitase is, you have to admit it: he is one of the genre’s most influential developers: he opened up the world to the genre, by giving it a more complex and mature narrative structure, a different aesthetic goal, and taking advantage of the CD-medium to create highly-stylized cinematic cutscenes. If you’re a fan of RPG’s, than you’re definitely in love with at least one of his games, but chances are that you’re in love with all of his games. Today, if you think about a JRPG, you don’t think about childish and endearing bedtime stories, you imagine epic, complex and touching narratives, just like the ones Yoshinori Kitase told… when everyone else was still dreaming about the idea.
Number 4 – Hironobu Sakaguchi
Sakaguchi-san is probably the only J-RPG developer most people know about. This is mainly due to the fact that he is the creator of the Square’s mythic Final Fantasy series. What most people don’t know is that the he only led the development of episodes I till V, with the most popular games from the Square brand, like “Chrono Trigger” or the modern themed “Final Fantasies”, being developed by a different man [we’ll get to him later]. The truth is: Sakaguchi-san’s most important contribution to the genre is the genesis of the Final Fantasy series, and not the popularization of the series outside Japan. From FFVI and beyond, he merely served as an Executive Producer for the franchise, which basically means he was the suit in charge of development control. Though in tradition with Japanese management, the man in that position also serves as a form of spiritual leader and manager, he is not, by any means, the main artist behind the game. His legacy, from episode VI forward, is of a much more abstract and philosophical nature, it’s still rather important, but not as much as most people think. Believe me when I say: FFVII is not this man’s work; it’s got his influences, but it is not his artistic endeavor. This is clearly evidenced by the remarkably different styles FFVI, VII and VIII show when compared to older Final Fantasies (that were directed by him).
Besides being the lead developer in the first FF’s, he also had a major contribution in FFIX, by creating the original concept of the game, which basically tries (and succeeds) in recapturing much of the series’ more classic trademarks. After executive producing FFX-2, he departed Square (for non-spoken reasons) to form Mistwalker, a Microsoft funded developer, from which three RPG’s have surfaced: “Blue Dragon”, “Lost Odyssey” and “Archaic Sealed Heat” (unreleased outside Japan).
Throughout his long career, he laid down many of the foundations that all J-RPG’s follow. So, if he is one of the “de facto” creators of the genre, it probably seems strange to put him in the bottom tier of this list. This has to do with my personal view of his art, more than with his importance in the means (if this list was about that, he would definitely be on the first or second place). My problem with Sakaguchi’s games is that they usually portray the world with a rather “naife” and optimistic view, which despite being normal in the realm of fantasy-themed universes, is taken to a somewhat exaggerated extreme. “Good vs. Evil” is what his stories are all about; the very good, versus the very evil. This moral extreme tends to infantilize the narrative, by siding “pure” characters against evil doers that want to rule/destroy the world, for basically, no reason at all. Apart from the recent “Lost Odyssey”, that breaks the mold on some levels (emphasize *some*), all of Sakaguchi’s games can be easily fitted in the Monomyth theory perfectly. It’s a very, very traditional way of telling stories. Traditional is, in fact, the best adjective for Sakaguchi’s games. They follow traditional Japanese values; they regard the world in a traditional, classicist, moralistic way; the art therein used (whether its Yoshitaka Amano’s, or some other’s) depicts classic themes, and even the gameplay mechanics are extremely traditional, especially when seen according to today’s standards. He does tend to shake things up little by little, step by step, but he downright avoids abrupt innovation.
But, if I disliked him so much, why would he make it into this list… for name-sake only? Surely not. First, he is the man who placed story as the main focus of J-RPG’s; for that fact only he must be revered. By doing so, he completely changed the way the genre was explored, giving a much need complexity to the basic “Dragon Quest” themed story: little boy saves princess from evil dragon. Though his stories might seem simple and somewhat dull today, they were progressive and innovative by the time they first appeared, and most of all, they were actual stories that were told by videogames, something unthinkable back in the 80’s.
Sakaguchi saw in games a mean of translating the most basic and powerful human feelings: the bound of friendship and family, the love for one’s nation, its core values, culture and philosophies. These themes are always conveyed in some way in his games, and though in earlier ventures they are treated a bit childishly, they usually have a significant emotional impact on the player. Sakaguchi’s tales of undying friendship and love manage to turn text and pixels into touching characters, stories and worlds, where imagination, fantasy and dreams become reality. It‘s never very deep or complex when compared to a movie or book, but at the time that was already a huge step forward for narrative in videogames.
Of course, it helped that he had such great artists under his wings, like Nobuo Uematsu or Yoshitaka Amano. It’s also thanks to them that his stories have profound sentimental impact, and stimulate people’s imagination far beyond what crude abstract graphics could accomplish back in the day. Besides telling endearing stories, Sakaguchi also managed to go further in the ways of exploring narrative. Most likely influenced by Anime and Cinema, he became one of the fathers of in-game cutscenes, a concept far from being idealized by the time “Final Fantasy” appeared, let alone implemented in a game. These short story sequences, where characters would play out scenes like in a play, with appropriate music setting the tone, helped the story feel more like a fully fledged dramatic narrative, transmitting emotions and actions far more deep than the ones the player could interact with. Though not very important at the time of the first “Final Fantasies”, this ended up becoming a staple for every J-RPG.
Sakaguchi is as important to J-RPG’s as Tolkien is to fantasy novels; though there had been similar works before (“Dragon Quest”, “Ultima”), it took Sakaguchi to fully develop the potential of the genre. Its motifs, ideas and values are all consequence of this man’s thoughts and concepts. It is because of him that nowadays, nobody thinks of RPG’s as mere dungeon crawlers, but as larger than life fantasy adventures, filled with charming characters, deep plotlines and highly complex magical worlds. If games today can have narrative as its main driving force, then it’s probably because Sakaguchi’s made “Final Fantasy”; that’s his greatest legacy and the reason why he deserves all the praise the gaming world can give him.
Number 5 – Hiroya Hatsushiba
To start the list, an almost unknown developer: Hiroya Hatsushiba; in my opinion, he’s one of the genre’s great promises for the future. He is the director of 3 extremely interesting and, above all, innovative, different and stylish games: “Baten Kaitos”, its sequel, and “Eternal Sonata”. It might seem weird to put in such a small list a designer that has only directed three games, but that just serves the point, he’s that promising.
Though the “Baten Kaitos” games had a series of shortcomings, like a somewhat clichéd plot, it had this huge amount of style and substance: a quirky card-based combat system, an epic storyline, high artistic and production values that rivaled the “Final Fantasy” series, and some of the craziest level design I’ve seen in a game (there were some crazy levels in that game, believe me). “Baten Kaitos” was a great game, not a masterpiece, but still, much, much better than most of the RPG’s I ever played.
But what really led me to put Hatsushiba on this list is “Eternal Sonata”. Though from a gaming perspective, the game didn’t try anything different, it did so in other areas. Besides the wonderful aesthetic visuals and music, “Eternal Sonata” featured a groundbreaking concept: to delve into the last dream of famous composer Frederick Chopin. Now, for a Japanese developer to create a whole game around an allegory surrounding the death of a famous Austrian composer is, by itself, completely insane. But this guy did it, and he actually made it into a good game! But if that wasn’t a big enough risk, he created a game with a plotline that doesn’t explain itself, that defies the player to interpret, analyze and question the story, its concepts, meanings and philosophical ramblings: for a game to even attempt this is nothing short of visionary. In my opinion, games need developers that try and push the envelope, that try to achieve higher ground on the artistic context, to evolve like other means have done before… developers like Hatsushiba.
The complex storyline of “Eternal Sonata” is almost as profound as the Animes by Hideaki Anno (“Evangelion”), Masamune Shirow (Ghost in the Shell”) or Satoshi Kon (“Perfect Blue”), which just serves to show the huge amount of ambition of the game. If all RPG’s strived so high, the genre would clearly be much more interesting than it is today. So that’s why Hatsushiba is on this list: his games are different, fresh, ambitious and show a great deal of potential. He hasn’t been able to create his masterpiece yet: “Baten Kaitos” lacked a good plot and “Eternal Sonata” a good gameplay engine; but when he finally ends up fine tuning his skills… what day it’ll be for gaming.
