So you may know him as some dude who used to work at Square-Enix. I know him as one of my favorite video game designers ever. You may know him as Yasumi Matsuno. I know him as Yazz. You may know him as that guy who worked on Final Fantasy 12. I know him as the guy who worked on these fantastic games:Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen: Director, scenario and game design
Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together: Director, scenario and game design
Final Fantasy Tactics: Director, script and game design
Vagrant Story: Producer, director and battle design
Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber: Script, scenario design
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance: Producer, original concept (note that there is nothing about direction, story, or scenario design)
Final Fantasy XII: Original concept, scenario plotter, and supervisor
So the last known game he was confirmed to work on was Final Fantasy 12. He left before the game was finished, which is probably why the story in FF12 felt very rushed towards the end of the game. Since then, Matsuno had fallen off them map. No one knew where he was, and awhile ago there were rumors he was working on a Wii game. Well, he is indeed working on a Wii game. Luckily, it's a game I'm excited about. The project he is on could have hardly been predicted, as it is not what you typically expect from the great Yazz.
Platinum Games developer, Atsushi Inaba (best known as former CEO of Clover Studios and for his work on Viewtiful Joe, Godhand, Okami, and the Phoenix Wright series) has hired the great Yasumi Matsuno to work on the story for the upcoming (and hopefully spiritual successor to Godhand) Wii title, MadWorld. (Source)
MadWorld....
Yeah, this game:
This is strage, yet refreshing news. I hope MadWorld is great, but more importantly I hope that Platinum Games lets him work on his own project. The true spiritual successor to Final Fantasy Tactics perhaps?
Thoughts?
Brad
6 comments:
Typo in the last paragraph: "strage". Does this add to my writing skill score? :D
I don't have a Wii, but I've been following MadWorld and it's looking pretty appealing as more and more footage and details come out. The problem with that type of game is that the story can be utter shit and just shoves the character down the tunnel of level progression with no compelling purpose. I'm glad it not only has some big names behind it, but some good games. Also, Kotaku just linked an interview with Inaba where he said MadWorld may see further development if there's interest in it.
Let's see where this would lead for the future of Platinum Games, with these well known people who has worked with the mainstream gaming companies such as Square or Capcom.
We still don't know what the story MadWorld holds, but with Matsuno added into the team, this might be one hell of a game.
The guy who voices Jack is Steven Blum, who is the great veteran voice actor. He is the one who voiced Spike Speigal in Cowboy Bebop, Roger Smith in Big O, Vincent Valentine in Dirge of Cerberus, and many others. The voice acting should be good.
As for Yasumi doing his own thing, maybe he is? He's been working on RPG games for so long, so maybe he's trying out something different, see how well it goes. It's nice to do what you're good at, but it's nicer to experiment.
i'm one of those people who have an phopia of the Wii. I feel very ambivalent about it all, on one hand more people are playing games, on the other its the death of the 'real' games industry and good games. I also find it straNge to see it come out on the Wii. Its been slapped with a "18" cert here in the UK(not really aimed at the wii demographic) and most people who'd wanna play it have either 360 or ps3. Could this be the Wii wanting to grab a bite of that hardcore market in a reverse of MS trying for the casual(RE:Lips etc.)? we shall see...
Wow, can't say I saw this coming. Well, at least now I'll have a reason to finally dust off my Wii. This game looks great and I hope it's as good as Yasumi's previou works.
My god look at some of his works. Some of my favorite games of all time he has worked on. I've spent over 100 hours on Ogre Battle 64. The game is just too good for words. I wasn't too sure of Madworld but now it seems like it might come out on top
Post a Comment