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Daisuke Watanabe

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Daisuke Watanabe
Born (1974-03-11) March 11, 1974 (age 50)[1]
Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan
Occupationvideo game writer

Daisuke Watanabe (渡辺 大祐, Watanabe Daisuke) is a Japanese video game writer employed by Square Enix. He is mostly known for his work on the role-playing video game series Final Fantasy and the action RPG series Kingdom Hearts.

Career

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Watanabe first became interested in writing in junior high school in 1988, after reading the Wizardry novel Tonariawase no Hai to Seishun by Benny Matsuyama. Before he joined Square, Watanabe wrote manga novelizations.[1][2] Final Fantasy X was the first Final Fantasy game that he worked on as scenario writer.[3] Among others, he was responsible for the dialog in the Zanarkand Ruins which he almost wrote in one single night.[2] He joined the Final Fantasy XIII team in early 2004 but left it again about half a year later.[2] He instead became part of the Final Fantasy XII development team in November 2004.[4] The original scenario writer Yasumi Matsuno left that project in August 2005 due to sickness.[5] Hiroshi Minagawa, the co-director of Final Fantasy XII, expressed his regrets that many of the story ideas by Watanabe had to be dropped so the game could meet the deadline for the release.[note 1] In March 2006, Watanabe rejoined the Final Fantasy XIII team after Kazushige Nojima and Motomu Toriyama had conceived a mythology and story for the game, respectively. He was shown a rough outline of the plot until chapter eight and was asked by Toriyama to flesh things out and to correct how it would all connect. Watanabe decided how Toriyama's rudimentary cutscene ideas should play out, wrote the script and adjusted the personality of each character to emphasize what the story tried to express.[2][7] He said that the Final Fantasy XIII series was an exhausting project with little time to breathe and that his feelings toward it were "complicated".[2] Watanabe not only wrote the scripts for the games but also a three-part novella titled Final Fantasy XIII Reminiscence: tracer of memories that was published in the Japanese game magazine Famitsu.[2]

Works

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Game Released System(s) Credit(s)
Threads of Fate 1999 PlayStation Scenario writer
Final Fantasy X 2001 PlayStation 2 Scenario planner, scenario writer[3]
Kingdom Hearts 2002 PlayStation 2 Scenario writer
Final Fantasy X-2 2003 PlayStation 2 Scenario writer
Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories 2004 Game Boy Advance Scenario writer
Kingdom Hearts II 2005 PlayStation 2 Scenario text planner
Final Fantasy XII 2006 PlayStation 2 Scenario writer
Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories 2007 PlayStation 2 Scenario
Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings 2007 Nintendo DS Special thanks
Dissidia: Final Fantasy 2008 PlayStation Portable Scenario writer
Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days 2009 Nintendo DS Scenario supervisor
Final Fantasy XIII 2009 PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 Lead scenario writer
Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep 2010 PlayStation Portable Scenario plot
Kingdom Hearts coded 2009–2010 Mobile phone Scenario writer
Kingdom Hearts Re:coded 2010 Nintendo DS Scenario supervisor
Front Mission Evolved 2010 PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Windows Scriptwriter
Final Fantasy XIII-2 2011 PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 Lead scenario writer
Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII 2013 PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 Lead scenario writer
Mobius Final Fantasy 2015-2020 iOS, Android, Microsoft Windows Lead scenario writer[8][9]
Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age 2017 PlayStation 4 Scenario advisor
Itadaki Street: Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy 30th Anniversary 2017 PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita Scenario supervisor

Notes

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  1. ^ Hiroshi Minagawa: In the course of development, Jun Akiyama and Daisuke Watanabe came up with many ideas but ultimately we had to abandon many of them. I'd heard their original ideas and I wish we could have included them all. Once we began development and many of the systems were in place, the team had many progressive ideas. It was the most enjoyable part of the project. But as we approached the project's end, I had to point out features we had to drop in order for the game to be finished. Which is unfortunate, since I'm sure people would have enjoyed the game that much more if we could have left all our original ideas in.[6]

References

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  1. ^ a b Watanabe, Daisuke (1996). Go/Kagewaza (業・影技) (in Japanese). Tokyo: Take Shobo (竹書房). ISBN 4-8124-0136-4.
  2. ^ a b c d e f "著者、渡辺大祐氏にインタビュー" [Final Fantasy XIII: Reminiscence -tracer of memories: Interview with author Daisuke Watanabe]. ファイナルファンタジーXIII REMINISCENCE -tracer of memories (in Japanese). Famitsu. 2014-07-11. Archived from the original on 2014-07-11. Retrieved 2014-07-11.
  3. ^ a b Studio BentStuff (2002-01-31). Final Fantasy X Ultimania Omega (ファイナルファンタジーX アルティマニアΩ) (in Japanese). Square Enix. pp. 191–193, 476. ISBN 978-4887870215.
  4. ^ Studio BentStuff, ed. (2006). Final Fantasy XII Scenario Ultimania (in Japanese). Square Enix. ISBN 4-7575-1696-7.
  5. ^ Niizumi, Hirohiko (1 August 2005). "FFXII producer steps down". GameSpot. Archived from the original on 2012-11-08. Retrieved 20 March 2011.
  6. ^ "Video interview with FINAL FANTASY XII Directors". FINAL FANTASY XII Collector's Edition Bonus DVD. Square Enix Co., Ltd. 31 October 2006. Retrieved 8 April 2011.
  7. ^ Final Fantasy XIII Scenario Ultimania (in Japanese). Tokyo: Studio Bentstuff. 2010-02-01. pp. 388–390. ISBN 978-4-7575-2775-1.
  8. ^ Square Enix (February 2017). Mobius Final Fantasy. Square Enix. Scene: Final Fantasy VII event credits.
  9. ^ Square Enix (July 2017). Mobius Final Fantasy. Square Enix. Scene: Chapter 8, Part 2 credits.
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