Daisuke Watanabe
Daisuke Watanabe | |
|---|---|
| Born | March 11, 1974 |
| Nationality | Japanese |
| Occupation | Scenario writer of video games at Square Enix. |
Daisuke Watanabe (渡辺大祐, Watanabe Daisuke) is a Japanese video game scenario writer that has been an employee of Square Enix since October 1, 1999. He is mostly known for his work on the role-playing video game series Final Fantasy and the action role-playing video game series Kingdom Hearts.
Writing style
Watanabe says that he has no fixed writing style. The way he writes is dependent on how the original story writer wants their story to be portrayed in the video game.[1] He believes that his strength is his ability to create a scenario, script or screenplay that portrays the exact vision of the original story writer.[1]
Work on Final Fantasy X
The first Final Fantasy game that Watanabe worked on was Final Fantasy X. His role was to assist Kazushige Nojima, the story writer and lead scenario writer, in creating a script for the game. Nojima has noted that although he wrote the story, he was assisted by other staff to turn it into an actual scenario that could be used in the game.[2]
Work on Final Fantasy XII
Watanabe was initially not part of the Final Fantasy XII development team. However, he was brought in to finish the script when the original scenario writer Yasumi Matsuno left Square Enix three quarters into development of the game due to sickness.[3] Watanabe joined the development team in November 2004.[1]
Watanabe says that Final Fantasy XII is a special game for him as he had to write not only the scenario, but also create story for events in the game and backstory for certain characters.[1] He was supervised by Jun Akiyama, who had been working on the game since early 2002 as the event director. Akiyama had also worked as event director for Vagrant Story and Matsuno appointed Akiyama to be in charge of all story related aspects of Final Fantasy XII when he left the project.[1] When Watanabe joined the project to write the script in Matsuno's place, Akiyama showed him a draft script already written by Matsuno and told Watanabe to just add more depth to it. At the time Matsuno left, the full story was already finished but Matsuno had only written a rough draft of the script to be used in the final game.[1] Akiyama described the overall finished script Matsuno was aiming for as, "A dignified drama about Ivalice's nobility, viewed through the eyes of a commoner." In other words, the theme of the story for the game was about the aristocratic people of Ivalice and the drama and politics between them, and all this was to be viewed through the eyes of Vaan, a commoner.[1] Due to this theme for the story, Watanabe decided to make it so there was no main character out of the party members and only gave the aristocratic party members major plot development, such as Ashe. Watanabe also put more effort into writing about the aristocratic non-playable characters in the game, such as the Judges.[1] However, despite all this, Watanabe still kept Vaan as the player's point of view to the story as Matsuno originally intended.
Watanabe believes that by Vaan getting barely any plot development or story focus in the game, he felt more like a "transparent character" and therefore a clear window for the player to look through and see the world of Ivalice and the aristocratic story taking place in it.[1] Both Akiyama and Watanabe believe Vaan is one of the most unique characters in the Final Fantasy series because of this story perspective, and they state that he's more similar to a player's character in Final Fantasy XI Online than any other Final Fantasy character.[1]
Akiyama gave Watanabe creative freedom when writing story scenes and would only tell him to make changes if he felt they didn't fit the overall theme of the game.[1] During this process, Akiyama and Watanabe came up with many ideas for story scenes but ultimately most of them had to be abandoned and never made it into the final game.[1] Hiroshi Minagawa, the director, says these story scenes had to be dropped so the game could be meet the deadline for the Japanese release. Minagawa expressed his regrets about this and wished he could have included all of their story ideas as he felt it would have made the story even more exciting for the player.[4] Watanabe has said that Penelo is his favorite character due to her having the most amount of story he wrote that never made it into the final game.[1]
Work on Final Fantasy XIII
Watanabe was given very precise direction from Motomu Toriyama, the scenario designer, when writing the scenario for Final Fantasy XIII. Toriyama was very specific on what he wanted the script to be like and Watanabe recalls that there were numerous times that parts of the script had to be redone as Toriyama wasn't happy with it.[5] The theme for the story of Final Fantasy XIII was, "A dramatic story focused on the emotions of the characters." Toriyama wanted some scenes to show more emotion, and other scenes to show a more contrasting difference between the personalities of the party members involved.[5] Watanabe feels that creating the scenario for Final Fantasy XIII was the most challenging project he has worked on at Square Enix to date. However, he feels that the experience he gained working under the specific demands of Motomu Toriyama has planted seeds for future growth in his work as a scenario writer.[5]
Work on the Kingdom Hearts series
Watanabe has worked on every single Kingdom Hearts game released to date. Tetsuya Nomura, the creator of the series, personally finds Watanabe creating the scenario for the games very natural. Nomura believes that Watanabe's outlook on the overall story of the Kingdom Hearts series is in line with his own.[6] Nomura recalls that when he first showed Watanabe an image of Ventus from Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, Watanabe instantly knew that the story would involve the heart of Ventus going into Sora and lead to the physical image of Ventus becoming Roxas. When Nomura realized that Watanabe already knew how it would all work out without him needing to explain it, he felt that there was another staff member that completely understood his logic behind the Kingdom Hearts mythology.[6]
Works
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Studio BentStuff (24 November 2006). "Creator Interview". Final Fantasy XII Ultimania Omega. Square Enix.
{{cite journal}}:|access-date=requires|url=(help) - ^ "Brief Final Fantasy X Team Interview". Final Fantasy Shrine. Retrieved 8 April 2011.
Kazushige Nojima: Including myself, there are another three scenario writers on the team. We get together scenarios and ideas and ask the team what they think of them. It's a lengthy process.
- ^ Niizumi, Hirohiko (1 August 2005). "FFXII producer steps down". GameSpot. Retrieved 20 March 2011.
- ^ "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.
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.
- ^ a b c Studio BentStuff (28 January 2010). "Scenario Section". Final Fantasy XIII Scenario Ultimania. Square Enix.
{{cite journal}}:|access-date=requires|url=(help) - ^ a b Studio BentStuff (25 March 2010). "Series Director Interview: Tetsuya Nomura". Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep Ultimania. Square Enix.
{{cite journal}}:|access-date=requires|url=(help)