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Motomu Toriyama (鳥山 求, Toriyama Motomu, born February 9, 1971) is a Japanese game director and scenario writer who has been working for Square Enix since 1994. He initially worked on cutscenes in Bahamut Lagoon and Final Fantasy VII before serving as one of the three directors on Final Fantasy X under Yoshinori Kitase where he was in charge of events, music, voice and motion capture.
Motomu Toriyama | |
|---|---|
 Toriyama in 2010 | |
| Born | February 9, 1971 Japan |
| Occupation(s) | Director, scenario writer, deputy head of studio |
| Years active | 1994–present |
| Employer | Square Enix |
Toriyama started directing himself with Final Fantasy X-2 and has continued doing so with Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings, Blood of Bahamut, Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy XIII-2, Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII and Mobius Final Fantasy.
Currently he is serving as deputy head of Square Enix's Creative Studio 2 and is working as co-director on the Final Fantasy VII Remake series and director on Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis.
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Toriyama joined Square around the time of the Final Fantasy VI launch in April 1994. He later mentioned that he enjoyed how everyone on the development team had the opportunity to contribute their ideas without any solid job description. He was assigned to work on Bahamut Lagoon as his first project due to his lack of game development experience.[1] For Final Fantasy VII, Toriyama designed events such as the ones taking place at the Honey Bee Inn. As the designers were given much artistic freedom, he would often create cutscenes that were unlikely to be approved and thus were eventually changed or removed.[2][3] Toriyama also wrote and directed many of the scenes revolving around Aerith Gainsborough and Cloud Strife. He tried to make Aerith an important character to the player in order to maximize the impact of her death later in the plot.[3]
After the merger between Square and Enix in 2003, many rookie staff members had to be trained and there were more new platforms to develop for with the release of the Nintendo DS and PlayStation Portable. Toriyama decided to assemble and direct a team of scenario writers and joined various game projects.[1] He later collaborated with Final Fantasy X main programmer Koji Sugimoto and supervisor Yoshinori Kitase to create a Final Fantasy VII tech demo for the PlayStation 3. Development of this took around 6 weeks.[4] During the first year after the development start of Final Fantasy XIII in April 2004, Toriyama thought up a story premised on the Fabula Nova Crystallis mythology created by Kazushige Nojima. In March 2006, when the structural part of the narrative started to come together and lead scenario writer Daisuke Watanabe joined the team, Toriyama showed him a rough outline of what he had written and asked him to flesh out the story and to correct how everything would connect.[5]
Toriyama has been the scenario director and supervisor on games in the Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles series as well as Dissidia: Final Fantasy and The 3rd Birthday, which entailed the creation of a story concept and the supervision of the character conception and scenario writing by his team of authors.[1][6][7] For Lightning Returns, he added an online communication system known as the "Outerworld Services". Among others, it enabled players to write posts on social networks that would then appear as a non-playable character's comment in another player's game. Toriyama's goal with this was to create an online community where the individual members would interact and enjoy the game's world together without being online at the same time, as a precursor to online features found in eight-generation video game consoles.[8] The main ideas for all the areas in Lightning Returns came from him as well.[9]
He was an inaugural member of the Square Enix committee tasked with keeping the Final Fantasy series consistent.[10]
Toriyama has been in charge of the music for all of the games he's directed since Final Fantasy X.[11] He also writes lyrics and song titles.
Toriyama was also in charge of motion capture and voice recordings on Final Fantasy X.[12]
He has a wife and at least one daughter.
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Toriyama believes his strength is in directing games that are very story-driven.[13] He also thinks that it becomes very difficult to tell a compelling story when the player is given a huge amount of freedom to explore.[14] According to him, the most important aspect of a Final Fantasy game is the characters.[15] Toriyama explains that there are different approaches to creating a protagonist: with Yuna from Final Fantasy X, the general plot had already been set when the character was conceived; with Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII instead, the character's personality was decided upon before the backstory was written. He feels that a developer needs to "essentially fall in love at first sight with a character" to "keep [themselves] going". Toriyama considers the voice the "main image of the character" and thus "the most delicate part of making the character".[16]
Toriyama has stated that the aim of the linear game design used in the first half of Final Fantasy XIII was to feel like watching a film. This was done to absorb the player into the story and to introduce them to the characters and their battle abilities without becoming distracted or lost.[17] Toriyama explained that the amount of memory and processing power needed to produce impressive graphics was the main reason not to have a seamless battle system for Final Fantasy XIII. He is interested in using first-person shooter games for inspiration rather than Western role-playing video games, as he believes they give a better sense of tension during battles.[18] Toriyama would later use games such as Red Dead Redemption and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim as inspirations for Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, respectively.[19][20] He feels that his role of director marked a shift from creating a game world based on his own vision to unifying a team's ideas into a cohesive whole.[21]
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Video games
| Year | Title | Credit(s) | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1996 | Bahamut Lagoon | Story event planner | |
| 1997 | Final Fantasy VII | Event planner, submarine chase section planner | |
| 1999 | Racing Lagoon | Scenario writer, event planner, map planner | |
| 2001 | Final Fantasy X | Event director, scenario writer, music director, voice and motion capture director | [22] |
| 2003 | Final Fantasy X-2 | Director, scenario | |
| 2006 | Dragon Quest & Final Fantasy in Itadaki Street Portable | Message (text writing) | |
| 2007 | Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings | Director, scenario writer, event director | [23][24] |
| Itadaki Street DS | Text writing | ||
| 2008 | Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King | Scenario writer | |
| Dissidia: Final Fantasy | Scenario supervisor | ||
| 2009 | El Ark | Scenario draft | |
| Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a Darklord | Scenario director | ||
| Blood of Bahamut | Director, scenario writer | ||
| Fullmetal Alchemist: Prince of the Dawn | Scenario director | [25] | |
| Fullmetal Alchemist: Daughter of the Dusk | Scenario director | ||
| Final Fantasy XIII | Director, scenario designer, lyricist | [5][26] | |
| 2010 | Front Mission Evolved | Senior scriptwriter | |
| The 3rd Birthday | Scenario director | ||
| 2011 | Imaginary Range | Supervisor | |
| Fortune Street Wii | Text writing | ||
| Final Fantasy XIII-2 | Director, lyricist | [27] | |
| 2012 | Imaginary Range Ep.2 | Supervisor | |
| 2013 | Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn | Scenario writer (Lightning Strikes event) | [28] |
| Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII | Director, lyricist | [29] | |
| Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster | Supervisor | ||
| 2014 | Spirit Yankee Soul | Scenario director (Racing Lagoon event) | [30] |
| 2015 | Mobius Final Fantasy | Director, lyricist | [31] |
| 2017 | Itadaki Street: Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy 30th Anniversary | Scenario supervisor | |
| 2020 | Final Fantasy VII Remake | Co-director, scenario designer, lyrics, song titles | |
| 2021 | Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier | Supervisory support | |
| 2023 | Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis | Director | [32] |
| 2024 | Final Fantasy VII Rebirth | Co-director, scenario, lyrics, song titles |
Other projects
| Year | Title | Credit(s) | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | Final Fantasy VII Technical Demo for PS3 | Director | |
| 2009 | Final Fantasy XIII Episode Zero: Promise | Original concept | [33][34] |
| 2010 | Final Fantasy XIII Episode Zero: Promise Fabula Nova Dramatica Alpha | Original concept | [35] |
| Final Fantasy XIII Side Story: A Dreaming Cocoon Falls into the Dawn | Original concept | [36] | |
| Final Fantasy XIII Episode Zero: Promise Fabula Nova Dramatica Omega | Original concept | [37] | |
| Final Fantasy XIII: Episode i | Original concept | [38] | |
| 2011 | Final Fantasy XIII-2 Fragments Before | Original concept | [39][40] |
| 2012 | Final Fantasy XIII-2 Fragments After | Original concept | [41][42] |
| 2013 | Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII Chronicle of a Chaotic Era[A] | Original concept | [43] |
| 2014 | Final Fantasy XIII: Reminiscence -tracer of memories- | Original concept | [44] |
| 2023 | Final Fantasy X kabuki play | Supervisor | [45] |
Additional credits
| Year | Title | Credit(s) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2007 | The World Ends with You | Special thanks | |
| 2009 | Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days | Special thanks | |
| 2011 | Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy | Special thanks | |
| 2015 | Dissidia Final Fantasy (2015 video game) | Special thanks | |
| 2016 | Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV | Special thanks | |
| 2017 | Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward (Patch 3.56) | Special thanks | |
| Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood | Special thanks | ||
| 2018 | Dissidia Final Fantasy NT | Special thanks | |
| Final Fantasy Brave Exvius | Special thanks | ||
| 2019 | War of the Visions: Final Fantasy Brave Exvius | Special thanks | |
| 2022 | Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion | Final Fantasy VII Remake team: Co-director, scenario design | |
| 2023 | Theatrhythm Final Bar Line | Special thanks | |
| 2024 | Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven | Deputy head of studio | |
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