Yasumi Matsuno

Yasumi Matsuno (松野 泰己) is a Japanese video game designer and writer.

Matsuno was first introduced to video games in arcades while waiting for the train, and first played Space Invaders and Xevious there.

He attended Hosei University for foreign policy but dropped out, and after working for a time as an economic reporter, he joined Quest Corporation.

As an employee at video game companies Quest in 1989 and later Square in 1995, Matsuno became well known for his work in the tactical role-playing game genre, specifically the Ogre Battle (1993) and Final Fantasy Tactics (1997) series, in addition to Vagrant Story (2000) and Final Fantasy XII (2006).

After disruptions from staff leaving his development team, he resigned from Square Enix due to prolonged illness.

In 1989 Matsuno left his job as a reporter to work at Quest Corporation.

Matsuno began his career at the Japanese video game developer Quest Corporation.

In 1993, he served as the director of Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen for the Super NES.

It is the first installment of an episodic series of tactical role-playing games.

Matsuno was inspired by the British rock band Queen's second album, which contained the songs "Ogre Battle" and "The March Of The Black Queen".

A sea in the Ogre Battle universe was also named after "Seven Seas of Rhye".

The next game he worked on was Tactics Ogre, released in 1995 for the Super NES.

The political narrative of the game revolving around the reality of war were inspired by the Bosnian Genocide and Yugoslav Wars at the time.

In 1995, Matsuno joined Square after quitting Quest.

At Square, Matsuno directed and wrote Final Fantasy Tactics for the PlayStation.

Similar in design and gameplay to Tactics Ogre, it was lauded for its highly intricate story.

After the game's release, Matsuno and his team began development on Vagrant Story.

Smaller in scope than Final Fantasy Tactics, it was highly regarded by critics and has gained somewhat of a cult following since its release.

Matsuno supervised PlayOnline, Square's online multiplayer gaming software prior to its first beta release in 2001.

He then served as producer for Final Fantasy Tactics Advance for the Game Boy Advance system, which shares the Final Fantasy Tactics system but has an entirely different storyline.

In 2001, Matsuno was assigned to work on Final Fantasy XII as director together with Hiroyuki Ito.

He came up with the game's original concept and plot.

Matsuno reportedly was temperamental and refused to come to work for a month after part of the Final Fantasy XII team had left Square Enix to join Hironobu Sakaguchi's new company Mistwalker.

In August 2005, it was officially announced that he had stepped down from his position on the project due to a prolonged illness.

In 2006, Matsuno expressed his interest for Nintendo's Wii console in a promotional video, stating that he was impressed with the intuitive functionality provided by the remote controller.

He was approached by his friend, the PlatinumGames producer Atsushi Inaba, to work on the scenario for the Wii game MadWorld.

While developing the setting, story and script, Matsuno often consulted with the development team and received conflicting orders from the staff members: the game designers wanted to emphasize extreme violence but the producers wished to tone it down instead.

During a freelance period, he worked on games for Nintendo's Wii such as MadWorld (2009).

He joined Level-5 in 2011 where he helped create Crimson Shroud for the Nintendo 3DS.

In 2016, he created his own company called Algebra Factory, and during this period was asked by Square Enix to create a scenario for Final Fantasy XIV expansion Stormblood (2017).

He created a raid called "Return to Ivalice", the land of Ivalice being a setting from previous Final Fantasy games he had worked on.

Matsuno was subsequently asked to create another scenario, which was titled "Save the Queen: Blades of Gunnhildr" and included in Shadowbringers, another expansion for the game.

Matsuno grew up in a rural area, where he felt his only entertainment were movies, television, and books.

His hobbies included making dioramas.

He was particularly fond of World War II dioramas, that he used to make by researching at the local library.

He would incorporate story elements into each of his creation.

His introduction to video games was playing Space Invaders and Xevious at the arcades while waiting for the train.

He was fond of The Legend of Zelda and Dragon Quest on the Nintendo Entertainment System, and played heavily on the Amiga and PC, including Ultima Online.

He attended Hosei University for foreign policy but dropped out after three years.

Shortly thereafter he found work as an economic reporter but found the work unfulfilling.