is a Japanese

video game writer Video game writing is the art and craft of writing scripts and narratives for video games. Similar to screenwriting, it is typically a freelance profession. It includes many differences from writing for film, due to the non-linear and interactiv ...

employed by

Square Enix is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational holding company, production enterprise and entertainment conglomerate, best known for its ''Final Fantasy'', ''Dragon Quest'', ''Star Ocean'' and ''Kingdom Hearts'' role-playing video game ...

. He is mostly known for his work on the

role-playing video game A role-playing video game (commonly referred to as simply a role-playing game or RPG, as well as a computer role-playing game or CRPG) is a video game genre where the player controls the actions of a character (or several party members) immers ...

series ''

Final Fantasy is a Japanese video game, Japanese science fantasy anthology media franchise created by Hironobu Sakaguchi and developed and owned by Square Enix (formerly Square (video game company), Square). The franchise centers on a series of fantasy and ...

'' and the

action RPG An action role-playing game (often abbreviated action RPG or ARPG) is a subgenre of video games that combines core elements from both the action game and role-playing genre. Definition The games emphasize real-time combat where the player h ...

series ''

Kingdom Hearts is a series of action role-playing games developed and published by Square Enix (originally by Square (video game company), Square). It is a collaboration between Square Enix and The Walt Disney Company and is under the leadership of Tetsuya ...

''.

Career

Watanabe first became interested in writing in junior high school in 1988, after reading the ''

Wizardry ''Wizardry'' is a series of role-playing video games, developed by Sir-Tech, that were highly influential in the evolution of modern role-playing video games. The original ''Wizardry'' was a significant influence on early console role-playing g ...

'' novel ''Tonariawase no Hai to Seishun'' by Benny Matsuyama. Before he joined

Square In Euclidean geometry, a square is a regular quadrilateral, which means that it has four equal sides and four equal angles (90-degree angles, π/2 radian angles, or right angles). It can also be defined as a rectangle with two equal-length adj ...

, Watanabe wrote

manga Manga (Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is u ...

novelization A novelization (or novelisation) is a derivative novel that adapts the story of a work created for another medium, such as a film, TV series, stage play, comic book or video game. Film novelizations were particularly popular before the advent of ...

s. ''

Final Fantasy X is a role-playing video game developed and published by Square as the tenth main entry in the ''Final Fantasy'' series. Originally released in 2001 for PlayStation 2, the game was re-released as ''Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster'' for PlayStat ...

'' was the first ''

'' game that he worked on as scenario writer. Among others, he was responsible for the dialog in the Zanarkand Ruins which he almost wrote in one single night. He joined the ''

Final Fantasy XIII is a role-playing video game developed and published by Square Enix for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles and later for the Microsoft Windows operating system. Released in Japan in December 2009 and international in March 2010, it is the ...

'' team in early 2004 but left it again about half a year later. He instead became part of the ''

Final Fantasy XII is a role-playing video game developed and published by Square Enix. The twelfth main installment of the ''Final Fantasy'' series, it was first released for the PlayStation 2 in 2006. It introduced several innovations to the series: an open wo ...

'' development team in November 2004. The original scenario writer

Yasumi Matsuno is a Japanese video game designer. 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, ...

left that project in August 2005 due to sickness.

Hiroshi Minagawa , also known by the nickname ''Nigoro'', is a Japanese Game art design, video game artist, Video game designer, designer and director. Career Minagawa had worked at Quest Corporation alongside his colleagues Yasumi Matsuno and Akihiko Yoshida bef ...

, 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. In March 2006, Watanabe rejoined the ''Final Fantasy XIII'' team after

Kazushige Nojima is a Japanese video game writer. He is best known for writing several installments of Square Enix's ''Final Fantasy'' franchise—namely ''Final Fantasy VII'' and its spin-offs ''Advent Children'' and ''Crisis Core'', ''Final Fantasy VIII'', and ' ...

and

Motomu Toriyama 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 3 directors on ''Final Fantasy X'' u ...

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. 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". 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 formerly ''Famicom Tsūshin'', is a line of Japanese video game magazines published by Kadokawa Game Linkage (previously known as Gzbrain), a subsidiary of Kadokawa. ''Famitsu'' is published in both weekly and monthly formats as well as in the fo ...

''.

Works

Notes

References

External links

*
Profile at ffx.sakura.ne.jp
{{DEFAULTSORT:Watanabe, Daisuke Square Enix people Final Fantasy designers Video game designers Video game writers Living people 1974 births