, also known by the nickname ''Nigoro'', is a Japanese

video game artist Game art design is a subset of game development involving the process of creating the artistic aspects for video games. Video game art design begins in the pre-production phase of creating a video game. Video game artists are visual artists inv ...

designer A designer is a person who plans the form or structure of something before it is made, by preparing drawings or plans. In practice, anyone who creates tangible or intangible objects, products, processes, laws, games, graphics, services, or exp ...

and director.

Career

Minagawa had worked at

Quest Corporation was a Japanese video game company founded in 1988. Quest is best known for its critically acclaimed tactical role-playing game series ''Ogre Battle''. In 1990 Quest was merged with the company Bothtec, the latter focusing on the development of ...

alongside his colleagues

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, ...

and

Akihiko Yoshida is a Japanese video game artist. Yoshida was born in 1967 and joined Square in 1995, before the company merged with Enix. He then left Square Enix in September 2013 and became freelance. In October 2014, he became the company director of CyDesig ...

before they all decided to switch to

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 ...

in 1995. He continued collaborating with his co-workers as the art director of ''

Final Fantasy Tactics is a 1997 tactical role-playing game developed and published by Square (video game company), Square for the PlayStation (console), PlayStation video game console. Released in Japan in June 1997 and in the United States in January 1998 by Sony ...

'' and ''

Vagrant Story is an action role-playing game developed and published by Square (video game company), Square (now Square Enix) for the PlayStation (console), PlayStation video game console. The game was released in 2000, and has been re-released through the P ...

''. For 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 ...

'' project, he was originally the graphics and real-time visual director. However, when the original director Matsuno left the company due to an illness, Minagawa was put in charge of directing the game in collaboration with

Hiroyuki Ito , is a Japanese game producer, director and designer who works for Square Enix. He is known as the director of ''Final Fantasy VI'' (1994), ''Final Fantasy IX'' (2000) and ''Final Fantasy XII'' (2006) and as the creator of the Active Time Batt ...

. He felt that the pressure of working on a ''Final Fantasy'' installment helped him and influenced his decisions. Minagawa most enjoyed the period in which the team continued to come up with new ideas, but he ultimately had to decide to abandon many features in order to finish the game. Following the positive reception of '' Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions'', a decision was made to remake Quest's '' Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together''. Minagawa directed the game and took on the laborious task of assembling the original 1995 staff members—including Matsuno—who were now working at different companies. Upon finishing his work on the project, Minagawa was asked to join the ''

Final Fantasy XIV ''Final Fantasy XIV'' is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed and published by Square Enix. Directed and produced by Naoki Yoshida, it was released worldwide for Windows and PlayStation 3 in August 2013, as a rep ...

'' team as the lead

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine f ...

and web designer. This was part of a plan to salvage the game after its initial negative reception by critics and players. Director

Naoki Yoshida , also known by the nickname Yoshi-P'','' is a Japanese video game producer, director and designer working for Square Enix. He is best known for his work on massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), mainly as director and produc ...

considered the fact that one of the ''Final Fantasy XII'' directors was now solely responsible for one aspect of ''Final Fantasy XIV'' an indication of how serious Square Enix was about improving the game. A new and improved version of the game called '' Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn'' was eventually released to critical acclaim.

Works

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Minagawa, Hiroshi 1970 births Final Fantasy designers Living people Video game artists Japanese video game directors Square Enix people