is a Japanese author, video game designer, writer and director best known as the creator of the ''

Dragon Quest previously published as ''Dragon Warrior'' in North America until 2005, is a series of role-playing video games created by Japanese game designer Yuji Horii (Armor Project), character designer Akira Toriyama (Bird Studio), and composer Koi ...

'' franchise, supervising and writing the scenario for ''

Chrono Trigger is a 1995 role-playing video game by Square. It was originally released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System as the first entry in the ''Chrono'' series. The game's development team included three designers that Square dubbed the "Dr ...

'', and ''

The Portopia Serial Murder Case is a 1983 adventure game designed by Yuji Horii and published by Enix. It was first released on the NEC PC-6001 and has since been ported to other personal computers, the Family Computer (Famicom), mobile phone services and most recently, Win ...

'', released in 1983 as one of the first

visual novel A visual novel (VN) is a form of digital interactive fiction. Visual novels are often associated with the medium of video games, but are not always labeled as such themselves. They combine a textual narrative with static or animated illustratio ...

adventure games An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story, driven by exploration and/or puzzle-solving. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based m ...

. (Reprinted at ) Horii is CEO of his own company, Armor Project, a company that has an exclusive production contract with

Square Enix is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational holding company, video game publisher and entertainment conglomerate. It releases role-playing video game, role-playing game franchises, such as ''Final Fantasy'', ''Dragon Quest'', and '' ...

, a contract established with Enix before the company merged with

Square In geometry, a square is a regular polygon, regular quadrilateral. It has four straight sides of equal length and four equal angles. Squares are special cases of rectangles, which have four equal angles, and of rhombuses, which have four equal si ...

, and is also one of the companies who co-own the ''Dragon Quest'' franchise alongside Square Enix.

History

Horii was born on January 6, 1954, in Awaji Island,

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. He graduated from

Waseda University Waseda University (Japanese: ), abbreviated as or , is a private university, private research university in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Founded in 1882 as the Tōkyō Professional School by Ōkuma Shigenobu, the fifth Prime Minister of Japan, prime ministe ...

's Department of Literature. He also worked as a freelance writer for newspapers, comics, and magazines, including the ''Famicom Shinken'' video games column that ran in ''

Weekly Shōnen Jump is a weekly Shōnen manga, ''shōnen'' manga anthology published in Japan by Shueisha under the ''Jump (magazine line), Jump'' line of magazines. The manga series within the magazine consist of many Action (fiction), action scenes and a fair ...

'' from 1985 to 1988. He then entered in an

Enix was a Japanese multimedia publisher who handled and oversaw video games, manga, guidebooks, and merchandise. It was founded in 1975 by Yasuhiro Fukushima as Eidansha Boshu Service Center, initially as a tabloid publisher and later attempting t ...

-sponsored

game programming Game programming, a subset of game development, is the software development of video games. Game programming requires substantial skill in software engineering and computer programming in a given language, as well as specialization in one or ...

contest, where he placed with '' Love Match Tennis'', a tennis video game, motivating him to become a video game designer. Horii then created ''

'' by himself, a game that later inspired

Hideo Kojima is a Japanese video game designer. Regarded as one of the pioneering auteurs of video games, he developed a strong passion for film and literature during his childhood and adolescence, which in turn has had a significant influence on his game ...

(of ''

Metal Gear is a Media franchise, franchise of stealth games created by Hideo Kojima. Developed and published by Konami, the first game, ''Metal Gear (video game), Metal Gear'', was released in 1987 for MSX, MSX home computers. The player often takes con ...

'' fame) to enter the video game industry. It is the first part of the ''Yuji Horii Mysteries'' trilogy, along with its successors '' The Hokkaido Serial Murder Case: The Okhotsk Disappearance'' (1984) and '' Karuizawa Yūkai Annai'' (1985). After creating several more visual novel

adventure game An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story, driven by exploration and/or puzzle-solving. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based m ...

s, Horii went on to create ''

'', which is said to have created the blueprint for Japanese console role-playing games, taking inspiration from ''Portopia'', as well as ''

Wizardry Wizardry may refer to: * ''Wizardry'' (video game series), role-playing video game series, originally published by Sir-Tech ** '' Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord'', the first game of the series, released in 1981 * ''Wizardry'' (The ...

'' and ''

Ultima Ultima may refer to: Places * Ultima, Victoria, a town in Australia * Pangaea Ultima, a supercontinent to occur in the future * ''Ultima'', the larger lobe of the trans-Neptunian object 486958 Arrokoth, nicknamed ''Ultima Thule'' Companies and ...

''. He was a fan of Apple PC role-playing games and was motivated to create ''Dragon Quest'' for ordinary gamers, who found such games difficult, and thus he worked on an intuitive control system, influenced by his work on ''Portopia''. His works also include the ''

Itadaki Street is a party video game series originally created by ''Dragon Quest'' designer Yuji Horii. It is currently owned by Square Enix. The first game was released in Japan on Nintendo's Famicom console in 1991. Since then, new installments in the serie ...

'' series. Horii was also a supervisor of the

Super Nintendo Entertainment System The Super Nintendo Entertainment System, commonly shortened to Super Nintendo, Super NES or SNES, is a Fourth generation of video game consoles, 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan, 1991 in No ...

game, ''

'', which had multiple game endings, with Horii appearing in one of the endings with the game development staff. He is on the selection committee for the annual Super Dash Novel Rookie of the Year Award.

Works

Recognition

Horii received an award at the 2009

Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association (CESA) is a Japanese organization that was established in 1996 to "promote the computer entertainment industry ..with the aim of contributing to the strengthening of Japanese industry as well as to th ...

developers conference and a lifetime achievement award at the 2022

Game Developers Conference The Game Developers Conference (GDC) is an annual conference for video game developers. The event includes an expo, networking events, and awards shows like the Game Developers Choice Award for Game of the Year, Game Developers Choice Awards and ...

for his work on ''Dragon Quest'' and ''Chrono Trigger''.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Horii, Yuji 1954 births Japanese video game designers Japanese video game directors Japanese video game writers Living people Dragon Quest People from Sumoto, Hyōgo Waseda University alumni Game Developers Conference Lifetime Achievement Award recipients