Yuji Horii: Difference between revisions

Horii's first success at [[Enix]] was the Portopia serial murder case, a screen-by-screen adventure game that tasked the player with unraveling the mysterious circumstances of a violent murder in the eponymous seaside town. The title proved to be a watershed moment for the young Horii, garnering him well deserved respect at [[Enix]] and strengthening his working relationship with top company programmer Kōichi Nakamura. Further more, the simple menu-selection system implemented in the game would become a corner stone of the {{Main Series}} series' user input.

In 1983, Enix sent Horii and Nakamura to Applefest; a trade show hosted by Apple computers in San Fransisco that allowed attendees so sample new business software, computer architecture, and computer games being developed. It was here that Horii encountered his first RPG--''[[Wikipedia:Wizardry|Wizardry]]''. Having never encountered a game of this kind before, where success depended on strategy and thorough planning rather than quick reflexes, Horii became so enamored with the seemingly endless mysteries of the game that he purchased an Apple II immediately upon his return to Japan just to play the game.

In 1985 ''Portopia'' was ported to the {{Famicom}}, greatly improving the machine's software library from the handful of obtuse action titles. This porting success gained Horii further recognition among the gaming community, prompting him to be inaugurated in Weekly ''Shonen Jump's'' ''{{Famicom}} KamiKen'' periodical. This bi-monthly article was reflection on current hot titles, game trends, and developer gossip of the period that allowed readers to send in their own essays to be printed in ''Shonen Jump''. When Horii sent in his own article, he was quickly hired as a staff writer. From this connection Horii would put his college education to good use and free-lance his writing skills out to various manga-ka in the magazine as he worked on his games, eventually meeting acclaimed artist [[Akira Toriyama]] at an ''SJ'' new year's party. The two became fast friends, and Toriyama would contribute character, monster, and location designs to the series.

With the success of the Famicom port of ''Portopia'', proving that a "slow game" can dominate the sales charts in an action game market, Horii and Nakamura agreed that the timing was right to begin development of the Famicom's first genuine RPG. After a lengthy process of convincing [[Enix]] supervisor Yukinobu Chida of the project's potential for success, the unnamed project was given the greenlight to begin development with Horii as sole scenario writer, Nakamura as lead programmer, and Toriyama as illustrator. Instead of a common ''Wizardry'' clone, the two decided to combine the best aspects of both the aforementioned series and it's chief competitor ''Ultima'' and eliminate the largest design flaws of both in the process. To accomplish this it was decided to use the simple menu-driven command system of Portopia, the first-person battle screen of ''Wizardry'', and the bird's-eye view map exploration of ''Ultima''. Coincidentally, acclaimed composer [[Kōichi Sugiyama]] had filled out a consumer response card packaged in the back of ''Portopia'', and was quickly approached for the possibility of composing the music for the ambitious title. Accepting the challenge, Sugiyama meets with the team and begins his composition work, even going as far as to play the scores on his piano over the phone for group approval.