What has the “Father of Final Fantasy”, Hironobu Sakaguchi, been up to these days since the completion of MistWalker’s Wii exclusive The Last Story? Spending the evening with some of the early members of the Final Fantasy team.
In the below picture posted on Facebook Sakaguchi can be seen dining with the once “Final Fantasy team” on October 7th.
So who are these fine folks, you ask?
Akira Ueda ( left ) managed the sound effects in Final Fantasy IV and was in charge of the back ground and map design for Secret of Mana. Ueda left Square Soft in 1999 and joined Grasshopper. Today Ueda is his own boss at Audio, Inc. where the company has made a number of Japan-exclusive releases for the Nintendo DS.
Masanori Hoshino ( bottom right ) is currently employed at Shift, the Japanese developers behind PSP games such as, God Eater. Ken Narita ( middle ) has served as a game programmer for Square for the past 25 years. His recent works include Final Fantasy XII where he performed the duties of Line Coordinator. Narita was also the Main Programmer behind Final Fantasy VI-VIII. As a Character Illustrator Kazuko Shibuya has worked on numerous Final Fantasy titles ( including FFII-VI ) over the years. She’s currently still working at Square Enix.
Surely this is no more than an innocent get together amongst friends and former colleges right?
Days later Sakaguchi posted another photo of himself with a different Final Fantasy team.The team responsible for the visually impressive yet financially disappointing Final Fantasy: Spirits Within movie marked the ill-fated flick’s 10th anniversary over a friendly dinner earlier this month.
What’s that fancy hand gesture everyone is doing?
It’s the Hawaii Shaka. From what I’ve read the shaka sign – an unmistakable pinky and thumb salute – is the ultimate symbol of aloha and local culture in Hawaii and is quite fitting for the occasions since the box office disaster was brought to life on the island.
