Yuji Horii: Difference between revisions

{{ja|'''Yuji Horii'''|堀井 雄二|Horii Yūji|also written as Yuuji Horii; born January 6, 1954 in [[Wikipedia:Awaji Island|Awaji Island]], Japan}} is a [[Wikipedia:Japan|Japanese]] video game designer and scenario writer best known as the creator of the {{DQSeries}}. A giant among industry veterans, he created the blueprint for the console role-playing game through his work on the ''[[Portopia]]'' series and the [[Dragon Quest|original ''Dragon Quest'']]. He is the sole owner of the ''Dragon Quest'' series via his private company, [[Armor Project]], which has an exclusive publishing contract with [[Square Enix]]. [[File:Yūji Horii.png|right|thumb|240px]]

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 Koichi 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.

After a rough development period and countless hours contemplating the feedback of Enix staff and playtesters, Dragon Quest was released on May 27th, 1986. Sales were slow at first, but strong word of mouth and a healthy advertising campaign in Shonen Jump magazine lead to a steady increase throughout the year, selling 1.5 million copies in total before production of the cartridge ceased in the early 90's. The title was an unprecedented sensation in Japan, leading to a cultural craze that lead to a boom of interest not only in RPG software, but tales of swords & sorcery, European myths and culture, and fantasy literature. For all this influence on his country's zeitgeist, Horii has remained a humble man, happy to give players new quests to venture out on as long as he can.

*'''Most profound moments in the series:''' Marriage and [[Gold orb]] exchange in ''V'', chapter 5 opening in ''IV'', being king for a day in [[Romaria]] in ''III'', searching for the lost luminaries in ''II''.

Horii wrote the scenario and served as supervisor for the [[Super Nintendo Entertainment System]] game, ''[[Wikipedia:Chrono Trigger|Chrono Trigger]]''. ''Chrono Trigger'' had multiple game endings and Horii himself appeared in one of the endings alongside the game development staff.