22 Facts About Motomu Toriyama

Motomu Toriyama is a Japanese game director and scenario writer who has been working for Square Enix since 1994.

Motomu Toriyama initially worked on cutscenes in Bahamut Lagoon and Final Fantasy VII before serving as one of the three directors on Final Fantasy X under Yoshinori Kitase where he was in charge of events.

Motomu Toriyama co-directed the Final Fantasy VII Remake and is part of the Final Fantasy Committee that is tasked with keeping the franchise's releases and content consistent.

Motomu Toriyama joined Square around the time of the Final Fantasy VI launch in 1994.

Motomu Toriyama later mentioned that he enjoyed how everyone on the development team had the opportunity to contribute their ideas without any solid job description.

Motomu Toriyama was assigned to work on Bahamut Lagoon as his first project due to his lack of game development experience.

For Final Fantasy VII, Motomu Toriyama designed events such as the ones taking place at the Honey Bee Inn.

Motomu Toriyama wrote and directed many of the scenes revolving around Aerith Gainsborough and Cloud Strife.

Motomu Toriyama tried to make Aerith an important character to the player in order to maximize the impact of her death later in the plot.

Motomu Toriyama decided to assemble and direct a team of scenario writers and joined various game projects.

Motomu Toriyama later collaborated with Final Fantasy X main programmer Koji Sugimoto and supervisor Yoshinori Kitase to create a Final Fantasy VII tech demo for the PlayStation 3.

In March 2006, when the structural part of the narrative started to come together and lead scenario writer Daisuke Watanabe joined the team, Motomu Toriyama showed him a rough outline of what he had written and asked him to flesh out the story and to correct how everything would connect.

Motomu Toriyama has been the scenario director and supervisor on games in the Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles series as well as Dissidia: Final Fantasy and The 3rd Birthday, which entailed the creation of a story concept and the supervision of the character conception and scenario writing by his team of authors.

Motomu Toriyama believes his strength is in directing games that are very story-driven.

Motomu Toriyama thinks that it becomes very difficult to tell a compelling story when the player is given a huge amount of freedom to explore.

Motomu Toriyama explains that there are different approaches to creating a protagonist: with Yuna from Final Fantasy X, the general plot had already been set when the character was conceived; with Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII instead, the character's personality was decided upon before the backstory was written.

Motomu Toriyama feels that a developer needs to "essentially fall in love at first sight with a character" to "keep [themselves] going".

Motomu Toriyama considers the voice the "main image of the character" and thus "the most delicate part of making the character".

Motomu Toriyama has stated that the aim of the linear game design used in the first half of Final Fantasy XIII was to feel like watching a film.

Motomu Toriyama explained that the amount of memory and processing power needed to produce impressive graphics was the main reason not to have a seamless battle system for Final Fantasy XIII.

Motomu Toriyama is interested in using first-person shooter games for inspiration rather than Western role-playing video games, as he believes they give a better sense of tension during battles.

Motomu Toriyama feels that his role of director marked a shift from creating a game world based on his own vision to unifying a team's ideas into a cohesive whole.