What's next for the former Yasumi Matsuno team after Final Fantasy XII?

[Dragonsoul]

Yasumi Matsuno



The Yasumi Matsuno team may have disbanded after Final Fantasy XII. They worked together on five games consecutively, in which the team was basically exactly the same each time. Y.M. was the Producer, Director, and Scenario Writer for most of FF XII's production before leaving. I wonder what's next for this team. Here's the five games that the team has worked on...
Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen
Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together
Final Fantasy Tactics
Vagrant Story
Final Fantasy XII

There are also other games, made by some of the members of this team that are already out or are coming out. These games are not made by the full Yasumi Matsuno team...
Magical Chase, Ogre Battle 64, Ogre Battle Gaiden, Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, Final Fantasy Tactics(PSP), Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings, Final Fantasy Tactics A2

Here's what person filled which role in each of the five Yasumi Matsuno game teams...
Producer: Various
Director: Yasumi Matsuno
Game Designer: Yasumi Matsuno
Scenario Writer: Yasumi Matsuno
Character Designer: Akihiko Yoshida
Art Director: Hiroshi Minagawa
Composer: Hitoshi Sakimoto and sometimes Masaharu Iwata

Here's what next for those people...
Yasumi Matsuno: Working with Nintendo on a new Wii Rpg, and has taken some members of Monolith Soft(Xenosaga 1-3) with him
Akihiko Yoshida: Wikipedia shows FF III(DS Remake) and FF Tactics(PSP Remake)
Hiroshi Minagawa: Wikipedia doesn't show anything
Hitoshi Sakimoto: Various stuff(Odin Sphere, GrimGrimoire, Deltora Quest, FF T[PSP], FF XII: RW, Final Fantasy Tactics A2, ASH: Archaic Sealed Heat, Opoona)
Masaharu Iwata: FF T(PSP), Odin Sphere

We know what Yasumi Matsuno is doing now. Hitoshi Sakimoto and Masaharu Iwata are composers and are free to join up with Yasumi Matsuno again easily I think. I wonder what Akihiko Yoshida and Hiroshi Minagawa are up to?

Let's say a new Wii rpg is announced, with these credits...
Producer: Yasumi Matsuno, or Shigeru Miyamoto
Director: Yasumi Matsuno
Game Design: Yasumi Matsuno
Scenario Writer: Yasumi Matsuno
Character Designer: Akihiko Yoshida
Art Director: Hiroshi Minagawa
Composers: Hitoshi Sakimoto and Masaharu Iwata

If an announcement like that is made, it will be extremely ultimate for me and everybody else! Do you think this can or will happen? What are your thought on this situation?

[LunarWeaver]

I imagine it would be political with crappy music and awesome character designs. It will totally blindside me!

[Craig]

What.

[Bolivar]

I'm guessing big things for Hiroshi Minagawa, the art director of those games who was bumped up to director in FFXII. He became a little higher profile after completing the game, being at all the expos and being in interviews with the actual producers. His public appearances make it clear that he is going to stay with Square-Enix, as opposed to Matsuno who left and Sakimoto who works freelance and is currently working with Sakaguchi.

I'm guessing either he's going to take over Matsuno's development division at Square, most likely continuing the Ivalice games or starting his own. In any case, it seems like he's getting it pretty good over at Square and I'll be interested to see what he does next. If he works more with Itou they could end up making some really amazing games, not like they haven't already.

[Dragonsoul]

There were two co-directors for FF XII after Y.M. left. The other one was the guy who did the game design.

Also, the new leader of the Ivalice team may be the director or the producer of Final Fantasy Tactics A2.

I can't wait for the next projects to be announced!

Are you getting more Y.M/Ivalice/Ogre games soon?

Ogre Battle, Tactics Ogre, Final Fantasy Tactics gradually perfected tactical rpg gaming. After that Vagrant Story perfected it's own rpg subgenre it partially created, then Final Fantasy XII came out and it's a huge and ultimate project with great success!

[Bolivar]

I'm playing Ogre Battle right now. The story is really cool and it's interesting to see parallels to XII but as a tactical RPG I don't really find it very good.

I still put Shining Force up there on my list, don't sleep on that if you're into SRPG's, Dragonsoul!

[Dragonsoul]

!!! Is this your first time playing Ogre Battle? How many hours are you into it? What made you decide to play this game? The game is great! I give it 6 out of 7 stars(I rank out of 7 stars). Ogre Battle 64 has a similar battle system.

[Bolivar]

!!! Is this your first time playing Ogre Battle? How many hours are you into it? What made you decide to play this game? The game is great! I give it 6 out of 7 stars(I rank out of 7 stars). Ogre Battle 64 has a similar battle system.

I played it once, got to like the 2nd or 3rd chapter, a few years ago and probably just got interested on something else. I think I'm on the 7th chapter, avalon lake, or the one after that. It's really cool, it's fun making your own teams and it's very different from most RPGs. It's kinda crazy when you think about how Revenant Wings is also trying to be like an RTS. I hope that game's good, but playing through Ogre Battle, I have to say the Japanese got nothing on us when it comes to that gaming genre.

I guess I wanted to play through it because there is no translated Rom for Tactics Ogre SNES yet. Thought I'd go back to another Matsuno game. It's cool, it was interesting seeing familiar names like Zeltenia and Ashe, who is actually exactly like Basch.