Hiroyuki Ito - Career - PlayStation Era

PlayStation Era

In September 1995, Yasumi Matsuno and a group of other fomer Quest Corporation employees joined Square. At the time, Hironobu Sakaguchi was a huge fan of the game Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen and he had been privately encouraging the director Yasumi Matsuno to join Square. Sakaguchi promised Matsuno he would provide him with his best staff to help him develop games for Square. However, Sakaguchi had not told anybody else about this arrangement, so when Matsuno the other Quest staff first arrived at Square, everybody was surprised as they never knew they were joining the company. Hiroyuki Ito and Yoshinori Kitase believed that these new staff members were going to be part of a new development team Sakaguchi was founding, but they thought nothing threatening of it and continued working the early concept and planning of Final Fantasy VII for the PlayStation. Around a week later, Sakaguchi came to Hiroyuki Ito and Hideo Minaba and took them to one side and told them he was pulling them out of the Final Fantasy VII project so they could help the Quest staff make their game. Ito and Minaba were both hesitant at first as the Quest staff were complete strangers to them, but Sakaguchi pleaded as he really loved the work of Matsuno and wanted to give him his best staff to help make his games. Ito was Sakaguchi's favourite game designer and Minaba was his favourite artist. Ito and Minaba eventually agreed to pull out of Final Fantasy VII and join the former Quest staff to help develop their game. Sakaguchi gave Ito the responsibility of being the game designer of the game so the gameplay felt like a Final Fantasy game. Minaba was given the responsibility of designing the maps so the game looked like a Final Fantasy game. However, Sakaguchi specifically instructed them to give Matsuno complete freedom to write whatever story he wanted, even if it didn't feel like a Final Fantasy game. This game eventually went on to become Final Fantasy Tactics. Hiroyuki Ito was the game designer and battle system main planner for the game where he created the Charge Time Battle (CTB) system and further evolved the Job system he created for Final Fantasy V to have even more customization.

Although Hiroyuki Ito left the Final Fantasy VII project very early in development, his concept idea for the Materia system was further built upon by Hironobu Sakaguchi and used in the final game. Also, his creations the ATB and AP systems were both used in the final game.

Hiroyuki Ito made his return to the main Final Fantasy series with Final Fantasy VIII, where he was initially the game designer and battle system designer. However, during this time, Sakaguchi was developing the film Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within at Honolulu and decided he also wanted to develop a Final Fantasy game at the same location. He pulled Hiroyuki Ito out of the Final Fantasy VIII project and brought him over to Honolulu to be the director and game designer of the game. Due to being pulled out of the Final Fantasy VIII project, Ito was only the battle system designer for the game. His work on Final Fantasy VIII was the ATB system, Guardian Force system and Junction system. However, he was not responsible for the Draw system as he had left the development team before that part of the game was conceived. Hiroyuki Ito also created the concept of the Triple Triad card game, which went on to be developed for the game by another staff member when he left the project.

When Ito arrived in Honolulu, he met up with Hideo Minaba, who had already been brought over by Sakaguchi. Ito was to lead development on a game that was to be titled Final Fantasy Gaiden. Ito was to serve as the director and game designer, while Minaba served as the art director. Sakaguchi had envisioned the game to be a spin-off Final Fantasy title that was a reflection of all past games in the numbered series. However, although a spin-off title, Sakaguchi gave Ito a team of staff even larger than the team working on Final Fantasy VIII back in Tokyo. Added to this benefit, over half of this team were Hollywood CGI artists and animators, some of which had previously been employed by Industrial Light & Magic. As development progressed under Ito's direction, the amount of locations and content of the game grew exponentially. Sakaguchi eventually felt that the quality and scale of the game had surpassed both Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VIII. As a result of this, he decided the game should be called Final Fantasy IX. Ito's work on the game involved him being responsible for all the gameplay aspects such as the ATB system, Equipment Ability system, the unique gameplay attributes of each of the playable characters, and all the various items, equipment and spells obtainable in the game. Also, as with Final Fantasy VI, he was responsible for the structure, pacing and flow of the entire game and tried to strike a balance between the gameplay and event scenes so the game didn't feel too story-driven. In further pursuit of this goal, he created the Active Time Event (ATE) system as a means of making the event scenes more interactive and part of the gameplay experience.

The scenario for Final Fantasy IX was written by Hironobu Sakaguchi but it was largely edited and modified by Hiroyuki Ito during the course of development to eventually became the one used in the final game. For example, it was Ito's idea to make Zidane Tribal a man who is flirtatious with women. Ito also wrote the lyrics for the theme song, "Melodies of Life". He reintroduced Trance from Final Fantasy VI into the battle system of the game as he felt the Limit systems of Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VIII could be easily abused by the player. Trance was triggered automatically when the Trance gauge was full and therefore could be not be saved for another battle against a more powerful foe, as was possible with the Limit system in Final Fantasy VII. It also could not be used as much as a player liked when a characters health was low, as was possible with the Limit system in Final Fantasy VIII. He made these changes as he wanted players to be victorious in battle by relying more on their skill and battle strategies rather than on a Limit system. Ito initially wanted the ATB system used in Final Fantasy IX to be the fastest version of it used in the series. He managed to get a demo of it running in which the ATB gauge only took 1 second to fill on the fastest speed setting. However, getting this running on the PlayStation hardware made the frame rate significantly low. When he showed the battle system to Sakaguchi, he liked the concept but felt it was straining the processor of the PlayStation too much. Sakaguchi then decided that due to Final Fantasy IX being a reflection of all the past numbered Final Fantasy games, the ATB system should be slowest iteration of it used in the series so it feels like a hybrid of ATB and the traditional turn-based used in the first three Final Fantasy games. Ito therefore changed the battle system to the one that appears in the final game. Ito also created the Mognet system with the aim of making save points more interesting. He also created the Chocobo Hot & Cold mini-game.

Hironobu Sakaguchi has stated that he wanted Final Fantasy IX to focus on the details in gameplay just as much as the story. Hiroyuki Ito has also stated that the main aim of the game was to return to roots of the Final Fantasy series and once again provide the player with a feeling of playing a game.