Interview: Kenichi Iwao, Scenario Writer/Planner/Director for Capcom, Square-Enix, DeNA, and Oriflamme

Sometimes, a personality associated with a famous game is so visible and so spoken-about that we ascribe all elements of a game’s creation to them, rather than recognizing the true team efforts that many of these titles are. Such is the case with the original Resident Evil/Biohazard – you’ll often hear Shinji Mikami given full credit for the title, when in truth, Biohazard wouldn’t have taken the industry by storm if it wasn’t for the entire team who made it a revolutionary horror experience. Kenichi Iwao is one such individual: his scenario and storywriting for Biohazard set the stage for two decades of sequels, offshoots, and lore to follow. It’s not his only claim to fame in the business, either: Iwao has worked on many beloved titles like Demon’s Crest, Einhander, and Parasite Eve II. He also carefully created the sprawling worlds and stories of the Final Fantasy XI and XIV MMOs. It’s an honor to have to opportunity to interview one of these great unsung heroes of the game industry.

We had a unique opportunity to sit down with Iwao and discuss his lengthy career in the video game industry, and he surprised us with some of his answers to our questions. What do Steve Jackson and MSX games have to do with Biohazard? Read on to find out!

Special thanks to Alex Aniel of Brave Wave Music for assisting with this interview.

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Misadventures in Romancing SaGa, part 1 of ???

In retrospect, my attempt to do a SaGa theme month for November was… well, not a bad idea, really, but terribly misguided. Here I was, thinking I’d be able to blow through Romancing SaGa 1, 3, and the heavily SaGa-inspired Legend of Legacy all in the course of a month. Not only did that not happen, but I learned a very hard lesson: SaGa games beyond the initial batch of localized Final Fantasy Legend titles require an intense persistence and dedication on the part of the player. The only way these games reward you is if you’re willing to put a hefty amount of time and effort into learning their weird quirks.

Not only that, but you have to be prepared to mess up. Like, a lot.

So in the time I’d hoped to have completed three games, I wound up kind-of-completing… one. Sort of. Actually, I didn’t finish Romancing SaGa at all. Instead, I got to a point where I realized “Holy crap, going into this totally blind was a real bad idea and I’m gonna start over now that I’ve learned what it is I should actually be doing.”

Yep, you heard me. I’m going to toss all my Romancing SaGa progress out the window and restart again at some point down the line. I’m thinking in… March or so? So consider this Part One of a continuing RS1 travelogue, with a continuation down the line once I’ve played through a few other SaGa titles and had some time to read over guides more thoroughly.1

So, the question is: What went wrong this time through, and what did I learn from it?

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  1. I was offered a copy of the PS2 Romancing SaGa remake, as well, which I’ll likely also play through at some point.