Hiroyuki Ito

Hiroyuki Ito (伊藤 裕之, Itō Hiroyuki), also credited with the spelling Hiroyuki Itou, is a Japanese game producer, director and designer who works for Square Enix. He is known as the director of Final Fantasy VI (1994), Final Fantasy IX (2000) and Final Fantasy XII (2006) and as the creator of the Active Time Battle (ATB) system. He was responsible for the battle systems in Final Fantasy IV, V, VI, VIII, IX, XII and Final Fantasy Tactics.

Biography

After graduating from Tokyo Zokei University, Hiroyuki Ito joined Square in 1987. He initially worked on Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy II as a debugger but first became genuinely involved with game development while creating sound effects for Final Fantasy III. His next major role was as the designer of the Active Time Battle system for Final Fantasy IV. Square filed a Japanese patent application related to the ATB system on 16 July 1991 and a corresponding US application on 16 March 1992. One Japanese patent (JP2794230) and two US patents (US5390937 and US5649862) were granted based on these applications. For Final Fantasy V, Ito designed the fully customizable Job system. He also created the 'Chicken Knife or Brave Blade' choosing event.Final Fantasy VI marked the first time that Ito became a director on a game. For this title, he was in charge of all battle aspects. He was also responsible for the battle systems in Final Fantasy VIII and Final Fantasy Tactics before he once more took on the role of director with Final Fantasy IX. Ito had the idea to make its protagonist Zidane Tribal flirtatious towards women.