Yasumi Matsuno

Yasumi Matsuno (松野 泰己, Matsuno Yasumi, born 1965) is a Japanese video game designer. He is one of few designers to have two games receive a perfect score by Famitsu magazine: Vagrant Story and Final Fantasy XII were critically acclaimed with 40 out of 40 points.

Early life

Matsuno grew up in a rural area, where he felt his only entertainment were movies, television, books. His hobbies included making dioramas. He was particularly fond of World War II dioramas, that he used to make by researching at the local library. He would incorporate story elements into each of his creation.

His introduction to video games was playing Space Invaders and Xevious at the arcades while waiting for the train. He was fond of The Legend of Zelda and Dragon Quest on Nintendo Entertainment System, and played heavily on the Amiga and PC, including Ultima Online.

Career

Quest

Matsuno began his career at the Japanese video game developer Quest. In 1993, he served as the director of Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen for the Super Nintendo. It is the first installment of an episodic series of tactical role-playing games. On naming the game, Matsuno was inspired by rock band Queen's second album, which contained two songs titled "Ogre Battle" and "The March Of The Black Queen". Even the "Rhyan Sea" in the Ogre Battle world is named after "Seven Seas of Rhye". The next game he worked on was Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, released in 1995 for the Super Nintendo. The dark political narrative of the game revolving around the reality of war was inspired by Matsuno's outside perspective on events that unfolded during the Yugoslav Wars in the early 1990s, including the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia.