Amin Abbas
DUBAI: Chihiro Fujioka is a Japanese video game designer and composer who has worked at Xtalsoft, Square, and AlphaDream. He is primarily known for directing ‘Super Mario RPG’ as well as his involvement in several Mario and Luigi games.
Exclusively to Arab News Japan, Fujioka shared his inspiration for video games, saying “I was first exposed to computers in the early 1980s. At the time, I genuinely enjoyed computer programming, so I started programming games.”.
“My favorite game of all time is ‘PaRappa the Rapper’ on the original PlayStation. Maybe it’s because I’m a drummer, but it was just so fun and I played it quite a lot,” he added.
About the establishment of his career as a video game composer, Fujioka said he first started composing music when he was in high school as a hobby and began working in music professionally in the mid-1980s.
“The concepts behind my compositions change from time to time, but all of them have one thing in common: to create something new that fits the atmosphere of the game,” he said.
“The first game I ever made was a PC game called ‘Earthbound’ (different from Nintendo’s ‘Earthbound’) that was released in 1983 and I have very fond memories of it because I made it all by myself, from planning and graphics to programming,” he shared, adding that the first game he composed music for was the 1986 PC game ‘Babylon’.
The producer is known for working on ‘Final Fantasy Legend III,’ which was the first game he worked on after establishing Square’s Osaka Development Department.
Reflecting on the game, Fujioka said, “When starting the development, I had discussions with the headquarters to decide what kind of game we should make. As a result, it was decided that it would be a good idea to create a sequel to the ‘Final Fantasy Legend III’ series that had already been released on Game Boy. From there, we were shown many different previous materials and went ahead with the game design of the game.”
“We are very happy that the game was successfully completed, became a big hit, and is still being loved by many players,” he added.
Additionally, Fujioka is known as one of the writers for ‘Final Fantasy Mystic Quest’. “At that time, Japanese RPGs were not selling well in the United States, so Square decided to create an RPG specifically for the US instead of localizing a Japanese RPG as it had done in the past,” he told Arab News Japan.
“We considered which RPG elements should be minimized and which emphasized. Ultimately, we concluded that it would be better to downplay the story and presentation and have more battles. We simplified the map and came up with a style of setting up points called the ‘battlefields’ system.”
After it was launched in the US, it did so well that the company decided to launch in Japan. “Since there was no staff available to help, I proceeded with the development of the Japanese version almost entirely on my own. I was also in charge of localizing the German and French versions, so I got more experience in game localization,” the producer said.
After establishing relations with Nintendo and AlphaDream, Fujioka started working on the ‘Mario & Luigi’ video game series. He told Arab News Japan that he wanted to make a Nintendo RPG game where players control Mario and Luigi to differentiate it from ‘Super Mario RPG’ and ‘Paper Mario.’
“In the ‘Mario & Luigi’ series, I was primarily programming action-oriented events. I had similar programming experience with Square’s ‘Super Mario RPG,’ so I was good at it. However, the unpredictable bugs that occur when there are two playable characters were quite troublesome. But looking back now, those are all fun memories. From the second game in the series onward, the platforms were Nintendo DS and 3DS, both of which are dual screen hardware. I remember how fun the technical aspects were, such as programming events to link the upper and lower screens” he shared.
After working on multiple Nintendo titles, Fujioka said that he feels like the Japanese company cares about games, sharing that his favorite project that he worked on was ‘Super Mario RPG’. It was a pleasure to work with such a wonderful and talented team on a world-famous character.”
“My job title was director for the game, but in reality, I was programming events with action components. I enjoyed programming and was thoroughly engrossed in it because it was a well-designed event system created by very talented programmers. The game system, graphics, and music were excellent, and it was a wonderful project that gave us a sense of fulfillment in always creating something new,” he reflected.
Fujioka has never been to the Middle East before but is very interested in Middle Eastern culture, especially its musical instruments. “There are unique melodies and scales that are different from Western scales, and the rhythms are complex yet very pleasant. I would like to visit the Middle East someday to experience the local music,” he said.