Akitoshi Kawazu

Akitoshi Kawazu (河津 秋敏) is the main director of the SaGa series, having directed almost every game in the series. He is also known for his work on the first two Final Fantasy games and his involvement with the Legend of Mana.

Early years

Kawazu's first game when working at Squaresoft was Rad Racer, programming the ending sequence. He had a large interest in Dungeons and Dragons, which is what spiked interest in the creation of the Final Fantasy series. At first, he and Hironobu Sakaguchi feared that a D&D styled game wouldn't sell very well, but the success of Dragon Quest proved otherwise, and so development began.

Kawazu specifically worked on the battle system, making it at much as Dungeons and Dragons as possible, which is what created the recognisable turn based combat, and adding elemntal weaknesses, something not seen in previous RPGs. It wasn't until Final Fantasy 2 that SaGa's core mechanics would emerge, such as the exclusion of an EXP system in favour of stats raising with specific actions, creating a system allowing for freely customizable characters without the need of a job system.

SaGa series

After Final Fantasy 2 was released, his interest was shifted torwards directing a new series, SaGa. Starting with Makai Toushi SaGa, Kawazu implemented many of the previously seen mechanics as part of the Espers (or Mutants in the western release), the central magic users of the game. Humans would instead need to buy their stats, perhaps to accomodate a sense of realism for the natural and purely physical based race. The third and final type of character implemented was the Monster, a fighter that can range from physical to magic based gameplay depending on the types of type of monster it becomes after consuming the meat of it's opponents. They could not equip items, including weapons and armor, though they didn't have to worry about weapon durability, as their abilities regenerated when sleeping at an Inn. Alongside these races, a precursor to the LP system was created, where a character would faint and lose one of three hearts, which were needed to revive said character. This encouraged creating new party members via the Guild Houses.

His next game was SaGa 2: Hihou Densetsu, where most of these features returned, with the exclusion of the Humans having to buy their stats, being more or less Espers with a larger emphasis in physical combat. This sequel introduced a new race, the Robots, sort of like the opposite of a monster, these mechanical fighters would only raise their stats via equipment, and could regenerate their weapon durability points, at the expense that they were halved in half compared to Humans and Espers, making them a more defensive class, meant to be on the front row.

While SaGa 3: Jikuu no Hasha was being directed by a different team, simplifying and changing several elements of the previous two titles, Kawazu was working on the series' transition to the 16-Bit era and the home console market, Romancing SaGa. This is where the series gets most of it's world freedom elements, allowing for a non-linear type of storytelling. Gone were Espers and necessarily unique Monsters, as the Human class was made far more open ended, allowing them to freely customize what type of gameplay style they used, varying from weapons and magic, and even a mix of the two in the form of the holy grail. There's an exception to this, such as Claudia's two animal companions, Sylvan and Brau, who couldn't equip any items. In addition to that, there is a brand new formation system, allowing for tactical management of your positions, the front row being the best for offense while the back is the best for defense. This added limitations to which formation can use which weapons, as most melee weapons would only be used in the front row, while Magic, Bows and Spears could be used from the middle and the case of the former, the back. This added some depth to the game, enriching the existing mechanics alongside a new way of attacking multiple enemies, with row based attacks such as Fire Wall.