is a Japanese game designer, director, producer and writer. After joining Square (later Square Enix) in 1985, he went on to become a central developer for the first two Final Fantasy titles, then acted as creator and lead developer for the SaGa series. Interested in games since his high school days, his first project at Square was a graphic designer for Rad Racer; he then acted as battle designer for Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy II. He has since worked on nearly every SaGa title, in addition to creating the Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles subseries, smaller projects including The Last Remnant, and serving in an executive role on multiple Square Enix projects. Kawazu has drawn much of his design inspiration from Western role-playing titles such as Dungeons & Dragons and Wizardry, admitting a liking for sword and sorcery settings in his scenarios. A characteristic of his games is a non-linear design for storylines and exploration, and systems that are not actively explained to players. He also has a deep involvement in each project beyond his credited roles, and tries something new with each game he develops. Biography Early life Akitoshi Kawazu was born on November 5, 1962 in Oguni, a town in Aso District, Kumamoto Prefecture. Talking about his early life in Oguni, Kawazu said that he was a "rowdy" type who wanted to be in the limelight and did not hesitate to voice his opinion to adults. He studied and graduated from Kumamoto Prefectural High School, then later studied at the Science School of the Tokyo Institute of Technology. During high school and college, he was deeply interested in games; he first became a dedicated player of Space Invaders, then later developed a love of tabletop role-playing and tabletop strategy games. He was originally scheduled to enter a job with Sony from the Science School, but due to unspecified circumstances in his private life he was forced to drop out. His first game-related job was as a part-time journalist for Beep, a general gaming magazine published by SoftBank, at the invitation of a school friend. He started out writing product reviews, and during his time with the magazine he gained exposure to games and the video games industry. While he had never heard of the company Square, he became interested in working for them upon seeing an advertisement for Suishō no Dragon, featuring artwork by the game's illustrator Gen