Hiroji Kiyotake

Hiroji Kiyotake
清武 博二
Born (1960-12-21) December 21, 1960 (age 64)
Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan
Alma materKyoto Seika University
Occupation(s)Game designer, developer
Years active1983-present
EmployerNintendo

Hiroji Kiyotake (清武 博二 Kiyotake Hiroji, born December 21, 1960, in Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan[1]) is a game designer for Nintendo and has been a part of the history of Nintendo since 1983.[2]

Education

Kiyotake graduated from Kyoto Seika University with a BA of Visual Design and was part of the rugby club.[3]

Career

Kiyotake started his employment at Nintendo in 1983, working in the Nintendo Research & Development 1 and Product Engineering Departments, and is currently a member of the Planning and Development Department.

Game design

Metroid

Hiroji was a designer for Metroid, which was originally designed for the Famicom Disk System. Hiroji is the character designer of Samus Aran and named the Metroid character after Pelé, but he later found out that Pelé's full name was Edson Arantes do Nascimento, not Samus Arantes. Hiroji and Yoshio Sakamoto and the rest of the team decided at the end of Metroid to reveal that Samus was a female character, making Samus Aran one of the first female protagonists in a video game.[4]

Wario series

Wario emblem

Kiyotake is the original designer of Mario's rival Wario[5][6] and one of the key people in the Wario series. Kiyotake and Takehiko Hosokawa were the directors and graphic designers of Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins and Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3.[7] For Virtual Boy Wario Land, he acted as a director, and for Wario games released after Wario Land 4, his role is mostly limited to the Wario design and advising, according to the staff credits of the respective games. During the development of Wario: Master of Disguise, Kiyotake supervised the numerous forms of disguised Wario designed by SUZAK.[8]

Games

Interviews

References

  1. ^ Roschin, Oleg (22 June 2012). "Hiroji Kiyotake". Moby Games. Moby Games. Retrieved 27 February 2021.
  2. ^ "The Complete History Of Metroid". Now Gamer. 31 August 2010. Retrieved 21 April 2011.
  3. ^ "Hiroji Kiyotake". kyoto-report.wikidot.com/hiroji-kiyotake. Kyoto Report. Archived from the original on 2020-08-18. Retrieved 19 March 2021.
  4. ^ "NES Classic - Metroid Developer Interview". Nintendo.com. Retrieved 15 March 2021.
  5. ^ Stuart, Keith. "Super Mario Bros: 25 Mario facts for the 25th anniversary | Games". The Guardian. Retrieved 15 March 2021.
  6. ^ Famicom Disk System: The More You Play It, the More You'll Want to Play [Disk 1], Nintendo Dream, Vol. 118. (Translation available at Metroid Database)
  7. ^ Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins official Shogakukan game guide (translation provided by "Shmuplations", accessed September 10, 2016)
  8. ^ "Yutaka Hirata on Wario: Master of Disguise - Interview". SPOnG.
  9. ^ Voskuil, Erik. "How the Bassmate Computer came to be". blog.beforemario.com/. Retrieved 15 March 2021.