Why did Star Ocean's creators leave Tales of Phantasia to found tri-Ace?

Because the game they wrote, designed and directed was taken out of their hands.

In 1994, Wolf Team, the studio inside Telenet Japan, signed with Namco to make the game Yoshiharu Gotanda had written as a novel, Tale Phantasia. Gotanda wrote and programmed it, Masaki Norimoto designed it, and Joe Asanuma directed it. Namco then insisted on changes, including renaming the game Tales of Phantasia and taking the copyright and trademark, and Telenet brought in Eiji Kikuchi to direct over Asanuma. The protests that followed pushed the release back by almost a year.

On March 16, 1995, before Phantasia had even shipped, the three men left and founded a new studio: tri-Ace, named for its three founders. Colleagues who had defended them followed, and Enix, a publisher they had approached before Namco, backed the new company. Sixteen months later tri-Ace shipped its first game, Star Ocean, and the staff who stayed behind at Wolf Team went on making Tales games until the studio became Namco Tales Studio in 2003. Two of Japan’s longest-running RPG series are the two halves of one argument.

THE THREE ACES

Programmer · designer · director

Yoshiharu Gotanda

The programmer and writer. Phantasia began as his unpublished novel; he programmed the whole game, then wrote and programmed Star Ocean the same way. When Asanuma left tri-Ace in 1998, Gotanda became its president.

Masaki Norimoto

The designer. Norimoto designed Phantasia and objected most strongly to how the finished game was branded and positioned. He went on to design Star Ocean’s systems, including the item creation and Private Action ideas the series is still known for.

Joe Asanuma

The director. Asanuma had headed Wolf Team, and being replaced as Phantasia’s director by an outsider was one of the dispute’s sharpest points. He directed the first Star Ocean, then left tri-Ace in 1998 to pursue other work.

The ones who followed

The walkout was not three men alone. Graphic artist Yoshiaki Inagaki, sound programmer Hiroya Hatsushiba and other Wolf Team staff who had backed the three during the dispute joined the founding, which is why tri-Ace’s first game arrived with a full senior team already in place.

WHAT EACH SIDE KEPT

One team becomes two series

Tales stayed with Namco

Telenet re-staffed Wolf Team and kept the Namco contract. The remaining team developed or co-developed nearly every Tales game that followed, and in 2003 the studio was renamed Namco Tales Studio with Namco as majority owner.

Star Ocean went with Enix

The founders had approached Enix before Namco ever entered the picture. Enix financed tri-Ace’s start and published Star Ocean in July 1996, with Enix producer Yoshinori Yamagishi overseeing the series. The series has lived with Enix, and then Square Enix, ever since.

Sakuraba scored both families

Composer Motoi Sakuraba did not choose a side. He went freelance in 1995 and kept writing for the Tales games at his old studio while becoming the composer of nearly every tri-Ace game, a double loyalty documented on his own shelf page.

A Star Trek seed

The founders were science-fiction fans, and Star Ocean’s frame, a starship crew bound by a non-interference rule meeting sword-and-sorcery worlds, is openly descended from Star Trek. The split produced a fantasy series for Namco and a science-fantasy one for Enix out of the same office.

The History of Tales of Phantasia The First Star Ocean

Why did Star Ocean's creators leave Tales of Phantasia to found tri-Ace?

THE THREE ACES

WHAT EACH SIDE KEPT

THE FIRST WORD