Masato Kato

is a Japanese video game artist, scenario writer and director. In the early days of his career, he was credited under the pseudonyms of "Runmaru" and "Runmal". He then joined Square, and was most famous for penning the script of Chrono Trigger (based on a story draft by Yuji Horii), as well as Radical Dreamers, Xenogears, Chrono Cross, Final Fantasy XI and parts of Final Fantasy VII.

Biography

Early years Kato first worked for Tecmo on Captain Tsubasa and the Ninja Gaiden series. On his first three games, he moved from graphics, to graphics and scenario writing, to also directing the action elements. He went on to work for Gainax.

Square Co. Masato Kato's first title at Square was Chrono Trigger as the game's story planner and script writer. The game's composer Yasunori Mitsuda have considered Kato to be one of the game's directors.

Kato stated that Chrono Cross development encountered difficulty in expanding the game world due to hardware limitations, and that they crammed as much data as they could onto the game disk. Conversely, developing the multiple game endings was seen as easier, on par with Chrono Trigger as a bonus for players who finished the game.

Writings In 2005, Masato Kato also collaborated with Yasunori Mitsuda, longtime friend and music composer, to write a short story titled Five Seasons of kiЯitɘ, which Mitsuda accompanied with music on his album kiЯitɘ. The story and soundtrack have also been presented in opera form. Prior to this, Mitsuda composed the soundtrack for several of Kato's games, including Chrono Cross and Xenogears.

Games Kato has been credited for the following games:

Early games Captain Tsubasa (1988): animation sprites Chrono Cross (1999): director, scenario and script writer, event planner, FMV storyboard Final Fantasy XI (2002): plot conception and events, lyricist Deep Labyrinth (2006): scenario writer Dawn of Mana (2006): scenario writer Heroes of Mana (2007): scenario writer Sands of Destruction (2008): scenario writer Chrono Trigger (Nintendo DS) (2008): supervisor A Crystalline Prophecy: Ode to Life Bestowing (2009): plot conception A Moogle Kupo d'Etat: Evil in Small Doses (2009): plot conception Shiren the Wanderer 4 (2010): scenario writer Ninja Gaiden 3 (2012): story The Legend of Legacy (2015): writer Another Eden (2017): director, scenario, script writer, concept artist