eric__s
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Yoshitaka Tamaki was a character designer for a number of Japanese RPGs, especially with Climax, the company responsible for the Shining Force and Landstalker games. It's hard to find much information about him, but his work is immediately recognizable - his characters clearly come from similar molds and often feature human/animal hybrids. He's probably my favorite character designer and I thought it would be cool to share some of his work.
Shining in the Darkness
Yoshitaka Tamaki's work on Shining in the Darkness was light-hearted and charming, a look that characterized his designs with Climax on the Shining and Landstalker series. It introduced a lot of the artistic concepts and recurring imagery of later games, like the general appearance of Shining heroes and the human/animals that appear again. The hero, Pyra, Mylo and other characters all serve as the archetypes for later characters and a handful even return - Darksol and Byron in Shining Force, Pyra in Time Stalkers.
Shining Force
Yoshitaka Tamaki continued working with Climax on Shining Force. His designs maintain the same feel, built on patterns established in Shining in the Darkness, but with more adult-like proportions. Notice the similarities between the characters and especially the protagonists of the two games. He didn't work on any other games in the Shining Force Series (Shining Force II, Gaiden, CD, III) but future games definitely modeled their designs after his characters.
Fangs: The Saga of Wolf Blood
I really don't know too much about this game! Apparently it was an Enix RPG released in 1991 for the PC-88. There's very little information on it in English, but I immediately recognized Yoshitaka Tamaki's art. The protagonist looks like a mix of Max's promoted form from Shining Force and Ain Macdougal from FEDA: Emblem of Justice.
Landstalker and Ladystalker
Landstalker and Ladystalker were isometric action RPG platformers made by Climax for the Genesis and SNES. Yoshitaka Tamaki's work on the games is similar to his artwork from Shining in the Darkness - very emotive faces and slightly more exaggerated proportions than Shining Force and FEDA: Emblem of Justice. Unfortunately it's pretty hard to find images from Ladystalker, which was only released in Japan. Let me know if you've got any!
Alundra
Yoshitaka Tamaki's work on Alundra, while not as mature as his work on Fangs: The Saga of Wolf Blood or FEDA: Emblem of Justice, is significantly less cartoonish than his Shining work. The protagonist Alundra is definitely in the mold of his earlier character Nigel from Landstalker. Alundra was developed by Matrix, a company started by former Climax employees.
FEDA: The Emblem of Justice
After Shining Force, several Climax employees left the company and formed their own, Max Entertainment, bringing Yoshitaka Tamaki with them. Their first (??) game was FEDA: The Emblem of Justice, a Shining Force-style SRPG for the Super Nintendo. While not quite as good as Shining Force, Yoshitaka Tamaki's character designs are some of his best and my personal favorites. While the designs aren't necessarily more realistic than his other work (look at their proportions, all those characters have to be 7 feet tall minimum), they're definitely his grittiest. You also get great, up-close views of them during battle when they perform special attacks, something games like Shining Force and Fire Emblem didn't do.
FEDA was remade for the Saturn and also had a sequel on the Playstation. I'm not sure if he was involved in either of these games. Quite a few characters look like they could have been designed by him, but they were also drawn much differently. I'm not sure, let me know if you have any idea!
Shining Soul and Shining Soul II
Yoshitaka Tamaki worked with Climax again on the Game Boy Advance titles Shining Soul and Shining Soul II, action RPGs that take place in the Shining Universe. Although the characters he designed are distinguishably his, they were drawn in a different style than his earlier work and are somewhat less charming to me.
I'm not too sure what else he's worked on, but I'm sure there's more of it. If you've got any of his artwork, let me know. Anyway, I thought it would be cool to share one of my favorite character designers.
Shining in the Darkness
Yoshitaka Tamaki's work on Shining in the Darkness was light-hearted and charming, a look that characterized his designs with Climax on the Shining and Landstalker series. It introduced a lot of the artistic concepts and recurring imagery of later games, like the general appearance of Shining heroes and the human/animals that appear again. The hero, Pyra, Mylo and other characters all serve as the archetypes for later characters and a handful even return - Darksol and Byron in Shining Force, Pyra in Time Stalkers.
Shining Force
Yoshitaka Tamaki continued working with Climax on Shining Force. His designs maintain the same feel, built on patterns established in Shining in the Darkness, but with more adult-like proportions. Notice the similarities between the characters and especially the protagonists of the two games. He didn't work on any other games in the Shining Force Series (Shining Force II, Gaiden, CD, III) but future games definitely modeled their designs after his characters.
Fangs: The Saga of Wolf Blood
I really don't know too much about this game! Apparently it was an Enix RPG released in 1991 for the PC-88. There's very little information on it in English, but I immediately recognized Yoshitaka Tamaki's art. The protagonist looks like a mix of Max's promoted form from Shining Force and Ain Macdougal from FEDA: Emblem of Justice.
Landstalker and Ladystalker
Landstalker and Ladystalker were isometric action RPG platformers made by Climax for the Genesis and SNES. Yoshitaka Tamaki's work on the games is similar to his artwork from Shining in the Darkness - very emotive faces and slightly more exaggerated proportions than Shining Force and FEDA: Emblem of Justice. Unfortunately it's pretty hard to find images from Ladystalker, which was only released in Japan. Let me know if you've got any!
Alundra
Yoshitaka Tamaki's work on Alundra, while not as mature as his work on Fangs: The Saga of Wolf Blood or FEDA: Emblem of Justice, is significantly less cartoonish than his Shining work. The protagonist Alundra is definitely in the mold of his earlier character Nigel from Landstalker. Alundra was developed by Matrix, a company started by former Climax employees.
FEDA: The Emblem of Justice
After Shining Force, several Climax employees left the company and formed their own, Max Entertainment, bringing Yoshitaka Tamaki with them. Their first (??) game was FEDA: The Emblem of Justice, a Shining Force-style SRPG for the Super Nintendo. While not quite as good as Shining Force, Yoshitaka Tamaki's character designs are some of his best and my personal favorites. While the designs aren't necessarily more realistic than his other work (look at their proportions, all those characters have to be 7 feet tall minimum), they're definitely his grittiest. You also get great, up-close views of them during battle when they perform special attacks, something games like Shining Force and Fire Emblem didn't do.
FEDA was remade for the Saturn and also had a sequel on the Playstation. I'm not sure if he was involved in either of these games. Quite a few characters look like they could have been designed by him, but they were also drawn much differently. I'm not sure, let me know if you have any idea!
Shining Soul and Shining Soul II
Yoshitaka Tamaki worked with Climax again on the Game Boy Advance titles Shining Soul and Shining Soul II, action RPGs that take place in the Shining Universe. Although the characters he designed are distinguishably his, they were drawn in a different style than his earlier work and are somewhat less charming to me.
I'm not too sure what else he's worked on, but I'm sure there's more of it. If you've got any of his artwork, let me know. Anyway, I thought it would be cool to share one of my favorite character designers.
