Takeshi Miyaji, best known as one of the directors on the original Grandia, recently died at the age of 45.
This is according to a statement sent out by G-Mode, as reported on by Andriasang. He was a co-founder and the CEO of G-Mode, a mobile games developer in Japan. Early in his career, he was involved with games like Silpheed and Lunar: The Silver Star. Following that, he had worked at Game Arts along with his brother, Yoichi Miyaji, who continues to serve as the company’s president CEO.
While there, Takeshi was one of the key players in the development of the first two games in the Grandia RPG series (first as a director, and then as a producer). The first was originally released for Sega Saturn, but only made it to the United States as a PlayStation 1 game in 1999. (It has since been re-released as a PS1 Classic on the PlayStation Network.) It was very well received by critics at the time and is still highly regarded today. In 1999, it was faced with big competition as Final Fantasy VIII, the sequel to one of the most popular RPGs of all time, FFVII, had been released earlier in the year.
