Yoshiaki Koizumi
| Yoshiaki Koizumi | |
|---|---|
Koizumi at the 2007 Montreal Games Summit
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| Native name | 小泉 歓晃 |
| Born |
April 29, 1968 Mishima, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan |
| Nationality | Japanese |
| Alma mater | Osaka University of Arts |
| Occupation | Video game designer, director and producer |
| Employer | Nintendo (1991–present) |
| Title | Deputy General Manager of Nintendo EPD |
Yoshiaki Koizumi (小泉 歓晃 Koizumi Yoshiaki?, born April 29, 1968) is a Japanese video game designer, director, and producer. Working for Nintendo, he is the Deputy General Manager of the company's Entertainment Planning & Development division. He is known for his work within the Mario and The Legend of Zelda series.
Koizumi was born in Mishima, Shizuoka on April 29, 1968. He played his first video game, Super Mario Bros., at the age of 21 when he borrowed a friend's Family Computer console. A graduate from the Visual Concept Planning Department of Osaka University of Arts, Koizumi studied film, drama, animation and, to a lesser extent, storyboarding. He had originally intended to become a film director but applied at Nintendo instead to pursue his goal of creating a kind of drama only experienced in video games. The company's close proximity to his university also played a role in his career choice.
After Koizumi had joined Nintendo in April 1991, he was assigned to work on the manual for the action-adventure The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, for which he did the art, layout and writing. In the process, he conceived the game's backstory and the designs of the three goddesses and the star sign associated with them. For the sequel, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, he was again tasked with designing the manual. However, since work on the game had just begun, Koizumi wound up creating its entire story and came up with plot ideas such as the island in a dream. He also worked on the event design for the interactions with the villagers, wrote the owl's and the Wind Fish's lines and designed the bosses' behavioral patterns. Koizumi later experimented with a polygonal, side-scrolling remake of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. Developed for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, the prototype was based on chanbara action, a type of Japanese sword fighting. With Super Mario 64, Koizumi became assistant director and animated the 3D models, among others working on Mario's swimming movements in cooperation with director Shigeru Miyamoto.
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