Akihiro Suzuki

Akihiro Suzuki (鈴木 亮浩, Suzuki Akihiro) is a video game programmer, producer, and director. He is currently the Executive Officer and affiliate for the Omega Force brand in the company's Entertainment Division. He was one of the executive officials for Tecmo after the Koei-Tecmo merger, and the secondary department manager for Koei.

According to him, Suzuki is a history fan who first became interested in video games when he played his older brother's PC during high school. Although he played other historical simulation titles from KOEI, the first game he played and got into was the Romance of the Three Kingdoms series. Suzuki really engaged himself into the company's work when he purchased his own PC during his second year in college. He didn't have programming experience at the time, only vaguely familiar with basic commands due to a short seminar that took place during his math classes. When he began job-hunting, he intensified his studies towards programming as he only wanted to work for KOEI. Suzuki joined KOEI in 1992. If he wasn't accepted, Suzuki jokes that he would have become a teacher instead. Though he applied to be a programmer, Suzuki didn't receive programming tasks when he first started. He was put into sound design, text editing for a quiz game and transferring software for multiple hardware outlets. He admits that he wasn't fond of his early work, but his supervising senior approved of his efforts and accepted him as "the guy who could do anything". By his fifth year, Suzuki was put into the then new division of action games. He recalls that a great deal of the one hundred plus people who worked on Dynasty Warriors 2 were considered newcomers; when the project was successful, they went from zero to heroes of the company. He hopes that future recruits of the company will learn from his experiences, recommending them to learn as much as they can and to always factor in fun for their projects.

Creative Focuses
Suzuki was one of the creative individuals present in Koei's special lecture for inspiring game creators on February 1, 2010. His advice stressed that one must have passion over all else when pursuing their career of choice; getting a job as soon as one graduates is desired but should be a secondary interest. Creativity, awareness, and personal enjoyment for creating games are what he thinks are the key assets of joining video game industry. In his interviews for other titles, he often states that he is always willing to try something new to a title while keeping true to what fans want. He particularly states that the Warriors Orochi series was made for such a purpose.

Regarding his thoughts for the future of the Warriors franchises, he feels that it doesn't look to be a promising one and believes that Japanese consumers –even fans of the franchises– would one day grow tired of them. He feels it's necessary for Omega Force to try to keep branching out and create new titles for Koei like TRINITY: Souls of Zill O'll.

When asked which lord he would like to serve under in the Three Kingdoms era, he answered Liu Bei since he thinks the leader will consider each person's qualities and faults and justly accept them. Suzuki is aware that Lu Bu is not very popular with Chinese audiences and that the idea of him being the strongest is mostly prominent in Japanese media. He considers the latest Dynasty Warriors title a good introduction to studying the Three Kingdoms Era and hopes the character quirks within the main cast provide an interesting presentation for everyone who plays it.

Works

 * Dynasty Warriors series (except for Dynasty Warriors: Online and the pachinko and pachislots) - director, lead programmer, producer
 * Destrega - project director, main programmer
 * Pop Cutie! Street Fashion Simulation - producer
 * Warriors Orochi series - producer
 * Bladestorm: The Hundred Years' War - director
 * TRINITY: Souls of Zill O'll - producer
 * Warriors: Legends of Troy - producer
 * Champion Jockey: Gallop Racer & GI Jockey - producer
 * Bladestorm: Nightmare - producer
 * Sangokushi 13 - producer