Last Friday was a sad day for Japanese role-playing game fans. G-mode CEO Takeshi Miyaji, who was also well known for starting up game development company Game Arts, passed away on the July 29. Miyaji was 45 years old.
You may be wondering why this was posted on a SEGA website, but if you go through the developer’s Gameography, you’d find that a majority of their games have found homes on SEGA consoles. Grandia 2 is still one of the best reasons for owning a Dreamcast (it was ported to the PS2, post-Dreamcast days but was inferior to the DC version).
The loss of Miyagi San is a loss for the game industry and fans like us who grew up on true Blue games. Miyaji San started Game Arts back in 1985 alongside his brother Yoichi Miyaji, who is the current CEO of the company. Game Arts is well known in the gaming community for creating games like Silpheed (Sega CD), and Gun Griffon (Sega Saturn), as well as the Lunar and Grandia series. A few staff members of Game Arts also helped develop Super Smash Bros. Brawl for the Wii.
Rest in Peace Takeshi Miyaji, our hearts go out to his family and friends.
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I tried not to be to opinionated in the news post, but this is truly a tragedy and I would like to thank GameArts for the wonderful games they have given us.
Fans of GameArts would know why I uploaded a picture of Mareg.
I agree with cube_b3. Evolution and grandia 2 were the 2 games that introdudec me to the first great jrpg experiences on the dreamcast and grandia 2 really stood out for me back then. I really loved that game so much (better than any grandia that was made after they were taken by square enix).
Sad news, but tbh I don’t know why you uploaded a picture of mareg.
Sad news. RIP and thanks for giving us Game Arts
Granas this is my first and final prayer! Let them make a new Grandia.
SPOILERS of Grandia 2 AHEAD:
@ Crazytails: Mareg doesn’t make it to the end of the game, but his actions aren’t forgotten. GameArts still continues with the co-founder his brother.
I wasn’t a noobie to RPG’s when I played Grandia as I had already beaten Phantasy Star 4 and Skies, but Grandia still shock things up for me.
Skies of Arcadia was far to similar to Phantasy Star in terms of story telling where as Grandia was more linear and wasn’t open world but the story discussed themes that were never touched in any other RPG I had played.
it also has probably the best battle system of any rpg. Jess sayin.
Grandia is one of my favorite RPG series and it’s sad it hear that one of the creators of the stuido that developed it has passed. You will be missed Takeshi Miyaji.
@Cube,
haven’t played the game in the longest time, but I remember that yeah.