He spearheaded the Xenogears, Xenosaga (Ep1 and 3 anyway) and Xenoblade projects; they were his main creations.Each of those set of games are seen as some of the best, if not best JRPG's in their generation but I see very little praise for him or even acknowledgement of his existence. Do you feel he is underrated or overlooked?

He was also graphics director for Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI.

He is a very damn good developer. Too bad Sony didn't buy Monolith. :(

You're not joking.

Are you.

No, the man isn't underrated or underappreciated, even if I didn't know his name before this topic was made. How could he be? He has fans in legion who proclaim his games the best of the genre, or the best storytelling in the medium - shit, I've heard a few people call Xenogears the greatest story ever told. It's impossible for a man to be underrated with the kind of following this guy has.

Underexposed? Eh, maybe. It just means his work doesn't have wide enough appeal to get tons of people to play it through word of mouth.

Neh.. I vote for Tim Langdell... from Edge Games.. he has made no game since 1994 and keeps sueing others for the use of the word Edge in their games... ^_^

Exactly what I mean. He is overlooked, his name has no power in itself. Xenogears does have the greatest story ever told.

No. Xenogears and the Xenosaga series (Episode 1 and 3 in particular) have a HUGE fanbase. Many people see those games as having, possibly, the greatest stories you'll find in a game. Xenoblade (judging by the reception from Japan and those who imported it) seems like it will be no different and will have a large following here as well.

I'm quite glad for this since Xenoblade would have had to of been a very different game design wise.  It's very open, almost in a GTA type sense, when you can see a big stone hand off in the distance you can run up to it, probably climb it, to find a level 100 monster waiting to kill you.  Thing is open world games are VERY expensive on the HD consoles which is why if you see them they're often a big deal but you don't see lower budget JRPGs having those types of experiences, hell even FFXIII became more linear to be cost effective so they could make it look really good, it'd be a damn shame if Xenoblade turned into a FFXIII or a White Knight Chronicles.

1. His work is known, he doesn't need to be a celebrity to be appreciated.

2. Granted I haven't played Xenogears but this is an absolutely absurd notion at face. How many stories are you comparing Xenogears to? Do you know how many?

Khuutra, leave him alone!

Xenogears, in my opinion, has the greatest story and characters to have ever appear in a video game (and I played all of the usual "contenders"), and an amazing story for pretty much every media form, however, I don't know if it's the best overall because I didn't read books like Ulyssys or stuff like that.

And Takahashi isn't underrated, he's just unknown.

I think that anyoen who knows his name thinks of him as one of gaming's greatest.

I take it that you want summa this.