Masaaki Somaki

From Sega Retro

Masaaki Somaki.jpeg
Masaaki Somaki
Employment history:
Divisions:
Role(s): Designer, artist, director

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Masaaki Somaki (杣木 昌明), also known as Rei, is a Japanese video game developer who has worked for Sega, Hitmaker, Genki and Pyramid. At Sega, he is best-known for his work as an assistant designer on Royal Stone: Hirakareshi Toki no Tobira, as a background artist on Virtua Fighter 3, and an assistant director on Cyber Troopers Virtual-On: Marz. Some of his well-known post-Sega works include the PS2 game Racing Battle: C1 Grand Prix and DariusBurst: Another Chronicle.

Career

Masaaki Somaki began his video game career as a high score achiever in what was then-called Furukawa City in Miyagi prefecture[1]. He would enter his name as Spream-Rei or simply Rei [2][1]. He moved to Tokyo in 1986 to work as a clerk at a Shinjuku arcade which was affiliated with Namco[3][1].

In 1992 he also began working as a part-time game designer for Sega's CS2 and CS5 departments which developed Game Gear titles, such as Royal Stone: Hirakareshi Toki no Tobira (with Somaki assisting Ryushin Hamada). After CS5 was dissolved in 1995, he was one of its members of joined AM2, alongside the likes of Takako Kawaguchi and Masaru Nakamura. Somaki took on a role as a 3D model graphic designer beginning with the Virtua Fighter CG Portrait Series, and would create background models for games like Virtua Fighter 3, Fighting Vipers 2 and Outtrigger. He and several other developers involved with the Shenmue series, such as Wataru Sakomura and Takenobu Mitsuyoshi, moved to Hitmaker in 2000, where he became the assistant director of Cyber Troopers Virtual-On: Marz (under Nobuyuki Yamashita).

After leaving Sega, Somaki worked on Racing Battle: C1 Grand Prix for Genki, before moving to Pyramid Inc. where he was a game designer for the Patapon and Darius franchises[4].

Production history

Games

Videos

Magazine articles

Main article: Masaaki Somaki/Magazine articles.

External links

References