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lead=yes, also known as Phoenix Rie, was a Japanese video game artist, Game director, and producer employed by Sega from 1984 until her death. She is primarily known for her work on role-playing video games including the original Phantasy Star series, the 7th Dragon series, and Skies of Arcadia (2000). She is often recognized as one of the first successful women in the video game industry.
Kodama began her career at Sega as a graphic designer on arcade games and Master System games, including Alex Kidd in Miracle World (1986) and Phantasy Star (1987). The success of Phantasy Star led her to continue with the series thereafter, including directing (1993) for the Sega Genesis. She did artwork for other Genesis games, including Altered Beast (1988) and Sonic the Hedgehog (1991). Later, as producer, she oversaw the development of several Sega video games, including the critically successful Skies of Arcadia. Kodama remained a producer at Sega until her death. She received the Pioneer Award at the 2018 Game Developers Choice Awards in recognition of her lifelong contributions to video games.
Kodama credited herself as "Phoenix Rie", , or some close variation in many of her early works. This was because at the time Sega did not allow developers to place their real names in their games. The pseudonym was based on the manga character Phoenix Ikki from Saint Seiya.
One of the key design philosophies for Phantasy Star was to do things differently from existing RPGs, particularly the Dragon Quest series which she believed was too simple and pure of a fantasy world. One such challenge to differentiate Phantasy Star was to create a female hero. The female protagonist Alis, and another character, Lutz, were designed by Kodama. Other characters, as well as the game's monsters, were designed by other people. In the original story drafts, Lutz was written as intersex, and could become either male or female later in the game. She thought this was interesting, so chose to give Lutz an androgynous appearance in the final game. In this game and later Phantasy Star games, Kodama enjoyed creating a cast of characters uniting for a common purpose, regardless of gender, species, or home planet.
Phantasy Star was a critical and commercial success and a benchmark title for both the industry and the RPG genre. In later years, Kodama continued her work on the Phantasy Star series. She again led the graphic design for Phantasy Star II (1989) and later directed (1993). She helped during the planning stages of (1990). She also supervised the development of two Phantasy Star Collection compilations as well as remakes of Phantasy Star and Phantasy Star II for the PlayStation 2.
Kodama soon became a producer at the Sega Wow division and led the development of Skies of Arcadia, which released for the Dreamcast in 2000. As her first 3D RPG, Kodama felt her freedom of expression had expanded. The project began because her team wanted to create a completely 3D RPG for the Sega Saturn. The project was moved to the Dreamcast when the content became too large for the Saturn to process. According to Kodama, a defining element during development was to not rely on advanced graphics and particularly the CGI movies that were popular in games at the time, which Kodama felt took control away from the player. Kodama has stated that Skies of Arcadia along with the Phantasy Star series were her favorite projects she worked on.
In the mid-2000s, Kodama served as producer on edutainment games for the Nintendo DS and PlayStation Portable. Her last notable work was leading the production of the 7th Dragon series. The series includes 7th Dragon for the Nintendo DS, 7th Dragon 2020 and 7th Dragon 2020-II for the PlayStation Portable, and 7th Dragon III Code: VFD for the Nintendo 3DS . In 2018, she was the lead producer of the Sega Ages series.
Kodama believed that women are gradually taking a greater interest in gaming. She has observed that more girls are growing up around games, and thus are more willing to purchase them or enter the industry when older. In particular, she believed girls who enjoy RPGs will have a greater desire to work in the industry. She also thought it's more common for Japanese women to enter the field than other women because young girls enjoy games there more than in other countries. In 2010, she felt there were more female gamers in Japan due to the increase in games centered around cooking and fashion.
While Kodama did not design her games strictly for a female audience, she avoided including elements that treat women unfairly. She claimed that many games glorify violence and war which attracts male players overwhelmingly, so companies should be mindful and include elements that appeal to both genders if they want a larger female player base. Over time, she has found that there are more strong-willed women in games for female audiences. When making female characters herself, she desired to make characters both genders can relate to. However, since the majority of gamers are still male, and the nature of RPGs is to make the player feel as if they are the character, she understood why many companies gravitate to male heroes.
Kodama received the Pioneer Award for the 2018 Game Developers Choice Awards for her long career as a graphic artist, director and producer on numerous Sega titles. The ceremony was held at the 2019 Game Developers Conference in March 2019. Although Kodama no longer drew art assets directly for her games, she did paint and make handcrafts and accessories in her free time. She was also a fan of Dungeons & Dragons and the character Raistlin Majere from the Dragonlance series. She played the D&D table-top games and read the novels. She enjoyed the way dragons are portrayed with different personalities in western fantasy, which is different from dragons in Japanese culture. Kodama said that her favorite video game was Final Fantasy IV (1991).
| Quartet | Arcade game, Master System | |
| Zillion | Master System | |
| Fantasy Zone II | ||
| Miracle Warriors | ||
| Phantasy Star | ||
| SpellCaster | ||
| Altered Beast | Sega Genesis | |
| Phantasy Star II | ||
| Mystic Defender | ||
| Nou ni Kaikan Aha Taiken! | PlayStation Portable | |
| Nou ni Kaikan Minna de Aha Taiken! | ||
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