Yoshinori Kitase (北瀬 佳範, Kitase Yoshinori?, born 23 September 1966) is a Japanese game producer and former game director that has been working for Square Enix since April 1, 1990. He is famous for being the director of Final Fantasy VI (1994), Final Fantasy VII (1997) and Final Fantasy VIII (1999). He is also famous for being the producer of Final Fantasy X (2001), Final Fantasy X-2 (2003), Final Fantasy XIII (2009) and Final Fantasy XIII-2 (2011).
Yoshinori Kitase currently serves as manager of two teams within Square Enix 1st Production Department. One team develops mainline Final Fantasy games for home consoles and is lead by Motomu Toriyama. The other team develops spin-off Final Fantasy games for handheld consoles and is lead by Hajime Tabata. Although Yoshinori Kitase no longer directs mainline Final Fantasy games, he still supervises the scenarios and edits them if he feels they are not competent.
Yoshinori Kitase is also the creator of the "Interactive Movie RPG" game design that was introduced with Final Fantasy X (2001). He further evolved this design approach in Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII (2007) and Final Fantasy XIII (2009).
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