User:Danjewell/Kotaro Hayashida

Kotaro Hayashida (小太郎林田 Kotarō Hayashida), also known by the psuedonym Ossale Kohta (オサール・コウタ), is a Japanese video game designer best known for his work at Sega, which he joined in 1983. He has worked on games such as Alex Kidd in Miracle World and Phantasy Star.

Career
In 1983, Hayashida, then a recent college graduate, saw a SEGA job advertisement in a magazine. He took the Shinkansen to Ōta, Tokyo, but got lost on the way to the main headquarters and ended up at one of Sega's factories instead. An employee gave him a lift to Sega's headquarters, and following an interview he was given a job. He also had a scheduled interview with Namco, but chose to accept the job at Sega.

Early career
When Hayashida joined Sega, the company had only just started developing video game consoles. As a result, the first game he worked on was an arcade game, the unreleased Chain Pit. His first released game was Hussle Chumy for the SG-1000. After this he worked on numerous titles, including Pitfall II, My Hero and Ninja Princess.

Alex Kidd in Miracle World
Hayashida had already completed 10 games when he began work on Alex Kidd in Miracle World in 1986. In the previous year Sega had split development into two divisions, one for arcade and the other for console. Alex Kidd was a product of the second development unit.

At that time, Super Mario Bros. had seen much success. Sega decided that in order to compete, it needed to create similar property for the Master System. He and his team therefore began development of an action game.

Later career
After Alex Kidd, Hayashida worked on Phantasy Star under the psuedonym "Ossale Kohta". He was the game's main planner. He continued to develop for Sega into the 90s, with his last credit being the 32x port of Space Harrier.

After leaving Sega, he went on to work for the Japanese developer Game Arts. There he worked on Grandia for the Playstation in 1999, and more recently Bomberman Generation on Gamecube.

Games

 * Hustle Chumy (1984)
 * Champion Pro Wrestling (1985)
 * Zoom 909 (SG-1000) (1985)
 * Pitfall II (SG-1000) (1985)
 * Great Soccer (1985)
 * TransBot (Master System) (1985)
 * Pit Pot (1985)
 * My Hero (Master System) (1986)
 * Ninja Princess (1986)
 * Pro Wrestling (1986)
 * Alex Kidd in Miracle World (1986) — (as Kotaro)
 * Woody Pop (Master System) (1987)
 * Zillion (1987) — Plan (as Ossale Kohta)
 * Alex Kidd BMX Trial (1987)
 * Phantasy Star (1987) — Scenario and supervision (as Ossale Kohta)
 * Tensai Bakabon (1988)
 * Super Racing (1988)
 * Space Harrier II (Mega Drive) (1988) — Planner (as Ossale Kohta)
 * Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle (1989)
 * Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom (1990) — Special Thanks (as Ossale Kohta)
 * Pyramid Magic (1991) — Special Thanks (as Ossale)
 * Putter Golf (1991) — Special Thanks (as Ossale)
 * Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium (1993) — Special Thanks (as K.Hayashida)
 * After Burner Complete (1994) — Special Thanks (as K.Hayashida)
 * Space Harrier (32X Version) (1994) — Special Thanks (as K.Hayashida)