Shining Force Illustrator And Character Designer Yoshitaka Tamaki Passes Away At Age 55

The art and video game world lost one of its most talented artists. Yoshitaka Tamaki, known for the character designs of Sega's Shining Force and many other RPGs produced by Climax Entertainment, died on July 13th after a battle with lung cancer. The post was made from Tamaki's Twitter/X account by whomever has control over it. According to the post, he continued to work through his illness up until his death.

Yoshitaka Tamaki passed away from lung cancer on July 13, 2023. He had continued to receive medical treatment in accordance with his wish to continue working until the end, but he passed away from the disease. The funeral was attended only by close family members.I hope that the work that he devoted his life to as a game creator will always be remembered.Thank you very much.

玉木　美孝が2023年7月13日に肺癌で逝去致しました最後まで仕事を続けたいと言う本人の希望により療養を続けてまいりましたが，帰らぬ身となりました。葬儀は近親者のみにて終えましたゲームクリエイターである彼の命を注いだ仕事をいつまでも忘れないで頂けたらと願っていますありがとうございました pic.twitter.com/BWzqtrQf05
— 玉木美孝 -Yoshitaka Tamaki - (@f3PAg2NPxL7Rvtn) September 29, 2023

Tamaki began his work as an assistant for manga artist Kenichi Kotani (Desire, Kimami ni Idol). As a freelance artist, he got his start in video games when hired by Enix. While there, he was noticed by the president of Camelot Hiroyuki Takahashi (the studio known for Golden Sun, the Shining series, and producers of many of the Mario sports games) and worked on his first game, Shining in the Darkness.

By 1999, Tamaki founded Salamander Factory, serving as a graphic/character designer and continuing his work on the Stalker series with Timestalkers for the Sega Dreamcast. Yohsitaka also designed the characters and wrote the original story for the FEDA: The Emblem of Justice for the Super Famicom. His non-Sega related works include Alundra for Sony PlayStation and Lady Stalker on the Super Famicom