>>58845270Masuda co-directed Gold and Silver, he joined the GS development team after Spaceworld 97 and said it was all in disarray. The game got totally reworked after that, and Tajiri barely made appearances after Gold and Silver came out apart from some early interviews relating to the game. He appeared on Game Center CX for FRLG, and occasionally appeared in the credits up to DP, though it was more about consulting than any real contribution.
Masuda was the only director for Crystal, the director for Ruby and Sapphire which was based on his childhood summers in Kyushu, director for FRLG, director for DP, director for BW, director for XY, and director for LGPE. The document describes the era from RS to XY as the era where Masuda dominated and micromanaged everything, an era of stifled creativity where there was nepotism with people Masuda favored, and Masuda was more concerned with brand image, and that during the development of X and Y, there was a heated argument between Sugimori and Masuda which ultimately resulted in Masuda no longer being allowed to direct. Obviously he did direct LGPE which came after, but it was also a remake... of a game that had already been remade, and Masuda moved on to TPC after even though was still serving as a face for the franchise up through Gen VIII like how Aonuma is the face of Zelda even though he's more of a producer for the franchise than an actual director.
Masuda and Sugimori are also founding members of Game Freak as an actual video game development company, though Sugimori has greater tenure as he was involved as the artist when it was just him and Tajiri making self-published magazines. We've seen from other internal meetings that Sugimori can veto ideas for other areas of the franchise, like the pitch for the movie about the guy working at a daycare where somebody leaves his Pokémon but never comes back because he committed suicide.
