[4][5] While at Square, he and his wife Kaori Tanaka (also known as Soraya Saga) would contribute to the development of multiple games including entries in the Final Fantasy series.

[8] Takahashi's ambition and drive prompted Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, then Executive Vice President at Square, to appoint him as director.

[7][8] Following the release of Xenogears, Takahashi became dissatisfied with Square's business approach at the time, which prioritized their major intellectual properties including Final Fantasy.

[10][11][12] In 1999, Takahashi talked with Hirohide Sugiura, who had likewise worked at Square and was beginning to feel frustrated due to a lack of creative freedom.

However, Namco were interested in investing into Monolith Soft as a dedicated subsidiary, whilst handling logistics and marketing so that the core staff could focus on game development.

[10] An important supporter of Monolith Soft was Namco's founder Masaya Nakamura, who shared many of Takahashi and Sugiura's goals and ideals.

[12][18] In 2001, Namco producer Shinji Noguchi and Monolith Soft's Tadashi Nomura conceived a new IP for the GameCube unconnected to Xenosaga.

Titled Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean, development began six months after the concept was formed, with Honne acting as director.

Honne created a pitch themed around a "felt-style recreation of 80s America", but the idea was firmly rejected by series creator Shigesato Itoi.

[24] Following the release of the first Xenosaga game, Takahashi and Sugiura reassessed the internal structure of Monolith Soft, determining that the current lead developers were too old, clashing with their intended goals for the company to foster young talent.

This move also allowed Takahashi a greater degree of creative freedom in a number of projects as opposed to being tied to a single series.

[22][35] The mixed commercial and critical performance of the Xenosaga series left Monolith Soft's development staff in a state of low morale.

The company then received consultation from Shinji Hatano, an executive director at Nintendo, who advised them to continue creating innovative projects.

[13] Nintendo's purchasing of the majority of Monolith Soft's shares from Namco Bandai Holdings was publicly announced in April 2007.

In a statement on the matter, Iwata said that the deal was initiated due to the positive relations between Sugiura and Nintendo, and the two companies' parallel design and development philosophies.

[7][45] Super Robot Wars OG Saga: Endless Frontier, a crossover RPG, was co-developed with Namco Bandai and featured cameo appearances from Monolith Soft's Xenosaga series.

[46][47] Disaster: Day of Crisis, Monolith Soft's first and to-date only non-RPG game, was intended as a showcase for the capabilities of the Wii.

Due to quality concerns and Monolith Soft's unfamiliarity with the Wii hardware, it was delayed from its planned 2006 release by two years.

The director, Koh Kojima, started his directorial debut with this game, having previously written the scenario for Baten Kaitos Origins.

This game also saw a shift away from the narrative-heavy approach of Monolith Soft''s earlier work, which Takahashi stated had been called out as old-fashioned.

Yamagami rejected all of Takahashi's suggestions, instead persuading Nintendo to keep supporting the project and allow the team to complete their work as envisioned.

[75][76] The 1st Production team, known for their work on the Xenoblade Chronicles series, started hiring staff for development of a new RPG project in October 2018.

From the company's inception, Takahashi and Sugiura wanted to give creative freedom to pursue projects outside genre standards, in addition to hiring young staff.

[10][22] An early aim was to encourage younger developers to make their mark in the industry, which at the time was dominated by people in the late 30s and up.

They wanted to balance this with the financial logistics of game design rather than having budgetary concerns stifle the creative flare of the staff.

[91] Speaking about the move from Namco Bandai to Nintendo, Sugiura commented that it was a challenge to only be developing games for a single group of consoles.

Nintendo endorsed the challenge to Monolith Soft with incentives such as making a particular game within given hardware specifications, providing the company time and resources to accomplish that.

[4] According to a 2012 interview with Takahashi, a prerequisite for working at Monolith Soft is a deep passion for games in addition to general knowledge outside the field.