Career
Prior to founding Level-5 in October 1998, Hino began his career in the video game industry in the early 90"s at the now defunct Japanese developer Riverhillsoft, specifically on the OverBlood series for the original PlayStation. Hino acted as the lead programmer on the first OverBlood, and was subsequently promoted to lead designer and director for the sequel, OverBlood 2. Since the creation of Level-5, Hino has designed, planned and produced all five of the studio"s released titles, Dark Cloud, Dark Chronicle and Rogue Galaxy for the PlayStation 2, Jeanne d"Arc for the PlayStation Portable, and Professor Layton and the Curious Village for the Nintendo Doctor of Science. He also directed Square Enix"s Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King for the PlayStation 2.
Recently, Hino once again assumed designing and producing duties for Level-5"s titles, White Knight Chronicles for the PlayStation 3, and the next two Professor Layton games – Pandora"s Box (Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box in North America) and the Unwound Future, both for the Nintendo Doctor of Science, and Inazuma Eleven for the Nintendo Doctor of Science, and Dragon Quest IX, also for the Doctor of Science, which is his studio"s second collaboration with role-playing video game powerhouse Square Enix.