Tetsuya Nomura - Your Thoughts?

[Forsaken Lover]

I pick Option 3. he did design Seifer Almasy and Auron. They do look badass and their outfits do fit their characters very well.

Pretty much everything else he designed was lame though.

[Bolivar]

Good thread, FL, although I gotta say the thread options are limited.

It kinda seems like the internet community assumes that you either ignorantly love nomura, hate him, like his monster designs, or... I don't know, fourth option! In any case, I'm sure the overhwhelming majority of FF fans don't even know who he is, or care.

If you reversed Option 3 - 80% aewsome 20% crap, i guess that'd be me. The games which he worked on as character designer are among my favorite, the fans and critics overwhelmingly agree. However, I think the position he fulfilled best was "Battle Director", I'll leave you all to figure out which game I'm talking about.

[Laddy]

I like him. Although he uintentionally had otaku think they belong in the gaming world, he ultimately became one of my favorite developers ever. Take that Anti-FFVII bandwagon!

[Galvatron]

His character designs in FF7 and 8 were pretty cool. By FFX though, it was just retarded. Mostly it was Lulu's dress. LOOK AT IT. LOOK AT ALL THOSE BELTS. Then Kingdom Hearts, Donald's entire hat is a zipper with a belt on it holding it to his head, Cloud was raped horribly with all those belts, bandages on the buster sword, retarded wing. His recent work is quite frankly, disgusting. The whole "One Wing lol I'm deep" crap is gut wrenching. His characters all look like girls, If you took the hair away from AC Cloud's face and Lightning's face and looked at their faces alone, you would see no difference. Nomura is a joke.

[Alucard von Elru]

I'm not voting, because there isn't a 50/50 thread option. Seriously, what the hell? Unlike a lot of people, I don't think his work is lame or ridiculous. At the same time, however, it's not exactly as refined as Katsumi Yokota or Akihiko Yoshida. So, I'm kind of "meh" on the whole Nomura topic. He's made things that I like, and things that I don't. I don't love him, I don't hate him. He's just kind of "there", for the most part. My world would probably be the same with or without his designs.

EDIT: Actually, I really like his design work for the 32 bit gen, like the Parasite Eve titles and FFVIII. FFX has some nice work, as well. Post-FFX, I feel his design work really got lazy and uncreative. In no small part due to the fact that Nomura's workload has increased 200x compared to what it once was, so instead of doing a few designs of generally high quality, he has to do dozens of crappy ones to meet deadlines. Ugh.

[Rocket Edge]

He does some things that annoy me, but I can't dispute the quality of some of the work he has done. He's a genious.

[Renmiri]

Genius!!!! :bigsmile:

But my friends who are oldtimers and love FFVI or older stuff call him "Tetsuckya" :p

[Wolf Kanno]

I have mixed feeling of Nomura. I feel he's the embodiment of style over substance and as long as it "looks cool" he'll exploit it. I do like his early monster designs as well as his heavy anime influenced designs. His more realistic designs in VIII and X leave me cold though. VIII's character designs were boring but not entirely his fault since the team was hoping for an "everday modern feel" for the characters but the ones in X were downright gaudy.

Yes his designs have a tendency to look the same but that happens with most artist. I'm certain if you grabbed a guy off the streets and showed him a head shot of Amano's designs for Rosa, Terra, Celes, and Dagger they would say they were all the same person... As a director, he's good at making wire-fu but he needs a better writer for his stories...

[Necronopticous]

The undisputed MVP in the dilution of Final Fantasy, and a pretty notable dude in the extirpation of Square's hard-earned reputation, in general.

[Jessweeee♪]

GENIUS! n.n

[LunarWeaver]

I want his babies.

[Roto13]

The handful of decent character designs are most likely total flukes as the rest of his work is pure garbage.

[Avarice-ness]

The handful of decent character designs are most likely total flukes as the rest of his work is pure garbage.

Agree'd. With like Seifer and Auron, you have to understand that he prolly actually toned himself down with them because they look like they fit into the game. Meaning the character artist director prolly gave certain guidelines for the look and feel or the charas.

Looking at Seifer and Auron versus characters in which he has -all- control over, (like Kingdom hearts series and FFXII).. well.. you can see a slight if not obvious difference.

Either way, I just think he's over rated. Not only that, but he does what I see many teenagers do on DeviantArt. Granted they're prolly copying his general style with belts and punk + "modern" styles, but either way his artistic skills are really that of a good amount of people I've seen on DevArt who draw the same things that are only 17.

And because of that, it makes me wonder -why- he's so loved, it can't be because of his art skills and style crossovers arn't really that new.

[Takara]

I'm sure you meant XIII, Ava, not XII. xD

I like -SOME- of his designs, but the rest I think are just downright ridiculous.

[Captain Maxx Power]

Everyone on the internet hates him. Therefore I must comply lest I upset someone.

[cloud21zidane16]

The handful of decent character designs are most likely total flukes as the rest of his work is pure garbage.

Agree'd. With like Seifer and Auron, you have to understand that he prolly actually toned himself down with them because they look like they fit into the game. Meaning the character artist director prolly gave certain guidelines for the look and feel or the charas.

Looking at Seifer and Auron versus characters in which he has -all- control over, (like Kingdom hearts series and FFXII).. well.. you can see a slight if not obvious difference.

Either way, I just think he's over rated. Not only that, but he does what I see many teenagers do on DeviantArt. Granted they're prolly copying his general style with belts and punk + "modern" styles, but either way his artistic skills are really that of a good amount of people I've seen on DevArt who draw the same things that are only 17.

And because of that, it makes me wonder -why- he's so loved, it can't be because of his art skills and style crossovers arn't really that new.

Thats a good point.

[Avarice-ness]

I'm sure you meant XIII, Ava, not XII. xD

I like -SOME- of his designs, but the rest I think are just downright ridiculous.

Whoops! I stand corrected. Yeah FFXIII. XD

[scrumpleberry]

He's pretty talented technically, but his designs aren't brilliant. Nothing on Amano, but I don't hate him. Overuse of belts mebbe. Sometimes he does something like Nooj and fails instantly.

[Polaris]

He's a genious to me! I love all the stuff I've seen of him so far!

[Necronopticous]

The problem with Tetsuya Nomura is not that he is creating boring, uninspired characters, but that he is now allowed to decide what these boring, uninspired characters do. If he was only making dumb-looking characters, he'd be back where he belongs, and we wouldn't be stuck with games like Kingdom Hearts (3456+43)/24 Days on the horizon.

[Bolivar]

^ um, there are games where he is "back in his place."

[Nifleheim7]

I liked his character designs especially the ones in FFX but i think he is a bit overrated and takes more credit than he deserves.

[Vivisteiner]

He's a mixed bag. I really like some of his designs whereas others are just really lame. Im not a fan, but to say he hasnt come out with some of the most well-known video game characters of all time would be a lie.

[NeoCracker]

Well, he's got nothing on Persona 3's Character Design, thats for sure. :p

But more on topic, I think he's pretty good. Nothing special, but I do enjoy his work.

[Relapse]

op3.

[Momiji]

As I expected, the options are far too biased to get my opinion across.

Most of Tetsuya Nomura's character designs are overused and show a lack of variety (you can only use so many zippers...). Because of this, pretty much all of his characters look ridiculous in such silly costumes. I liked a few of his designs, but that's about it. I'd like to see more RPGs where the characters dress normally.

As for Tetsuya, 5% okay, 95% dull, overused, stale repetition. I voted option 2 nevertheless.

[Fynn]

His works don't bother me. He has a decent drawing style and I don't think that his designs are as bad as other people say. I don't really have any feelings towards Nomura's drawings and I like his stories. Of course, when it comes to art, no one can beat Amano, 'cause it actually IS "art".

[Nifleheim7]

Of course, when it comes to art, no one can beat Amano, 'cause it actually IS "art".

I agree.I would love to see a Final Fantasy game that is more directly based in his style...Hell,if i was SE i would have made the guy an art director in one second!A game that visually represents his style would have been a dream come true...
Also,as a concept artist i prefer much more Akihiko Yoshida than Nomura.

[Northcrest]

I liked all of his ideas.

[Dr.M]

since VII the party has always been the same kind of characters. proganist, hot chic, other hot chic, old wise guy, teenage girl, other guy thats a best friend of some describtion, and maybe other guy. all of his designs do look the same and yeah, he dose re-use and exploit what looks cool (rikku and yuffie are practically wearing the same thing in swapped colours). i think all of his main male characters have an ear ring like he dose, its his trademark. its kind of cute and i think he's made final fantasy his own game. the way the characters look is a hugh thing to concider when it comes to how they want to present the games and the world in which the characters live in to us. they have to appeal to us and i think he dose that well but its just not original anymore. i love his work. its really easy to identify.

[White Queen]

Thanks to him the amazing character of Tifa will always be seen as a second-rate slut, all because of that damn mini-mini-mini-mini-skirt! Why oh why did he not go with the long pants...
Yeah his designs did get a little stale by the time FFX came along (I hated FFX's outfits). He has a very distinct style and I think like fashion it eventually goes 'out' after a while...

[Bahamut2000X]

The handful of decent character designs are most likely total flukes as the rest of his work is pure garbage.

Agreed.

Nomura has nothing on Amano.

Besides how can anyone like such a hack who openly admits his latest character (Lightning) is just a female rendition of Cloud? Cloud....Squall....Tidus....Lightning. THEIR THE SAME PERSON! Just throw on new clothes and give them a new big sword and call it a day I guess.

[Slothy]

I like his character designs in VII and X actually, though his style grows stale for me after a while since there's nothing that distinguishes it except for leather and belts/buckles. Now that that little jab is out of the way though we can get to more serious discussion from me.

I do enjoy the original Kingdom Hearts a lot and I like Advent Children for being a fun action movie, but as a game designer/producer/director, he leaves a lot to be desired, especially after the first KH. I cut that game a lot of slack because despite being flawed in many ways the story, concept and gameplay were all inherently enjoyable the first time out. The problem for me is that he's yet to prove that he can make a game that is actually well designed and executed. He is anything but a visionary game developer. In fact, I'd say that he seems more like someone who knows how to make a game on an intellectual level, but lacks the natural creative talent for it, or the obsessive perfectionism to make sure they get it right every time. Which is probably why all of his efforts are pretty average. At least the novelty of a Square/Disney crossover kind of blinded me to it a bit the first time (though I do think it was actually better made than anything else he's done on his own).

[Bolivar]

^ a well thought out post in an outdated thread, although I disagree with you completely on the quality of his games. Well, some of them, I don't follow this person's works as some of the haters in this forum would expect one appreciative of his work to do.

I'm still wondering why there wasn't a fourth option reversing option 3. I would have voted in that case.

[Germ Hamee]

I like him when he's not going insane with slapping zippers on anything that moves. Which is rare these days, but his older work is pretty good and translates well into the games they're made for.

[Dreddz]

I actually like his designs. They differentiate enough from other games to give his games a bigger personality. Some are absolute garbage though.

[Edge7]

I like Nomura, but Amuro ftw. I still haven't thrown away the box for ff4 advance (a game I got in like 2005) because I like his art. I also bought the book Vampire Hunter D because I recognize his work.

[Slade]

50/50 probably. His designs from VII and VIII were awesome. After that I feel he got a tad stale and just basically rehashed alot of his characters. I mean, I remember a while back when the characters from X were first released comparing how many of them, like Yuna and Tidus, looked alot like previous characters. In saying that though, characters like Auron, Wakka and Kimarhi were pretty nicely designed and fresh.

I think of Nomura's stuff as 'Hit and Miss'. I'm not overly fond of his characters from the upcoming XIII and it's many spinoffs, although the games look cool. I'm hoping that the next installment sees a brand new character designer with some brand new ideas. It's happened before. IX and XII had characters with new and fresh designs, especially IX.

On a side note, I have no problem with the belts and zips, I'm quite fond of them and sometimes use them on my own characters.

[Shlup]

You are attempting to participate in a discussion that happened almost a year ago. Isn't that eerie? Like talking to ghosts.

Please don't post in threads that haven't been posted in in over a month. You're welcome to remake the topic. <3