Sakaguchi or Nomura?

[Rostum]

Well, I guess this kind of sparked a debate in the FF7:AC forums, but I thought I'd post it here in general gaming to get a wider range of responses. Basically, I didn't put this in the Square-Enix section because Sakaguchi has his own company (Mistwalker, for anyone who didn't know).

So, who do you like the best? Hironobu Sakaguchi or Tetsuya Nomura? Also, what are your opinions on Sakaguchi leaving Square to create Mistwalker?

Please keep all fanboyism out of this, and hopefully we can keep it sensible.

[Mirage]

It's a disgrace to even try comparing them.

[Zeromus_X]

I would have to say I like Sakaguchi more, even though I have nothing against Nomura. I guess I just like the overlying theme throughout many of Sakaguchi's works.

I think it's great that Sakaguchi is working on other games now with Mistwalker. It was probably a breath of fresh air to him leaving the company and working on original games that weren't Final Fantasy.

As an aside, wiith so many RPGs from Mistwalker (among other developers) coming out on the 360, it's really making me consider getting one.

[Rostum]

It's a disgrace to even try comparing them.

Please, elaborate. I'd rather see decent input, than one liner trolling posts.

I would have to say I like Sakaguchi more, even though I have nothing against Nomura. I guess I just like the overlying theme throughout many of Sakaguchi's works.

I think it's great that Sakaguchi is working on other games now with Mistwalker. It was probably a breath of fresh air to him leaving the company and working on original games that weren't Final Fantasy.

As an aside, wiith so many RPGs from Mistwalker (among other developers) coming out on the 360, it's really making me consider getting one.

I am going to agree with you. I really do like Sakaguchi a lot more than Nomura, but in saying that I really don't mind a bit of Nomura here and there (for instance, Kingdom Hearts).

With Sakaguchi, it just feels 'right', and more mature overall. If that makes any sense. And the fact that he is bringing more RPG's to the Xbox360 has got me thinking about getting one.

Aside. I saw Nobuo Uematsu's profile on the Mistwalker website; I'm very excited; he is my Elvis.

[Mirage]

Okay then.

First, I dislike Nomura's character designs. It seems to me that he lacks inspiration, and a lot of their faces end up looking similar. I realise though that this isn't too relevant in a Nomura vs Sakaguchi debate, because Sakaguchi doesn't do character designs. Still, it counts as a minus in my overall opinion on Nomura.

The other reason I have might be a bit biased, and could also be because I'm growing older, but I feel that some of the more recent games simply make less of an impact on me, and that correlates with Sakaguchi having a lesser and lesser role.

But the reason for my first post in here is basically that Nomura is just mainly a character designer, and at that, not the best I've seen, while Sakaguchi is the producer of the games that I regard as the best ones. That's why I don't think they're even in the same league.

[JKTrix]

A Matsuno is fine too.

I'm honestly not a Final Fantasy fan, but I will say that the Sakaguchi-era FFs appeal more to me. Haven't been interested in any of the 3-D FFs until 12 (which was Matsuno's baby). I likes Kingdom Hearts though, but I'm looking forward to Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey more than I'm looking forward to Kingdom Hearts 3.

[Rostum]

A Matsuno is fine too.

Ah, cool. I've never really known much about Matsuno, so thanks. While we're on the subject of bringing up a few others that were previously or are with Square Enix, another name to mention would be Masato Kato for his work on Chrono Trigger / Cross, Xenogears, Final Fantasy VII / XI.

(Not to mention he is Yasunori Mitsuda's good friend, who is another favourite composer of mine.)

Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey more than I'm looking forward to Kingdom Hearts 3.

Yes, I'm definitely looking forward to checking those two games out. Granted I don't have an Xbox360, but we'll see how things pan out by the time they reach Australia (if they do).

[Ishin Ookami]

For me, it's easily sakaguchi. No contest really, and it really is a disgrace to compare the two.

First of all, I will talk more about nomura's character "designs". And by that I mean he doesn't so much design characters as he rips of archetypes from anime and japanese culture. The males are all cut from the same cloth. Typically angsty pretty boys that could have stepped out of any sailor moon episode. Auron, his most "creative" (IE lifted from various sources) design is a bit of Cloud Strife (who imself looks like he stepped out of the eighties anime Beserk) mixed with a buddhist monk and a stereotypical samurai.

Then there are the Female designs he does. Once again, very derivitive designs that are always based on the same model. It's either they stepped out of a shojo anime or right out of a geisha house (IE yuna and lulu). and while I find his work on FFX to be awful (whats up with holy icons in body paint and G-Strings) It's his work on X-2 that makes me want to wash my eyes out with bleach. Worst story EVER in a FF title painted over with his own personal final fantasy. I mean when you take a religious icon like yuna and strip her of all her clothes just for fun, you know you got some funky fetishes the public has no business knowing about. I see X-2 of Nomura's way of giving the middle finger to sakaguchi after he left, since X was sakaguchi's project.

Oh yah, and If I live to be a million, I'll still never understand what people see in sephiroth. V-neck leather and a unhealthy fascination with cloud do not a classic villain make. He's sesshomaru from Inu Yasha with both arms, less personality, and a worse sense of fashion.

Then there is His less than stellar work as a director. A director is responsible for the entire final product, but typically it's the story, the characters, and the writing that the director focuses on the most. In this sense, Nomura is a spectacular failure. the story, characters, and events in FFVIII were all awful, and felt like a four year olds fan fiction then an actual story. X-2 was even worse from a storytelling point of view. Kingdom Hearts was actually decent for a while, I like some of the plot twists and themes, but then the story imploded for the final quarter. It was just so contrived and idiotic. How is it the light from kingdom hearts destroys ansem, who has become a heartless, yet the gates to kingdom hearts have to be sealed because it is overrun with enough heartless to destroy the universe. Arrrrrggghh. And the sequel was even worse. Now sora is all grown up and a badarse... but still deeply sensitive (arent they all) and thats about it for any real story. The rest is final fantasy and Disney fanservice.

Then there was advent children. The film was a terrible storytelling train wreck, and anyone who tells you different is either getting paid to lie to you, a FFVII fanboy, or a sadist. The animation was pretty stiff, almost to the point of making the film look like a puppet show. I'm a action buff, and I can tell you the action scenes were every bit as haphazzard and poorly thought out as the story.

Sakaguchi in comparison has his flaws, he likes to move a bit slow at times, but he is a much more competent storyteller. His titles all play with different themes and ideas, showing how versitile he is. His film, Spirits Within has it's flaws, but it's still a damn fine Sci Fi flick and head and shoulders above Nomura in every possible way imaginable. Save for Final Fantasy fan service.

And thats all I have to say about that.

[Mirage]

About Advent Children, I didn't really find the animation stiff. The animation and over the top action scenes were the only two redeemable features it had, I think.

[Karellen]

I don't consider either of them particularly outstanding. The only title that I thought Sakaguchi directed notably well (FFI-V and Spirits Within, from what I know of. Haven't played Blue Dragon yet) was FFIV and the only game that Nomura directed that I thought wasn't half bad (Advent Children, KH I and II) was...actually none of those are notable in any way at all.

Apart from that, the two aren't particularly comparable. Nomura is and always will be a character designer at heart, something which I've never heard of Sakaguchi partaking in. They both also have random writing credits in various games, but they've never really revealed how much they influenced the games themselves to make any real judgment. We'll see how Blue Dragon and FF Versus XIII turn out I guess.

[Ishin Ookami]

About Advent Children, I didn't really find the animation stiff. The animation and over the top action scenes were the only two redeemable features it had, I think.

Never seen any of John Woo's hong kong stuff have you? I consider shooting a mans eye out in a early scene, and then to pistol whip the same guy in his eyepatch in response to the arse kicking he's giving you in a later scene to be rather over the top.

Advent Children just had matrix slow mo effects and a lot of leaping through the air and sword twirling. So few of the fight sequences resulted in serious injury, and the few times it did happen (cloud getting shot through the heart, cloud having his sword arm lacerated) the story either threw in some deus ex machina, (ie Aerith will fix it) or just forgot about the injury two seconds later (cloud pulling off limit break with a maimed sword arm). That lack of consequences took all the impact out of the action sequences, and made them tedious and boring instead of intense and thrilling.

Also, I'm a huge fan of animation. Espescially animation that takes itself seriously and breaks the cliche of animation being solely for children. I personally found AC's animation to be very stiff and jerky like. The art itself had a lot of detail and imagination, but the flow of the animation itself was really stiff IMO.

[Renmiri]

Nomura!!!

He made X

[Laddy]

Nomura, because his characters have a slightly more realistic design.

[Mirage]

Why are you looking for realism in a fantasy game? :p

[Gnostic Yevon]

I like the early stuff a lot better than the later FF games. Sakaguichi was the better designer. His characters were more interesting.

FF10 was the first I played, and I thought it was cool and original -- until I played other RPGs. The very next game had the exact same Auron type character (Geddoe), with the same eye injury, and almost the same backstory. I've never seen another Cecil or Rosa, they were unique. Frankly, Zidane was all kinds of unique, and well, maybe the uniqueness of Quina is a step further on. His plots weren't the same every time either. Golbez and the Four Fiends in FF4 isn't the same as Zeromus or Exodeath. Kefka wasn't ripped off of anything.

And Sakaguichi made you care about all of his characters. Leo's death was a tragedy. Aeris seemed more like a videogame redshirt -- she was there to be sugary sweet and then (SPOILER)get stabbed . She had very little control over the plot -- you could have easily given anyone the Holy Materia, heck have somebody *find* the Holy Rock. Red was another thrown in character. Cait Sith at least had a plot-purpose -- his disposable robot body could get crushed by the temple.
Now considering the vast differences in technology (Sakaguichi had 32 bits at most, Nomura had 3D and FMV) I'd say Sakaguichi did more with less.