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[Strangelove77]

I like his late 90s and early 2000s stuff(Parasite Eve, Kingdom Hearts, FF7, FF8, etc.) and his newer stuff(FF13, KH3, Dissidia), but HATE his mid-2000s PS2 era shit. Dirge Of Cerberus, The Bouncer, Advent Children, Nooj from FFX-2). Dude went buckle, tribal and weird hair and ripped cloth that looked liked arrows crazy. Fucking awful.

 

[Valnen]

I like his art more than Amano's, to be honest. It's just so nice to look at. His designs...well, they're hit or miss. But mostly hit.

 

[threelights]

Most people who say that just hate Nomura's work. They're the kind of people who can't admit Nomura does anything right.

Anyway, for the sake of making this a little more visual I got his designs from the past 8 years (I was going to make 10, but I was too lazy) minus the ones that didn't immediately pop in on a Google search (FFXIII, Dissidia, etc.)

Crisis Core:

The World Ends With You:

Type-0:

Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep / KH 3D:

Rampage Land Rankers:

 

[theechrisfox]

Yeah, only the ones that don't have spiky hair. So about 10% probably.

 

[Inuhanyou]

I think Nomura has a great artistic mind, sure. And based on his FF7 Gbike work, he's gotten way better with time compared to 20 years ago, his same designs for FF7 look a world apart in quality(well for the most part)

 

[LouisaFerre]

I generally like his work, but I think his designs work best in his original illustrations and often times don't translate well to a more realistic 3D model (see: Tidus).

Also, I really like the guy overall but I honestly tend to prefer Akihiko Yoshida's art. I like Nomura more as a game director than a character designer.

 

[Coffee Dog]

I think they translate very well to the kingdom hearts games.

 

[Ashe Nei]

When he doesn't goes for silly over-the-top designs, his drawings are pretty good.

I love his drawings of Aya Brea.

 

[kevm3]

Some of his designs are cool, but he's plastered all over the company. What happened to all the other artists?

 

[Shadowplay1979]

Pretty much cant stand a single piece of art the guy has ever made with the exception of a few FF7 designs, the fact that they keep using him for FF is pretty much what keeps me away from the series.

On the off chance they use non Nomura designs the games usually end up way more interesting ..9 and 12.

 

[silenttwn]

I honestly think he's way better in the director's chair than he is at designing characters.

I do think he's a fantastic illustrator, though.

 

[Polioliolio]

They're cool.

I like them for sure.. I want to say I'm tired of them, but maybe I'm just tired of them when they all look a bit samey. He's proven his work can look radically different, but in the FF/Kingdom Heart franchises, they recently tend to look very similar.

edit: As for designs.. well.. Not a huge fan of his newer belts and keys and emo goths.

 

[Hero Prinny]

Wait he did the designs for ff13? He must have phoned that in cause those are trash. Not a fan of sora and that batman he did either. Besides that though i like em, really like the designs he did for dissidia

 

[Grisby]

He's hit or miss for me.

 

[Breakage]

His work was great during the PS1 days. PS2 era onwards, not so much.

 

[Alfredo]

I honestly can't think of any of his designs that I hate, outside of that one FFX-2 character with the cane.

I like Nomura.

 

[Village]

Dude gets paid for a reason. He's good at his job.

 

[Dark_castle]

Definitely not consistently.

But he's also designed quite many characters whom I think looks great.

 

[Herbspiceguy]

I feel his designs are best when they're kept basic. His tendency to go all out on fashion accesories and whatnot ruin many of his character designs imo.

 

[NipplesAndToes23]

I love and adore the vast majority of what he does.

God-tier.

What game is that from?

I did forget about Aya Brea. She's decent.

I do hope however that for Final Fantasy XVI we get a new character designer. I wouldn't mind seeing IX's return.

 

[Fuz]

 

[sixteen-bit]

some are terrific, some aren't

 

[Violet_0]

http://gearnuke.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/play-arts-kai-batman-concept.jpg

all this and only one belt?!!

 

[SpacePirate Ridley]

Nope.
I like maybe original ones from FFVII? And not even that much.

Thats probably one of the things why I love FFIX that much. He didnt touch that game.

 

[KiefbladeMaster]

I love all of his work.

 

[Grewitch]

I like his work, but it is true for me that it can be hit-or-miss. I mean, to me, this is iconic:

 

[Sakujou]

They're generally fine but FFXV goes too far into self-parody. He's literally designed the main character after himself.

quoted for the forever. oh man, i always thought that, but with that picture... man you fucking nailed it.

well my thoughts are, this guy gets too much attention. he fucking did nothing the last few years.

iam ok with the world ends with you and kh, but the rest? garbage. that guy isnt suited for ff. i dont like ff15 design. it screams kingdom hearts all over the place.

i would love to see more stuff similar to kh or twewy, but welp not gonna happen.

edit: dissidia was a fine thing of him.

 

[Skilletor]

I love 98% of his output. He's a fantastic artist and character designer.

Speaking of, does anybody have links to some hires Nomura art, specifically FF and KH one might be able to use to create arcade stick art?

Really weird that anybody think Noctis looks like Nomura when the prince looks like Sasuke, red eyes and all. I mean, unless you think a black hoodie and black t-shirt are at all similar to what Nomura designed for FF15. Which...would be reaching so hard you could give Dhalsim some tips.

 

[Trigonometrize.]

One of the best in the business.

 

[tbd]

The worst character designer there is related to salary. It's like it physicalls hurts him not giving a male protagonist a girl's face and long and smooth hair and his costume design is insulting.

His designs are iconic in gaming. His art style is outstanding. He has a massive fan following.

I love his input artistically.

This is one of the most generic anime hair ever. Except for the spikes it's Sasuke's hair, or that guy from Pandora's Tower. And he does that "hair spikes coming out of forehead" with so many characters, it's absurd.

 

[Werewolf Jones]

As an artist he's very good.

As a designer though? lol. He's pretty terrible honestly.

 

[WrenchNinja]

I like his designs

 

[SolVanderlyn]

I'd say most of his designs are amazing and extremely unique (compared to other artists), but he has a few misses here and there. Lulu's belt dress and Nooj's everything come to mind. I love his villain designs most of all.

I also like how he shifts between a more cartoony and a more realistically proportioned style.

 

[PulseONE]

For the most part I think his designs are excellent. There are some bad ones, but that will happen with any artist

 

[artsi]

He's a talented artist and has some misses, but overall I think his designs are great.

 

[Pinko Marx]

He has many legit good designs. But when my man is off, he's way off .

 

[CGwizz]

THeyr character designs are awsome.

 

[tbd]

Maybe I see it more because I draw using manga style elements myself but he is really terrible and predictable.

 

[NoctisVsStar]

I love his work.

Based Lord Nomura.

 

[Kikujiro]

The worst character designer there is related to salary. It's like it physicalls hurts him not giving a male protagonist a girl's face and long and smooth hair and his costume design is insulting.

The only thing insulting here is your ignorance. Salary? Wtf are you even talking about?

The most popular FFs sales-wise by far are FFVII, VIII and X and Nomura did the character designs. The second most popular series Squaresoft ever made is Kingdom Hearts (over 20 millions sales) and that's Nomura's baby. Continue to live in your own little world of hate.

 

[RurouniZel]

I like most of his designs.

 

[Philippo]

No.
My favourites are: Lightning, Noctis, Cloud, Aya Brea, Sazh, and Stella.

The rest goes from great to meh.

 

[jinnosuke]

nope awful, one of the worst chara designer. Squaresoft should have fire him instead of sakaguchi

 

[Not Spaceghost]

I generally like his work. It's over done but he has a unique aesthetic that feels clean while at the same time having a lot of detail in it.

I honestly saw nothing wrong with his batman stuff either.

 

[Crimson_Justice]

I like his stuff even when it's over the top. I guess it's a guilty pleasure of mine.

This is basically my answer. I fell in love with the character portraits for the menu screen of the PS1 FFs when I was a kid, and I've been a fan ever since.

 

[WrenchNinja]

nope awful, one of the worst chara designer. Squaresoft should have fire him instead of sakaguchi

This makes literally no sense.

 

[CielTynave]

Definitely, prefer his work by far over any one else who's worked with the company.

 

[Frozenprince]

Honestly if you told me this was a mech suit design instead of Batman, it looks pretty cool.

It's a bad Batman, but overall the design is sleek. I like it.

 

[Skilletor]

Definitely, prefer his work by far over any one else who's worked with the company.

Akihiko Yoshida is my favorite, but Nomura is a very close second.

 

[Frozenprince]

I mean his style defined an era and a genre, you can't do that without being exceptional in some way. Every designer will have misses that's just the nature of having to create characters, but for the most part, he's a great artist with a unique style that never compromises his artistic vision.