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[zennyzz]

Also kinda hard to ascertain if Nomura'd actually be good at conveying darker themes. KH has always lacked a realistic flair to its style.

And none of the death scenes in the really push the emotional gamut. Comparatively, Tabata's a lot better at pushing human emotions on the darker side of the spectrum and darker tones are pretty much his bread and butter now.

 

[Nikokuno]

I had more hype for Versus than I ever did for XIII. What was the general sentiment of XIII before it came out? It seems looking back from my perspective people were more excited about then VersusXIII and I wonder if that played a role in the expectations of XIII. Looking at the Stella reactions, people seemed heavily invested in what little they showed of the game over the years than XIII had I guess.

I was hyped for both since the first trailer, then second trailer of XIII came and gosh look like the first trailer was too good to be true. They showed the battle system, they showed a bit of the characters, and that was too bad for me.

Au contraire Versus trailers were awesome, the plot, the set up, the world, mystical power, Etro and Stella... Nocto haircut too anime but don't care, I see gel pads everyday so...

Since then I jumped in the #vxiii wagon and I expect that this game will restore the overall quality a FF game on console deserve.


And you know what happened next, double fails, no team no game.

But it's been 9 years, something went wrong. Something went wrong right in the beginning when those trailers were released, they never should have been.

If you wish to analyze how he fares as a director you should look at what he has actually directed, being a designer in many projects doesn't really say how effective he is in overseeing the whole development.

So let's observe. Yeah, some executive might look at this data and come to a conclusion which leads to Nomura being transferred to the KH3 project.

No team no game, poor management from SquEnix.

 

[NeoXChaos]

Nomura is valuable. He was smart enough to negotiate some sort of contract that meant his name appeared even on art renders and the title screens of games as a credit, and he and his art style have become synonymous with Final Fantasy and Square Enix. Don't just take it from me - Yoshinori Kitase himself said as much: "Nomura's [art] direction is perfect. That's the kind of visual concept that Final Fantasy should stay with."

What I'm saying is that no matter how badly he fucked up, Square Enix would - and likely did - all they can do in order to hold on to him. He's a figurehead. An important name. An important style, to them. So they've kept him. It's pretty plain that he walked from FF15 before he was forcibly pushed, though, and it's seeming fairly likely from some of the comments made by Tai Yasue in interviews he did around KH2.5's release that he is in charge of KH3 overall, not Nomura. But Nomura is worth keeping around; he can piddle around and contribute art to a variety of projects, but I think it's pretty likely that most of his actual directorial power has been stripped from him as a response to his failures. They'd never fire him, though. That'd be too much of a loss.

It's not like this sort of sidelining would be new for Square anyway - this is what happened to Sakaguchi post-TSW, with them sapping duties and power from him left and right but keeping him around for a few years as a figurehead. They'd trot him on stage at the occasional show, but for that last stretch at Square Sakaguchi wasn't doing nearly as much, the price of his failure. The difference with Sakaguchi was that he was a maverick and a rebel at least by Japanese standards - it's how he found his success (see also: Kojima), and after a bit of time on the leash in that manner he said 'yknow what, fuck it' and left and did his own thing. Nomura is I believe a bit of a diva - as people so hugely talented often are - but doesn't have that streak either. I think he likes Square (despite his 'burning anger' mentioned in the Famitsu interview after leaving/being kicked from FF15) and likes the comfort.

I think his days of directing alone are over, though. Done. I don't think Versus' long development time was entirely down to him - there were other contributing factors including Crystal Tools being a fucking mess and people from all SE Japan teams - including that team - being parachuted into the failures of FF13 and FF14 development to finish & fix them respectively, but it's clear from the meandering development we saw and the lack of focus in what we saw over the years that there were issues with the vision for the game. The buck for that stops with him, and he paid for it in the end.

but it arguably wasn't all his fault. Kagari mentioned his team(KH) was busy fixing XIII andI XV team's woes plus unnecessary sequels. I doubt they ever allowed the man to work with his team a full year between 06-12. Heck the article mentions the Agito mobile game.

"versusXIII is waiting on XIII

Kotaku: Given that it's been over two years since Square Enix first showed off its FFXIII offerings and we're still getting trailers devoid of gameplay, we certainly don't expect to see Final Fantasy XIII until well into 2009. We'll pencil in Versus for 2013 or so.

article from 2008: http://www.wired.com/2008/06/final-fantasy-v/

 

[APZonerunner]

but it arguably wasn't all his fault. Kagari mentioned his team(KH) was busy fixing XIII andI XV team's woes plus unnecessary sequels. I doubt they ever allowed the man to work with his team a full year between 06-12

article from 2008: http://www.wired.com/2008/06/final-fantasy-v/

It's almost like you didn't read the last paragraph of my post, where I mention both those things! There are undoubtedly external circumstances, and the history of FF13 in particular is very well documented. There were a lot of people - big names - who were never moved, though, and ultimately there wasn't enough to show for it in the end.

I don't really buy the argument that FF13's sequels hit Versus either, just the original game. The sequels, with their rougher visuals, lesser polish and reused assets, are plainly made by smaller teams (the credits bear this out) - it's likely even though some were then borrowed to 14, Versus production actually ramped up once FF13 was out, which still leaves over 2 years between that release and the decision being made to shift focus on Versus, move to 15, shuffle staff, and bring in Tabata. I think it's no mistake we got the long, 7-minute Versus XIII trailer with actual gameplay just over a year after FF13 shipped in Japan - presumably because they gained some staff and ramped up work again, and this trailer probably showcases the kind of work completed in that year.. At this point 13-2 was already in production, too. We also have old job postings - if you cast around you'll find news of Square hiring a number of roles specifically for Versus in 2010 post-FF13. So I don't really buy that 13-2 and LR impacted development significantly as 13 and 14 did, but I also recognize it's a solid narrative for those who want to dump on those games at any opportunity. Anyway--

I'm not saying he's a scumbag failure, but I am saying perhaps he didn't ultimately end up having the chops to manage such a large-scale, big-budget project. Versus - any game of its scope on HD consoles - was always going to eclipse everything else he'd managed, including KH 1 & 2. That's okay. We saw a lot of high-profile Japanese developers stumble over the obstacles thrown up by the transition to HD - ones, I'd argue, better and certainly more experienced than Nomura. It's not the end of the world, really - I mean, Matsuno is one of the most talented Japan has to offer and he couldn't get through all of FF12 because it seems he just wasn't built for a project of that size. Matsuno's problem was he wanted to control almost every aspect of its development, but with such a large team that was impossible. He described his typical development style as a dictatorship, and the typical development of a numbered FF a democracy. It didn't fit him, which in turn caused a degree of turmoil on FF12 comparable to those caused by the HD/engine/scale issues with 13 and whatever plagued Versus - 12 was delayed a number of times, and was at the time the longest developed FF. Eventually, Matsuno moved on, and under Ito, who had a more compatible approach, the game rounded out and shipped.

In the end, this didn't fit Nomura; plenty of people who worked with him have described him as a perfectionist, as indecisive - killers on a game of this scope. Thus it didn't work out - the problems with 13/14 and such just exacerbated it. He's gone from the project, and likely from that scale of directing period, but he can apply his talents well enough elsewhere, as his impressive resume proves.

 

[SPAW]

Nomura is valuable. He was smart enough to negotiate some sort of contract that meant his name appeared even on art renders and the title screens of games as a credit, and he and his art style have become synonymous with Final Fantasy and Square Enix. Don't just take it from me - Yoshinori Kitase himself said as much: "Nomura's [art] direction is perfect. That's the kind of visual concept that Final Fantasy should stay with."

What I'm saying is that no matter how badly he fucked up, Square Enix would - and likely did - all they can do in order to hold on to him. He's a figurehead. An important name. An important style, to them. So they've kept him. It's pretty plain that he walked from FF15 before he was forcibly pushed, though, and it's seeming fairly likely from some of the comments made by Tai Yasue in interviews he did around KH2.5's release that he is in charge of KH3 overall, not Nomura. But Nomura is worth keeping around; he can piddle around and contribute art to a variety of projects, but I think it's pretty likely that most of his actual directorial power has been stripped from him as a response to his failures. They'd never fire him, though. That'd be too much of a loss.

It's not like this sort of sidelining would be new for Square anyway - this is what happened to Sakaguchi post-TSW, with them sapping duties and power from him left and right but keeping him around for a few years as a figurehead. They'd trot him on stage at the occasional show, but for that last stretch at Square Sakaguchi wasn't doing nearly as much, the price of his failure. The difference with Sakaguchi was that he was a maverick and a rebel at least by Japanese standards - it's how he found his success (see also: Kojima), and after a bit of time on the leash in that manner he said 'yknow what, fuck it' and left and did his own thing. Nomura is I believe a bit of a diva - as people so hugely talented often are - but doesn't have that streak either. I think he likes Square (despite his 'burning anger' mentioned in the Famitsu interview after leaving/being kicked from FF15) and likes the comfort.

I think his days of directing alone are over, though. Done. I don't think Versus' long development time was entirely down to him - there were other contributing factors including Crystal Tools being a fucking mess and people from all SE Japan teams - including that team - being parachuted into the failures of FF13 and FF14 development to finish & fix them respectively, but it's clear from the meandering development we saw and the lack of focus in what we saw over the years that there were issues with the vision for the game. The buck for that stops with him, and he paid for it in the end.

Nicely argued. Might even be right on the mark for all I know.

 

[Lavalamp1138]

Also kinda hard to ascertain if Nomura'd actually be good at conveying darker themes. KH has always lacked a realistic flair to its style.

I don't really get where you're going with this. Kingdom Hearts's "lack" of realism shouldn't be counted as some sort of criticism against the series or Nomura. I mean, it's meant to be unrealistic. 50% of its DNA is Disney's animated properties and all tones and tropes that come with them.

 

[zennyzz]

I don't really get where you're going with this. Kingdom Hearts's "lack" of realism shouldn't be counted as some sort of criticism against the series or Nomura. I mean, it's meant to be unrealistic. 50% of its DNA is Disney's animated properties and all tones and tropes that come with them.

I never said it was a criticism against either property. I lovel KH's over the top zaney and kid like approach to things. Pridelands is conceptually really dumb, and also really god damn cool.

It's just that, that's primarily Nomura's type cast. Where as Tabata's built up his own type cast as well.

It's like learning a guy who's known for directing Summer Blockbusters was taken off a drama movie for a guy known for directing drama movies.

It'd have been interesting to see his take, but I don't think the tone of the movie in particular will suffer a degradation from its genre from someone preestablished to mainly do those sort of things.

 

[BocoDragon]

I already knew Hideo was going to be your first comparison and thats funny because when it comes to Tetsuya and Hideo they are often compared.

I never liked Hideki kamiya's games as much as Tetsuya when it came to kingdom hearts because he never pulled off an action rpg like kh. DMC/Bayonetta is like worthy of two or three playthroughs but after that I dropped them for good same with ninja gaiden. Also Bayonetta/DMC/Ninja Gaiden those type of straight up action games felt so empty the scenes were just generic game scene 1 2 3. Tetsuya is a movie director as well lmao, his execution in story telling trumps all of those except for probably Hideo.

As if DMC isn't the most Linear Button mashy Generic story telling type of game there is. Don't compare that trash to KH Thanks.

The record scratched when I read this.

You take offence at my calling KH button mashy, and then select DMC as being an example of button mashy?

Aside from quality judgements... KH is an action RPG with attack inputs meditated by auto battle elements. DMC is a character action game that requires fine, direct input for each attack in response to complex enemy stimuli, and is generally regarded in the same hardcore gaming category as fighting games and shmups. KH is factually more button mashy.

Anyway, I've made my point that Nomura is no great game developer in my opinion. I think the reasons he is praised as a game developer are for relatively shallow elements (childhood love for a kids RPG, good art, years of pretensious trailers) than for actual elements of game design.

 

[chozen]

The record scratched when I read this.

You take offence at my calling KH button mashy, and then select DMC as being an example of button mashy?

Aside from quality judgements... KH is an action RPG with attack inputs meditated by auto battle elements. DMC is a character action game that requires fine, direct input for each attack in response to complex enemy stimuli, and is generally regarded in the same hardcore gaming category as fighting games and shmups. KH is factually more button mashy.

Anyway, I've made my point that Nomura is no great game developer in my opinion. I think the reasons he is praised as a game developer are for relatively shallow elements (childhood love for a kids RPG, good art, years of pretensious trailers) than for actual elements of game design.

You probably didn't read my reply that both games have casual difficulties that you can button mash through and Extremely hard difficulties that require precise timing. I wouldn't say kingdom hearts 2 fm doesn't have "complex enemy stimuli" as you can't infinitely juggle bosses because they can retaliate and one shot you. I have played many games in my younger days not just kingdom hearts , Dmc was in there as well but it's not memorable to me at all as kh was and I only played a bit through Dante must die, so that childhood love theory is invalid. But I'm done.

 

[Seven Force]

KH Combat at it's best is a little more involved than people give it credit for, but it is in no way comparable to DMC as far as complexity goes, and this is coming from someone that regards KHII Final Mix and Birth by Sleep to be two of the finest ARPGs out there.

 

[chozen]

KH Combat at it's best is a little more involved than people give it credit for, but it is in no way comparable to DMC as far as complexity goes, and this is coming from someone that regards KHII Final Mix and Birth by Sleep to be two of the finest ARPGs out there.

I'm not saying it's harder than DMC, but it's isn't casual or button mashy when played on highest difficulties. Learning Organization XIII Data battle WITHOUT Videos will take days or weeks even to beat all of them, I'm talking critical mode level 1.

 

[Nikokuno]

I'm not saying it's harder than DMC, but it's isn't casual or button mashy when played on highest difficulties. Learning Organization XIII Data battle WITHOUT Videos will take days or weeks even to beat all of them, I'm talking critical mode level 1.

Yeah but KH is not suppose to be played this way, it's an hardcore mode, when you spend most of your time rolling and dodging, and hiting some times, it's not even fun. Playing DMC or Bayonetta in the normal way is already challenging (because of the score) and they both games with cool, stylish, action with a lot of pace... That's why an ARPG and a BTA are different beast.

 

[LAA]

Nomura is valuable. He was smart enough to negotiate some sort of contract that meant his name appeared even on art renders and the title screens of games as a credit, and he and his art style have become synonymous with Final Fantasy and Square Enix. Don't just take it from me - Yoshinori Kitase himself said as much: "Nomura's [art] direction is perfect. That's the kind of visual concept that Final Fantasy should stay with."

What I'm saying is that no matter how badly he fucked up, Square Enix would - and likely did - all they can do in order to hold on to him. He's a figurehead. An important name. An important style, to them. So they've kept him. It's pretty plain that he walked from FF15 before he was forcibly pushed, though, and it's seeming fairly likely from some of the comments made by Tai Yasue in interviews he did around KH2.5's release that he is in charge of KH3 overall, not Nomura. But Nomura is worth keeping around; he can piddle around and contribute art to a variety of projects, but I think it's pretty likely that most of his actual directorial power has been stripped from him as a response to his failures. They'd never fire him, though. That'd be too much of a loss.

It's not like this sort of sidelining would be new for Square anyway - this is what happened to Sakaguchi post-TSW, with them sapping duties and power from him left and right but keeping him around for a few years as a figurehead. They'd trot him on stage at the occasional show, but for that last stretch at Square Sakaguchi wasn't doing nearly as much, the price of his failure. The difference with Sakaguchi was that he was a maverick and a rebel at least by Japanese standards - it's how he found his success (see also: Kojima), and after a bit of time on the leash in that manner he said 'yknow what, fuck it' and left and did his own thing. Nomura is I believe a bit of a diva - as people so hugely talented often are - but doesn't have that streak either. I think he likes Square (despite his 'burning anger' mentioned in the Famitsu interview after leaving/being kicked from FF15) and likes the comfort.

I think his days of directing alone are over, though. Done. I don't think Versus' long development time was entirely down to him - there were other contributing factors including Crystal Tools being a fucking mess and people from all SE Japan teams - including that team - being parachuted into the failures of FF13 and FF14 development to finish & fix them respectively, but it's clear from the meandering development we saw and the lack of focus in what we saw over the years that there were issues with the vision for the game. The buck for that stops with him, and he paid for it in the end.

Well I think the "burning anger" was that he was using it to write the script for KH3, as I guess he didn't want to make it seem "easy" for Sora and co to win.
That said, it does seem sad that Nomura isn't on the KH3 team as much as it was presumed he would be after leaving/fired from FFXV, so perhaps he does have less of a role than he used to. Still eternal respect for him for (helping to) create KH and the gameplay (And FFXV base at least) and TWEWY.
It seems Nomura's skills as a designer at least haven't deteriorated, so hope he can continue doing that at least

 

[APZonerunner]

Well I think the "burning anger" was that he was using it to write the script for KH3, as I guess he didn't want to make it seem "easy" for Sora and co to win.
That said, it does seem sad that Nomura isn't on the KH3 team as much as it was presumed he would be after leaving/fired from FFXV, so perhaps he does have less of a role than he used to. Still eternal respect for him for (helping to) create KH and the gameplay (And FFXV base at least) and TWEWY.
It seems Nomura's skills as a designer at least haven't deteriorated, so hope he can continue doing that at least

I think the 'burning anger' comment sits right along him saying of his leaving FF15 "It was the company's decision, I can't say anything more than that," in that it gives a particularly not-so-subtle but not black-and-white picture of what happened and how he felt about it all.

The comment of ploughing it into KH3 is the pretty standard "we're giving it our all!" comments most Japanese devs give to Famitsu, but I do expect there's more meaning behind those comments, and they likely depict where he was at after the FF15 changes.

You're right about his past, though, and I'm sure as long as he stays there he'll continue to work on a wide range of SE products and stuff. He's a talented dude.

 

[Onimusha78]

Have we got a time for when the update is coming? Sorrry if this has been asked a hundred times

 

[BossDarkseid]

Have we got a time for when the update is coming? Sorrry if this has been asked a hundred times

11am EST

 

[Onimusha78]

11am EST

Cheers

 

[Tetranet]

FFXV has by this point become something different from what it was.

 

[wmlk]

FFXV has by this point become something different from what it was.

Thanks, Magic.

 

[Zukuu]

FFXV has by this point become something different from what it was.

I still can't wrap my head around it. I was a huge fan of the game for all these years, but they change everything to the point where I am not even sure if I'm still excited about it.
The 2011 trailer was everything I wanted. It seems there is nothing left from it.

Stella seemed so interesting in the trailers - she had a strong, visibly demeanor that I have not seen since Sigourney Weaver in Alien and recently Mad Max's Charlize Theron, looked dominating, confident and was still beautiful.

I dunno, I just LOVED her design. The scene where she was standing on the street in moon light is to me one of gaming's most iconic moments. I remember that scene often, it has just so much power and emotions.

I was one of the most vocal "re-design hater", when XV was revealed. The new 'Stella' (as it turns it, which is now Luna), is just the opposite of all that. She looks like your typical anime princes with blonde hair and a frail demeanor. Why Square?

Along with the party scene, which I found highly interesting and the whole Romeo <> Julia vibe that was going on, despite the fact that they have to seemingly also fight each other was really interesting, Now we don't even have the scene where they storm the castle. There is nothing left from 2011's trailer, apart from the car, which looks stupid as a drop-top.

I'm just sad. I will still play it, since I played every mainline FF and I'm a huge fan, but the game disappointed me already. =/