So defensive. I am talking broadly about how much people defend Nomura as if he is this untouchable symbol worthy of so much praise. Very little of my post was directed at you, but since you want to make it out to be. For someone who pretends to have no bias and doesn't care either way, you're putting up a huge fight in support of him. lol
You keep bringing up XIII-2 when the only time I did, you took it completely out of context. If you go back and read the sentence, I said it was a problem I had with the company as a whole, releasing reactionary content. It was not aimed at Nomura specifically. As far as Versus XIII is concerned, I never said that it wasn't going to be good or that it was "creatively bankrupt" as you put it, but rather the logical conclusion that it definitely won't match up to fans' expectations because it has been this long in development and is going to be very, very difficult for the company to show as a title worthy of so much praise despite the uncertainty of what the game actually is at this point in time.
.......How did you get past the fathered girly men of Amano?
You honestly can not compare the two. Each of Amano's designs were different from each other, and were far bolder and made a stronger impact on you. While Nomura's designs seem to blend together with his fascination of Gackt and anime, Amano's illustrations are bar none absolutely incredible. Of course he drew androgynous characters that were a little effeminate, but his designs were based more on the artistic and surrealistic which made the series on a whole feel way more like you were having this amazing dream that you couldn't wake up from. He didn't have to little his characters with belts, zippers, and other accessories. Nomura's designs are bland in comparison in my opinion, easily replaced with J-pop band members, with clothes that could easily be found in some high-end clothing store. When Amano went over the top, it was with a lot of style and a lot of grace. When Nomura went over the top, it was adding belts in places where you don't wear belts, slapping a few diamond earrings for good measure. Besides, if you want to talk about manly-looking characters, we can talk about Kain, Cyan, Sabin, Amarant, Galuf.... too many to note. With Nomura, however, most of his characters had a lot of feminine characteristics about them.
In terms of direction, I remember something someone told me: Amano would draw characters as he saw them, while Nomura draws characters as he is told to. I am not mentioning this as a huge critique of his work, but it's a line that I think represents why I thought Amano was a better artist, and made the early Final Fantasy games more profound in terms of creativity. That is not a strike against Nomura, mind you - just something that appealed me about those games.
I never said it was Tetsuya Nomura's fault they made so many games. I am saying that he ruined the story of Kingdom Hearts by convoluting it to an extremely disappointing degree. Obviously companies are in business to make money. But that doesn't give anyone the excuse to drive something into the ground.
Versus XIII was not a pet project. How can it be a pet project when it has Final Fantasy XIII in the name?
The person who wrote XIII, Watanabe, is the same person that was under Nomura's wing when he made Kingdom Hearts. He taught him everything he needed to know, and they worked closely together.
Don't post the morphing thing either.
Uh, what? Don't know what you're talking about, but if it shows Cloud turning into Lightning, I guess you don't want me to prove my point on the recycled designs idea. lol
It wasn't. Can you prove otherwise?
The fact this it was the first Final Fantasy sequel upset a lot of fans. If you don't like it either, why play devil's advocate? I simply hate everything X-2 stood for and thought the damage started there. I am fully aware it wasn't Nomura's decision to do that. But in my opinion, it was a horrible decision regardless.
Dead Souls is only related to Atlus because Atlus USA released it. Atlus Japan has nothing to do with it. And it wasn't a risk. They really did not have to do anything to release it here. It was already localized. It was a pretty cheap thing to do. And yes Atlus Japan takes risks, except pretty much on a small scale. But I never said anything about Atlus taking risks. I mean can you read? Do you understand why I mentioned Atlus? And Level 5 is not the most risky company. Their games are so calculated and marketed to demographics that it's not funny. And as a rpg developer I'm failing to see their critical acclaim? WKC doesn't have it. Rogue Galaxy didn't have it. Ni No Kuni doesn't actually seem to be doing too hot either. The DQ games are not actually all them either. Besides, I never said anything about that you shouldn't prop up any of these companies. Again, stop making arguments that I never made in the first place.
First off, Sony themselves passed on the project because they didn't think it was going to be successful (source:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/sony-dropping-demons-souls-a-mistake). If Sony didn't want to do it but Atlus was willing to, a much smaller publisher, that shows a lot of guts, especially because they went all in by investing a lot of money in the special editions, among other things, and the high costs associated with investing in a very online-oriented title. I know you didn't say Atlus was taking risks because, once again, not everything I was talking about was directed at you!
And I never said Level-5 was the most risky company; I only said they're a company willing to take them, far more than Square-Enix has. Rogue Galaxy was actually very well received critically, so I don't know why you brought that up. Ni No Kuni is in fact critically acclaimed and a very highly anticipated title over here. You're also forgetting their Professor Layton, Dragon Quest, and Dark Cloud games. I personally find Level-5 much more creatively apt than Square Enix especially nowadays. Their games are far more exciting and fun and light-hearted, as opposed to Square-Enix's overly broody and heavily melodramatic storylines (I am criticizing Square-Enix here, not Nomura. I want to make sure you get that before you go on another unnecessary tangent).
I want to know how he ruined FF and Sqaure and how the fuck they are following his lead. I mean you just brought up that they are putting a lot of effort behind western games. HOW THE FUCK IS THAT FOLLOWING NOMURA'S LEAD?
Man, you LOOOOOOOVE taking my words out of context, don't you? Someone else brought up their opinion that Nomura was the only reason keeping Square-Enix afloat. I was responding to THEM, not YOU!
My post has nothing to do with you disliking his character designs. My point has been solely and trying to figure out how he has harmed the company.
Uh,THAT IS A BIG REASON WHY I DON'T LIKE HIM! lol! A big reason why I don't like Nomura is because I really don't like how ridiculous his character designs are in that it's like Nomura looked at a poster of Gackt and traced a couple dozen characters out of that! The fact that it's become a big joke has soured me big time. I don't think you'll find someone calling out Amano for recycling designs. You're just swimming around one of the reasons I think he's hurting the company! When the characters of Final Fantasy are a big part of the game, and I hate how they look, isn't that an acceptable reason for someone not like Nomura? I think it's only common sense. I look at Lost Odyssey and Last Story, and I get excited by the character designs! I look at Final Fantasy XIII or Kingdom Hearts lately, and I start to get tired. It's just how I feel about the whole matter.
I'm not dropping facts here, or some sort of thesis for scholars in the field to look over. I'm dropping opinions, which is what this thread is all about. In my opinion, Nomura is ruining Square Enix as a company from a design perspective.
UPDATE:
Love or Hate Nomura there are somethings that people who want him fired really needtothink about.
First Nomura has created the largest IP Sqaure Japan has had aside from FF and DQ.
Second and more importantly Nomura is the person most like Gooch left. The man actively is fighting for younger blood to take more important roles. The Dissidia franchise and several other instances show that Nomura is trying to get new blood and ideas infused with the SE important positions.
Even if you want to ignore the first two, Nomura is the one designer that is activly listening to the community. We see this in how he not only wants larger worlds, but is in fact taking ques from titles like FFXII.
All of these things are very important, we don't see this alot from Japan developers, even less who are also trying to get off new IP's when the rest of the company seems plenty happy to use only the two three big ones.
Well, I never said that Nomura hasn't been a big financial asset for the company, nor am I going to sit here and pretend that I will hate Versus or the next Kingdom Hearts game because I am not some hipster (although Nomura drained a lot of faith I had in KH and DDD doesn't seem to remedy those issues as far as story is concerned). I don't really know how Dissidia is an example of him getting young blood in the mix, seeing as how the majority of people working on those games had been with Square-Enix for years. If you mean giving a few people a chance to try a different position, then sure, I can see that. I just wish he would do the same for console games that have a better profile than games on a failing platform. Versus XIII seems to be using a lot of veterans and practically no young blood, so that's disappointing. I also don't see what new IPs Nomura is getting off the ground, with all due respect. Dissidia is just a mish mash of Final Fantasy characters, purely a gift to fans like Advent Children was. Versus XIII is something they planned out from the start with the whole Fabula Nova Crystallis series compilation. I just want to set that straight.
And you mention open worlds, but I honestly do not think that is the answer to the problem, and I don't know if fans were actually clamoring for that (aside from towns, but that's not really an open world in a real sense). The thing is, the series has taken a big hit in terms of character development and the fact that at least with XIII, the JRPG formula became far more basic and linear than it had been. I think he needs to solve those problems. I don't know what you mean by taking queues from XII, but I hope it has nothing to do with the license and gambit systems. lol! I think producers like Yoshida Naoki is a perfect example of someone dedicated to listening to fans. He's been extremely attentive to the fans and deserves far more praise than he gets.
I think what bothers me about Square-Enix these past few years is that they even said themselves that they are only going to focus on mainstream games. What they essentially did was leave this huge gaping hole of people who aren't buying their games that used to, whose tastes are not being met. Sure, each Final Fantasy game lately has a few million under their belt. But in my opinion, it's because there are people out there that want to believe that Final Fantasy can return to its former glory, to have that solid story and that solid cast of characters and amazing world that we grew up enjoying. I guess my tastes are different because I grew up in the 90's playing and loving the original Final Fantasy games, and to me, a lot of the spirit that were in those games are completely missing from the modern games. Instead of characters like Cloud who used to have amazing lines like "you look like a big bear dressed up as a marshmellow" something like that), you instead have these overly serious and overly dramatic characters with uninspired designs and poorly created worlds and convoluted stories... it's heartbreaking for me as a fan. I hold out hope that with Final Fantasy XV, things will really turn around, though.