Looks like Naora's still doing FFXV themed art for Twitter though. Maybe in an unofficial capacity.
He just posted this one.
In celebration of 90,000 followers on the FFXV JP account.
The reason FFX is so grim compared to previous FFs is because the project started out as an original concept, titled "Seventeen: Angelic Impact X Devil's Shock" and unrelated to the FF series. It was conceived by Yusuke Naora, the art director.
When the project became FFX they toned down the heavy Moebius influence and integrated Sakaguchi's Gaia philosophy in the world setting, but the story is still very different than anything they did before in the series.
I'm so glad this is becoming more common knowledge on the web. I only first learned about Seventeen around 2012 when the Final Fantasy 25th Anniversary Memorial books were published with this stuff. At that time there were 0 relevant google hits for "Seventeen" and "Final Fantasy X." The first image always looked like a manga cover to me.... was it?
This one in particular was still being used when the project transitioned over to FFX. I think it even got shown to press behind closed doors at the initial announcement but my memory is fuzzy.
It reminds us that several of the mainline FF games (IX, X, and XV at the very least; others too?) started out as concepts for something other than a mainline FF and just sort of snowballed from there.
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OK, whoever asked if there are Square Enix employees who worked on FFXV for the full 10 years, the answer is
yes.