Tetsuya Nomura

Tetsuya Nomura (野村哲也, Nomura Tetsuya?) is a video game director and character designer at Square Enix. He joined the company, then known as Square Co. Ltd., in the early 1990s, and gained prominence when he was selected as the main character designer for Final Fantasy VII (1997). Before that, he was also the creator of some of the iconic Final Fantasy monsters, such as Cactuar, Tonberry, Gilgamesh, and Carbuncle.^[1]

Profile[]

Nomura's first job with Square was as a debugger for Final Fantasy IV, back in 1990. He then went on to be the monster designer for Final Fantasy V. In the next game in the series, Final Fantasy VI, Nomura was the graphic director in charge of the monster designs; he also designed the characters Shadow and Setzer Gabbiani, and was in charge of storyboarding some of the cutscenes.^[2] Nomura's biggest success was his work on Final Fantasy VII, which rose to become one of the most well-known RPGs of all time and a defining game for the series as a whole. Nomura ended up contributing a large amount to the characters' stories (such as Red XIII's name), although the majority of the storyline was not written by him.^[3]

With his talent acknowledged, Nomura worked on other projects, such as Parasite Eve. Another huge success for Nomura was the release of Final Fantasy VIII, as the lead character designer and battle visuals director. Other games with characters designed by Nomura include Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy X-2, Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XIII. Other than Final Fantasy, Nomura also directed the Square Enix/Disney series Kingdom Hearts, as well as the CGI sequel to Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. He was also character designer for The World Ends with You together with Gen Kobayashi. He spent most of the last decade helming production on Final Fantasy XV, having come up with the original concept and base story. He was set to direct the project until recently, with his role as director replaced by Hajime Tabata. Nomura has worked on several Square Enix projects, such as Kingdom Hearts III and Final Fantasy VII Remake.

In March 2014 Nomura judged a Lightning fanart contest for deviantART and chose three favorites among the submissions.^[4]

Style[]

Nomura's style has been defined by the vibrant colors and amalgamation of eastern and western influences. Compared to other character designers, Tetsuya Nomura's Final Fantasy games tend to be more "modern" and "sci-fi" than the first installments set in a medieval worlds. Nomura's games in particular also tend to have storylines that are darker in tone. His character names tend to draw inspiration from physical science and weather, in particular, the sky, land, and sea; the central character almost always has the sky-based name. He was thinking of dropping that tradition for Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII, but the other creative figures behind the character chose a sky-based name.^[5] Nomura also creates character names inspired by their personalities.^[6]

Tifa Early Sketch — An early sketch of Tifa Lockhart from *Final Fantasy VII* by Tetsuya Nomura.

Tetsuya Nomura's style is similar to the traditional anime style of drawing, but he also draws upon western influences. In Final Fantasy VII, Nomura used a traditional anime-like style seen by the large anime-esque eyes and Cloud Strife's gravity-defying hair. In Final Fantasy VIII, the character designs are more realistic to fit the tone, Final Fantasy VIII being the first 3D Final Fantasy to use anatomically proportioned characters. In Final Fantasy X Nomura's designs became more and more realistic, although the coloring of the characters allowed his style to retain anime-like qualities. Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII- and Dissidia Final Fantasy feature more mature looking designs and are defined by a detailed shading. Many of Nomura's character designs prominently feature belts and zippers, originally because of his own aesthetic preferences, and then because other people teased him about his previous character designs.^[7]

Influences[]

Sakaguchi and Nomura in 2017 — Nomura with Hironobu Sakaguchi in 2017.

In July 2012, Tetsuya Nomura said that four people are his biggest influences: Hironobu Sakaguchi, Yoshinori Kitase, Hiroyuki Ito, and Tetsuya Takahashi.^[8] In another interview published in March 2014, Nomura stated that Ito was the one that taught him about game design.^[9]

Nomura has stated his character wardrobes and accessory designs in later Final Fantasy installments and Square works are based on real life fashion and trends.^{[citation needed]} Tattoos are a design element frequently featured in his character designs.

Works within the series[]

Game	Release	Work
Final Fantasy IV	1991	Debugger (uncredited)
Final Fantasy V	1992	Battle Graphics Design, Monster Design
Final Fantasy VI	1994	Graphic Director, Monster Design, Character Design (Setzer, Shadow and SD design)
Final Fantasy VII	1997	Character Design, Monster Design, Scenario Concept, Battle Visual Director
Final Fantasy VIII	1999	Character Design, Monster Design, Battle Visual Director
Final Fantasy X	2001	Character Design
Final Fantasy XI	2002	Hume, Elvaan, and NPC Character Design
Final Fantasy X-2	2003	Main Character Designer
Before Crisis -Final Fantasy VII-	2004	Concept, Character Design
Last Order -Final Fantasy VII-	2005	Supervisor
Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children	2005	Director, Character Design, Base Story
Dirge of Cerberus -Final Fantasy VII-	2006	Character Design
Dirge of Cerberus Lost Episode -Final Fantasy VII-	2006	Character Design
Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII-	2007	Creative Producer & Character Designer
Dissidia Final Fantasy	2008	Creative Producer, Character Design
Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete	2009	Director, Character Design, Base Story
Final Fantasy XIII	2009	Main Character Design
Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy	2011	Creative Producer, Character Design
Final Fantasy Type-0	2011	Creative Producer, Character Design
Final Fantasy XIII-2	2011	Main Character Design
Theatrhythm Final Fantasy	2012	Creative Producer
Final Fantasy All the Bravest	2012	Creative Producer, Original Concept
Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII	2013	Main Character Design
Theatrhythm Final Fantasy Curtain Call	2014	Creative Producer
Final Fantasy Record Keeper	2014	Creative Producer, Character Design
Final Fantasy VII G-Bike	2014	Creative Producer, Character Design
Final Fantasy Type-0 HD	2015	Character Design
Dissidia Final Fantasy (2015)	2015	Creative Producer, Character Design
Final Fantasy XV	2016	Original Concept, Character Design, Lyrics ("Somnus") and ("Omnis Lacrima")
World of Final Fantasy	2016	Creative Producer & Character Designer
Final Fantasy Dimensions II	2017	Special Thanks
Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers	2019	Guest Creator (Gaia and Eden's Promise Character Designs)^[10]^[11]
Final Fantasy VII Remake	2020	Director & Concept Design^[12]
War of the Visions: Final Fantasy Brave Exvius	2020	Special Thanks
Final Fantasy VII The First Soldier	2021	Creative Director
Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin	2022	Concept & Creative Producer & Character Design
Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII- Reunion	2022	Creative Director & Character Designer
Theatrhythm Final Bar Line	2023	Creative Director
Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis	2023	Creative Director
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth	2024	Creative Director