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Tetsuya Nomura
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tetsuya Nomura (ιζ ε²δΉ Nomura Tetsuya?) (born October 8, 1970) is a Japanese game and character designer working for Square Enix Co., Ltd. (formerly Square Co., Ltd.). He has been rated by the website Next Generation as the 7th most important and anticipated video game developer of 2007.[1]
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Nomura was at a vocational school creating art for advertisements.
In the early 1990s, Square hired him to work as monster designer for Final Fantasy V and then as graphic director and minor character designer for Final Fantasy VI.
Nomura didn't gain recognition until 1995, when Square asked him to be the character designer for Final Fantasy VII to replace Yoshitaka Amano, the series' original character designer. It was a huge critical and commercial success and became the definitive role playing game for the PlayStation. In 1998, he worked on both Parasite Eve & Brave Fencer Musashi. In 1997, Nomura worked on 1999's Final Fantasy VIII; a game that achieved commercial success; where returned as the character designer.
Afterwards, Nomura worked on several other miscellaneous projects such as Ehrgeiz and Parasite Eve for the PlayStation. He continued on to design characters for Square's first PlayStation 2 game, The Bouncer, before returning to character designing for the Final Fantasy series with Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy X-2. More recently, he has acted as the director, concept artist, and character designer for the Kingdom Hearts franchise, which currently includes the title game, the Game Boy Advance midquel Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, and the Playstation 2 sequel Kingdom Hearts II.
Nomura directed the CGI animated film Final Fantasy VII Advent Children which was released on September 14, 2005 in Japan and in North America on April 25, 2006, and also wrote some of the lyrics that appear on the soundtrack, except for the final track of the movie's soundtrack: Kyosuke Himuro's "Calling". This was also Nomura's film debut.
Nomura is currently working on the Fabula Nova Crystallis: Final Fantasy XIII projects as the character designer of all three games and the director of Final Fantasy Versus XIII, as well as the character designer of Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII for the Playstation Portable (PSP). He is also helping with the development of the title It's a Wonderful World for the Nintendo DS.
Tetsuya also confirmed that he will be working on multiple projects in the Kingdom Hearts series and information will be revealed by mid-2007.
While his artwork and style was praised by many fans of the Final Fantasy franchise, especially the legions of new fans that joined the series with the release of Final Fantasy VII, Tetsuya Nomura has been criticized by fans of the original character designer Yoshitaka Amano, who did the character and graphic designs for the first 6 games, as well as providing character and promotional artwork illustrations for the next 4 games. Fans of Nomura point out how deeply involved he was with Final Fantasy titles before Final Fantasy VII, especially his work on the monster designs in Final Fantasy IV, Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy VI, as well as his involvement in the creation of popular characters Shadow and Setzer Gabbiani for Final Fantasy VI, which were both redesigned by Amano for the game itself. His fans have also noted that Amano has still produced promotional art for other entries in the series and that Nomura was very cautious about using Final Fantasy IX's Vivi (as well as Setzer, of whom Nomura recognizes Amano as the designer) as a character in Kingdom Hearts II because Nomura himself was not the character's designer.
In 2000, Nomura stated in a magazine interview that he would like to work with Nintendo, which caused some controversy since during that time Square was openly not working with Nintendo. Square issued a statement that Nomura's comments did not represent the company's plans and policies. Ironically, Nintendo and Square reconciled a few years later which led to the release of Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles in 2003 as well as numerous Square RPGs on Nintendo handhelds (e.g. Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories and the Nintendo DS Remake of Final Fantasy III) to even as far as staff members (e.g Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga/Partners in Time).
- Final Fantasy V (1992)
- Live A Live (1994)
- Final Fantasy VI (1994)
- Chrono Trigger (1995)
- Super Mario RPG (1996)
- Final Fantasy VII (1997)
- Parasite Eve (1998)
- Ehrgeiz: God Bless the Ring (1998)
- Brave Fencer Musashi (1998)
- Parasite Eve II (1999)
- Final Fantasy VIII (1999)
- The Bouncer (2000)
- Final Fantasy X (2001)
- Kingdom Hearts (2002)
- Final Fantasy X-2 (2003)
- Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories (2004)
- Musashi: Samurai Legend (2005)
- Final Fantasy VII Advent Children (2005/2006)
- Kingdom Hearts II (2005/2006)
- Final Fantasy V Advance (2006)
- Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII (2006)
- Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII (2007)
- Final Fantasy XIII (TBD)
- Final Fantasy Agito XIII (TBD)
- Final Fantasy Versus XIII (TBD)
- It's a Wonderful World (TBD)
- Monotone (TBD)
- ^ Next Generation staff (2007-03-03). The Hot 100 Game Developers of 2007. Next Generation p. 11. Future Publishing USA. Retrieved on April 2, 2007.
- Tetsuya Nomura at the Internet Movie Database
- Tetsuya Nomura's Biography and Artwork
- Tetsuya Nomura Rap sheet at MobyGames
- Tetsuya Nomura profile, interviews, and photo gallery at the Square Haven People Database