Tetsuya Nomura's lack of transparency and commitment

[sagman12PC 280]

Undoubtedly Nomura is a mastermind and the projects he's involved with end up being amazing BUT the guy takes way too long in the development cycle and is also overworked too. When he was on Versus XIII from 2006-2012 barely anything got done and they replaced him with Tabata in 2013 which ended up with the original Versus XIII being scrapped. With him now working on the two biggest anticipated titles of Square Enix i honestly have no clue when they'll release. It could be another 5+ years before we see KH3 or FF7R IF Nomura does the same thing he did with Versus XIII's development. That being said Nomura needs to be more transparent with fans so we actually know the status of development on KH3 and FF7R. Maybe do Active Time Reports like Tabata did. I know Tabata's reputation is hazy; some people love him and others hate him but you have to admire the passion he has for the gamer. He released 2 demos for XV and even updated episode duscae. He also did the ATR's. He didn't have to do any of this. He did all of that because he wanted fans to know XV's development was proceeding well compared to the nightmarish development cycle of Versus XIII. Tabata could have easily pulled a Nomura and said "development is proceeding well" without having anything to show/prove it. Bottom line is Nomura needs to be more transparent like Tabata or fans will just forget about FF7R and KH3. These games can't be in limbo for another 5+ years 

[Dio Brando 5,810]

But that's not his fault though, it's Square who decides who gets the projects, also on the Versus XIII front that game development wasn't just hurt by it's own problem, it was also affected by XIII, XIV, as well as the KH spin-off titles. 

We don't know that about the FF7 Remake, they aren't just upgrading the graphics, they are going to create something more, also map size doesn't equate to game size either, for example the towns, the cities, the NPCs. Not just grass, trees, water so on and so forth, same goes for FFXV.

The episodic formula is gonna severely limit what they can do

 

And I don't think people would love to pay 60$ for different chunks of the game

 

Episode 1 is probably gonna be just Midgar,not saying that this is what will happen but it seems like it

 

What really hold Square back with their RPGs ever since XIII is their over obsession with graphics

 

Sure we want a great looking game but not at the cost of everything else

Undoubtedly Nomura is a mastermind and the projects he's involved with end up being amazing BUT the guy takes way too long in the development cycle and is also overworked too. When he was on Versus XIII from 2006-2012 barely anything got done and they replaced him with Tabata in 2013 which ended up with the original Versus XIII being scrapped. With him now working on the two biggest anticipated titles of Square Enix i honestly have no clue when they'll release. It could be another 5+ years before we see KH3 or FF7R IF Nomura does the same thing he did with Versus XIII's development. That being said Nomura needs to be more transparent with fans so we actually know the status of development on KH3 and FF7R. Maybe do Active Time Reports like Tabata did. I know Tabata's reputation is hazy; some people love him and others hate him but you have to admire the passion he has for the gamer. He released 2 demos for XV and even updated episode duscae. He also did the ATR's. He didn't have to do any of this. He did all of that because he wanted fans to know XV's development was proceeding well compared to the nightmarish development cycle of Versus XIII. Tabata could have easily pulled a Nomura and said "development is proceeding well" without having anything to show/prove it. Bottom line is Nomura needs to be more transparent like Tabata or fans will just forget about FF7R and KH3. These games can't be in limbo for another 5+ years 

Exactly

 

Which is why I said Nomura isn't cut for directing as that entails marketing and public interactions which he doesn't seem to excel at

 

He's amazing as a creative producer and designer but not as a director compared to say the likes of Masahiro Sakurai and Tabata

 

At the very least I hope KH3's marketing would have something similar to the Active Time Reports

 

Call it anything:The Radiant Garden Podcast or The Keyblade War Report

Edited January 13, 2017 by Smash Mega Koopa

[sagman12PC 280]

The episodic formula is gonna severely limit what they can do

 

And I don't think people would love to pay 60$ for different chunks of the game

 

Episode 1 is probably gonna be just Midgar,not saying that this is what will happen but it seems like it

 

What really hold Square back with their RPGs ever since XIII is their over obsession with graphics

 

Sure we want a great looking game but not at the cost of everything else

Exactly

 

Which is why I said Nomura isn't cut for directing as that entails marketing and public interactions which he doesn't seem to excel at

 

He's amazing as a creative producer and designer but not as a director compared to say the likes of Masahiro Sakurai and Tabata

 

At the very least I hope KH3's marketing would have something similar to the Active Time Reports

 

Call it anything:The Radiant Garden Podcast or The Keyblade War Report

He even said so himself that he doesn't like being a director and would rather work on the game instead of directing a team. They really need to sort this out before KH3 and FF7R end up becoming another Versus XIII situation 

[Dio Brando 5,810]

He even said so himself that he doesn't like being a director and would rather work on the game instead of directing a team. They really need to sort this out before KH3 and FF7R end up becoming another Versus XIII situation 

Yeah he said so on interviews for KH1 where he stated the only reason he directed KH was because he wanted to oversea everything himself

 

People think I hate Nomura when I say all of this despite me loving a lot of what he did in his other roles

 

I only just dislike him as a director not as a developer

[Hero of Winds 2,576]

I believe the bigger problem is that Nomura is too ambitious. He's a mastermind of sorts, but he lets that flood his objective. This man has too many ideas and wants to implement them way too much. Versus XIII was gonna be more than one part and when it became XV Tabata took control. Nomura's final days on the project he was determined to turn XV into a musical. But after he was dropped, Tabata gave us full updates, took our feedback nd even post release is updating the game to fine tune to our tastes. He worked hard and even if XV got a lot of flak flow story related decisions, I don't really blame Tabata in the sense that he had to take something that was 7 years into its development and get it out there as fast as possible. Within 3 years from that we finally got Final Fantasy XV and I personally enjoyed it with all its flaws. Nomura wasted 7 years on the project though, we can't allow him to do that with two more titles, especially if they're literally the two biggest titles fans have wanted for over a decade.

[sagman12PC 280]

I believe the bigger problem is that Nomura is too ambitious. He's a mastermind of sorts, but he lets that flood his objective. This man has too many ideas and wants to implement them way too much. Versus XIII was gonna be more than one part and when it became XV Tabata took control. Nomura's final days on the project he was determined to turn XV into a musical. But after he was dropped, Tabata gave us full updates, took our feedback nd even post release is updating the game to fine tune to our tastes. He worked hard and even if XV got a lot of flak flow story related decisions, I don't really blame Tabata in the sense that he had to take something that was 7 years into its development and get it out there as fast as possible. Within 3 years from that we finally got Final Fantasy XV and I personally enjoyed it with all its flaws. Nomura wasted 7 years on the project though, we can't allow him to do that with two more titles, especially if they're literally the two biggest titles fans have wanted for over a decade.

That's why im saying to pull him off the project as director and have him work on direct development such as character designs, combat, etc. I totally see KH3 and FF7R's development becoming another Versus XIII situation if Nomura doesn't get his act together lol 

[Lulcielid 159]

He should only work on Kingdom Hearts as that's where he shines

 

 

Everytime he directed an FF project that isn't Dissidia it either suffers or end up being either subpar or bad

FFVIIRemake and FFVSXIII are the only games where he had directorial role, Dissidia was done by Takeshi Arakawa (Nomura only did character designs).

[Dio Brando 5,810]

FFVIIRemake and FFVSXIII are the only games where he had directorial role, Dissidia was done by Takeshi Arakawa (Nomura only did character designs).

Oh......didn't know that Nomura didn't direct Dissidia

 

Guess I should've known by looking at the credits or just notcing the lack of Nomura-ism in the game

[The 13th Kenpachi 4,279]

The episodic formula is gonna severely limit what they can do

 

And I don't think people would love to pay 60$ for different chunks of the game

 

Episode 1 is probably gonna be just Midgar,not saying that this is what will happen but it seems like it

 

What really hold Square back with their RPGs ever since XIII is their over obsession with graphics

 

Sure we want a great looking game but not at the cost of everything else

Exactly

 

Which is why I said Nomura isn't cut for directing as that entails marketing and public interactions which he doesn't seem to excel at

 

He's amazing as a creative producer and designer but not as a director compared to say the likes of Masahiro Sakurai and Tabata

 

At the very least I hope KH3's marketing would have something similar to the Active Time Reports

 

Call it anything:The Radiant Garden Podcast or The Keyblade War Report

 

I do agree about that graphics thing, they spend way too much money trying to make the games look pretty nowadays. The Luminous Engine looks better than UE4, wow too bad it was a big reason why FF15 had a shit development cycle and KH3 had development issues too.

Edited January 14, 2017 by The 13th Kenpachi

[Dio Brando 5,810]

I do agree about that graphics thing, they spend way too much money trying to make the games look pretty nowadays. The Luminous Engine looks better than UE4, wow too bad it was a big reason why FF15 had a shit development cycle and KH3 had development issues too.

They spent an absurd amount of dev time on these bloated engine that for a whole decade did nothing but hurt their games and gave modern FF games a bad reputation

 

If their excuse is that they wanna prove Japanese devs "can still make absurdly amazing graphics" then they completely missed the point of why people love games from Japan in the first place

 

Ditching Luminous for UE4 for KH3's development was the right thing to do in my opinion

[The 13th Kenpachi 4,279]

They spent an absurd amount of dev time on these bloated engine that for a whole decade did nothing but hurt their games and gave modern FF games a bad reputation

 

If their excuse is that they wanna prove Japanese devs "can still make absurdly amazing graphics" then they completely missed the point of why people love games from Japan in the first place

 

Ditching Luminous for UE4 for KH3's development was the right thing to do in my opinion

Ikr, wow Noctis hair has 30000 polygons! Too bad the story is incomplete, right?

 

Yeah their obsession with graphics is disturbing. JPRG fans which are their main audience do not care about graphics. Graphically FF7 looks like a hot turd yet it still tells a better story and has more enjoyable gameplay than a lot of AAA games these days

[LostArtis 130]

 

Tetsuya Nomura lacks both transparency and commitment towards both the consumer and the deadlines

 

With FFXV,ever since the game's old state as Versus XIII all the way up to 2014 we heard close to absolutely nothing of how development is progressing aside from 3 trailers with long periods of silence between each and everyone of them.But once he got replaced we got the Active Time Reports which was updating the game's development's state almost on a monthly basis.

 

Say what you will about how XV turned out but at least the new director tried his best to be as transparent as possible with what he's allowed to share

 

 

 

 I think the way people reacted to xv was partly because of the transparency of development. Sure nomura is way too non transparent, but tabata was way too transparent, and honestly I'd rather have the former situation than the latter.

 

One of the criticisms of xv was the story, or rather the lack of it. And part of the disappointment came from expecting more back story of certain characters, or story in general. There where story elements in the active reports that didn't make it to the final product, and it was sort of like 'Surprise!' when the game came out. Knowing too much about the development cycle will hurt the way you feel about the final product. Active reports are too spoilery, as trailers with cutscenes, enemy development, areas, etc are shown. Following it is exciting and all, but after a while you feel you know too much and the hype falls. 

Edited January 14, 2017 by LostArtis

[Setrex 1,031]

In regards to the OP, I do agree that they shouldn't announce games so far in advance, but if they don't announce them then people don't shut about them. How many years did we have to go through until the "please remake FF7" train finally got their wish? Even now you cannot go to any official Kingdom Hearts social media page without ungrateful 'fans' saying "stop with this 2.9999999/2 days remix nonsense and give us KH3".  Sometimes Square Enix are caught between a rock and a hard place and they have no other option but to announce them, even if they were announced too early.

 

I did have a conversation the other day about this subject though and I do think Nomura should not be directing FF7R. Not because "hurr durr Action-RPG" or anything, I honestly dislike FF7 a lot so I don't care what they do to it, in fact as long as they continue to annoy the elitist FF7 fanbase I'm fine with whatever SE do with the project. I just think that Nomura should focus on Kingdom Hearts III and that Kitase or someone should be at least co-directing FF7R. Better yet, the icing on the cake would be to have Toriyama direct FF7R. Now that would be funny to me.

 

We'll never know the ins and outs of things at SE so I guess for both FF7R and KH3 we'll just have to wait and see how Nomura does. At least in KH3's case, Yasue is co-directing and we've never had a reason to fault the Osaka team for timing. People seem to just have beef with Nomura and that's fine everyone is entitled to their opinion after all, but I've never had a reason to doubt him.

[DaxtotheMax 193]

This is what hangs me up http://www.idigitaltimes.com/kingdom-hearts-3-update-director-tetsuya-nomura-says-team-working-one-world-time-579079

I know you can't trust all articles, but to say that there's "No delay." So I mean was it planned to have KH3 come so late? and you just didn't bother telling anybody? I mean I know there have been previous statements about having revealed the game too early but I mean Square Enix is a big video game company not to mention one that has been around for a long time with a big team, I would be pretty certain that they would have things on track. This seems to not be the case, I don't understand how a game is made but games like Uncharted have been revealed and already released in the time that KH3 has been in "Development" and has more realistic graphics than a KH game would (making it a longer process right?). I know size is a factor as well as well as how much the team is working on it with both FF7R and KH3 in the works by one main guy (Nomura). I want the game to be done, I want the game to be good, I also would like a little more notification as to what's going on though. They are working with a new engine (not to mention learning it) with both games putting even more pressure on these developers. I don't blame Nomura, never have, I don't even see a blame, just a problem, with little solution.

[The Transcendent Key 12,109]

Well, game development can be a messy affair, and when tackling with huge projects such as Kingdom Hearts III and FFVII Remake, there's lots of pressure and lots of work to be done! I agree, though, Square can often pile too much on just one person, and I'm impressed Nomura has been able to shave through the pressure! Gotta admire a guy who works on a ridiculously huge amount of projects at any one time!  

 

And well, when it comes to Kingdom Hearts III, it's a game that we've all been waiting for, and as such, Nomura wants to make sure that the game meets the expectations of fans, and that it ends up being a quality product! To that end, I'm willing to wait for a polished game, and not a bug ridden mess, ya know? Hopefully, we'll get to see more of what shape KHIII is currently in throughout the year! I'm excited, hyped and happy! And with 0.2 being a taste of what KHIII will be, I can safely say that KHIII will be amazing!

 

But anyways, Square needs to better handle how projects are distributed between different directors! That way, things can flow more smoothly, ya know?