extra=born October 8, 1970 is a Japanese video game artist, designer, producer, and director working for Square Enix. He was hired by Square initially as a monster designer for Final Fantasy V (1992), before being shifted towards secondary character designer alongside Yoshitaka Amano for Final Fantasy VI (1994). Final Fantasy VII (1997) had him working in the original story alongside Hironobu Sakaguchi, and marked his debut as the lead character designer, a capacity he would retain for several future installments of the series, as well as other Square Enix titles such as The Bouncer and The World Ends with You. He also created the characters Cactuar, Gilgamesh, and Tonberry.
Additionally, Nomura created and has led the development as director of the Kingdom Hearts series since its inception in 2002 and has been creative producer in The World Ends with You series. He has also directed the 2005 film , and directed Final Fantasy VII Remake (2020), and served as creative director for the sequel Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (2024).
Early life
Nomura's father influenced his interest in art and games early on, creating little drawings and unique
Sugoroku board games for him. Nomura started drawing at the age of three years and developed his own Sugoroku games during his elementary school years. As a child, he spent much of his free time playing baseball, swimming, fishing and building fortresses. When he was in middle school, his father told him that an
Information Age would come and bought him his own computer. Nomura played
Legends of Star Arthur: Planet Mephius on it and started creating his own video games by learning programming. He first tried a
Nintendo product with the
tennis and
ping-pong variant of the
Color TV-Game console and later borrowed a
Family Computer in high school. Around that time,
Dragon Quest became Nomura's favorite because it surprised him and introduced him to video games with story elements. His art teacher in high school pointed him towards the works of
Final Fantasy illustrator
Yoshitaka Amano. Nomura also created his own
manga during class and intended to do this as a profession although he ultimately abandoned the idea.
Nomura went to vocational school to learn magazine and advertising artwork.
Nomura then looked for an advertising job at a publishing company. However, he eventually applied to Square after he had seen a job advertisement with a drawing by
Yoshitaka Amano.
Career
1990s
In 1991, Nomura was hired by Square and at first worked as a debugger for
Final Fantasy IV.
Some time later, the company's staff was divided and he was placed in the team in charge of
Final Fantasy.
After he had received some training by artist Tetsuya Takahashi, Nomura designed the monsters for
Final Fantasy V.
At that time, each
Final Fantasy developer had their own plan book as a compilation of ideas to present to the director of a game. While the others typed their plan books at the computer and then printed them out, Nomura wrote his by hand and attached many drawings which impressed director Hironobu Sakaguchi and event planner
Yoshinori Kitase.
Nomura then became the graphic director of
Final Fantasy VI.
For this game, he conceived the characters Shadow and
Setzer Gabbiani as well as their background stories.
Their designs were reused from some of Nomura's abandoned concepts for
Final Fantasy V.
Following several smaller projects, Nomura was asked to be the principal character designer of
Final Fantasy VII in replacement for Amano.
Nomura drew the game's characters in a stylized and chibi way and came up with the idea for the "Limit Break" attacks.
He also took part in the making of the story and had a hand in plot elements such as
Aerith's death.
In 1998, Nomura worked on both
Parasite Eve and
Brave Fencer Musashi. He then designed characters and monsters for
Final Fantasy VIII in what he described as his "actual style of drawing", working alongside art director
Yusuke Naora to realize the more realistic approach to the game's graphics.
Additionally, he wrote the character's background stories and was the battle visual director in charge of designing fight sequences.
Afterwards, Nomura worked on several different projects for Square, for example as a character designer of the 1998 fighting game
Ehrgeiz which also used characters from
Final Fantasy VII.
2000s
Nomura was the character designer for 2000s beat 'em up
The Bouncer before he returned to the
Final Fantasy series in the same capacity with 2001's
Final Fantasy X. He worked with the staff so that the characters' clothes would be identical in full motion videos and in-game scenes, unlike in
Final Fantasy VIII.
In February 2000, he started working as the director of
Kingdom Hearts with the production team consisting of over one hundred members from both Square and Disney Interactive.
Nomura first heard of the game during a discussion between
Shinji Hashimoto and Hironobu Sakaguchi regarding the use of the character of
Mickey Mouse in a video game. He was inspired to work on
Kingdom Hearts by
Nintendo's platforming game
Super Mario 64. After discussing with the Disney staff, Nomura convinced them to use original characters with him as the character designer.
The game's protagonist, Sora, became his favorite character he had designed so far.
Following
Kingdom Hearts, Nomura worked once again on the
Final Fantasy series with
Final Fantasy XI and
Final Fantasy X-2.
For the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII metaseries which featured new titles based on Final Fantasy VII, Nomura was once again the character designer. A sequel to Kingdom Hearts started development around the completion of Kingdom Hearts Final Mix, an international version which added more foreshadowing elements regarding the series' plot.
Kingdom Hearts II was released in 2005, resolving the elements foreshadowed in the first game's secret ending. As a result of being set a year after previous titles, Nomura was careful to make the plot accessible to newcomers.
In the meantime, Nomura was also responsible for the main character designs and orchestration of The World Ends with You for the Nintendo DS. In 2009, he was also the main character designer of Final Fantasy XIII. The graphics capabilities of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 compared to previous consoles allowed Nomura to use more complex elements in the character designs than before, such as Lightning's cape and detailed facial features. This in turn meant that the art team had to do much more work for each character or area than in previous games. Nomura did not take an involved role in the creation of the non-playable characters.
2010s
In 2010, Square released
Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep, a prequel of the first
Kingdom Hearts that explained scenes shown in
Kingdom Hearts II and its updated version.
In early 2011, Square released a follow-up to
Dissidia titled
Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy. The game carried several ideas Nomura had ever since early development, such as the inclusion of new characters and new gameplay mechanics.
For 2011's
Final Fantasy XIII-2, Nomura only created the new characters' faces as other staff members designed their clothes.
Once the
Kingdom Hearts coded remake was released, Nomura and his companions had already thought about creating
, a game that would set up the events of
Kingdom Hearts III. The game was released for the Nintendo 3DS owing to the team's positive reaction to the console's quality.
Nomura confirmed that he would be considering what he called an "HD Technical Test" in order to commemorate the series' tenth anniversary and to entice players new to the series.
This occurred on March 3, 2012 in the form of a premiere event where footage from the game, including its full CGI introduction sequence, was showcased to celebrate the game's release.
In May 2012, Nomura revealed he was working as the director of a new
Kingdom Hearts game that had yet to be announced by Square Enix.
He was directing
Final Fantasy XV which originally entered production as
Final Fantasy Versus XIII shortly before its announcement in May 2006.
Nomura left his position of director on
Final Fantasy XV following "changes in development structure" by Square Enix in December 2013.
After his departure from
Final Fantasy XV, development of
Final Fantasy VII Remake began, with Nomura directing the project and other key members of the original
Final Fantasy VII development team, Kitase and
Kazushige Nojima returning as producer and scenario writer. At E3 2015,
Final Fantasy VII Remake was announced with Nomura confirmed to be the director of the game. Nomura designed the characters in the "Torna" organization for
Xenoblade Chronicles 2.
Nomura also designed bosses for the Eden raid in
Final Fantasy XIV Shadowbringers expansion.
2020s
In April 2020, Nomura and Square Enix launched the critically acclaimed
Final Fantasy VII Remake. He worked as the director of the project, character designer, and concept designer. After a successful launch, Nomura would go on to work on downloadable content for the game called "intermission", which released in 2021. The follow-up
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth was released in 2024. He worked as the creative director, concept designer, and character designer. Work for that project began in 2019.
Kingdom Hearts IV was announced in April 2022,
Nomura also created art pieces for his characters on post cards which could be purchased in October 2022.
Style and influences
Nomura considers
Yoshitaka Amano one of his biggest inspirations when doing artwork.
His four "seniors" Hironobu Sakaguchi,
Yoshinori Kitase,
Hiroyuki Ito, and Tetsuya Takahashi were also described as major influences.
He even compared Sakaguchi to something "like a godly figure" during his early days at Square. At that time, Nomura was also taught the basics of game design by Ito. He told Nomura never to stick to existing concepts but rather to reuse just specific ideas and explained concepts such as ease of control and effortless accessibility of magic spells.
Ito's work as a battle system designer inspires Nomura when thinking of the gameplay system for the
Kingdom Hearts games.
When designing characters, Nomura wants their names and outfits to be related with their personalities. An example occurs in
Final Fantasy X where the protagonist
Tidus was given a colorful uniform in order to reflect his cheerful personality and to contrast with the previous moody
Final Fantasy characters. His name as well as Yuna's, another character appearing in the game, also have a common theme, the former being Okinawan for "Sun" and the latter Okinawan for "night".
Various characters such as
Squall Leonheart and Lulu are given multiple accessories, making the games more challenging for the programmers.
When directing
Advent Children, Nomura explained how the film was different from Western films due to the lack of direct answers from the plot. He added that he wants viewers to interpret certain scenes themselves and then discuss them with friends as another way to enjoy the film.
The same occurs within the
Kingdom Hearts series where the scenes that show unknown characters are left to the player's imagination until the following scene reveals it.
Works
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| Live A Live | Tosa-ben translation | |
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| Chrono Trigger | Field graphics | |
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| Special thanks (hidden boss design) | |
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| Parasite Eve | Character designer | |
| Brave Fencer Musashi | Character illustration | |
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| Parasite Eve II | Character illustration | |
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| Final Fantasy XI | Character designer (Hume, Elvaan) | |
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| Director, concept design, scenario supervisor, character designer | |
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| Director, character designer, lyricist | |
| Supervising director | |
| Kingdom Hearts II | Director, concept design, 2D character art: main artist, base story | |
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| Character designer | |
| Final Fantasy V Advance | Monster design | |
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| The World Ends with You | Creative producer, character designer | |
| Creative producer, main character art designer | |
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| Dissidia Final Fantasy | Creative producer, character designer | |
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| Final Fantasy XIII | Character designer | |
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| Director, concept design, story, art | |
| Lord of Arcana | Illustrator | |
| The 3rd Birthday | Creative producer, character designer | |
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| Final Fantasy Type-0 | Creative producer, character designer | |
| Final Fantasy XIII-2 | Main character designer | |
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| Director, concept design, story, 2D art: main artist | |
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| Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix | Director, concept design, story, 2D art: main artist | |
| Kingdom Hearts χ | Director, concept design, story | |
| Main character designer | |
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| Final Fantasy Record Keeper | Creative producer, character designer, concept design | |
| Final Fantasy Agito | Main character designer | |
| Final Fantasy VII G-Bike | Creative producer, character illustration | |
| Gunslinger Stratos 2 | Character designer (Riccardo Martini, Sakura Ayanokoji) | |
| Puzzle & Dragons Battle Tournament | Main character designer | |
| Creative producer | |
| Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 Remix | Director, concept design, story, 2D art: main artist | |
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| Kingdom Hearts Unchained χ | Director, concept design, story | |
| Dissidia Final Fantasy | Creative producer, character designer | |
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| Final Fantasy XV | Original concept, character designer, lyrics | |
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| Dissidia Final Fantasy Opera Omnia | Creative producer, character designer | |
| Terra Battle 2 | Guardian character designer | |
| Final Fantasy character supervisor | |
| Xenoblade Chronicles 2 | Character designer (Malos, Jin, Mikhail, Patroka, Akhos) | |
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| Lyrics, original concept, character designer | |
| Character designer of "Torna" | |
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| Guest character/boss designer | |
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| Kingdom Hearts Dark Road | Director, concept design, story, character designer | |
| Director, concept design, story, character designer | |
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| Creative producer, character designer | |
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| Creative director, character designer | |
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| Creative director | |
| Super Mario RPG | Character supervisor | |
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Accolades
Nomura received the "Excellence in Visual Arts" award by the International Game Developers Association for his work on the first
Kingdom Hearts game, alongside
Shinji Hashimoto.
In
IGN's "The Top 100 Video Game Creators of all Time" Nomura was listed at number 84.
External links
