Tetsuya Nomura facts for kids

Tetsuya Nomura (野村 哲也, Nomura Tetsuya, born October 8, 1970) is a famous Japanese video game artist, designer, producer, and director. He works for a company called Square Enix.

He started at Square in 1991. His first job was designing monsters for Final Fantasy V. Later, he helped design characters for Final Fantasy VI. He became the main character designer for Final Fantasy VII. He also helped create the story for that game.

Nomura has designed characters for many other games. These include The Bouncer and The World Ends with You. He also created popular characters like Cactuar, Gilgamesh, and Tonberry.

Besides designing, Nomura created and directs the Kingdom Hearts series. This popular series started in 2002. He also directed the 2005 movie Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. More recently, he directed Final Fantasy VII Remake (2020). He was also the creative director for its sequel, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (2024).

Early Life and First Steps in Gaming

Tetsuya Nomura's father helped him get interested in art and games. His dad would draw pictures and make special board games for him. Nomura started drawing when he was only three years old. He even made his own board games in elementary school.

As a child, he loved playing baseball, swimming, and fishing. He also enjoyed building forts. When he was in middle school, his father bought him a computer. His dad said that computers would be very important in the future. Nomura played games on his computer and started learning how to program. This helped him create his own video games.

He first played a Nintendo game on a console called Color TV-Game. Later, in high school, he borrowed a Family Computer. Around that time, the game Dragon Quest became his favorite. It surprised him with its story. His art teacher told him about the artist Yoshitaka Amano. Amano was famous for illustrating Final Fantasy games. Nomura also drew his own comics in class. He thought about becoming a manga artist, but he changed his mind.

Nomura went to a special school to learn about magazine and advertising art. He looked for a job in advertising. But then he saw a job ad for Square. The ad had a drawing by Yoshitaka Amano. This made him apply to Square instead.

Career Highlights

Starting Out in the 1990s

In 1991, Nomura joined Square. His first job was testing games, like Final Fantasy IV. Soon, he joined the Final Fantasy team. He learned a lot from artist Tetsuya Takahashi. Nomura then designed monsters for Final Fantasy V.

Developers at Square used to write down their ideas in "plan books." Nomura wrote his by hand and added many drawings. This impressed the director, Hironobu Sakaguchi, and event planner, Yoshinori Kitase. Because of this, Nomura became the graphic director for Final Fantasy VI. He created characters like Shadow and Setzer for this game. He even made up their backstories.

After some smaller projects, Nomura became the main character designer for Final Fantasy VII. He replaced Amano in this role. Nomura drew the characters in a unique, stylized way. He also came up with the idea for "Limit Break" attacks. He helped shape the story, including important moments like Aerith's death.

In 1998, Nomura worked on Parasite Eve and Brave Fencer Musashi. Then, he designed characters and monsters for Final Fantasy VIII. He worked with art director Yusuke Naora to make the game's graphics look more realistic. He also wrote the characters' background stories. He was the battle visual director, designing how fights looked. He also designed characters for the fighting game Ehrgeiz.

The 2000s: Kingdom Hearts and More

Nomura designed characters for the game The Bouncer in 2000. He then returned to the Final Fantasy series. He designed characters for Final Fantasy X in 2001. He made sure the characters' clothes looked the same in cutscenes and during gameplay.

In February 2000, he started directing Kingdom Hearts. Over 100 people from Square and Disney worked on it. Nomura got the idea for the game after hearing about using Mickey Mouse in a video game. He was inspired by Nintendo's Super Mario 64. He convinced Disney to let him create new characters for the game. The main hero, Sora, became his favorite character he had ever designed.

After Kingdom Hearts, Nomura worked on Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy X-2. He also designed characters for the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII series. This series included new games based on Final Fantasy VII.

A sequel to Kingdom Hearts began development. Nomura continued his work with Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories for the Game Boy Advance in 2004. Fans wanted to play the original game on a portable console. So, Chain of Memories was made to connect the first Kingdom Hearts game to Kingdom Hearts II.

After that, Nomura directed the CGI animated film Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. It was released in Japan in 2005. This was his first movie. He also redesigned the characters for the film. He became the director because he felt a strong connection to the character Cloud Strife. He shared the directing role with Takeshi Nozue.

Kingdom Hearts II came out in 2005. It continued the story from the first game. Nomura made sure the story was easy for new players to understand. After Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix was released, Disney wanted another sequel. Nomura decided to make games that explained different parts of the story. This led to Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days for the Nintendo DS in 2008. It showed events that led up to Kingdom Hearts II. He also created Kingdom Hearts Coded, a mobile game set after Kingdom Hearts II. This game was later remade for the Nintendo DS in 2010.

During this time, Nomura also designed the main characters for The World Ends with You. In 2009, he was the main character designer for Final Fantasy XIII. The new game consoles allowed him to create more detailed characters. This meant the art team had to work much harder.

In 2008, he designed characters for Dissidia Final Fantasy. This game was first planned as a Kingdom Hearts spin-off with Disney characters. But Nomura felt it was strange for Disney characters to fight each other. So, he used Final Fantasy characters instead. He changed the look of Amano's original illustrations for this game.

The 2010s: New Projects and Remakes

In 2010, Square released Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep. This game was a prequel to the first Kingdom Hearts. It explained scenes shown in Kingdom Hearts II. In 2011, a follow-up to Dissidia called Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy was released. Nomura had many ideas for this game, including new characters and gameplay.

For Final Fantasy XIII-2 (2011), Nomura only designed the new characters' faces. Other team members designed their clothes. After the Kingdom Hearts coded remake, Nomura and his team started thinking about Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance. This game would set up the events for Kingdom Hearts III. It was released for the Nintendo 3DS.

In 2012, Nomura announced he was directing a new Kingdom Hearts game. He was also directing Final Fantasy XV. This game was originally called Final Fantasy Versus XIII and started production in 2006. However, Nomura left his director role on Final Fantasy XV in December 2013 due to changes at Square Enix.

After leaving Final Fantasy XV, Nomura began directing Final Fantasy VII Remake. Other key members of the original Final Fantasy VII team, like Kitase and Kazushige Nojima, also returned. Final Fantasy VII Remake was officially announced at E3 2015. Nomura also designed characters for Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and bosses for Final Fantasy XIV.

The 2020s: Continued Success

In April 2020, Final Fantasy VII Remake was released. Nomura was the director, character designer, and concept designer. The game was very popular. He then worked on downloadable content for the game called "intermission," released in 2021. The next part of the story, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, came out in 2024. He was the creative director, concept designer, and character designer for this project.

Kingdom Hearts IV was announced in April 2022. Nomura is in charge of character design, story, and concept design for this new game.

Nomura also creates artwork for his characters. In October 2022, he made art pieces for postcards that fans could buy. He also created artwork to introduce Kingdom Hearts IV. This art showed many characters he has created over the years.

Style and Influences

Nomura looks up to Yoshitaka Amano as a big inspiration for his artwork. He also says that his "seniors" at Square influenced him greatly. These include Hironobu Sakaguchi, Yoshinori Kitase, Hiroyuki Ito, and Tetsuya Takahashi. He even called Sakaguchi "like a godly figure" when he first started.

Hiroyuki Ito taught Nomura the basics of game design. Ito told him not to always stick to old ideas. Instead, he should reuse specific ideas and make games easy to control. Ito's work on battle systems inspires Nomura when he designs gameplay for Kingdom Hearts.

When Nomura designs characters, he likes their names and outfits to match their personalities. For example, in Final Fantasy X, the main character Tidus wears colorful clothes. This shows his cheerful personality. It also makes him different from earlier, more serious Final Fantasy characters. Tidus's name means "Sun" in Okinawan. Yuna's name, another character in the game, means "night."

Some characters, like Squall Leonheart and Lulu, have many accessories. This makes it harder for the game programmers. When directing the movie Advent Children, Nomura explained that it was different from Western films. It didn't give all the answers directly. He wants viewers to think about scenes themselves. Then, they can discuss them with friends. This is another way to enjoy the film. The same happens in the Kingdom Hearts series. Scenes with unknown characters are left for the player to imagine until the next part of the story.

Works

Awards and Recognition

Tetsuya Nomura received an "Excellence in Visual Arts" award. He got this from the International Game Developers Association. It was for his work on the first Kingdom Hearts game. He shared this award with Shinji Hashimoto.

IGN, a popular gaming website, listed Nomura among the "Top 100 Video Game Creators of all Time." He was ranked at number 84.

See also

In Spanish: Tetsuya Nomura para niños