FFVII Remake's Director: What even is life

Lex

Lex

Administrator
Spawned from the discussion in the XV thread, discuss here why you think Nomura will do a good job of the VII remake and any associated fears you may have.

I'll start by giving my own thoughts: Nomura's track record with VII is as Character Designer. In terms of influencing a story as a director, what we've seen from him is Kingdom Hearts and Advent Children.

Yoshinori Kitase - the original director - is on board as a producer. He's infamous for having crazy ideas like wanting to include a Jenova fight in Crisis Core.

IMO they're both quite terrifying. Nomura no u'd the Jenova fight idea in CC and Kitase has been no u'ing Nomura's suggested massive plot changes with the remake, according to remake interviews (see the catch-all thread).

My ideal candidate would have been Kazushige Nojima directing, since going from writing the story/ scenario writer to director of a game makes more sense to me. Obviously there's more to the direction of a game than the story, hence Nomura. Also Nojima no longer works directly for Square, although he's apparently still writing for them (XV, FFVII Remake (might just be a prior credit)).

What makes you think Nomura will do it justice, and why?
 
ForceStealer

ForceStealer

Double Growth
I don't think Nojima has ever directed anything. It might not be his scene. I'm not aware of any crazy things he's said in interviews...
xoGV64H.gif


I think Nomura is a perfectly fine director (like KH, as you say), and lacks Kitase's wacky side. Also the story is kinda already there. So there's a limit to how KH-ified it could get, I think. But KH, KH2, and Birth By Sleep are pretty great games, and their internal plots are pretty good (Birth By Sleep's is very good). He brings a lot of it on himself by opening his big mouth, but I think Nomura is unjustly ridiculed and blamed for freaking everything wrong with Square.
I said in the other thread, how sure are we what of Versus' development hell or KH3's delay are attributable to him? If the company just pulls him off one project and sticks him on another without even telling him, are we sure it wasn't the higher-ups just making him work on other shit besides those two games that he actually wanted to?

Still though, I would want Nojima involved, I hope it isn't just a prior credit.
 
Lex

Lex

Administrator
There are two main things Nomura is responsible for that worry me. One is the plot of Kingdom Hearts as a whole (I mean seriously. I've watched that timeline video about 6 times now, it still doesn't make sense to me). The other is Advent Children. I think those speak for themselves re: what the fuck is going on.

Tbh, the shit that happened re: Versus in development hell I might be more inclined to attribute to Wada. I can see the allure of Nomura since he designed our favourite characters. But he didn't write them. I don't love Cloud because he has spiky yellow hair, I love Cloud because he's an underdog with an inferiority complex who conquers the odds anyway. I don't know who was responsible for that, but I know it wasn't the dude that designed the cool looking pauldron then went for a pee.
 
Tennyo

Tennyo

Higher Further Faster
Nojima went freelance, meaning he can still work for SE but it's more as an independent contractor rather than being an actual employee of the company. At the same time, though, he's written some really great stuff but he also gave us that short story where
Tidus blows up
so... :monster:

but then I like to think Nojima may have been trolling

And to be honest yes, of course we all have our doubts and fears and "What if" scenarios, but as of yet I'm not too entirely worried. I don't feel like I can judge yet.

I just don't see how being put on the Remake is a punishment for screwing up XV. :P

EDIT: Super ninja'd :monster:
 
ForceStealer

ForceStealer

Double Growth
Lex said:
I can see the allure of Nomura since he designed our favourite characters. But he didn't write them.
Click to expand...

He didn't write Advent Children either (Nojima did), so why are you holding him accountable for that but not giving him any credit for VII's story?
 
Lex

Lex

Administrator
^I never said it was a punishment. I merely meant that he was removed from XV and put on those projects and that he might not have been happy about it (and subsequently that his unhappiness about it makes me happy because the fans get two titles we've been wanting forever) :monster:

We have "it wasn't my decision" from Nomura and "Hereafter, he will be focusing his efforts on the production of titles that can only be made possible by Nomura, himself, and delivering products that exceed the quality of past titles, starting with another one of his representative projects, Kingdom Hearts III." which is what gives me that impression.

ForceStealer said:
Lex said:
I can see the allure of Nomura since he designed our favourite characters. But he didn't write them.
Click to expand...

He didn't write Advent Children either (Nojima did), so why are you holding him accountable for that but not giving him any credit for VII's story?
Click to expand...

Because he directed Advent Children and literally just drew the characters in FFVII. Did he have a hand in VII's story that I'm not aware of?
 
Tennyo

Tennyo

Higher Further Faster
Yeah, isn't Nomura credited along with Sakaguchi for coming up with the base story for VII? Nojima was the scenario writer, but I remember the menu credits saying something like, "Based on a story by..."

You all post too fast :monster:
 
Tetsujin

Tetsujin

he/they
AKA
Tets
Nojima's written mostly hot garbage in the last decade or so and has never been anything but a writer and never been involved with anything else re: game development so he would be the least ideal candidate imo

Did he have a hand in VII's story that I'm not aware of?
Click to expand...

He gets "Based on a story by" credit along with Sakaguchi.
 
ForceStealer

ForceStealer

Double Growth
I've generally heard that VII's story, after Sakaguchi gave that initial concept, was a combination of Nojima, Kitase, and Nomura.
 
Lex

Lex

Administrator
According to Wikipedia (not trustworthy obvs but the easiest source) the final scenario was written by Nojima and Kitase based on the bizarro "detective joe" story by Sakaguchi and Nomura.
 
Tennyo

Tennyo

Higher Further Faster
I think there was more to it than that. I remember reading an interview once where it was stated Nomura and Sakaguchi where the ones who decided to kill Aerith and create Tifa during a phone conversation or some such.

Hell if I remember where I read that, though. It was a long time ago.
 
Lex

Lex

Administrator
There's this from Wikipedia:

In early planning stages of Final Fantasy VII, Aerith was to be one of only three protagonists; herself, Cloud and Barret. During a phone call to Kitase, it was suggested that at some point in the game, one of the main characters should die, and after much discussion as to whether it should be Barret or Aerith, the producers chose Aerith. Nomura stated in a 2005 Electronic Gaming Monthly interview: "Cloud's the main character, so you can't really kill him. And Barrett... [sic] well, that's maybe too obvious."[30] While designing Final Fantasy VII, Nomura was frustrated with the "perennial cliché where the protagonist loves someone very much and so has to sacrifice himself and die in a dramatic fashion to express that love." He found this trope appeared in both films and video games from North America and Japan, and asked "Is it right to set such an example to people?"[31] Kitase concluded: "In the real world things are very different. You just need to look around you. Nobody wants to die that way. People die of disease and accident. Death comes suddenly and there is no notion of good or bad. It leaves, not a dramatic feeling but great emptiness. When you lose someone you loved very much you feel this big empty space and think, 'If I had known this was coming I would have done things differently.' These are the feelings I wanted to arouse in the players with Aerith's death relatively early in the game. Feelings of reality and not Hollywood."[31]
Click to expand...
 
Starling

Starling

Pro Adventurer
The point I suppose is that it was a collaborative effort. I think it's worth pointing out here that they recognize the importance of getting as much of the original development team together as they can manage, so they really are trying to stay faithful to the source material beyond visual fidelity. I also agree that Nomura's been blamed excessively and that he's not as bad as many seem to make him out to be.
 
ForceStealer

ForceStealer

Double Growth
Lex said:
You just need to look around you. Nobody wants to die that way. People die of disease and accident. Death comes suddenly and there is no notion of good or bad. It leaves, not a dramatic feeling but great emptiness. When you lose someone you loved very much you feel this big empty space and think, 'If I had known this was coming I would have done things differently.'
Click to expand...

There's a track on the FF7 OCRemix album where this bit is spoken. I didn't realize that it was a Kitase quote. Eloquently put.
 
Lex

Lex

Administrator
It's a Kitase quote actually.

And I know exactly which track you're talking about, it's from Voices of the Lifestream and it's called Adrenalyne Kick [sp?] - I've got it on a few playlists and I can't read that quote without hearing it in the song's robot voice XD.
 
Pixel

Pixel

The Pixie King
I think the fact that Kitase thought it would be fine to use Barret's AC model, but Nomura said no, gives me hope. He also stepped in when he wasn't happy with certain things Cyberconnect2 were doing, like the design of soldiers. He was also worried that what was shown at PSX was good enough.

I think if he keeps the reigns tight on the production team, and Kitase keeps the reigns tight on Nomura, it'll be fine.
 
Kuja9001

Kuja9001

Ooooh Salty!
AKA
roxas9001, Krat0s9001, DarkSlayerZero
Regarding Nojima

I read somewhere that he didn't want
Tidus to be revived
at the end of X-2 or something like that.
 
Tennyo

Tennyo

Higher Further Faster
Kuja9001 said:
Regarding Nojima

I read somewhere that he didn't want
Tidus to be revived
at the end of X-2 or something like that.
Click to expand...

Which is why I sometimes think that weird short story was just him trolling. :monster:

At least, that's my headcanon.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom