The Design Philosophy of Tetsuya Nomura- A Critique And Analysis Of His Works

Added: 2026-05-16

[00:00:00]Tetsia Namora is probably the most infamous man in Square Enix. From a debugger to director of one of gaming's most ambitious projects, Tetsia Namura is without a doubt the man of Square Enix right now. He has designed gaming's most iconic characters of all time.

[00:00:15]Games like Final Fantasy 7, the Kingdom Hearts franchise, Final Fantasy 13, Final Fantasy 15, The World Ends With You, The Bouncer, you name it, Namora has drawn it. His character designs aren't the only notable thing about him.

[00:00:27]His design philosophy goes beyond just character design. His style goes through combat design and movie design. His visual style of shots and the way that he comes up with these cool visuals and art direction is something that I think needs to be talked about. This video I'm going to be diving in into how Namora gets these inspirations for his styles uh when it comes to film direct uh like directing stuff and character design because I think we look at Namora and say, "Oh, he's character designer." But he's more than a character designer. He is a visionary for combat um in Kingdom Hearts Final F what was to be Final Fantasy versus 13 the Final Fantasy 7 remake trilogy. Namora pushed that vision and I really want to talk about that. And of course, Advent Children and other Final Fantasy openings he's worked on. Namora is a true visionary and has a good sense of direction when it comes to making these really cool concepts. Also, I've been replaying through the Kingdom Hearts franchise, and I got to say, the wait for Kingdom Hearts 4 is outrageous, and I need to talk about I just I need I need to get it out there. The the urge for, you know, something related to Kingdom Hearts is really coming out.

[00:01:34]Without further ado, let's talk about the design philosophy of Tetsia Namura.

[00:01:40]Before Namora started directing and producing, he started off as a debugger and battle designer for Final Fantasy 4.

[00:01:46]Namora was always interested in art.

[00:01:48]That was his passion. And when Final Fantasy 7 came around, his mind, paper, and pencil created some of the most iconic character designs of all time.

[00:01:56]More notably, Cloud and Sepharoth.

[00:01:58]Namora's inspiration for Cloud and Sepharoth comes from the rivalry between Miiamoto Mousashi and Sasaki Kojiro.

[00:02:04]Their personalities even reflect Mousashi and Kojiro. Sepharoth is a character that's calm and resolved, but has an aura that makes him scary. And the same can be said for Kojiro, a mute prodigy swordsman, a playful yet dangerous individual. This was a genius move by Tetsio Namora. Not only did he design characters for Final Fantasy 7, but he also drew the characters for Final Fantasy 8. Squal Leon Hart is such a cool character. His jacket, gunlade, his scar, everything about him is edgy, emo, badass, awesome. But the most impressive thing that the Mora contributed for this game was the opening of Final Fantasy 8. In an interview with Yoshori Kitas, the director of Final Fantasy 8, he states that actually the planning for that movie was almost entirely the product of Namora. This is what Namora had to say about the opening of Final Fantasy 8.

[00:02:54]Speaking of which, one of my more unreasonable requests was for the opening movie. It begins with a scene on a beach with leaping waves. And that was something I had requested to movie director Sakiara. Even though I knew how hard it was to do water and waves in CG, it came out amazing though, didn't it? I don't think there's a CG studio in the world today that has put out better looking ocean waves. Then after the waves, the opening shows more beautiful natural scenery. The field of flowers, the petals scattering, the feathers and wings. That stuff is all really hard to do well in CG and they're all things I selfishly requested. It all has a meaning though. All the thematic keys for the story are hidden within that opening movie. The opening of Final Fantasy 8 screams Tetsio Namora.

[00:03:36]Everything that Namora directs or designs is with the intent of looking cool. And this is something that Neora has carried through his entire career.

[00:03:43]But in order for us to really see how he's evolved, not just as a character designer, but director, we'll have to look into the secret ending of Kingdom Hearts 1.

[00:03:56]This secret ending is the definition of Namora. It's edgy, flashy, cool, stunning, badass, emo. Every word that comes in your mind is what this ending is like. To start off, we see Roxus walking towards our view with the camera flashing in and out of focus. Raindrops.

[00:04:13]And the shot of Roxus in the beginning with his eyes glowing yellow creeps me out. The cryptic messages that appear in this whole scene and the fight sequence with Rox says cutting down the heartless is so different than the actual game itself. It's dark and gritty, something that you wouldn't expect from a game like Kingdom Hearts. Although these endings serve as trailers and snippets of ideas that Namora comes up with. This style of scenes and cinematography would be the foundation of Tetsio Namora's cinematics. Every single cinematic Namora has worked on is made with the sole purpose of raising questions and looking cool while at it. I know I have certainly have asked questions while looking at the stuff he's made. And I'm pretty sure since back when Kingdom Hearts 1 came out, they weren't sure if there's going to be a second um like a second game. So Namora decided to make that ending just, you know, throw out his ideas. And when it was green lit for, you know, Kingdom Hearts 2, Kazig Nojima, the writer, had to kind of go back and just see what was made in those teasers and try to fit it in the story board of Kingdom Hearts 2, which I think is really funny. This style of vibes Namora um produces with his games and endings and like everything that he makes is so awesome and it's even reflected into the characters that he draws even till now. But what inspires him to make his games and endings like this? What is the vibe and atmosphere of this style? Now correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm drawing a connection to the style of Visual K. Although not confirmed by Namora, although if it is, please let me know. I'm tending towards that Tetss and Amora was inspired by Visual K and because of that a lot of his works have that 2000s Visual K style. When you look at the fashion during that time, it was a lot of dark colors being worn and you can even look at the jackets Japanese bikers wore.

[00:05:59]Characters like Kadage from Final Fantasy 7 Advent look very similar. The the style of clothes that they wear in the movie is very similar to these jackets. And the same can be said for the organization 13 members just to display the geniusness and the smart thinking of Namora is looking at his character designs in Kingdom Hearts. For example, Sora's design is genius. It replicates the proportions of Mickey Mouse with the shoes and the pants and his hair being spiky, which in a way kind of emulates Mickey Mouse's ears.

[00:06:29]And their personalities are also similar and the name Sora meaning sky in Japanese. Even the color palette is the same as Mickey Mouse's. But Tetsia and Namora would get his big director role in the sequel film Final Fantasy 7 Advent Children. Namora directed Final Fantasy 7 Advent Children, where he put a lot of his visual flare onto the story and designs in the film. More notably, the character designs. Cloud's design is, do I dare say, better than the original design. And I don't know what Barrett has going on, but the fishnet thing is stupid to the point where it looks good on him. He He can just rock it. Although the most impressive thing about Advent Children is the fight sequences. This movie is a really pretty movie. Even after all these years, the fight with Cloud and Sephro is the coolest thing I've ever seen. It defies the laws of physics, and that's exactly what Namora intended for this whole movie. Without a doubt, my favorite shot in this film is Cloud and Aith. It shows them back to back with a white background symbolizing Cloud's internal conflicts with himself still holding a grudge against Aith's death and the flowers representing what remains of Aith. It's such a good scene. This would mark Tetsuamora's major breakthrough, if that makes sense. Final Fantasy 7 is without a doubt one of the greatest video games of all time. So, for him to be a director for a sequel film to video games most biggest product ever made, um, it's a pretty big deal. Um, he used a lot of what he learned from Kingdom Hearts and implemented it into Advent Children. But what happens when you let him have full control over his own original story? Not a collaboration with Disney or sequel to a video game that you didn't even direct. No, his own original story from the ground up. Well, it looks something like this.

[00:08:30]Heat.

[00:08:35]Heat.

[00:09:04]2006 was an ambitious year for Square Enix. They aimed to push the boundaries of gaming with their project subseries within Final Fantasy, the Fabula Nova Cryales. I low-key have a strange attachment to the Fabula Nova Cristales.

[00:09:18]The Fabula Nova Cristales was kind of my introduction to Final Fantasy with Final Fantasy 13 2 being my very first introduction to the whole series. At some point, I'd like to make a video on the Fabula Nova Cristales, but I'll save that for another time. The whole idea of the Fabula Nova Cristales was to connect multiple spin-off games into one mythology series. The project would consist of three games. Final Fantasy 13, Final Fantasy Agito 13, and Final Fantasy Versus 13. Tetsuio Namora would be the man who created the Fabula Nova Crystals Mythos and Project, and the game that he'd be directing would be Versus 13. At the time, Versus 13 was so different from the previous Final Fantasy titles. It was a dark take on Final Fantasy, showing a gritty side to the franchise. This would also be the first Final Fantasy game to go for an action-based combat system. Namora has said in interviews that he did not want to stray away from the foundations that made Final Fantasy Final Fantasy. Even though Versus 13 was an action game, it would not stray away from the RPG elements that Final Fantasy has always had. The combat for Versus 13 was going to be very similar to the combat of Kingdom Hearts 2. The combat in Kingdom Hearts 2 is by far the best in the series. And the goal for Versus 13's combat was to redefine and polish the combat of Kingdom Hearts 2 and make it the most engaging combat system Square has given out. It was a pretty ambitious project at the time. Versus 13 would bring back the command menu. Commands like magic, items, and summon, and a new feature called XARTs. Not sure what that really is. I couldn't find any information on it, but in my opinion, I think it's probably like a combat weapon. But a lot of the elements, combat elements in Kingdom Hearts 2 are back. Like I just said, the command menu. And yeah, it I mean, if you look at the whole layout of the of the combat system, it's very similar. And obviously, the team that made Kingdom Hearts 2 that worked on the combat would be working on the combat in versus 13.

[00:11:19]The story of Final Fantasy versus 13 remains a mystery till this day. But to read what the trailers say, an isolated nation protected by an ancient line of kings, a modern civilization alive with the crystal songs of swords and sorcery.

[00:11:34]A lone kingdom fighting to forestall the other world from opposing its hericked order. The struggle for the final crystal is merely a prologue to the chronicles of a new era. This is a fantasy based on reality, a meeting precedented by the divine. eyes that see the light of expiring souls. What do these quotes and cryptic messages say about the story of Versus 13? The story would take place in a realistic setting.

[00:11:59]The city of insomnia being inspired by either Tokyo or Shibuya, a tale of war between two nations, a road trip to stop the empire, a love turned into a battle.

[00:12:08]I'm very vaguely explaining the plot of versus 13, but unfortunately, we just don't know much of it in order for us to really talk about it. Although Final Fantasy 15 synopsis is pretty much the story of all the trailers we got for Versus 13 for reasons that I won't discuss since I've already made a video on that matter that is like 20 minutes and you should watch it. It's not very good, but it was my first video ever made. Final Fantasy versus 13 was changed into Final Fantasy 15, but the influence Namora had on the game still lives on when it comes to world design and character design. The main cast of Final Fantasy 15 all rock black leather coats, shoes, shirts, and cool jewelry.

[00:12:47]More notably, Ignis's necklace. The clothing behind Final Fantasy 15 were all designed by fashion company Rowan, which Tetsamora does actually wear, and he seems to have a good relationship with. I'm not sure if it's the CEO or the owner or something, but he is very close with Rowan. Noctis' shirt has skulls and crossbones all over it.

[00:13:06]Ignis' shirt has this dark purple leopard pattern going on. And of course, his skull necklace. It's super cool.

[00:13:12]Gladadio rocks a full black leather jacket while wearing a X-shaped necklace. And Prompto rocks a bandana on his right arm, a leopard print on his pants, and his jacket having whatever this flare thing is called. I I've actually seen it in like, you know, people wearing that kind of stuff, but I have no idea what it's called. If you know, um, please let me know. I would love to know what it is. Maybe I'll go buy one. But it's safe to say that Namora basically designed the characters of Final Fantasy 15 off himself. As for the world of Final Fantasy 15 or 13, Insomnia is inspired by Tokyo or Shibuya like I said earlier and Altissa being inspired by European architect. Even in old footage of versus 13, the world of versus 13 and 15 is inspired by the western side of the world. The reason why I'm kind of elaborating more on Final Fantasy 15 or verse 13, unlike, let's say, Kingdom Hearts or Advent Children, is because Namora, this was Namora's original story. He was going to well, it's never been said, but I'm pretty sure there's a quote or something. I I'll I'll pull it up, but it's like someone asked Namora like how how would you describe versus 13? And he says like, "Oh, it's the best monster I've made yet." Or something like that.

[00:14:26]And honestly, I think it's a shame that Namora got kicked off his own project. I do really feel bad for him because in interviews and you know, when we just look at versus 13 and the influence it has, it is the most influential piece of media besides PT to never come to fruition. But so many video games try to replicate the vibe of Versus 13. and you know whether or not we get it through Kingdom Hearts 4 or we never get it. Um but I'm it's safe to say that some elements of Versus 13 will be implemented into Kingdom Hearts 4. It's safe to say that versus 13 is a game that Namora cannot let go of. And we'll get into that more later. But um you know versus 13 is just you know it's it's something that was dear to to Namora and that's why I really wanted to kind of elaborate more on it because this was his baby. In more recent years, Tetsia Namora has directed and released Kingdom Hearts 3 and is currently the creative director of the Final Fantasy 7 remake trilogy. Say what you want about the Final Fantasy 7 remake trilogy, but you can't deny that the combat in the remake trilogy is one of the best combat systems Enix has ever made. Overall, I think the combat in Rebirth is by far the best out of the duology as of right now. It's pretty much the exact same combat style in Kingdom Hearts 2, but smoother and minus the Valor forms and reaction commands. Pressing square allows Cloud to attack and holding the button unleashes a whirling combo.

[00:15:55]Pressing triangle allows Cloud to go into Punisher mode, which lets Cloud unleash fast but hard strikes. Although I will say for the animation for Punisher mode and Rebirth I'm not a big fan of. I much prefer remakes um animation for Punisher mode, but that's just my personal opinion. By far the best feature in this game and in remake and Rebirth is tactical mode. By pressing X activates it, which freezes combat but allows you to go through the command menu. kind of like a hybrid of semi- turnbased where if you freeze it, you have time to just do whatever, you know, uh switch through your party members abilities, cast spells. Um yeah, I think it's really cool. But in the command menu, you can select abilities, items, spells, and summons. And one big thing that Rebirth added was fluid aerial combat. This was super helpful, especially when it comes to enemies in the air, but in my opinion, it's kind of janky and not the best, but it's better than nothing. A complaint I have with remakes combat was it feels too stiff and well, grounded, which is good, but grounded in the sense that when you were to fight enemies in the air, there's not a lot you could do to fight them.

[00:17:07]Overall, the combat and rebirth is probably my favorite combat system in Final Fantasy by far. It's up there with like, okay, I guess if I had to rank it now, I can only think about two or maybe three. FF7, Rebirth's combat, Final Fantasy 10's combat, and OG FF7's combat. But it's also really important that we talk about the combat in Kingdom Hearts 2. A major reason why Kingdom Hearts 2 is considered the best in the whole franchise is because the combat is superb. A lot of what Kingdom Hearts 1 felt short of, Kingdom Hearts 2 fixed.

[00:17:38]The combat in Kingdom Hearts 2 is similar to Rebirths and is essentially the blueprint of the combat and Rebirth, but when you level up in Kingdom Hearts 2, you unlock new abilities you get to equip for Sora. The variety of abilities Sora has is just insane. Pairing that with the reaction commands, which allow Sora to do moves with enemies and makes the combat more fluid and immersive. We can't talk about the combat without talking about the dry forms, which allow Sora to transform into forms that let him go into wisdom form, valor form, limit form, master form, and anti form.

[00:18:11]Combat overall is pretty much the same as Rebirths, minus the ATV system, but this shows that Kingdom Hearts 2's combat is superb in every way. Um, an issue that I have with Kingdom Hearts 1 is that the combat feels too stiff and really feels like you have no real control over Sora. However, KH2 makes Sora feels he feels more free when in combat. He feels more fluid and the combo overhaul is just so much better in Kingdom Hearts 2. Now, how does this tie into Neor's philosophy of design? Well, we have to give props to his team that worked on the combat of Kingdom Hearts 1. A major complaint people had with the very first Kingdom Hearts was that the combat and among other things were just kind of bad. The camera is awful and it felt like you had no control over Sora and it just felt really janky. However, the team working on the combat took this to heart and completely made the combat in KH2 feel so much different and better than Kingdom Hearts 1. In an interview with one of the people who worked on the combat, they said that we made adjustments to the parts that couldn't be elaborated on when we made KH1 in order to make things even easier to control. The biggest thing was the triangle button, which is now being used to execute reaction commands. The command window was necessary to make more options available to the player.

[00:19:28]All the complaints people had from Kingdom Hearts 1, Namora took to heart, and this is what he had to say about it.

[00:19:34]One of our goals was to recover all the foreshadowing from the previous game.

[00:19:38]Then we took all the complaints we heard from it and fixed it to bring it to satisfaction. At the same time, we also thought of adding more into direction and increased choices into the battle system. like this. The development was going towards the path of increasing the volume of the game from the start. So, we thought there are a lot of things that need to be done, but let's do all of them and stuck to that thinking. Now, Kingdom Hearts was Square Enix's first attempt at action combat. And since they've learned so much from Kingdom Hearts 1, Namora saw the flaws and uh gave the flaws like I'm I'm assuming he told the team like, "Hey, let's work on this and stuff." And so the combat now in Rebirth and hopefully Kingdom Hearts 4 will be just this definitive experience of what Kingdom Hearts 2 is and what Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is. And um yeah, that's the design philosophy of, you know, uh combat. There is there's more about combat regarding Namora, but I couldn't find any um interviews and whatnot. Usually I'm able to find these quick um but I just couldn't find it. But Namora has a lot of influence of what goes on into the games that he directs. He is the director overall. So, you know, he has to oversee everything and he does do a lot for these games. Let's just get that out there. Even though there's not a lot of Kingdom Hearts 4 right now, Namora is a busy man. So, I feel like I just had to say that just to, you know, kind of conclude this. But yeah, as for versus 13 and that whole concept, Namora hasn't let that go. And if you look at Kingdom Hearts 3, VM Rex, it's pretty clear that Namora just can't let go of this idea. He's been implementing elements of 13 into Kingdom Hearts 3, more specifically Yazora. And I'm very interested to see what he does um with Kingdom Hearts 4 and the series overall moving forward. Um, will Kingdom Hearts go full versus 13? Hell no. But I believe four will imp implement a lot of ideas that Namora had for versus 13 and try to intertwine it into the Kingdom Hearts story. Thank you guys so much for watching this video. I hope you guys liked it. Um, different video, quite long. Um, but I had a lot of fun editing this, researching. It gave me a nice excuse to replay through some of the Kingdom Hearts games. um gave me an excuse to use footage, gave me an excuse to make videos, finding my passion again. Um and yeah, that's pretty much it. Um let me know what you guys think. If there are stuff that I'm wrong about, um please let me know. I'm pretty sure I'm wrong on one thing about uh fashion regarding Visual K. I don't think that's the right term. I think street fashion is the right term to use. Um, so I'm going to say that now, but I'm going to leave a comment just because, you know, somebody might come after me. But, um, yeah. Um, for stuff that I want to make after, um, I will be making my Final Fantasy 10 review after this video. Um, I am currently playing through um, Persona 4 and Final Fantasy 12. Those games I will review once I beat them and write stuff for that. But um that's what I have planned and yeah, it's pretty much it. Um now the game awards are soon. Um so I guess I should give my predictions on what's going to happen. So FF7 Raming part 3 is very much likely to get revealed next month considering that there is just so much information on that game and that Naoki Hamaguchi has completed over 40 playthroughs of that game. So yeah, it's uh it seems like it's going to come out pretty soon. Um there were Kingdom Hearts 4 leaks today. I am recording this on the 10th. I think it's the 10th. It's the 10th, right? 10th of u May. There have been leaks on Kingdom Hearts 4. It's just leaks. So I'm not going to take it um fullheartedly. I'm going to approach it with a grain of salt. But there are a lot of stuff in that leak that seem like true and also not true. But uh we'll see. We'll see next month. We'll see in the next couple of months what happens with Kingdom Hearts 4. And yeah, that's that. That's pretty much it. Thank you guys so much for watching this video. I really do appreciate it. Please like and subscribe. Let me know what you liked about the video. Um if I'm wrong about things, please let me know. I would love to. I had an argument yesterday about uh character design and who creates characters. um on TikTok earlier. Well, it wasn't an argument, but I don't think the guy I was talking to really knew what he was talking about. But anyways, thank you guys so much and I'll see you guys in my next video. Have a good day.