Tetsuya Nomura Tetsuya Nomura is a video game director and character designer at Square Enix . He joined the company , then known as Square Co . Ltd . , in the early 1990s , and gained prominence when he was selected as the main character designer for " Final Fantasy VII " ( 1997 ) . Profile . Nomura ' s first job with Square was as a debugger for " Final Fantasy IV " , back in 1990 . He then went on to be the monster designer for " Final Fantasy V " . In the next game in the series , " Final Fantasy VI " , Nomura was the graphic director in charge of the monster designs ; he also designed the characters Shadow and Setzer Gabbiani , and was in charge of storyboarding some of the cutscenes . Nomura ' s biggest success was his character design work on " Final Fantasy VII " , which rose to become one of the most well - known RPGs of all time and a defining game for the series as a whole . Nomura ended up contributing a large amount to the characters ' stories ( such as Red XIII ' s name ) , although the majority of the storyline was not written by him . With his talent acknowledged , Nomura worked on other projects , such as " Parasite Eve " . Another huge success for Nomura was the release of " Final Fantasy VIII " , as the lead character designer and battle visuals director . Other games with characters designed by Nomura include " Final Fantasy X " , " Final Fantasy X - 2 " , " Final Fantasy XI " and " Final Fantasy XIII " . Other than " Final Fantasy " , Nomura also directed the Square Enix / Disney series " Kingdom Hearts " , as well as the CGI sequel to " Final Fantasy VII " , " " . He was also character designer for ' together with Gen Kobayashi . He spent most of the last decade helming production on " Final Fantasy XV " , having come up with the original concept and base story . He was set to direct the project until recently , with his role as director replaced by Hajime Tabata . Currently , Nomura is working on several Square Enix projects , such as ' and " Final Fantasy VII Remake " . Style . Compared to other character designers , Tetsuya Nomura ' s " Final Fantasy " games tend to be more " modern " and " sci - fi " than the first installments in the " Final Fantasy " games set in a medieval worlds . Nomura ' s games in particular also tend to have storylines that are darker in tone . In addition , his character names tend to draw inspiration from physical science and weather , in particular , the sky , land , and sea ; the central character almost always has the sky - based name . He was thinking of dropping that tradition for Lightning from " Final Fantasy XIII " , but the other creative figures behind the character chose a sky - based name . Nomura also creates character names inspired by their personalities . Tetsuya Nomura ' s style is similar to the traditional anime style of drawing , but he also draws upon western influences . Many of Nomura ' s character designs for games such as " Final Fantasy " and " Kingdom Hearts " have been criticized for the overuse of belts and zippers , as well as for many of the male characters having androgynous appearances , and that many of his female characters are shown wearing revealing outfits ; it has become a joke amongst fans to lightly tease Nomura ' s designs for these characteristics . Nomura ' s designs became much more " normal " in comparison to before the work on " Kingdom Hearts II " was finished . More recent designs from him , such as Lightning from " Final Fantasy XIII " or Aqua from " Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep " , do not show any excessive use of belts or zippers , but focus on creative accessories like ribbons or individually designed jackets . During his work with " Final Fantasy " , Nomura ' s style has changed . In " Final Fantasy VII " , Nomura adopted a traditional anime - like style seen by the large anime - esque eyes and Cloud Strife ' s gravity - defying hair . In " Final Fantasy VIII " , however , Nomura made changes his style to a hybrid of anime and realistic art in order to fit the more realistic tone of " Final Fantasy VIII " , which was the first 3D " Final Fantasy " to use anatomically proportioned characters within the game . In " Final Fantasy X " Nomura ' s designs became more and more realistic , although the coloring of the characters allowed his style to retain anime - like qualities . Nomura ' s art style was slowly losing its anime influences , but this all changed in Nomura ' s participation in " Kingdom Hearts " ; due to the immense amount of western influences from the Disney characters in " Kingdom Hearts " , Nomura adopted a more anime / cartoon look for his characters , and this style has been later reused in " Kingdom Hearts II " . " Crisis Core - Final Fantasy VII - " and " Dissidia Final Fantasy " feature more mature looking designs and are defined by a detailed shading . In the Nintendo DS game , " The World Ends With You " , Nomura departed from the style he used in " Kingdom Hearts " and instead , relied on a more traditional anime look even though there are still similarities to his " Kingdom Hearts " style . For Nomura ' s recent artworks for " Kingdom Hearts " , the characters ' anatomy is relatively unchanged , but the eyes of the younger characters look much more innocent then before . Nomura has carried over his " Final Fantasy " coloring style to the " Kingdom Hearts " franchise . Nomura ' s style has been defined by the vibrant colors as well as the unique amalgamation of eastern and western influences . His work has become well - known due to " Final Fantasy " , and his style of artwork has been loved and criticized by many , mostly by veteran " Final Fantasy " fans , due to the big departure from the traditional Japanese style of Yoshitaka Amano , who was responsible for the earlier " Final Fantasy " titles . Influences . In July 2012 , Tetsuya Nomura said that four people are his biggest influences : Hironobu Sakaguchi , Yoshinori Kitase , Hiroyuki Ito , and Tetsuya Takahashi . In another interview published in March 2014 , Nomura stated that Ito was the one that taught him about game design . In - game appearances . " Final Fantasy Type - 0 " . Tetsuya Nomura appears as a Support Personnel of Akademeia . He shares the character model with King .