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Can we all agree that Tetsuya Nomura is terrible at Storytelling but great at Cinematic Gameplay?

The_Mike

I cry about SonyGaf from my chair in Redmond, WA
What is cinematic gameplay?

You watch a movie, you play a game.

Do you play a movie, or watch a game?
 

Sub_Level

wants to fuck an Asian grill.
OP I think the word you're looking for is choreography. And yeah he is pretty good at it. Turning the FFVII Remake boss fights into full blown spectacles was a good design choice. He has come a long way from the KH2 "press Triangle for Cool" bosses.
 
Terrible. The character story in FF re is the best part. Same with kingdom hearts. The plot of both mess up on some real basic story telling. But even the best games would be C tier movies at best. TLOU2 is the greatest story in a video game ever to me. Might not even win an MTV award let alone an Oscar if made a movie. At the end of the day gameplay is what matters the most.
 
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Fbh

Member
I think it's more about the combat than the gameplay.
I've enjoyed the combat in several of his games, more recently FFVII Remake had one of the my favorite combat systems in the entire franchise and I definitely agree he manages to make them look cinematic and feel like a spectable while still being fun to play.

But outside of combat I can't say any of his games have really stood out to me too much. Staying with FFVII remake when you aren't fighting you are mostly going through very linear levels with uninteresting level design or engaging in some very weak sidequests.

You guys pin everything on the director for some reason.
He's just one guy working with a team, he comes up with outlines he doesn't handle all the writing.

Sure the director doesn't do everything. But when you have a case like Nomura where every single game he has directed has a terrible plot an writing it's not hard to see a pattern.
 

Hugare

Member
Dude has an amazing eye for cinematics and boss battles, not gonna lie.

All of his games look awesome. Even Chain of Memories on the GBA has terrific presentation.

His stories sucks, but how he tells them is masterful.

KH III was dreadful tho. Gameplay was cumbersome and full of gimmicks. Story was pure trash, pacingw as off ...

FF VIIR was amazing tho, and I really would have liked to see his vision for FF XV
 

Nautilus

Banned
Yeah, no.
You're the only delusional who thinks that xiii isn't complete liquid shit stored inside a flaming dumpster cruising on a mud river during a flood.
No. I also think that XIII is decent at least. FF XV and VIII are factually worse games, for example.
 

The_Mike

I cry about SonyGaf from my chair in Redmond, WA
There are interactive tv shows and movies on Netflix.

I think you can do both in either format.
What are interactive movies?

Whats the difference between interactive movies and cinematic games?
 

Astral Dog

Member
Nah he's fine, when they started working on FFVIIR and Kingdom Hearts, Nomura had simple plans for the plot, other Square Enix developers (don't remember exactly who) and close team members pushed him to writte more 'complex' narrative and twists because that attracts gamers, and he's been doing that since.

Its not just Nomura, Square wants a 'hook' to bring gamers, its not unlike say Hideo Kojima or Resident Evil wich sometimes can get nonsensical with the writting (but in JRPG form) some times when a series feels a little simple in its storytelling, game fans start to complain its shit even though there is nothing wrong with that approach
 
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CuNi

Member
Yeah I question the guy's direction and decision making.

Character design, mood and theme, he seems to nail it most of the time. But Nomura's storywriting ability appears to be atrocious, if he really is the source of all this bad writing.

I notice you dont always see it coming though. At first the story in one of his projects might show promise or seem like good, but then as it unfolds you see how it falls apart due to poor decision making/handling. The ideas are sometimes ok, but often times the way they're executed is either cringey or just not done well. For example:

KH1
mostly a great game. i wonder where they'll take it next

COM
shits getting weirder

KH2
Game's still fun but plot is really starting to not make any sense

spin offs/prequels and shit
Im even more confused now

KH3
What even the fuck is this shit. Both the gameplay AND the story are trash.

Specifically for KH I bet there's probably some influence from Disney in there somewhere fucking the writing up somehow someway.

On a side note I always felt like if KH was a bit more mature/darker than it often is it would do it well. You see glimpses of it being darker now and again in the series (the first game does it for me mainly) but I dont think they could ever go deeper into that side of things because Disney wouldnt let them.

Another side note, I am interested to see how Nomura incorporates elements from the original cancelled Versus 13 into KH4 tho. It's a shame the original game never materialized properly, it looked far more interesting than what the fuck FF15 ended up being.

I really liked KH1/2 and some of the spin offs. BBS was one of my fav games when it released and DDD was quirky but okay.
Story started to be really convoluted but one could roughly follow it.

But then KH3 came and as you so nicely said, not only was the story utter garbage and had no coherency whatsoever, even the gameplay was literally reduced to pressing 1 Button.
That in combination of them going for a more cinematic/realistic art-style really threw KH3 under the bus for me.

I start to understand Valve why they never released a third installment of any of their games because somehow most things that reach their 3rd Installment just end up being shit.
 

Onironauta

Member
I think we should stop giving that much credit to a single person. There are big staffs behind AAA games, he just gives a direction.
 

Nautilus

Banned
You would assume Nomura killed a family member of some of the users here given their posts on this thread.
 

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
I think we can all agree that Nomura has a talent to overcomplicate things when it comes to narrative, the man clearly loves to add and add unecessary bits of lore, KH right now has a mess of a plot and this weird tendecy of his also showed on FFVIIR, I still cringe thinking about those whisperers or whatever those phantoms were called.
I think you might be attributing your personal dislikes to Nomura's actual responsibility, more than is warranted.

Games are made by a team.

KH's story is complicated, but that's what the people want.

FF7R's story is fine.

He has a long track record of working on successful games.
 

Bernardougf

Gold Member
Terrible. The character story in FF re is the best part. Same with kingdom hearts. The plot of both mess up on some real basic story telling. But even the best games would be C tier movies at best. TLOU2 is the greatest story in a video game ever to me. Might not even win an MTV award let alone an Oscar if made a movie. At the end of the day gameplay is what matters the most.
Oh... I think that in todays shitty political awful and disconnected from reality taste that Hollywood has... TLOU2 "the movie" would be number 01 contender for the Oscars ..
 

Toots

Gold Member
You would assume Nomura killed a family member of some of the users here given their posts on this thread.
Or maybe the user assumed they died but in fact it was their similis and the real ones were put in a deep one year sleep by Goofy so they can get their memories back which they lost fighting the evil organisation (ff)XIII alongside Mickey and mothercluckin Donald Duck ? 😅

Nomura is a legend for sure, and he did great stuff, but it’s one of the guys you love to hate.
 

Lethal01

Member
The man clearly loves to add and add unecessary bits of lore, KH right now has a mess of a plot and this weird tendecy of his also showed on FFVIIR, I still cringe thinking about those whisperers or whatever those phantoms were called.

Nomura was not the main writer on remake and by all accounts from those who were more involved he was the one trying to reign the whole thing in.
Almost everything I've loved from square has been under Nomura's direction, I'd probably say he's their greatest asset.
 
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Terrible. The character story in FF re is the best part. Same with kingdom hearts. The plot of both mess up on some real basic story telling. But even the best games would be C tier movies at best. TLOU2 is the greatest story in a video game ever to me. Might not even win an MTV award let alone an Oscar if made a movie. At the end of the day gameplay is what matters the most.

And this statement alone shows you have zero credibility to discuss basic plot and have no right to criticize anything Nomura has written.
 
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NeoIkaruGAF

Gold Member
KH's story is complicated, but that's what the people want.
Is it though?

There’s a difference between complicated, and the sheer absurdity KH has become through the years.
People still love to joke about Metroid Other M and “the baby the baby the baby”, but some dialogues in KH3 are just an exercise in how many times you can use the word “heart” in place of other nouns and still form kinda complete sentences.
Seeing the similarities between KH’s latest episodes and the craptacular Evangelion remakes, I swear Nomura must be Hideaki Anno’s Nobody.
 
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Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
Is it though?

There’s a difference between complicated, and the sheer absurdity KH has become through the years.
People still love to joke about Metroid Other M and “the baby the baby the baby”, but some dialogues in KH3 are just an exercise in how many times you can use the word “heart” in place of other nouns and still form kinda complete sentences.
Seeing the similarities between KH’s latest episodes and the craptacular Evangelion remakes, I swear Nomura must be Hideaki Anno’s Nobody.
Based on sales, I can only assume so. Personal taste isn't really a reliable indicator of general trends.
 

noqtic

Member
What are interactive movies?

Whats the difference between interactive movies and cinematic games?
I haven't tried an interactive movie yet but I'd assume they're like a choose your own adventure book, but a movie.

On the other hand, the closest thing to cinematic gameplay in my opinion are adventure games like Until Dawn or Detroit Become Human.
 
Can we all agree that this kind of "can we all..." Thread titles are just SHIT. It's like you come here with already your mind set on the answer and want to push everyone on that direction to just confirm your opinion instead of making a thread and see what is everyone believing.
Can we all agree the world is round? No, we can't. So, why do you think we could all agree on your NeoGAF thread subject?
 

ShirAhava

Plays with kids toys, in the adult gaming world
What is cinematic gameplay?

You watch a movie, you play a game.

Do you play a movie, or watch a game?

Someone needs to send this post to playstation HQ its the revelation they've been waiting for
 

Deerock71

Member
Consensus? On GAF?
Spider Man Lol GIF
 
New to the series I tried giving KH3 a shot. It wasn’t a good experience. I had no idea what was going on in the story, everything seemed so convoluted and confusing. Random characters would just show up out of nowhere and then monologue for what seemed like forever. It actually became kinda funny. Like a cheesy low budget soap opera.

I’ve never played a game that tried so hard to put off new players.
 

DonkeyPunchJr

World’s Biggest Weeb
Kingdom Hearts series is a work of art. It’s so infantile and cringe, yet also so needlessly convoluted that you need to play like 10 games across several generations of systems + watch hours of YouTube videos just to make sense of the story.

I guess that is true of most JRPG writing. Nomura just took it to the extreme. I only hope that Kingdom Hearts and FF7 Remake are enough to keep him busy so he doesn’t get to ruin any other, better games.
 

Bernardougf

Gold Member
Playing FF7r right now.. the big fights are great and the battle system is 100000000x better then FFXV (worst game of ps4 that I played) everything else is fcking boring to death
- stupid and infantile side quests
- childish and cringe dialogs
- big slow walking sessions in moments of tension
- unesesary cryptic storyline in comparison with the original

I see a great potential game right there, but i guess Nomura is not the guy to deliver this game
 

DonkeyPunchJr

World’s Biggest Weeb
Playing FF7r right now.. the big fights are great and the battle system is 100000000x better then FFXV (worst game of ps4 that I played) everything else is fcking boring to death
- stupid and infantile side quests
- childish and cringe dialogs
- big slow walking sessions in moments of tension
- unesesary cryptic storyline in comparison with the original

I see a great potential game right there, but i guess Nomura is not the guy to deliver this game
Don’t forget this:
 

peronmls

Member
No. Nomura is a hack. If that was the case KH3 would have been like the first 2. It was the FF team that made the cinematics good in the first two. Not Nomura and not the C team in Osaka Japan that took control. Garbage series.
 
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poodaddy

Member
I can agree that Nomura is an overrated belt obsessed hack with zero talent in any notable area and that he is the worst thing to ever happen to storytelling and scenario writing in Eastern games, yeah..... I can jump on board with that take there.
 
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