Re: The Verge: Nomura's confusion, relating to villains, dealing with expectations
I remember Nomura saying that both Sora and Noctis were like sons to him. Kingdom Hearts was his own personal iteration that turned into one of Square's biggest and profitable IPs that now people put besides FinalFantasy and Dragon Quest, thus creating Square's "Trinity". While Noctis was part of his own personal, and very ambitious, Versus XIII project, which he had also envisioned to turn into a trilogy. I think what hit Nomura the hardest with the Versus XIII project was that I think that particular video game was when he hit his peak as a director. I remember Nomura overflowing with a hell of a lot of ideas back then about the game, and even making a musical after watching Les Miserables. I think Nomura is an artist in the sense that he gets easily influenced by other ideas, and he wants to execute them in his own way and see the results of his work. And while he got shafted from the Versus project, we have to remember that Versus was originally a sort of spinoff-ish Final Fantasy title that was to be branded under the Fabula Nova Crystalis project way back when. Then it was given to another director, and was rebranded as a mainline FF title. It's practically a godgiven that Nomura was put into the FF7 Remake project for the sake of compensating the management's incompetence towards their handling of Versus. And besides being character designer for the original FF7, I believe he also contributed small pieces to FF7's scenario writing. Given Nomura's artistic nature, even though some people hate that he's the director of the remake project, I think he's the most fitting to direct it, seeing as how the man literally created another IP for SE, and the man deliver quality titles in terms of performance. Like seriously, Nomura is on Nintendo level of polish. With what Square Enix as a company has in mind with the FF7 project, I think their vision goes along with how Nomura's mind work.
---
But on to the main topic, it's pretty understandable that he's having a hard time keeping up with the lot of characters he has created. Hopefully his process during the Xehanort Saga has taught him to be a better creator for the KH titles to come after this arc is finished.