Hamaguchi is not listed as the director. He is a Development Leader.
It's like saying Kitase wasn't the actual "director" of FFX because he's credited as "Producer" in the game credits even though he was mentioned as being the Director on FFX in prerelease interviews, and FFX credits only three people in "directors" positions which are all listed after Kitase, with Toriyama as Event Director, Takayoshi Nakazato as Map Director and Toshiro Tsuchida as Battle Director none of whom are in positions to oversee the entire game.
Hell you even have Takatsugu Nakazawa being listed as Battle Director and System Designer for FFXV when he made prerelease appearances in an ATR but the final game only lists him as "RPG System", but then after release he still stated he was in charge of battles, he was even later credited as Director of FFXV Royal Edition.
The way SE credits people in their games is inconsistent and just because someone isn't mentioned as one position doesn't mean they actually weren't, and likewise just because someone is listed as such, much like Nomura frequently is, doesn't mean he does the same things as someone with that same title does on another game. It's again the same like Nomura being "Director" of Advent Children even though Nozue was the actual director of the CG for the film and the film started with Kitase and Nojima long before Nomura even came on board to the film, he was only listed as "Director" because he gave them story ideas. Nomura is the most "name only" Director I've ever seen, he always has other people pulling his weight and he just gets propped up by Kitase protecting him all the time.
Hell again even on KH3 it's Tai Yasue actually pulling the weight and leading the actual dev team while Nomura just gives them ideas and checks off on things, without Yasue as his co-director on KH3 it wouldn't be anywhere close to be done, and without Hamaguchi on FF7R wouldn't be anywhere, and likewise without Tabata as Co-director on XV in 2013 when Nomura was still around the only actual work being done was what Tabata was heading.
Nomura's name has star power because of the heavy marketing Sony and Square inducted with it during the 90s, it's why Kitase keeps propping him up, it's why a character designer keeps getting put in "director" positions on games, because Kitase is the one assigning him those.
Nomura should just stick to what Nomura does best, and that's the job he was hired to do back in the 90s, drawing characters and/or monsters.
How did Square Enix screw over Tabata, if he left on his own accord? Did they screw him over by rewarding him with his own studio?
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