Does Tetsuya Nomura actually ever deliver on these alleged "uncool" characters? The only one who I can think of is Sora. He's pretty clumsy and goofy while still being a capable protagonist. Cloud was kinda dorky in VII from what I can recall (it has been awhile), but that wasn't really from Nomura's input. Whenever he's gotten his hands on the character Cloud has been super edgy, slick, stoic and badass. For example, just look at how Cloud is portrayed in Advent Children, and both Kingdom Hearts games. The dorkiest I've ever seen Cloud is in Crisis Core and that was directed by Tabata. Who ironically made Noctis pretty dorky and uncool as well in Final Fantasy XV. Plus, the Cloud from the remake trailers seemed pretty inline with what Nomura did with the character in Advent Children. There's also the potential of the more goofier aspects of the game being retooled or removed outright due to modern-day sensibilities (Honey Bee Inn) as shared by devs working on the game. It also doesn't help that Lightning, a character who was designed to be a "female Cloud", is very undorky like in her portrayals. There's precedent to be skeptical of these comments IMO. Or maybe Nomura-san and I have different definitions of the word "dorky".