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Comments
Well, look at Master Chief, Marcus Fenix and...whatever the main character from generic Modern Warfare clone du jour is called. They are physically different, despite all being pretty much interchangeable.
Well, on par, what I see when it comes to sex appeal are hypermasculine men with exploding abs and hypersexualized women with exploding tits and asses. Well, not literally exploding, but you know what I mean. Besides this, there are also men that are more clothed, and some women as well.
And the reason FF games appeal to girls isn't just the handsome prettyboys; there's also a lot of shipping fuel in it, and for better or worse there are a lot of girls into shipping.
I'm frankly tired of everyone being either unnaturally beautiful realdolls in skimpy clothes, unnaturally endowed realdolls in skimpy clothes, uncannily androgynous realdolls in skimpy clothes, or hulked-out Liefeld roid-ragers.
I'd rather see either more naturalistic designs or more stylized and cartoony ones instead of making every character an extension of someone's sex drive or testosterone overload. It's one of the main reasons I usually play nonhuman characters when possible.
(And even then it can get pretty ridiculous -- I mean draenei managed to hit three of the four above between the genders...)
It's just that it has inconsistencies with her portrayal in other games.
The whole "unexpectedly accurate to PTSD" thing reminds me of scarlet emeralds in The Eye of Argon. Against all odds it is indeed a thing, but given how atrociously insipid the rest of the story is I can't help but feel like they probably didn't know that and just tried to throw it in for hamfisted dramatic purposes.
"While it'd no doubt good to have more female characters and greater diversity among them, there's no reason a person of one gender can't identify with a character of another gender. Given that a lot of anime/JRPG male protagonists lack the hypermasculinity so common in Western male protagonists, female members of the audience might feel a lot more comfortable with them as an avatar of themselves. That's just speculation, though."
This is where Occam's Razor comes in handy. It's more like girls have so few people of their own gender to identify with, and a lot of guys are averse to identifying with the opposite gender. I personally wouldn't mind having more female characters to identify with, which is why I'm always so disappointed that the girl who features so prominently on the front cover ends up being just another secondary character.
I frequently identify with female characters.
I also identify with male characters. I'm not gender-specific in this regard at all.
a): I thought fighting games had become a relatively niche genre compared to shooters and MMOs.
b): In terms of gaming as a whole, I'm not sure this represents a broad stroke.
Okay, then from gaming as a whole pull out... oh say ten counter examples.
Fighting games have it worst.
MMOs are probably a close second.
Shooters don't have it because a lot of them don't really bother with women existing.
I frequently identify with female characters.
I also identify with male characters. I'm not gender-specific in this regard at all.
Is it a bad thing that when you said "shooters" I thought shmups?
RPG's are pretty bad about it too. I mean, there's a reason I made Rikku a full-time white mage.
Does the FF series officially have a three-female-protagonists rule?
I put FFX-2 pretty firmly in the 'sexploitation' category.
Seems like it's always one perky girl, one serious girl, and one drama magnet girl.
either i'm really blind to fanservice but i always thought if you avoid the hot springs the game is pretty tame
Why did you remind me of the hot springs, wings?
Why?
^^^Well, FF really recycles archetypes for both men a females.
perky girl - Porom
serious girl - Rydia?
drama girl - Rosa?
perky girl - Cara?
serious girl - Faris
drama girl - Lenna
perky girl - Relm
serious girl - Celes? Terra?
drama girl - Terra? Celes?
perky girl - Yuffie
serious girl - Tifa?
drama girl - Aeris
perky girl - Selphie
serious girl - Quistis
drama girl - Rinoa
perky girl - Eiko
serious girl - Freya
drama girl - Dagger
perky girl - Rikku
serious girl - Lulu
drama girl - Yuna
I'm pretty sure you don't have to spoiler Faris. I mean you find out within like half an hour.
It's like spoilering that killing Garland at the beginning of the game isn't the end of the game.
Perky - Both Rikku and Yuna
Serious - Paine
Drama - Both Yuna and Paine
Perky - Penelo
Serious - Fran
Drama - Ashe
Perky - Vanille?
Serious - Lightning, Fang
Drama - Vanille
I'd say it's
Perky- Vanille
Serious - Lightning, Fang
Drama - Lightning
But Vanille is the main character and most of the drama concerns her and not Lightning.
I... would hesitate to call anyone the main character. Lightning has easily the same amount of screen time and motivation as Vanille does.
But Vanille is narrator and has ties to the backstory.
Fang also has ties to the backstory. And Lightning has ties to the... actual story. You know, the one that you're actually playing through. And the game revolves around for 90% of its play-time.
But Vanille also has ties to the actual story, and Fang is out due to being not-narrator or having any ties to the main story aside from having a thing for Vanille and/or Lightning.
And. Definitely and.
Lightning has much stronger ties to the main plot, that of Serah and such.
Look, the very fact that we're able to have this debate should show you that this isn't as clear-cut as it appeared. Vanille is the narrator and has ties to both the backstory and the main story, but Lightning has as much if not more screen time, is tied closer to the main story, and plays a very relevant role in the overall mythos of the series, including XIII-2.
You can make a case for Vanille being the main character, but you can make a similar case for Lightning.