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On Final Fantasy XV and female characters |2.0| This isn't even my final form
- Thread starter pashmilla
- Start date
LMAO
That's not even the funny part.
"Cindy is too sexy but y'all want female playable characters. Hypocrite much?"
Audioboxer
Member
As inoffensive as I think sexy is, Cindi is a real choice alright Square. Starting chapter 3 IIRC last night and back at the garage two female mechanics are standing behind Cindi in what I'd consider some take on overalls. Looks hilarious with Cindi in front barely clothed and apparently the head mechanic.
Pretty much Quiet 2.0, although Quiet still wins overall. As graphics get more realistic and go further away from animated "cartoon" characters it just gets more jarring.
Rinoa had a pretty cool outfit one could still class as pretty flattering attire. There is nothing wrong with shorts, shock horror, women wear shorts. It makes sense though for a flipping mechanic to be more appropriately dressed in mechanic wear. Especially in a game that tries to tilt to realism.
Pretty much Quiet 2.0, although Quiet still wins overall. As graphics get more realistic and go further away from animated "cartoon" characters it just gets more jarring.
Rinoa had a pretty cool outfit one could still class as pretty flattering attire. There is nothing wrong with shorts, shock horror, women wear shorts. It makes sense though for a flipping mechanic to be more appropriately dressed in mechanic wear. Especially in a game that tries to tilt to realism.
Zambayoshi
Member
I don't know what all the fuss is about with Cindy. As far as I can see, she is an accurate depiction of the 'average female mechanic', which term resulted in this googled image:
wat
Suzushiiro
Banned
I think that most of FFXV's issues with female characters, particularly Luna, basically boil down to how chapter 9 onwards was clearly the part that they had to cut down to the bare minimum in order to ship the game on time. They'd probably have managed to fit in some chapter where you got to hang out with Luna similar to what we got with Iris and Aranea had the only chances to do so not been in the parts that were rushed/cut, and that would most likely have solved a lot of the problems with her character right there. And it seems pretty clear that we were also meant to see how Iris (and probably Cindy) had grown up post-timeskip, which probably would have done a lot for them.
she is a sexualized image only for male titillation similar to Megan fox. Do you want FF games to have female character writing on the level of Michael bay?
hiphoptherobot
Member
I think you might have missed the sarcasm and picture included in that post.
Knightmarre
Member
She is still the breast... I mean the best.
I chose this pic as the final keepsake and almost died laughing at the after credits scene.
I don't think that more presence of boob window valkyrie is going to help matters
absolutely the worst character design I've seen in a long time
Thanks god she got pants though. The boob window is still too much, true.
Re: the comment I posted above (which I have to fight hard not to leave a scathing reply), is there a thing where (some, obviously, not all) straight male gamers feel threatened by the idea that a game might not primarily aimed at them? Is that why they get so angry when people complain about female characters? Or is it more something something ethics in gaming?
Some people are too used to having "sexy" looking and dressed women in their games that the notion that girls can be normal looking and dressed feels like censorship. They don't realise that a sexy design is not always "artistic" freedom but designs that their only reason is to cater to them.
I remember in another forum a thread about someone blaming SJWs because humans and asaris from ME: Andromeda were (for him) uglier.
I remember in another forum a thread about someone blaming SJWs because humans and asaris from ME: Andromeda were (for him) uglier.
No but i do find it offensive everytime theres skin shown, people go nuts over it.
Be it male or female.
Dark_castle
Junior Member
Luna role in Kingsglaive and XV:
Immediately thought of this upon seeing the gif. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEuU64Zt4B0
When all's said and done, I honestly don't see a problem with Luna being a damsel in distress/helpless princess type of character. Not all female characters need to be some sort of sword wielding, rugged badass to count as a good female character. In fact, I thought of Terra from FFVI, and I don't really care for her much in WoB, but when she found a new meaning in her life and simply live as caretaker for bunch of homeless kids after the incident in an orphan, I just fell in love with the character. Yes, she's still fighting, but she isn't that badass magic swordfighter half-esper that she is, but just a simply, motherly woman who just wants to protect and raise the few orphans in a small village. That's some good stuff.
I think the problem with Luna is how little character development or interaction she had in the game. Since she isn't a party member, we hardly get to know her other than few cutscenes here and there. She suffers from what I dubbed Kairi syndrome. On the cover, she's the lead female, but she does jack shit, hardly shows up if ever, and is completely forgettable. Comparison to Yuna from FFX just utterly kills Luna as a character. Both are oracle of some sort with great importance to save the planet, but look at the amount of dialogue lines, screen time, attention and development were given to Yuna compared to Luna. They aren't even in the same league. So, Luna isn't an offensively bad character, but she as hell isn't going to show up in the top female FF lead list any time soon.
Having known of Cindy's design before I played the game, I wasn't surprised by the pandering animations. Just get through the upgrading as fast as possible and move on. Wish I could tell Prompto to shut the hell up about his "woman problems".
But when I finally got to Lestallum, and saw the interesting workwear that the female plant workers were wearing, oh lord. We both laughed hysterically about the strange fashion standards that SE designers used for women in this game.
And then Aranea showed up, with her wicker cage helmet and boob window, and it took me a few moments to figure out that was supposed to be a dragoon. Freya and Kain need to sit down and have a chat with her.
Iris was a more useful party member during that chapter than Prompto, wish I could have kicked his ass to the curb and kept her instead.
It was a true letdown to not see any of the female characters progression during Ch. 14 either.
But when I finally got to Lestallum, and saw the interesting workwear that the female plant workers were wearing, oh lord. We both laughed hysterically about the strange fashion standards that SE designers used for women in this game.
And then Aranea showed up, with her wicker cage helmet and boob window, and it took me a few moments to figure out that was supposed to be a dragoon. Freya and Kain need to sit down and have a chat with her.
Iris was a more useful party member during that chapter than Prompto, wish I could have kicked his ass to the curb and kept her instead.
It was a true letdown to not see any of the female characters progression during Ch. 14 either.
orthodoxy1095
Banned
Ganon Dragmire
Member
Great work.
The obvious is bad enough, but when you have the "pleasure" of discovering the not so obvious while playing the game...
You should print this out, make a book and send it to SE. I'm sure they'll find it funny.
WickedLaharl
Member
The developers should be embarrassed and ashamed with how they treated Luna in this game.
Darkstorne
Member
Stab in the dark here, but I think it's just fear of change. Same reason people will get angry when I post comments about wanting more non-violent games, or non-violent gameplay mechanics within traditionally violent games (I'm a big fan of Fallout 4's settlement system for that reason, despite not loving the game itself). A lot of people seem to think a request for non-violent games is a request for violent games to die off completely and the video games they love to be changed beyond recognition. Some people only seem capable of thinking in blacks and whites, not looking at shades of grey. It's one extreme or the other.
Luckily, it seems to be a minority, and my straight white male ass (along with all my straight white male friends) share your concern for FFXV's female character designs and can completely understand how better female character design and writing would only improve the game and not detract from its core design in the slightest.
Good final post.
But i thought about your segment on the future of FF. What are your thoughts on FF7R in regards to females? Tifa? Aerith? What should be changed from the original to better reflect the time period? What should stay the same? How should Nomura and Nojima evolve the game in your view?
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
Thanks for putting in so much work. Japanese triple A games really need to stop dropping the ball so hard when it comes to women.
Considering how few and far between 'AAA japanese games' are in general, that sounds like an ask.
I don't think anyone has mentioned her belly button jewelry that would never get caught on any machinery and ripped out as she's leaning over a car.
I gave that the side eye when I saw it. I never wear rings, earrings, etc... around horses because if it can get caught on something, it will. I know people who have lost fingers and earlobes. Oh, and as someone who rides horses, I laughed my ass off when I noticed she also has spur straps but no spurs.
As dumb as Cidny's design is for a mechanic, this particular thing is a weak criticism. I work on various oil platforms and there's a lot of people who wear rings and even those earrings that stretch your ears, despite knowing fully well how that shit has gone wrong for people in the past. People just don't care about that stuff, they assume nothing is going to happen to them.
I guess, it's just I'm very aware of it since I know someone personally who got a large chunk of her ear ripped off. I figured most of her other weird design decisions had already been covered.
Having recently finished XV I have to say Aranea and Iris are great characters and they were definitely robbed with how little screen time they got. Aranea really feels like she should have just been a permanent party member, instead
The fact that Iris
Hell Cindy may have an absolutely awful design and the camera work done when she was on screen was disgusting, but her personality was still good and
she gets regulated to the sidelines and we don't see her in the world of ruin at all.
becomes a badass monk demon slayer and we never get to see it is criminal!
we didn't even get to see her in the world of ruin either!
This is also a really significant issue. Atleast having them with a different interpretation and new focus and higher priority in the world of ruin would have gone a long way.
Of course this goes back to the fact that the world of ruin in general barely went anywhere besides ending up in Insomnia, and it could have been really extended by a good 5 to 10 hours just finding out how the rest of the world was living in the world of ruin after 10 years.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
True but it seems that even when there is one it always has something like Cindy in it. The Ni No Kuni 2 trailer had pointless impossible boob jiggle
three out of 4 of Persona 5's female characters are wearing skintight suits and don't get me started on these poses
Nier Automata has this character:
It's like damn can't we get a game without at least one example of this shit? ಠ_ಠ
Neoleo2143
Member
True but it seems that even when there is one it always has something like Cindy in it. The Ni No Kuni 2 trailer had pointless impossible boob jiggle
three out of 4 of Persona 5's female characters are wearing skintight suits and don't get me started on these poses
Nier Automata has this character:
It's like damn can't we get a game without at least one example of this shit? ಠ_ಠ
Zelda and Ni-Oh (surprisingly) look great for making good female character designs and animations. The latter has Team Ninja but I can't help but feel they're trying to be more classy in general going by the trailers. Zelda has generally been nice about imbuing it's characters with some form of dignity all around so it's not unreasonable to expect that from the newest game.
If her outfit wasn't as comically sexualized and the camera would stop staring at her ass and breasts for a second, Cindy would actually be a great (female) character. She's got spunk, has a special and endearing way to talk, she's very capable and she's actually a helpful, well implemented side character. She would have been an awesome Cid, iconic even, as the first female Cid in the series. But they even took that away from her in the English version...
Everyone loves sexy designs, or atleast the designers do. As long as the characters are great i can excuse it and enjoy it for what it is.
I hate infinitely more when women are mishandled in games on a wider basis as severely weak willed and shown to be constantly incompetent(Luna in Kingsglaive), without purpose(Luna in FF15) and generally there as props without purpose besides sexual titillation such as Cindy. I also hate when they are just plain underutilized(Areana and Iris)
As far as Ni no Kuni 2 goes to be fair, the boob jiggle pretty subtle and doesn't affect much. Persona 5 does have multiple costumes you can use for each character, and they are generally in their school outfits, those are their 'special' outfits.
Also, Yorha and A2 are robos
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
Zelda and Ni-oh do look great in that regard. Hopefully they don't pull any surprises in that regard. Hyrule Warriors was a travesty.
Cindy's honestly a non character, all of her quests start and end with "think you can help me out" and then she's nowhere to be found during emotional moments. She doesn't even have a special way of talking, they just told the VA to put on the most offensively stereotypically southern accent possible.
Ftfy. There's also the issue that character writing is WAY more often than not severely undermined by pointless titillation.
Yea FFXV is really a full whammy in terms of how terribly it handles women.
It's a shame that when everything else has great believable animation something that looks completely out of place and takes the viewer, (especially those who aren't the perceived target audience), out of the trailer. In the same way that the shot of Quiet from the 2014 trailer from MGSV which is full of great imagery and editing looks completely out of place with everything else. As an animator I can tell that there are very few instances where boob jiggle legitimately enhances a shot or motion especially when it looks like that.
It'd be great if the special default for three out of the 4 female characters wasn't "teenager girl in some variation of a skin tight suit."
Who look like women. Edi from ME3 is also a robot but this is no less cringeworthy
In every situation there's really no excuse at this point, we know the reasons why they're designed that way and it's been discussed to death how it's offputting at best and sexist in the vast majority of cases. So again, Japanese triple A really needs to stop dropping the ball in that regard.
Neoleo2143
Member
Hyrule Warriors was indeed a bit of a shame. I like Cia's motivations because I generally like the Twisted Admiration trope but I wish she had a better character design. At least Impa was badass as hell.
As a clarification for my previous comment, i want to say that i also realize that Persona 4 had certain issues with women, so i'm not really trying to excuse any potential mishaps in 5(especially regarding a particular plot point of Anne), but i am much more interested to see how Makoto, Anne, and the rest develop as part of the group.
True but it seems that even when there is one it always has something like Cindy in it. The Ni No Kuni 2 trailer had pointless impossible boob jiggle
It's like damn can't we get a game without at least one example of this shit? ಠ_ಠ
Did... did she steal Madonna's cone bra? Why are they so pointy? She'll take someone's eye out with those things.
I honestly don't have an issue with sexualization in particular as a concept, unless there is nothing else to the character to balance that out, or it becomes an overwhelming issue that goes too far.
I hope that does not make me myself a sexist or against women, that's just how i feel in many cases.
I may have different standards cause my tolerance is somewhat high as an avid consumer of Japanese media, but when it gets to 'that point' for me, its generally when its something really really bad that even i can't rationalize or overlook.
LunaticHigh
Member
I'm a straight white male and I'm about 25 hours into the game and honestly the female character designs in the game just make me feel uncomfortable. I was doing the mission where areana shows up and I'm just sort of blown away. This characters attire doesn't fit into this game at all. There's zero justification for her being all boob window and exposed thighs. She has such an interesting story. Why couldn't she be rocking clothing similar to the other enemies? Ardyn literally could not have more clothing on. It's insane. Nothing about her is functional at all.
You know what would have been badass? If she dropped in wearing some kind of dress suit with metal bracers or something. It's not like she is protected with her "armor" almost all of her vital organs are exposed and no one else is wearing armour anyway. It's just embarrassing.
You know what would have been badass? If she dropped in wearing some kind of dress suit with metal bracers or something. It's not like she is protected with her "armor" almost all of her vital organs are exposed and no one else is wearing armour anyway. It's just embarrassing.
LunaticHigh
Member
She doesn's have exposed thighs though, her final design varies from her original concept design.
Gotta make sure that midriff is open for slashing though.
I mean, i guess?
Just based on the design of the world, and the concept, not everything is going to be practical according to real world standards...the guys are running around with open shirts fighting monsters after all.
It doesn't gel to ask for practicality, even if modesty is what your actually asking for, which is what you should state.
If we're actually looking at the armors of most of the people in the game, none of them actually make any sense according to real world protection.
LunaticHigh
Member
I mostly have a problem with the half assed attempt at her armor. It just makes no sense and doesn't fit into the world at all for me. I found it very jarring. If she was trying to dress in clothing I have no problem with her showing skin like the others. But the armor is just weird and revealing for no reason. It just feels like bad design to me. Why wear a cage over your face with a giant opening over your chest? It's just nonsensical.
Edit: I haven't seen many more characters yet that were armored, but those that have been made a lot of sense. They mostly have full arm bracers for sword fighting.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
The fact that you have a high tolerance to it due to being exposed to so much of it, otherwise known as normalization, and thus are defending it with "welll as long as she's a good character" does make you pretty sexist.
Cause its Japanese fantasy. Practicality isn't going to factor into it regardless as far as armor goes as long as they are happy with the design itself and it looks cool to the designers.
Generally speaking, it doesn't really bug me cause i am used to these types of things, but i can understand it being a bugbear for those who are not used to unpractical or non grounded designs
DiipuSurotu
Banned
This is a fantasy not based on practicality
Neoleo2143
Member
Heh, kinda conflicts with the "reality" the trailer exclaimed the game would have.
I am sorry in that case. I would consider myself a feminist in 90% of ways, but i guess i can't really see that side of showing skin as an inherent negative symbol on my own.
One of the issues of not being able to really see certain perspectives i suppose.