Final Fantasy general

@28959: Couldn't agree more. The casts have progressively shrunk in size, and lost diversity. If you count male, female and "others" (beast characters), it becomes...

• 6: 14 PC - 8M, 3F, 3O (Others)
• 7: 9PC - 3M, 3F, 2O
• 8: 6PC - 3M, 3F, 0O
• 9: 8PC - 3M, 3F, 2O (or could be 3-2-3 if you consider Freya to be a monster character, which is a very valid option)
• 10: 7PC - 3M, 3F, 1O
• 12: 6PC - 3M, 3F, 0O
• 13: 6PC - 3M, 3F, 0O
• 15: 4PC - 4M, 0F, 0O

The last non-human party member was Kimahri, back in X. XV is being released soon. I think it sums it up nicely. I did not count sequsl who always had smaller casts. XV also seems to be the first episode since VIII not to feature any human character that is either non-"white" or not a young adult. 6 had Strago, Cyan, Relm, VII had Barret and arguably Cid, IX had Eiko and arguably Steiner, X had Auron, XII had Fran and Basch, XIII had Sazh.

having non "white" characters (i should probably point out that it would be more accurate to say they're japanese but that's an entirely different though related tangent) probably isn't a priority for them.

foreigners are "cool" to a certain extent in japan, but there are no real significant minorities to represent because their population is very ethnically and culturally homogeneous. the closest thing you really get is koreans, but even then they're a much smaller minority than say, african-americans in america.

not that i would be opposed to having characters that are inspired by different ethnicities in the cast (since it's nice to get something different), but the lack of minorities in Japan proper is something a lot of people seem to overlook when talking about cast diversity.

There's also side games to consider.

I limited myself to the main solo series, yeah because most sidegames I can think of have even smaller casts (3 in X-2, 2 in XIII-2, 1 in XIII-3). I haven't played Crisis Core. And I wouldn't count Tactics, because A) I haven't played the original, only TA and TA-2, and B) it's hard to say how many characters are really members of the cast (however, since both take place in Ivalice, then monster characters are common, even though all are archetypal and there is little variation of race and age).

True enough, but I don't see Japanese people as primary targets of FFXV marketing - and it is the least culturally diverse so far.

edited 27th Mar '15 1:46:36 PM by Julep

x3 Depending on the game you might have more Caucasian cast members to Japanese, VIII's characters for the most part look entirely Caucasian while X is the opposite.

edited 27th Mar '15 1:46:24 PM by lycropath

I'd say that if Kimari count's as "others", so does Fran. She's as clearly not a human as Kimahri is male.

The original Tactics takes place on post-Cataclysm Ivalice, so no non-human races left. It's hard to tell if there are different ethnicities around because of the art style. Crisis Cora has Zack as a playable character and everyone else I remember from that game is whatever he is.

For XII, there is a visible difference between the characters of Imperial origin like Basch and Balthier and the Dalmascans. Otherwise I don't remember if any ethnic tensions among humans where established in the series.

FF characters often get more Japanese-looking the more photo-realistic the graphics get. You can see it clearly with the VII cast. They all have western-sounding names and their original concept art has the usual Mukokuseki look. But in Advent Children onward they have a lot more Japanese-looking facial features.

It's the same with X and X-2 with several of the characters looking more Japanese in the pre-rendered CGI cutscenes than in the in-game graphics.

FFVII was meant to take place in America, I guess, so the designs were probably more Caucasian looking to accommodate that. Like Cloud's blond hair and blue/green eyes. That's probably why they added a black dude as well - America is more diverse and has more races living there. For the most part, Japan has Japanese people and they're really not big on outsiders. Like aren't they super-racist towards Koreans?

And as said, they did end up making Cloud and Zack look a lot more Japanese when graphical power increased. So w/e I guess.

That's not to say that Japan is full of pale Japanese people - I think there's been a push towards paler people being considered more beautiful, so the paler population of Japan is in the spotlight more. I'm really not an expert on Japan, but aren't there really tan-looking people as well? I think Wakka is a good example of what I mean - if Tidus and Yuna are the paler ones - and Tidus was actually pretty tan, but for the sake of argument let's say he's pale - Wakka was the more tan kind of guy that I'm talking about.

I feel pretty skeevy about what I've been writing, but it's being written with the best of intentions.

edited 27th Mar '15 2:06:12 PM by MrMallard

I disagree on that. Remove Fran's ears, and she is pretty much a normal female characters - she may have claws on her feet but that's about it.

Kimahri has a lion face, claws and fur.

Her proportions are much more noodley then a humans are too her feet and hands are both really long too. She's more like a rabbit eared Elezen to go by Eorzean standards. Still would have really loved a Bangaa party member.

edited 27th Mar '15 2:19:36 PM by lycropath

Why would you feel Skeevy?

Fran's the tallest person in the party and is nowhere proportioned like a normal person... and thats discounting what happens when she goes feral

edited 27th Mar '15 2:20:48 PM by FrozenWolf2

Marach and Rapha have a darker skin color than most of the other characters. (So does Delita if memory serves).

outside of that though, yeah it's hard to tell.

Yes, and the koreans hate them too. Outside of general xenophobia I imagine it has its roots in Japan invading Korea multiple times and committing numerous atrocities, especially during WW 2. Basically I think most of Asia thinks Japan are dicks.

It's to the point where Romi Park (a very popular, prominent seiyuu of korean heritage) got backlash for her ethnicity during her stint in Turn A Gundam, which prompted Tomino (gundam creator) to tell him to fuck off.

edited 27th Mar '15 2:30:06 PM by wehrmacht

To be honest, I never really noticed Fran having weird proportions. I guess kind of, now that I really look, but I wouldn't really say it's something that makes her look non-human. Not like the rabbit ears sticking out of her head do.

Talking about skin colour makes me feel like I'm going to end up saying something racist. I don't want that.

From what I've seen of Fran, she is a humanoid character with rabbit ears. It can be argued that she's an Other due to her non-human status, but at the same time she really does just look like a human woman with rabbit ears. Compared to Kimahri, Vivi, Mog or a creature who is significantly more different-looking from a human, classing Fran as the same is a real grey area. Like she technically counts, but she's still really human-looking compared to what would otherwise classify as an Other character.

edited 27th Mar '15 2:26:24 PM by MrMallard

Indeed, when you go into details, Fran is beast-looking. I don't know how to put it without resorting to using the word "sexy", but were you to show Fran's picture to someone that does not know the game, this person would probably describe her as a "woman with rabbit ears". Kimahri's bestly traits are much more easy to spot, if only his entire face is concerned and his skin color or facial hair is nowhere near anything humanlike - and there is the horn too.

Tactics being in an Ivalice without any beast races is the one reason I never bothered playing it. Ivalice without Bangaas, Vieras, Mogs and such is not Ivalice. That would be like Star Wars, except with only human characters and no droids: boring.

That's my point indeed. I also counted Fran as female instead of other because her personal relations are gendered - there is the joke about Vaan asking her age, and of course her UST with Balthier. Same with Freyja in IX, even if she looks much more beastly than Fran. Kimahri's gender, on the other hand, does not play any role in his storyline, like it is for Vivi, Quina or Red XIII.

edited 27th Mar '15 2:32:34 PM by Julep

that's unfortunate because in terms of plot it's the best-written Ivalice game. Don't think of it of as Ivalice without the fun stuff, think of it like a JRPG version of Westeros because that's pretty much what it is.

as for fran you can basically think of her as the party's "elf" character. the viera in general fit the archetype pretty nicely.

edited 27th Mar '15 2:32:44 PM by wehrmacht

Its not really much better written, its just a whole lot darker.

I think there's something similiar to Bizarre Sexual Dimorphism going on with the Viera. The trope doesn't apply to them, but there is a general tendence to have the female only races in the series be much more human-like than the male-only ones. That's generally a thing in visual media, from what I observed.

Personally I thought the most non-human part of the Viera were their faces, because the Uncanny Valley effect.

edited 27th Mar '15 2:34:06 PM by Serox

i say it's better-written mostly because the only other contender is xii. ta and a2 have pretty weak narratives.

i really like xii's plot and cast but i feel like the plot's pacing could have been better. tactics doesn't really have that problem.

I did like how Seeq and Bangaa females look exactly like the male ones

Tactics narrative was pretty unimpressive, its plot slowed to a crawl quite a few times.

edited 27th Mar '15 2:41:06 PM by lycropath

that's because women are pretty. it's not really bizarre if you think about it :v

Tactics and XII both have Matsuno's charm, XII is just all over the place because it's time in Development Hell. They are still my favorite games in the series because of how anti-"Final Fantasy" they are.

I never said it was bizarre, it's actually so obvious that I didn't feel there was need to mention it.

edited 27th Mar '15 2:44:07 PM by Serox

VIII even had that one guy that was friends with Laguna as a guest star party member, if we're talking about minority party members. Kalos or something.

It's because the assumption is that most male gamers don't want to look at women who aren't conventionally attractive.

It's why the new race in XIV is so dimorphic - female Roegaydn, who genuinely look rugged, tough, and imposing, are the 2nd least played gender/race combo in the game, and so the team is terrified to create anything that won't be a rip-roaring success.

Ironically, the least played gender/race combo are this game's equivalent to dark elves, so while you might think they're being smart to play to what they think people want, what people want isn't always clear.

edited 27th Mar '15 2:52:56 PM by Hashil

Male birds are the prettiest.

Our pattern for sexual dimorphism need not be and in fact isn't universal.

it's not, but we as humans tend to base fictional species on aspects of ourselves because that's what we know best.

that's actually a very common problem that shows up in series like Star Wars and such; the aliens aren't really, well, alien, as in they aren't truly believable as different lifeforms with completely different and incomprehensible thought patterns, ideas, beliefs, etc from humans. they are very obviously human creations for a story.