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Final Fantasy XV (previously Versus XIII)

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Customer Since: Sep, 2009
#526: Sep 23rd 2014 at 12:17:17 PM

I'm curious, is Square actually getting any sexism accusations over this?
I doubt it, at least in Japan. I think part of it is that the previous console iteration (XIII) had a diverse cast of playable characters, at least until the last game boiled it down to just Lightning. It feels like a step backwards to some.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Lightning Returns had a bit of influence on this decision to limit the playable characters to just Noctis (which is the only change that really just bugs me me; at least his has partners that he fights alongside with), since I've heard that LR was much better received than the other two games in its trilogy, so XV is emulating it a bit.

I also think people are overstating the car scene, probably because it's not something SE does often in Final Fantasy. It sets up a nice mood and establishes some of the characteristics of Noctis's party, but I still think that we'll be dealing with the typical Final Fantasy fare overall.

edited 23rd Sep '14 12:18:08 PM by Customer

Azure Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Fist from The World Since: Nov, 2012 Relationship Status: We finish each other's sandwiches
Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Fist
#527: Sep 23rd 2014 at 12:48:30 PM

[up][up]But see whether or not a character is a girl or a boy doesn't really matter. If Lightning was a guy it honestly would not matter.

And all the characters may look kinda similar but they all seem to have distinct personalities, which would allow for very diverse interaction among the party members. And even then I'm sure we'll get interactions between the party and important female/older/younger characters.

You're sort of assuming that because two characters are guys in their twenties they can't have a wide range of interactions.

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lu127 Paper Master from 異界 Since: Sep, 2011 Relationship Status: Crazy Cat Lady
#528: Sep 23rd 2014 at 1:15:13 PM

No, I'm assuming the writers can't write a wide range of interactions well enough. And you may think gender doesn't change anything, but in the mind of the writers, it clearly does. There's stereotypes and behaviours clearly associated with gender. If Lightning were a man, things wouldn't change (only they would, including her use as a fanservice tool in merchandise and LR), but can you make Vanille a guy? Serah? Or Snow a a woman? If you switched Snow and Lightning's positions, you'd have a shitstorm in your hands. And if it really would change nothing, then what is the point of not including women at all?

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wehrmacht belongs to the hurricane from the garden of everything Since: Dec, 2010 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
belongs to the hurricane
#529: Sep 23rd 2014 at 1:19:16 PM

assuming they can't write a wide range of interactions is fair enough i guess, considering the general level of writing in jrpg's isn't THAT great. that's a more reasonable complaint than an all-male central cast being an inherently bad thing.

And if it really would change nothing, then what is the point of not including women at all?

Is there some sort of reason why they should *have* to?

edited 23rd Sep '14 1:20:16 PM by wehrmacht

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Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Fist
#530: Sep 23rd 2014 at 1:21:26 PM

If they can't write well enough to have diverse interactions in the first place then adding women won't change anything, they'd just be a pair of tits.

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lu127 Paper Master from 異界 Since: Sep, 2011 Relationship Status: Crazy Cat Lady
#531: Sep 23rd 2014 at 1:30:56 PM

Is there some sort of reason why they should *have* to?

Relatability? If you had a limited one-person cast, it would be one thing, but they've shown at least five playables. Whose personalities are more reminiscent of otome games, to be honest. But I digress. People still relate to things like gender. A diverse cast is one of the interesting things JRPGs manage, and post FFV, this series has been good with it (except for 8). Type-0 and XIII have evened-out casts, and character importance isn't restricted by gender at all, so they did that well enough. This is a disappointing follow-up to that aspect.

"If you aren't him, then you apparently got your brain from the same discount retailer, so..." - Fighteer
wehrmacht belongs to the hurricane from the garden of everything Since: Dec, 2010 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
belongs to the hurricane
#532: Sep 23rd 2014 at 1:35:20 PM

Not every piece of media is able to have characters that everyone can relate to. nor should creators really be obligated to do so (not that it should prevent people from criticizing that decision, but whatever). i agree that diversity is a good thing and preferable, i just don't think every work needs to fill some sort of quota.

edited 23rd Sep '14 1:37:50 PM by wehrmacht

TheAirman Brightness from The vicinity of an area adjacent to a location Since: Feb, 2011 Relationship Status: Historians will say we were good friends.
Brightness
#533: Sep 23rd 2014 at 1:38:47 PM

Maybe Nomura just has a thing for writing deep male bonds? That isn't exactly a common theme in video games.

Besides, I think all of us are being hasty to judge, considering that we honestly don't know a whole lot more than "brotrip, Stella is an Anti-Villain, and Jesus' tits this is pretty."

edited 23rd Sep '14 1:47:11 PM by TheAirman

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LordofLore Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Consider his love an honor
#534: Sep 23rd 2014 at 1:38:57 PM

Pieces of media without relatable characters are 9 times out of 10 bad because if you can't relate to them why should we care about them? Neither of the 5 characters have grabbed me.

KSonik Since: Jan, 2015
#535: Sep 23rd 2014 at 3:27:39 PM

On a slightly different topic, I would have liked to see a playable beast character in the vein of Red XIII. Any thoughts on this?

TheAirman Brightness from The vicinity of an area adjacent to a location Since: Feb, 2011 Relationship Status: Historians will say we were good friends.
Brightness
#536: Sep 23rd 2014 at 3:54:49 PM

I would love for more beast characters! By the time XVI comes around it should be trivial to create them compared to making Nanaki in ACC.

edited 23rd Sep '14 3:55:44 PM by TheAirman

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Memers Since: Aug, 2013
#537: Sep 23rd 2014 at 4:29:58 PM

@ 524

Actually yes. There are quite a few that are calling Square out on this, mostly only on the Japanese Twitter so far. Although most are just calling it a glorified Otome Game or Shonen AI Game.

Sadly the only gathering of translations I can find are scattered reddit threads and Kotaku.

edited 23rd Sep '14 4:40:22 PM by Memers

wehrmacht belongs to the hurricane from the garden of everything Since: Dec, 2010 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
belongs to the hurricane
#538: Sep 23rd 2014 at 7:05:35 PM

Pieces of media without relatable characters are 9 times out of 10 bad because if you can't relate to them why should we care about them? Neither of the 5 characters have grabbed me.

I can't relate to the main character in Juno because she's a pregnant teenage girl. but that has nothing to do with my capability of sympathizing with her or the general writing quality.

Not every piece of media can be relatable to every person ever, because people are different and have different life experiences. And even if you could, trying to grab the biggest amount of people possible isn't always the best idea anyway and leads to stagnation. By making certain pieces of media more relatable to some people, you naturally exclude others. What's more important is whether a character is sympathetic, likable, and interesting rather than pure relatability.

With that said, as a guy, I can relate to the aspect of a brotastic roadtrip full of male bonding. but it's really going to be the writing that determines whether any of it is good or not. in the same vein, if the characters don't really gel with you or the all-male cast is a turn-off that's understandable enough.

edited 23rd Sep '14 8:03:17 PM by wehrmacht

SaintDeltora The Mistress from The Land Of Corruption and Debauchery Since: Aug, 2012 Relationship Status: I'm just high on the world
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#539: Sep 24th 2014 at 4:45:42 AM

Lord of Lore: Relevant.

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LordofLore Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Consider his love an honor
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TheAirman Brightness from The vicinity of an area adjacent to a location Since: Feb, 2011 Relationship Status: Historians will say we were good friends.
Brightness
#542: Sep 24th 2014 at 6:21:16 AM

Lol. I'm just going to repeat what I said earlier: Since none of us have actually held a controller in our hands and actually played it, and we don't have in in-depth analysis of the controls, let's wait for the demo before we start casting stones.

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beorc Ridley and Ridley from hither and yon Since: Sep, 2009 Relationship Status: I know
Ridley and Ridley
#543: Sep 24th 2014 at 6:23:39 AM

It's like they want it to never be released.

edited 24th Sep '14 6:23:49 AM by beorc

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KuroBaraHime ☆♥☆ Since: Jan, 2011
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#544: Sep 24th 2014 at 7:42:34 AM

I found that Japanese petition. Basically some Japanese fans are angry that the battle system was seemingly changed from being more action focused to being more automated. They blame this change on the game's new director and aiming the game towards casual players.

Nysos Catatologist from Australia Since: Jun, 2014 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Catatologist
#545: Sep 24th 2014 at 7:55:09 AM

The "one button combat" part does have me worried. The controller has a bunch of buttons for a reason, gamers are not so stupid that they can't handle pressing more than one button to fight. Casual gamers don't play Final Fantasy anyway, I have no idea why they would want to chase that market with a big story driven open world RPG. I thought we put an end to this kind of pointless dumbing down last gen?

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Null ... from ... Since: Apr, 2009
...
#546: Sep 24th 2014 at 10:32:32 AM

It likely has a lot to do with SE's focus on its mobile streaming initiatives - (Dive In, Shinra etc.) a one-button combat system would transition far easier to being streamed on a mobile device compared to KH-esque gameplay.

...
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#547: Sep 24th 2014 at 10:40:18 AM

The last RPG I played with one button combat was Fable III. I was very disappointed.

Its like a lot of people these days just forgot what the heck a videogame is.

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Niitris from Virginia, USA Since: Jul, 2014
#548: Sep 24th 2014 at 10:55:59 AM

Heh heh, is it even possible to make a good combat scheme with one button? I mean, there's a reason nobody makes controllers like the NES anymore.

LordofLore Since: Jun, 2012 Relationship Status: Consider his love an honor
#549: Sep 24th 2014 at 12:24:04 PM

New scan. The girl from the TGS trailer(who looks kinda like Stella) is apparently called Luna. I'm guessing either a Garnet/Dagger alias, Stella's sister or just a redesign of Stella.

Reminder that the only info we know about Stella(the only named female character in the game up until now) is that she has powers like Noctis, is from a country named after the latin word for    Darkness    and is probably the love interest of the game(oh and a rumor that she is connected to The Almighty God of Light, Bhunivelze).

Edit: Nomura on leaving XV.

edited 25th Sep '14 5:53:03 AM by LordofLore

TheAirman Brightness from The vicinity of an area adjacent to a location Since: Feb, 2011 Relationship Status: Historians will say we were good friends.
Brightness
#550: Sep 26th 2014 at 6:38:24 AM

More info on XV and Hype-0 coming soon. Like, October 2nd, 7:00AM Eastern US soon.

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