Anyone else getting bored of the pretty boy/girl Final Fantasy protagonists?

[Sanka]

No I don't mind. Make them even more bishounen. It's that the MC looks bad that is my main point of criticism. But I don't mind the older version of the MC. Also looks generic but at least he's nicer to look at.

It can and should definitely be more diverse in people and cultures being represented. All white europe is such a turn-off.

 

[Mib]

To be fair, 1-6 and 9/10 didn't look like that at release. They were still attractive, but not in a modern anime pretty boy look.

 

[DPB]

To be fair, 1-6 and 9/10 didn't look like that at release. They were still attractive, but not in a modern anime pretty boy look.

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Yeah, most of those designs bear little resemblance to the originals and some are even from different games. Like that Zidane who looks like Tara Reid is from Dissidia, not FFIX.

That said, I'm not keen on the doll look that the modern games go for.

 

[UltraMagnanimous]

My main problem is with the silly haircuts.

Final Fantasy protagonists (and antagonists) must spend every second Friday afternoon in the salon getting their 'do' done.

Not to mention their morning routine - they must get through an awful lot of hairspray and that shit bad for the environment.

 

[Alienhated]

I'm ok with the pretty guys, it's the jpop fashion that gets kind of annoying to me.

To be fair, gruff "unconventional beauty" 30-something MC in western games have become kinda of stale and boring too.

 

[J_ToSaveTheDay]

I want them to look more pretty in the Amano style than the Nomura style that they seemingly take more often than not.

I want these games to take on sort of a slightly abstract, painterly look.

 

[stryke]

In an industry full of gruff white men, no.

 

[Papertoonz]

I do like how pretty and unique it is...but they literally all look the same now.

I'd love a game to adopt facial capture. The results are so much more unique.

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I Like how people keep quoting this image and yet all of the images (expect Noctis) are from Dissida, it's not really representative of how most of them looked in there own game and heck Shantotto and Y'shotla aren't even the protags of there games. A similar thing happens with Warrior of Light and Onion Knight who are stand in for player self inserts

Were the 2 faces shown 2 different characters or just an older version?
The answer is yes, i've been tired of it for a long time. You have this setting with people walking around old farm towns and they all look like they just came from a fucking modelling photo shoot.

The weird Jim Sterling vendor in the new Resident Evil game though.

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that's Cecil, he starts of in his armor as a Dark Knight then over the course of the story he eventuality changes his job to a Paladin

 

[Aleh]

The Dissidia artstyle is the worst thing ever and no one will convince me otherwise

 

[waugh]

I like how your scale jumps right from perfect dolls to toothless peasants.
Not like you can have endearing character designs with varied shapes and features or anything....

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The scale jump was to illustrate how dumb the realism argument was.

 

[Wireframe]

The Japanese market never will.

 

[Nakenorm]

The Dissidia artstyle is the worst thing ever and no one will convince me otherwise

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Yeah, I liked some of the Nomura designs for the psp games but the character models for the arcade/PS4 game are horrible.

 

[Favio Bolo]

nah, it's fine. i have no desire to play as old realistic looking dudes

 

[Stone Cold]

It's not so much that they're pretty as it is they all dress the same. You could take all the main characters and they could make one big boy band

 

[Elephant]

That Realistic art style is getting bland and tired. Final fantasy 9 was the peak of the franchise when it came to originality with character types.

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The first word that people usually think of when you talk about FFIX is "charm", that is no small part to the excellent characters.

 

[Egida]

For some reason I just assumed there'd be a character creator for the guy you play as, guess that isn't the case.

 

[Ruisu]

Not this shit again. Do you guys just want all games to look like western open world stealth-action games? Games like final fantasy and some Japanese games are almost the only ones left doing bishounen/bishoujo protagonists, at most western games have a few female protagonists like Abby/Ellie/Alloy in a sea of gruff realistic men.

 

[Lockheartilly9799]

I would be okay with it if the protag had at least some semblance of melanin.

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This is what I want too. I was hoping they'd do this but instead we got business as usual.

 

[NHarmonic.]

Nomura is getting into same-y territory with the designs, happens to all the big ones tbh.

He is doesn't even switching the facial features now lmao.

 

[jiggle]

No way
More of him k

 

[Deleted member 56266]

Nope

 

[Thorrgal]

I skipped 15 but 16 looks very interesting, all in for medieval FF.

 

[cairngorm]

I would be okay with it if the protag had at least some semblance of melanin.

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That would be great. I don't mind pretty because it's not like there aren't a ton of games with guys who aren't bishounen.

 

[UberTag]

It's not the character designs that are the problem here. It's the cookie cutter vapid personalities.
That said, I don't expect Square Enix to ever change which is why I now go elsewhere for my JRPG fix.

 

[Efejota]

I just want them to make a curly haired protagonist for once.

I mean, it's probably a trends thing, but you rarely see curly hairstyles in japanese media anymore, even if they were everywere in the 80s.

I Like how people keep quoting this image and yet all of the images (expect Noctis) are from Dissida, it's not really representative of how most of them looked in there own game and heck Shantotto and Y'shotla aren't even the protags of there games. A similar thing happens with Warrior of Light and Onion Knight who are stand in for player self inserts



that's Cecil, he starts of in his armor as a Dark Knight then over the course of the story he eventuality changes his job to a Paladin

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As someone who started playing Final fantasy with the DS version of III it's always really sad how they always ditch Luneth and the rest of the gang in favor of the Onion Knights :T

 

[Mimosa]

Gimme himbos, twinks, and femboys ALL DAY I never get sick of em

 

[Deleted member 59126]

I was bored of that shit by Final Fantasy X

 

[Deleted member 4179]

Your example has some shitty interpretations of some fine character designs. Come on, man.

 

[crimilde]

Nope, not bored at all. I love the way FF protagonists look.

 

[Rodney McKay]

Don't mind how the faces look, I just wish the hair wasn't always that crazy impossible spiked style.

It's so satisfying when a character has physically possible haircut.

I didn't mind the spikey stylized hair in the old 2D oor polygonal games since it gives them a way to differentiate them, but in modern games I just don't like it.

 

[Roubjon]

No, I like how FF characters look, whether it's Nomura or Yoshida as the lead. I think its cool you can take one look at a FF screenshot and know it's FF.

 

[Nista]

I would love if they could actually take Amano's character designs and bring them into a 3D world. Like exploring a living painting. But that level of detail and craziness would be tough to pull off and animate convincingly with a reasonable budget.

 

[tiebreaker]

I feel this is the minority now all other male protagonist are gruff bearded dudes. Androgynous male characters are few and far between in AAA games. The only issue I saw was they aren't as pretty as Cloud in FF7R. I'll wait to see more though I want to play as a woman in this action game.

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Yep. There is room for both. I don't need a Geralt in Final Fantasy.

 

[ChoklitCow]

 

[Deleted member 4869]

No.

If I wanted to play as fugly main characters I'd just switch to western RPGs.

 

[Timbuktu]

I do like how pretty and unique it is...but they literally all look the same now.

I'd love a game to adopt facial capture. The results are so much more unique.

Meeeeh. FF9 models look...sorta goofy. :/
They look like more anime versions of Dark Crystal muppets lol
But also the girls look more standard "typical pretty women" (can't make girls weird/unique looking!! no one wants to fuck that) compared to the fellas. Brahne was, but it was played for laughs (and totally unexplained why she's blue).

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I didn't realise they all had light coloured eyes.

 

[Rabbit Clock]

No. I like how pretty everyone is. Also how out of place every protagonist looks in their respective games.

 

[Hailinel]

I have no problem with pretty boy protagonists and the degree to which some people get upset by them is kind of baffling.

 

[genjiZERO]

No, I like the Japanese pretty people gaming aesthetic, and find it much better than whatever is going on in Western gaming aesthetic. I would however like to see a more stylized cartoonish look over the unnatural naturalism they've been going for for decades now. The technology is here to bring Amano's art to a game with no compromises. I'm glad they've moved on from Nomura's "fashion" style for 16, but frankly realistic Medieval is dull and none of the original Final Fantasy's were actually in that style anyway.

 

[Jimnymebob]

Nope lol. It's been the same thing forever, so it's not something I think about really.

 

[Deleted member 11413]

The complaining about this is how you can tell this is how straight male dominated forum, lol.

Also the image in the OP is very misrepresentative, essentially every game in the series has a different art style and aesthetic so using a spin-off game with every character crammed into a unified (and lackluster) aesthetic is a bit disingenuous.

The protagonist of FF16 seems older than the typical protagonist of the series, especially his older, 'punished' look. Way more of a Kain than a Cloud, Squall, or Tidus.

It would be nice to see more ethnically diverse characters but based on FF's track record I don't think you want Square tackling that, at least not rn. There recent efforts have been...not good.

 

[darkhunger]

The complaining about this is how you can tell this is how you can tell this is a straight male dominated forum, lol.

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As a straight male I don't mind the pretty boys. I don't see why any straight male should mind, unless they are insecure...

So much better than that same faced Nathan Drake aesthetic.

 

[Mona]

aint nothin pretty about a tail

 

[Deleted member 11413]

As a straight male I don't mind the pretty boys. I don't see why any straight male should mind, unless they are insecure...

So much better than that same faced Nathan Drake aesthetic.

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Yeah that's not what I'm saying, I don't mind it either. But it's also not pandering to that demographic, and people notice that and react to it, even if it's subconscious.

 

[Kinthey]

I'm ok with the pretty guys, it's the jpop fashion that gets kind of annoying to me.

To be fair, gruff "unconventional beauty" 30-something MC in western games have become kinda of stale and boring too.

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To think that the one with the dreads would grow up to marry Heidi Klum...

 

[copelandmaster]

You mention Kingsglaive, and then complain about the look of the XVI characters despite the fact that the timeskipped versions of the characters shown in the trailer look like they're straight out of Kingsglaive.

 

[RyougaSaotome]

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This image is a pretty poor representation IMO considering it's literally all the characters in a single unified art style for what I believe is Dissidia (other than Noctis), where they've basically had all style ripped out of them from their individual games.

I'd love to see high quality renders from each game's production materials instead. For example, Zidane looks nothing like that in i his game, Y'shtola also looks quite a bit different.

As for your point on them all being pretty, I'm down. I prefer the variety (in their actual character designs, not Dissidia's boring redo) over the bald white dude syndrome that's also commonly found in video game MCs.

 

[Lyre]

Absolutely not.

FF is a very pretty IP, it's what makes it so good.

 

[ThatCrazyGuy]

I agree with ya OP, 1000%.

Unfortunately, i think it will stay this way.

 

[ResetEraIsTheBestEra]

Aye, that's why dropped the series a long time ago. Last FF I played was the one on PS3? Where you fight on top of a super whale or something cant remember which FF was that

The new one at least the MC isn't a pretty 12 YRS old boy instead an older dude so it is more passable and I'm looking forward to it too see if I get it or not