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Anyone else getting bored of the pretty boy/girl Final Fantasy protagonists?
- Thread starter Sea lion
- Start date
Nope, we already got a lot of the old grunt looking men and women in other RPG, especially every Western RPG. I don't want FF characters design to turn into another one of those.
You keep saying this with no examples. Wtf is an "old grunt man/woman?"
That's not even the alternative to having more diverse characters so I really have no idea how you jumped to that conclusion.
It's definitely easier to argue that the protagonists are white when you consider white the standard human appearance and relate any facial feature to being white, even when they are very common on other ethnicities like... you know, very light skin. Japanese people made those characters to be japanese and if you ask any asian (I know taking asian people's opinions into consideration is not very common on ERA, but try it out) if those characters look white they'll laugh on your face.
I'm saying in another RPG games especially a western made one. Do I have to go out and find everysingle RPG games and presented it to you when it was so easy to go look at?
How many "tripple A" RPG games with good graphic fidelity that still have these pretty boy and girls aesthetic like FF in the market? It's a stable style of the series at this point and people who are fans of this style only come to this series because of it.
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While XVI looks like a reasonably fresh take on FF I do miss the cartoony look of 1-7 + 9. I couldn't make it through X back in the day because my entire party just felt like a bunch of bland humans, and I want weird moogles and yetis and stuff in my group.
The Korean MMO look?
These guys looks straight out of FF16
(these are all different games)
To be fair some of these have more variety than FF at this point. They just need to learn how to emote.
The Korean MMO look?
These guys looks straight out of FF16
(these are all different games)
To be fair some of these have more variety than FF at this point. They just need to learn how to emote.
He said AAA RPGs with high graphical fidelity, you posted two mobile mmos and two very average looking PC MMOs.
Thread is about being tired of pretty protags. AAA or not isn't in question, the character design is. That user brought up "old grunt men and women" and never elaborated on wtf that even is.
WRPG protagonist are often custom made. And I feel like their "default" look is often someone in their 20s-30s (Dragon Age games came to mind).
Not sure where this "WRPG" feature old men/women came from.
Im trying to think of a single "old grunt" protagonist in a WRPG. Apparently there are lots of them though.
You were answering to a post saying specifically that the pretty boy trope is very rare on the AAA RPG space and by old grunt he probably meant the middle aged white dad that became very common on western games lately (Older women should definitely see some more representation tho)
No.
Is that image in the OP pulled from a Dissidia character roster? Because the original designs of the characters are not homogenous. Some of Amano's promotional art for the Nintendo-era FFs might seem "pretty-boy"-y, but they're not really that way in the actual game where the character sprites and their designs have a life of their own.
Still wishing a modern FF could turn something like Deva Zan's Amano style into a playable reality.
Is that image in the OP pulled from a Dissidia character roster? Because the original designs of the characters are not homogenous. Some of Amano's promotional art for the Nintendo-era FFs might seem "pretty-boy"-y, but they're not really that way in the actual game where the character sprites and their designs have a life of their own.
Still wishing a modern FF could turn something like Deva Zan's Amano style into a playable reality.
They specifically said Western RPGs, didn't give a single example. It was nonsensical.
Its not that there aren't many "pretty boy" tripple A jrpgs, its that there aren't many tripple A jrpgs in general.
As soon as jrpg makers were able to accurately and realistically show what they wanted their characters to look like on screen, I started to lose interest in the genre. This also happens to be the time when real time battles replaced turn based, which was another nail in the coffin of the genre for me.
I'm sad they seem like they can't recapture something lighthearted again in a mainline FF. Something with charm and design akin to FFIX, which is universally beloved by this point.
That feels to me like the essence of Final Fantasy. But they seem to get drawn back to the non-disney parts of Kingdom Hearts design. There's so much charm, humor, fantasy, and romance to the world and character designs of FF9. It feels like a storybook.
I want a female protagonist, and a stylized FF - mages, muggles, chocobo, kings, kingdoms, knights, airships. I don't want sharp haircuts, jewelry, collars, "bad-ass" armor, leather jackets, "cool" posing
That feels to me like the essence of Final Fantasy. But they seem to get drawn back to the non-disney parts of Kingdom Hearts design. There's so much charm, humor, fantasy, and romance to the world and character designs of FF9. It feels like a storybook.
I want a female protagonist, and a stylized FF - mages, muggles, chocobo, kings, kingdoms, knights, airships. I don't want sharp haircuts, jewelry, collars, "bad-ass" armor, leather jackets, "cool" posing
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I audibly laughed at the xvi reveal trailer when it had this awesome dark medieval setting and then showed us the main character with a kpop haircut
Its gotten extremely tired. Not a huge deal tho but it would have been nice to have abandoned that too for a bit.
Its gotten extremely tired. Not a huge deal tho but it would have been nice to have abandoned that too for a bit.
From the top of my head can only think of AC Valhala and The Witcher tbh
This isn't really representative, because these are CG models of Nomura's redesigns for Dissidia, and all taken from the same angle.
Even if you only look at the Dissidia designs, this is a much better image:
From the top of my head can only think of AC Valhala and The Witcher tbh
So a game that's not even released nor a WRPG and a third game in the series who barely qualifies as an old grunt? Who are the old women grunts you mentioned? Most Western rpgs have character creators so Geralt is kind of an outlier. The whole argument is giving me an aneurysm.
If we're talking about the protagonist in most of the WRPG games then it would prably fall to gruffed looking mature old guys like Geralt more. But if we talking about companions that you can play then there are many WRPG that feature mature or old people, Wynne from DAO came to mind.
I'm not saying that is bad, to the contrary it is pretty amazing to have this kind of character represented but that's not the point. The point is these bishounen "pretty girls and boys" are a staple design of the FF franchise at this point, many people flock to FF mainly due to this reason.
I never mentioned anything it was someone else, I was just engaging in the conversation (Assassin's Creed is an RPG nowadays tho)
Sorry, got you mixed up because thats the exact response I predicted. Geralt.... being the only recurring protagonist in a sea of character creation. Complaining about having non preset characters is fine too, but that's not what this thread was ever about. "well its better than X" neither addresses or invalidates their opinion, and in this case is just wrong.
The only set protagonist that intentionally looks like a disheveled mess I can think of is from Disco Elysium, but that's also not a very common character archetype afaik.
Like Pixel said, gruff old man like Geralt is kinda an outlier as far as WRPG goes. I feel like even the one with character creator kinda assume the protagonist is young :
Fallout 3 protagonist is in their early 20s (based on their childhood friends and also the opening section).
Mass Effect Andromeda Ryder twins is early 20 (23 I think ?).
Dragon Age Origins human origins pretty much treat the protagonist as someone young.
Hawke from Dragon Age 2 is probably somewhere between 25-30.
Baldur's Gate protagonist is 20.
AssCreed Odyssey Kassandra/Alexios is mid to late 20.
Heck Fallout 4 dad and mum can past as someone in their late 20/early 30.
It didn't bother me so much in the past, I got used to how similiar Cloud, Tidus, and Vaan looked.... but seeing the new main character, and he just blurs with Noctis, (what's funny is Noctis had an older, damaged version too) Noctis' brother or cousin.
4 years of the XIII trilogy ended very unsatisfyingly, the rubbish XV, and then some bland artistic design in XVI's trailer... and a bland looking new protagonist. All that accumulated to the most 'meh' I every felt about a FF trailer.
4 years of the XIII trilogy ended very unsatisfyingly, the rubbish XV, and then some bland artistic design in XVI's trailer... and a bland looking new protagonist. All that accumulated to the most 'meh' I every felt about a FF trailer.
It's hard to read arguments like this as being anything other than defenses of colorism.
I might be using the word "old and gruffed" wrong in this case, english is not my first language, I apologize.
What I'm trying to get across is, from your example, even thought they are considered young, their official design are still more masculine and handsomely scruff looking, which is more popular in the west.
People in the east tends to like the pretty anime boys and girls aesthethics more.
OP said that they are tired of this and want the design to be completely difference which I completely disagree. There are not many JRPG with high budget and graphics fidelity like FF left in the market. People look at it and can say right away that "This is FF game". This kind of character is what eastern demographic likes and to change that would alienate a lot of fans.
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).
I think they look great. Best FF characters by far. Also I'd consider Garnet the only typical pretty woman from this lot.
Uh, how many Japanese people (or East Asian people in general) have you seen? Light skin is not a trait exclusive to white people.
I feel this so much :(
The lack of representation today stings a lot more than it did when I was a kid, somehow.
I guess you're right, I would be better off denying asian people of their ethnicity because of the color of their skin like most of this thread instead <3
I don't want real life humans. I LIKE anime and the way it looks.
Not at all, FF games are few and far between and I'm fine with them sticking with their trope. Don't need real life humans in my final fantasy.
Nah I'm fine as long as they are hot. The only issue is there needs to be more diversity. More female leads and more PoC.
Why does this and the OP keep using that image? Do people not realize that is all from Dissidia where all the different styles have been removed to make characters look similar?
Most of the characters are way more varied in face, hair and builds but that ugly ass image is the worst example. Like Tidus is a tanned asian man but in this image he is white.
Why does this and the OP keep using that image? Do people not realize that is all from Dissidia where all the different styles have been removed to make characters look similar?
Most of the characters are way more varied in face, hair and builds but that ugly ass image is the worst example. Like Tidus is a tanned asian man but in this image he is white.
Are these dissidia designs or something? It's also a bit weird to put down Shantotto as the XI protagonist and Yshtola as the XIV protagonist.
Yeah it's all from Dissidia NT.
Shantotto and Y'shtola are reps because MC is create a character in both games so they do make sense as choices.