Final Fantasy XVI

[Strangelove]

Aaaaand... the lead is white? I'm not being sarcastic here. I always had the impression that japanese developers, especially for FF, design their MCs as a stilized japanese person, which is what the japanese consumer want to see in a videogame, it seems. Have in mind that japanese consumers rarely every look outside their frontiers: they design by and for japanese. Pre time skip MC looks like a boy from Harajuku trying to wear Jin Kazama's hairstyle, tbh.

you see the comment that anime characters and the like all 'look white' which i think is maybe not the best way to look at it. sailor moon lives in japan and has a japanese name and is japanese (but also she's a moon princess), but she has big blue eyes and long blonde hair. but that doesn't mean she's white nor meant to look so. do white people have pink or blue hair, like anime characters do? you can look at characters who are pointedly made to look like white westerns to differentiate them from the japanese cast, and they will be drawn with a long pronounced nose or something and not the small nose associated with characters that 'look white'

manga and derivative media use stylised iconography that's not meant to represent a specific race or nationality (i've seen it called 無国籍/mukokuseki or stateless but idk if that's a common term for it). idk if some of this is seeing a stylised face and unconsciously associating that with the race you're more familiar with, unless it's drawn with exaggerated racial features. if the image isn't sufficiently 'othered' you can associate to it more easily.

i tend to judge characters' 'nationalities' by things like setting and character name/profile. 'tsukino usagi' is japanese. but i'm going to assume a pasty-looking guy called 'harold anderson' is going to be white (i couldn't actually think of a white anime character in a real world setting because i'm not a filthy weeb or something) what are you talking about, hito you filthy weeb. 'joseph joestar', son of johnathan and erina joestar from england, is probably meant to be white. i tried to avoid strictly fictional settings like fantasy and sci-fi so far, where i think 'mukokuseki' would really come in. but looking at an edward elric, i think it's a safe assumption he's at very least based on a white person. i base that on name as well tbh.

i get why you'd take the ffxvi characters for being white, since they're pale-skinned people in a setting that stylistically resembles popular depictions of a fantasy medieval europe, commonly thought of and portrayed as being very white. i know there's contentions around the idea that there were no people of colour (some of who can be pale-skinned too) in europe at that time, but here's the great thing. it's actually not medieval europe. it's a fictional setting and they can put whoever they want in there. which would be nice to see, because i thought the npcs in ff7r had a good variety to them.

anyway i forgot the point i was trying to make now

 

[looneymoon]

I was gonna question lead = white thing, but then I remembered the official announcement trailer was done in English with British accents so..... maybe I guess in this case? Unless I'm mistaken about the details of this reveal. Idk. The FF characters are pretty Asian looking across the board, with some having slightly more/less European features.

I agree that the trailer is a bit milquetoast in general, but I don't really think there's enough to say much more than that. But since the general sentiment seems to be that we are hoping for more party members, what would we like to see? I am thinking if we do get a party, we'll probably get at least 4. If we are really lucky we might see 8, but I somehow doubt it.

I kinda want a creature party member, but I'm not really holding out hope on that (especially with the way the summons would be integrating with the gameplay). DMC5 had the emo guy with the dog tho, so who knows.

 

[Strangelove]

i wonder how much of characters looking asian is down to artists (in this case probably japanese) using themselves as reference? i remember watching somt bts stuff for spirits within and the guy animating the villain (played by james woods, a real life villain) was looking in a mirror while working on the animation for the face.

or do they just scan actual faces now

i don't know what i'm talking about here, i made the donut in blender and that's it, just ignore me

 

[Odysseus]

I think it's down to them
A) using Japanese models, and
B) wanting to appeal to their domestic audience.

If I recall, isn't super pale skin a sign of beauty in Japan? I had always assumed that the characters were never actually "supposed" to be white and it was a coincidence that arose from a number of factors. Nowadays the vague racial thing might be more intentional.

 

[Clement Rage]

It's always British accents because that's the one you can use without offending people. Making up an accent is hard work, but if you use, say, an Indian accent for Archadia, people ask things like 'are you saying the Indians are evil imperialists?'

French would be more accurate for medieval history, I think, but general audiences might get confused.

 

[ForceStealer]

In straight-played anime and abstract graphics, it's a relatively common argument/supposition that people in Japan are assuming the characters look Japanese,etc.

As you get into more realistic graphics though, that gets a little less clear when you have characters like Yuffie clearly having more East Asian features than other characters. So what are the other characters "imagined" as being?

 

[Obsidian Fire]

Some are pretty easy, like Barret. But then you have Cloud and Tifa who have too many "Asian" features (particularly their eyes) to be European, but then have a face structure that feels to broad to be completely Asian either. The big givaway I've found that most modern FF characters are from a JP studio is their eyes. They never look quite right for them to look like European eyes.

 

[Makoeyes987]

The world and ethnicities of FFVII are an amalgam of various cultures and locations. Wutai is hugely inspired by Japan, right down to the post-war occupation tension where older folks make peace with defeat while the younger generation (Yuffie) fights to reclaim its self determined pride in the face of overwhelming military might.

Nibelheim is heavily inspired by US Northwestern Rocky Mountain towns of the turn of the century. Midgar is cyberpunk post-bubble Tokyo mixed with New York and with accelerated income inequality and social stratification. You get also sorts of mishmashed geographic and cultural hallmarks spread out in VII due the fantasy setting being so free to draw from numerous sources of inspiration. Japanese living in podunk western towns and coal mining mountain villages housing all sorts of diverse folks as they try to make a living in anl technologically accelerating world. It's why I love the setting so much. It's as diverse and varied as you can imagine.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

There are lots of British Asians with British accents.
This is confusing anyway for me because in my mind "Asian" means "looks like their family came from the Indian subcontinent" and not "looks like their family came from Japan/China/Korean/Vietnam etc....
The XVI protag has a face that could easily be a Bollywood actor's.

PS I always assumed Nibelheim was based on Bavaria or some mountainous part of Scandinavia

 

[looneymoon]

It's always British accents because that's the one you can use without offending people. Making up an accent is hard work, but if you use, say, an Indian accent for Archadia, people ask things like 'are you saying the Indians are evil imperialists?'

French would be more accurate for medieval history, I think, but general audiences might get confused.

This is funny because the whole British = stand in for all of Europe is a big pet peeve of mine. Especially in productions that are specifically placed somewhere in Europe (the most recent example I could think of being HBO's Chernobyl - great series, but I was really annoyed by everyone being British in Ukraine). Not really to do with FF16, I just wanted a reason to complain about that

 

[Wol]

The soundtrack will be so good, this choir is glorious.

 

[Strangelove]

when the protagonist does that angry face at the end of the trailer, i don't know what it is but there's still a softness to his face and i find it hard to take his rage seriously. it's like an angry puppy to me

 

[Prism]

Oh right, forgot about them. Still haven't had any gay men though, have we?

Heh....this guy forgot about the best characters in the game. Even then, they were just heavily implied, not strictly official. They haven’t gone out and explicitly made gay characters. I’m sure it’ll happen sooner than later.

Regarding the races of Final Fantasy characters, Mako’s the one I’m in the closest alignment to right now. Final Fantasy characters are ethnicity-vague designs that draw heavily into Japanese beauty standards, usually adopting features from a wide array of IRL peoples.

While it’s true there’s some idealization of foreign facial features in Japan, this is not entirely true - “sunken-in eyes with huge noses” is the other side of that coin - Japanese society holds both of those beliefs regarding western faces. I feel like Cloud and Aerith take western features and put them on a Japanese facial frame. Even Barret has some Asian influence on his features, IMO.

Anyway, yeah, fantasy worlds shouldn’t play by our historical rules. In anime, intended ethnicity is really best indicated by the names used. Spike Spiegel is probably Jewish, Ayukawa Madoka is Japanese.

Edit: the use of British accents is a localization choice, too. Not necessarily indicative of original intent. Still, with names like “Joshua...”

 

[Odysseus]

Heh....this guy forgot about the best characters in the game.

In my defense, I never even got far enough into XIII to get Fang in the party. I just couldn't manage that game.
Inb4 @Fangu kills me lol.

In anime, intended ethnicity is really best indicated by the names used. Spike Spiegel is probably Jewish, Ayukawa Madoka is Japanese.

If I recall, they only picked "Spike Spiegel" because it sounded cool. I want to believe though.

 

[Ite]

I’m not “looking to be offended” jesus, I just said that the “women aren’t warriors” trope in a make believe world is a cringey thing to do.

 

[Fade]

Re: the debate about looking white, just compare in-game Tidus to his FMV self. 'nuff said.

 

[Eerie]

French would be more accurate for medieval history, I think, but general audiences might get confused.

Actually no, because what is French in medieval history? There's langue d'Oc and langue d'Oïl that separate North and South and then a myriad of local languages with people who weren't able to understand their 50km away neighbours LOL. Yes, I'm the historical nerd, it's me. Also, I don't fucking care about historical accuracy for a game that's called Final FANTASY because I want a game that's playing with the fantastic side.

All in all it depends on how the creators want to build their world. They can have *some* accuracy by saying that women aren't on the battlefield, and then blast you away with one of the most important characters being a woman on the battlefield. Did women fight in the past? Yes, there have been women fighting, but we also know that compared to men on the battlefields, they were very few and between. It doesn't mean they were never fighting as well as don't mean they were a usual sight (I remember the tomb of a woman with a sword by her side, for example, from early medieval ages, something like 8th or 9th century?). So they would be historically accurate if they chose to portray one or two women on the battlefield. As well as if they chose to have none.

But seriously, it's just the reveal trailer, so there is way more to come. The interesting tidbit is that indeed, this time around the summons seem to possess a human (maybe also alien races? Who knows) to come to fight. Question is: why do they accept to be summoned, do they have something to gain from this? The summoner's body seem to have an especially high value, and I'm not sure it's 100% a good thing? For example, how come a kid is one? Is there some trade off, are they chosen at birth by the summon? It seems there can be only one of a type at once, so the fact that there are two fire types, is that just this one time around, or are the summoners multiplying, meaning that they also lose "value"? I'm guessing it's all linked to the crystals, and I wonder how the gameplay around this will be.

 

[Clement Rage]

Eerie, I stand corrected. I remember hearing somewhere that French was more the language of trade and diplomacy than English, but obviously everything varies.

I mean, they could be talking about Shiva, who certainly does stand out. Given all the other games in the series, there's no reason to really believe that there will be any fewer women on the battlefield than any other game.

 

[Ite]

I don’t see Japanese features on display here, I see Western European features. But maybe that’s just me.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I’m not “looking to be offended” jesus, I just said that the “women aren’t warriors” trope in a make believe world is a cringey thing to do.

I disagree. It depends on the kind of world you want to present, the kind of story you want to tell, the messages you want to convey.
Personally I wouldn't mind seeing a make-believe world in which war is considered a very low-class activity, only disposable people are warriors, and women are too powerful and important to be wasted on the battlefield. I'd love to see a make-believe world that didn't make warrior synonymous with hero.

 

[Eerie]

French became much more important later on, during the French Renaissance indeed. That's when the Academy was created, the king wanted a sophisticated language and that's how it was born. But even then it remained a court thing, France is sadly known for hunting down its various languages during the 19th century - when France became France through French. French was a tool to allow people to feel French first and foremost.

I think women in battles in this FF game are likely to hold positions of power. So, like that Shiva summoner, probably.

 

[Odysseus]

View attachment 7729
I don’t see Japanese features on display here, I see Western European features. But maybe that’s just me.

It's the eyes. They look more Asian than anything to me. Especially Noctis.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

This is why I said "in YoshiP we trust". Right now I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt, but I'm not about to ignore red flags either. The truth is we don't know how this game is going to go with regard to its female characters, so we shouldn't be getting down on people for feeling some kind of way about potential issues when the last mainline entry did set a poor precedent.

In fairness to XV -- and owing largely to the decision to present its narrative in a fragmented form -- basically anyone who wasn't Noctis was lucky to get a thoroughly explored present and backstory. And for that matter, going off the base game itself at launch, even he didn't get that.

If we go with all of the media available at launch (the game, the movie, the OVA, and the little audio drama) ... I guess Prompto does alright in that regard? But not even that much better than Lunafreya or Ravus?

If we look at the final state of the game plus all DLC and other media, Gladio still doesn't come out all that great. Prompto and Ignis do come out great, as do Lunafreya and Aranea. Iris and Cidney do slightly less well than Gladio. Ravus and Cor arguably do better than Gladio.

Really, there's so many ways to approach analyzing XV on this -- but given that there's not a whole lot of character development for anyone who isn't Noctis (just character exploration), most of the cast comes out about the same relative to one another. We get to know who they are in the present and a general sense of what makes them who they are. Even Cidney had this in the base game.

Now, inarguably we spend less time with any female characters than we do the Chocobros, but that's a whole separate topic from how they're handled when they are around -- and also a mostly unavoidable result given the deliberate (one-off) design structure of the story as a roadtrip between bros. If looking at this metric, we end up with some wildly different results again depending on the point in ongoing support for the title we look at and what media we're including.

Going off just the base game at launch, of the female cast, Iris and Aranea do best in this regard by far, and comparable to one another. Incorporating all media at the launch of the game, Lunafreya probably comes out a little better than they do. Taking stock of the final state of the game plus all DLC and media, Lunafreya comes out better (in exploration, development, time spent with her, etc.) than most FF female characters. Aranea comes close to this. Iris and Cidney are now far behind -- but probably still not too far behind Gladio.

tl;dr: There's nothing to be worried over.

 

[Fade]

Uh, so in terms of languages, the middle ages had basically one language: incomprehensible to us. Seems a bad choice to dub a game in.

 

[looneymoon]

I’m not “looking to be offended” jesus, I just said that the “women aren’t warriors” trope in a make believe world is a cringey thing to do.

idk about cringe. maybe boring and cliché, but cringe is a lil strong.