Final Fantasy XVI

Clement Rage

Pro Adventurer
Fandoms do sometimes struggle with deliberate ambiguity. I could see giving them something to speculate about so they don't keep yelling at the devs for answers.

No matter where we are in the universe, in whatever time in whatever place, in whatever conversation, someone will always blame George Lucas for shit he has nothing to do with.

Re TTM's article, the fact that they have to ignore the XIII series for 'the last decade' to work says a lot.

I don't know anything about XIV, but it really does feel like the mindset is 'FFXV had an all male cast, which is inherently bad for some reason, therefore we will assume that the next game will as well for some reason.'
 

Odysseus

Ninja Potato
AKA
Ody
The reality that the article unintentionally makes us aware of is that there were only two new mainline FF titles in the last decade, and since apparently MMOs don't count we are left with XV, which just so happened to have an all Male party. This speaks far more to Square's terrible project management than to any commentary on how they view women.
 

Makoeyes987

Listen closely, there is meaning in my words.
AKA
Smooth Criminal
But MMORPGs do count. And I don't understand how people try to make that conclusion rationally makes sense.

FFXIV has 22,154,145 players. So do all those players magically not count because they aren't playing a real Final Fantasy? Like, that's such an absurdist position. FF XIV is the 14th installment of the FF franchise. Just because you're not playing it or it's single player, doesn't mean it's Thanos'd out of existence. MMORPGs can be FF titles, regardless of if some people like that model of gaming or not. It just is.

LOL, I didn't play Paper Mario Sticker Star or the Origami King, but I don't go around saying there hasn't been a Paper Mario game since Super Paper Mario for the Wii. Because that's absurd.

And that argument over Y'shtola is completely disingenuous. She's not the only woman character in XIV, and the fact she's had a character arc that has spanned all the damn expansions to Shadowbringers, which has her take an active role, speaks to her importance and continued development. Nevermind Yda/Lyse. Nevermind, Tarutaru. Nevermind, Krille. Nevermind the plethora of other important women characters, heroes and villains alike, who have taken prominent roles within the story. It's a ridiculously myopic examination of Y'Shtola alone in a vacuum. No shit, she's not in every single expansion as a major character. That's what character arcs and development do. Sometimes they're prominent, sometimes they get knocked out from going into the Lifestream and allow other characters to get the spotlight. But then they come back stronger and more badass. Acting like Y'Shtola is the only woman character who's important to Eorza is like thinking Rikku was the only Guardian in FFX who was there helping Yuna. Like, where the hell's the rest of the cast in your analysis?

That's some clickbaity crap. We need Zodiark ASAP.
 
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Makoeyes987

Listen closely, there is meaning in my words.
AKA
Smooth Criminal
But to be fair, each expansion of XIV is pretty huge, and we have gotten numerous Final Fantasy games during the last decade. No, they didn't have a Roman Numeral, but they are full-sized FF titles with stories and gameplay indicative of them being full titles in the franchise.

World of FF exists. It's not some fake SaGa game erroneously given the FF title for marketing, lol. Bravely Default exists as well. And we got Type-0, since it was finally released here. We've had several major FF titles. No, they weren't numbered but.. They were full installments that count. If FF Tactics and Vagrant Story count, they most definitely do :monster:

I'm starting to think I should play XIV for no better reason than to understand what the heck you guys are talking about lol. Too bad I don't know anyone who plays MMOs.

I wasn't personally discounting the game, I was just saying that the article pretty much does.

At the very least, you can watch some of the events and playthroughs on youtube because they're entertaining as fuck. I intend to play one day when I have time but I'm content to watch it until then, because it's still interesting as hell.

And I know you weren't, I was referring to the article's pond shallow examination of XIV and those who magically ignore XI and XIV somehow existing.
 

Wol

None Shall Remember Those Who Do Not Fight
AKA
Rosarian Shield

Downgrade, as usual.

Edit:

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Maybe it's that girl in the white dress but older? I don't know, it looks like a woman to me, but this is FF so...
 
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LNK

Pro Adventurer
AKA
Nate
I'm starting to think I should play XIV for no better reason than to understand what the heck you guys are talking about lol. Too bad I don't know anyone who plays MMOs.

I wasn't personally discounting the game, I was just saying that the article pretty much does.

I was thinking the same, but I might do like mako said and just watch the "movie" version. That's what I did with Crisis Core
 

Obsidian Fire

Ahk Morn!
AKA
The Engineer
Everyone starts with the 2.0 story and plays through it in order by expansions; first 2.x than 3.x than 4.x, etc. The MSQ at least isdone that way. Most of all the Sidequest stuff also requires you to have done the MSQ of the expansion that sidequest is in, so you can never really get too far ahead of where you are in the story.

You can play all of 2.0 and 3.0 story content (and side content) for the free trail for an unlimited amount of time, so don't feel like you have to rush it.
 

ForceStealer

Double Growth
Yes that article was shitty. As people have said it profoundly misrepresents FFXIV (why does it ignore that 3 of the 4 Eorzean citystates are lead by women?), and then the declaration that VIIR didn't count was exactly the stuff Clement was decrying. Saying the VIIR women don't count because they were already established ignores the significant portion of the internet that spent the 5 years wringing their hands over whether Aerith would have her edge, or if Tifa would be shallow fanservice, or that the Wall Market would be a progressive nightmare. None of those things came to pass, and indeed exceeded even optimistic expectations, but we need to make controversial post, so we'll say that all doesn't count? Okay. (Similarly saying Lyse doesn't count because "white savior" narrative. A - that seems to willfully misunderstand the Ala Mhigo plot in general, but even if it didn't, that wouldn't actually have any bearing on her being a developed female character.)

A series that has had a generally very strong track record with women characters for the better part of 25 years has one game that didn't do well at that, and none of the leading staff for that game is working on this game, and still we sound the alarm. Just *wait* a bit. I need to see that we have a PARTY. Then I can be concerned about whether there are women in it.
 
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