Final Fantasy XV

[Xagzan]

Originally Posted by Shadow5YA

It's not like the entire story is devoid of females. Stella has shown that she is just as powerful as Noctis.

The problem is that considering Noctis' role in the story with all the parallels to Hamlet, it's difficult for him to have a female friend that can be all buddy-buddy like his male friends without complicating things with unwanted romance.

A relevant quote:

Oscar Wilde was gay.

[Vajra]

Originally Posted by Shadow5YA

It's not like the entire story is devoid of females. Stella has shown that she is just as powerful as Noctis.

The problem is that considering Noctis' role in the story with all the parallels to Hamlet, it's difficult for him to have a female friend that can be all buddy-buddy like his male friends without complicating things with unwanted romance.

A relevant quote:

Oh silly me I didn't realize that development of the whole game revolved around an Oscar Wilde quote, it all makes sense now =/

[Shadow5YA]

By all means ignore the quote if you don't like it.

I have still yet to hear how you could possibly add a female character near someone of Noctis' political position and keep her platonic without making her into a love interest.

Sure, everyone wants a female party member, but for personal reasons. How do you actually expect her to fit into the story?

[maplehurry]

Originally Posted by Shadow5YA

By all means ignore the quote if you don't like it.

I have still yet to hear how you could possibly add a female character near someone of Noctis' political position and keep her platonic without making her into a love interest.

Sure, everyone wants a female party member, but for personal reasons. How do you actually expect her to fit into the story?

Long lost sister? Loli ?

[Chaos2Frozen]

Originally Posted by maplehurry

Long lost sister? Loli ?

No... That's just... We don't need more reasons for people to rage that those tropes.

[maplehurry]

well then, Ashe, yuffie, lulu ?

Or a teacher figure like in Last Remnant.

[Nightengale]

What's wrong with just letting Nomura do whatever the hell he wants with his story and game?

Besides, since when has Final Fantasy ever outright revealed the full cast of the RPG team straight-out? Final Fantasy, as part & parcel of its marketing always had a staggered reveal of late-joiners or 'teammates with spoiler elements' to the team.

I think it's a highly mistaken assumption to assume that the core party members will remain unchanged and static throughout the entire game. Remember Final Fantaxy IX?

The story's initial cast was also... you know, a sausage fest of travelling thieves before the story turned its tail and changed it into the eccentric team of misfits we got for FFIX.

Originally Posted by maplehurry

well then, Ashe, yuffie, lulu ?

Or a teacher figure like in Last Remnant.

The setting for Noctis has always revolved around his core group of friends.
We have no inkling towards the external pieces of Noctis's relationship with outsiders, with the exception of Stella's possibility as a childhood friend.

And the question remains. Why would an 'Ashe, Yuffie or Lulu' be part of Team Noctis?
Ashe is pretty much Noctis from the story's perspective, there's no reason to introduce another royalty.
Yuffie is an outsider figure. Any reveal of a 'Yuffie-type' character will not be revealed to us for a long-long time, because it pretty much dives into mid-game spoiler territory.
Lulu's role is already covered by existing male characters within Team Noctis.

And the teacher figure for FFXV is Cor, who's already a male. Asking that now is pretty much asking for a genderbending.

[Xagzan]

Originally Posted by Nightengale

What's wrong with just letting Nomura do whatever the hell he wants with his story and game?

Besides, since when has Final Fantasy ever outright revealed the full cast of the RPG team straight-out? Final Fantasy, as part & parcel of its marketing always had a staggered reveal of late-joiners or 'teammates with spoiler elements' to the team.

I think it's a highly mistaken assumption to assume that the core party members will remain unchanged and static throughout the entire game. Remember Final Fantaxy IX?

They did have Ruby.

[Duo Maxwell]

Seriously, why does that bother people that much? I don't even remember there are that many (or none at all?) JRPG that consists of the whole group of male characters. Why can't we just have that once for a while?

I don't really care about the gender as long as I find the character's interactions interesting, be it companionship, friendship, romance or anything.

Long lost sister? Loli ?

I hope you was joking. I really do.

[Vajra]

Originally Posted by Shadow5YA

By all means ignore the quote if you don't like it.

I have still yet to hear how you could possibly add a female character near someone of Noctis' political position and keep her platonic without making her into a love interest.

Sure, everyone wants a female party member, but for personal reasons. How do you actually expect her to fit into the story?

The quote itself is fine; I just don't see it as justification for not including a playable female -- or maybe you were just trying to explain Nomura's reasoning behind his thinking with that quote? Well either way I don't think having at least one chick character would ruin the whole atmosphere of the game or the "bruddahood" of Noctis and his "homies", I mean what about that dragoon woman -- surely she would be able to kick and take names and more or less fall in with the men without becoming "the girlfriend".

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by Sakuranbo

The quote itself is fine; I just don't see it as justification for not including a playable female.

I don't see any NEED for justification. I am sorry, but I am getting the feeling you feel entitled to a playable female character.

Why should SE justify it to you? Did they wrong you in some way? Are you seriously claiming there needs to be a justification for a bunch of guys to NOT have a girl in their best buddies club?

[Duo Maxwell]

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

a bunch of guys to NOT have a girl in their best buddies club

I wish my group could look that cool.

[Shadow5YA]

Originally Posted by Sakuranbo

The quote itself is fine; I just don't see it as justification for not including a playable female -- or maybe you were just trying to explain Nomura's reasoning behind his thinking with that quote? Well either way I don't think having at least one chick character would ruin the whole atmosphere of the game or the "bruddahood" of Noctis and his "homies", I mean what about that dragoon woman -- surely she would be able to kick and take names and more or less fall in with the men without becoming "the girlfriend".

It's not so much justification for excluding females as there is a lack of justification for including a female in the setting.

Most character archetypes that could normally have been filled by a female before are filled by a male on Noctis' core team now. Additionally, Noctis himself is the prince of a country with strained political relations. Adding a female character close to Noctis' age would needlessly complicate the setting as they have to explain how she can be close to Noctis without setting off alerts within the country's media. They could avoid potential shipping by making the female significantly older and more experienced, but then that overlaps with Cor's character.

That would leave a "Yuffie" type character where an outsider joins the group, but that treads into mid-game spoilers and has nothing to do with the initial setting, and Stella - who is royalty of the opposing country most likely and would not be able to join Noctis until late in the game at the soonest.


The number of options to include a female reasonably in the setting without making it blatant otaku pandering is just too limited.

[Vajra]

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

I don't see any NEED for justification. I am sorry, but I am getting the feeling you feel entitled to a playable female character.

Why should SE justify it to you? Did they wrong you in some way? Are you seriously claiming there needs to be a justification for a bunch of guys to NOT have a girl in their best buddies club?

No I just think that Nomura's reasoning (or lack thereof) for not including a chick character is a cop-out "it would be difficult" or whatever the quote was. And no they don't need to justify anything to ME but perhaps the consumer fanbase as a whole, however if they're going with your attitude + mindset (in general) then they already feel justified with whatever they have/haven't said on the matter. I'm not lobbying for a female member of the core group, just at some point maybe the dragoon or Stella eventually join up-- I'm not talking about ruining YOUR "ideal fraternity fantasy" with unnecessary gynecological complications. And why is this PERSONAL all of a sudden? Are you an employee for Square? Did my post in some way offend your long hours of coding and translating over a computer? Last time I checked people were allowed to air criticisms and thoughts about upcoming games (DmC, Dragon's Dogma, RE6) so are you saying that I need justification + entitlement from the company(despite the fact that I am not the one putting out a product that is being expected to be sold for $60 plus to fans of the series and casual gamers) in order to be able to comment on a game or be an actual Square-Enix employee in order to offer any thoughts or criticisms at all on the up-coming product?

[Kyero Fox]

It will always be like this, if a fighting game has no females, Rage... If a Fighting game has no Males, Cheers. lol

Wonder if there was a robot game with no genders, would people complain there is no gender?

[Vajra]

Originally Posted by Kyero Fox

It will always be like this, if a fighting game has no females, Rage... If a Fighting game has no Males, Cheers. lol

Lol I'm not threatening to boycott the game over not having any chicks nor am I bashing the game for lack of them either, in fact I think it can still be a great game regardless -- I'm just not happy with Nomura's thoughts on the matter as it seems like a lazy/half-thought excuse...but as usual simple criticisms and airs get hyperescalated into misandristic feminist lingo or twisted into somehow being devious plots for the hard-working game company... on the forums

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by Sakuranbo

Lol I'm not threatening to boycott the game over not having any chicks nor am I bashing the game for lack of them either, in fact I think it can still be a great game regardless -- I'm just not happy with Nomura's thoughts on the matter as it seems like a lazy/half-thought excuse...but as usual simple criticisms and airs get hyperescalated into misandristic feminist lingo or twisted into somehow being devious plots for the hard-working game company... on the forums

He didn't need an excuse. He wrote the story and it ended up that he didn't come up with a reason to insert many females.

And now if you ask him why no females, he would just say it is too late to add them. The story is written, he has no reason to re-write the plot.

I am annoyed because as I said earlier, one of the posters directly stated she boycotts all games that have a male cast. As I say, that's downright hideous a way of thinking.

There are many stories that have mostly men, or mostly women. They are that way not because it was intentional, but because that's how the story ended up. Any demand to "insert" more women is unreasonable by default, as it is assuming that the plot doesn't matter.

[Vajra]

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

He didn't need an excuse. He wrote the story and it ended up that he didn't come up with a reason to insert many females.

And now if you ask him why no females, he would just say it is too late to add them. The story is written, he has no reason to re-write the plot.

I am annoyed because as I said earlier, one of the posters directly stated she boycotts all games that have a male cast. As I say, that's downright hideous a way of thinking.

There are many stories that have mostly men, or mostly women. They are that way not because it was intentional, but because that's how the story ended up. Any demand to "insert" more women is unreasonable by default, as it is assuming that the plot doesn't matter.

Yes I remember reading those posts and I agree that is a stupid reason to not buy a game or any games from a specific company. But like I said I am not doing what she was doing, I just expect a decent reason (like the one that you gave just now) from a company that is trying to sell me a 60-plus dollar game. I'm sure it will be a hit regardless if Stella and Lady Dragoon are made playable...in fact if the decision to include one or more females to the party goes public last minute it would only garner more of the same kind of bashing ("she's the token woman!") from like-minded people as the one you mentioned before.

[DragoonKain3]

Oh c'mon guys, lay off that poster. You vote with your money right? That poster wants a more 'balanced' approach to gender representation in RPGs, and I can't fault them for that. I mean, I don't agree with her at all (in this thread nor in the DA:Inquisition thread), but what a person does with their own hard earned money is THEIR prerogative.

At least she can justify her boycott. Me? I'm unashamed to admit that there are a bunch of anime BDs and RPGs that I boycott simply because theres is no way for the childhood friend to win. And yet still, no one but me can say I'm wrong in doing so... it's MY money dammit.

[Vajra]

^
What I really want to know is now that Versus is XV and as such is an official numbered entry in the FF franchise, how will it affect and change the gameplay of future Final Fantasy releases (will they all be stealth/FPS + KH-styled or go back to ATB or FFXIII format?)