Lightning wearing a white sleeveless jacket, shirt green skirt, and a gun-blade. She looks to her right.
I have been a Final Fantasy fangirl for about ten years. It’s the only game series I’ve continued to buy on its release date, although I can no longer keep up with the spin-offs and direct sequels. The latest game, Final Fantasy XIII, comes out in a little over a week. What’s got me especially excited? The protagonist is finally a woman for the first time since FFVI’s Terra in 1994. (Excluding spin-offs!)
I’ve avoided spoilers and reviews of FFXIII, I suspect the cast of FFXIII will fall into some of the archetypes we’ve seen in earlier games with a broody, emo protagonist (Cloud, Squall), whiney doofus (Tidus, Vaan), the bubbly teenage girl (like Yuffie and Rikku), and bad-ass mysterious side-kick (Auron, Paine).
Lightning, like the rest of FFXIII cast, is dressed in the typical over-the-top anime attire, but as women’s outfits go, hers does not especially scream “eye-candy.” My only criticism is that her bare legs don’t look muscular enough to me for someone with abilities, but overall I can’t wait to play her. I’ll finally get to be a protagonist who I have gender in common with. This means a lot to me because Lightning has rejuvenated my excitement about a series that was starting to seem same-old to me. Although I still enjoy the gameplay, the plots don’t amaze me like they used to. I don’t know if it’s because I started playing when I was a 15 year old and I’m now a jaded 25 year old, or if the quality of storytelling has gone downhill. But I’m optimistic that FFXIII will do something new, beginning with taking women seriously enough that epic RPGs no longer need to revolve around teenage men.
I think I have one criticism for this character, perhaps because I’m such a fan of Lulu: She needs more belts.
Lake Desire, you have played FFVI, right??? (ie the best Final Fantasy ever) I think a lot of the PS1 generation missed out on the greatness that was RPGs from the graphically limited earlier console generations. Since then, FF has been form over content for me
It’s not surprising if the series has become stagnant when so much of the game is about how good it looks.
No I never played FF6. I had the port on my PSX many years ago, but I couldn’t stand the long load times and gave up. I have played its contemporary, Chrono Trigger, several times, though!
6 is still my favorite Final Fantasy. I love the music to that game; the Opera House scene just blew me away the first time that I saw it. There are some interesting differences in translation between the SNES and GBA versions; I’ve played them both and I don’t know which one is better.
I just want to say… I tried playing FFVI, and I got bored.
Of course, I got bored with FFVII about 2 hours in, so making it to about 3.5 hours in FFVI was a milestone.
I am interested in FFXIII, though. Partly because of the female protagonist–I like her character design. And partly because I want to see whether this Final Fantasy will interest me more than the others. (Though oliemoon tells me that I will probably like FFXII because its design is very similar to MMORPGs, I haven’t tried it yet.)
That’s why I liked FF12… the fun of MMO-style battles without dealing with the wanky players.
She doesn’t look as silly as recent Final Fantasy protagonists, with the exception of what looks like a gunblade, but she will definitely fall into one of the traditional stereotypes.
And no, the quality of plot in Final Fantasy games hasn’t gone downhill, it’s always been set at a low bar. Your average fifteen year old just hasn’t developed the critical thinking skills to cut through the obfuscatory ‘drama’ and raise eyebrows at the inevitable world-shattering ‘twist’.
I agree that she’ll probably fall into one of the usual Square tropes. I just hope she isn’t too pouty, and obsessed with whatever tragic past she must avenge. I don’t know if her being a woman will be enough for me to get over the same-old Square emo.
Maybe she’ll be like Ashe from FF12, who in my mind will always be the REAL protagonist of that game over Vaan the teenage doofus.
There’s always hope, true. I’ll hold further judgment until release and reviews come out.
Yeah, Vaan from FF12 always felt like the wrong character to pick as THE protagonist of the game to me. Then I read in wikipedia that the game was designed with Basch as its main character from the start (which is not as great as having it focus on Ashe but would have been way better than Vaan. At least Basch has real reasons to be entangled in the storyline) but the development team decided that a teenage protagonist would sell more. Thus, they decided to include Vaan and Penelo. A shame, really, but that’s how the market for j-rpgs works, I guess. I personally would like to see different kinds of main characters. I hope Lightning doesn’t let me down!
The plot does definitely shift away from Vaan as you go, and it’s kind of nice that you end up in a story where there isn’t so much *one* hero and a bunch of followers as there are a group of heroes working together. As I recall, Ashe, Basch, and Balthier in particular can all make strong claims to being the lead, and by the end Vaan and Penelo are clearly just hangers-on (who get their own game later).
You just pointed out one of the main problems I had with FF12. (although I loved the game) Some of the characters, including Vaan, just seemed to have no reason for being there. And the attempts to explain their involvement were weak at best.
I loved Ashe though, and the flexible character specialization system. I ended up doing a play-through while only playing the 3 female characters throughout the entire game. Good times. XD
My biggest problem with all of the Final Fantasy stories is that they are so convoluted. With that said, I am liking the fact that you play as a female soldier. I’m assuming that she is disciplied or (at the very least) not whiney like other FF protagonists. She seems to be an interesting character.
My biggest problem with all of the Final Fantasy stories is that they are so convoluted. With that said, I am liking the fact that you play as a female soldier. I’m assuming that she is disciplined or (at the very least) not whiney like other FF protagonists. She seems to be an interesting character.
Totally agreed with you, as soon as I saw Lightning the first time I was like, “FINALLY!” Especially since every trailer has her kicking ten kinds of ass.
Also, not gonna lie, I kind of love her outfit. Especially the jacket. I want one~
I love her outfit, too! And her hair!
I took another look at her design and I noticed that she has no less than 3 belts. That plus the jacket means she is now my all time favorite FF character!
We’re buying a new system in order to be able to play this game.
/me has been playing since I. That was my first Nintendo Power magazine. The strategy guide for it.
I am very excited for this game!! I am hopeful that Lightning will be a good character.
I know you mentioned not having played any spin offs but I wonder if you might enjoy FFX-2. There were some strange male gaze up-skirt shots when the characters were climbing a mountain but overall I found the game very fun and it had 3 female protagonists. The dress sphere system was similar to job classes which was a fun mechanic.
I really liked FFX-2 also… /guilty xD
It’s hard not to like hundreds of cosplay options without all the work that goes into actually making costumes.
Haha, YES! I loved the outfits XD;;; It was cool to see how each one fit both the theme of the job and the character’s personality…
It was such a fun game!!! Not without it’s problems but overall it was a great experience.
Yes I actually liked it… was embarrassed to admit it because it’s a game starring women that’s premised on collecting and changing outfits.
It is not a problem free game, but it is SOOOO much fun!
I liked it too. I generally don’t like ATB but X-2 is one of the only two games that made it fun for me (the other is Chrono Trigger).
X was as much about Yuna as it was about Tidus…
True, since she was the dreamer and he was the dream. (more like a nightmare though, amirite?)
I’m actually in the middle of playing FFXII right now, but I’ve been thinking about not continuing because I found Vaan annoying and the character design of Fran–aka Bunny Girl–insulting. The last straw was going to Wikipedia to see if any male Viera existed (supposedly they do, but we don’t get to see any of them in any of the games) and finding out that “[t]heir feet are shaped in such a way that in order to stand they must wear high heels.” Ugh.
Fran was so badass but I couldn’t take her seriously going into battle in a thong. I don’t buy the “must wear high heels” thing… how’d the Viera evolve? Wearing heels?
haha, I find it very amusing that they came up with a reason for her to wear high heals.
I hate it when there are excuses for women to be dressed in revealing clothing. I mean, why bother? Just admit that it’s for eye candy. Seriously, we don’t need to hear any lame explanations. It doesn’t change anything.
I understood it as not that they ‘had’ to wear heels, but that because the walk on their toes naturally, high heels are more comfortable for them.
Of course, yeah, it’s just an excuse to put a bunny girl in stilettos, but if you look at Viera art from FFT, they aren’t all dressed like lingerie models.
I’m generally not a fan of the series (X, X-2, and the DS version of III are the only FFs I really like), but the more I learn about XIII the more I want to play it, although it’s still in “will wait for a price drop” territory.
http://www.neoseeker.com/forums/32228/t720685-lightning-not-necessarily-main-character/
I found this link to where Toriyama is quoted as saying that Lightning is not the main character, but was basically eye candy for the trailer. I’m not sure if this is true or not in the game itself as I haven’t played the Japanese game.
I had a feeling that was the case.
I think maybe he means to say that she isn’t the soul focus of the story. Meaning that there are other characters that are equally important.
At least I hope that’s what it means. I could just be being overly optimistic though.
From what I’ve been reading from others, is that it’s a bit like that. No one is going to be the sole focus. Though I have reservations about that.