The Final Fantasy Thread

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Psyduck said:
Just one??
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Well it’s the steelmanned example of a Nomura-made waifu/love interest. Justifiably his most popular female creation. None other than Tifa Lockheart! She was his first widely popular character, and he did play a more direct role in her creation. And she remains his best, but also arguably an unofficial blueprint of how he tends to write girls or love interests.

I’m going to be a little overly-critical and autistic here, just to make a point:

Outside of hating Shinra and Sephiroth for destroying her town (technically redundant with both Cloud and Barrett) she doesn’t have a direct stake in the story (she isn’t alone here of course but I’ll come back to this), and her ultimate purpose is to be there for the hero when he’s lost in his mental abyss. This is obviously more interesting than the bland emotional support other girls often boil down to (like Jill Warrick, apparently) but still it’s pretty cliche. Especially in a story with another more prominent female character with a very direct stake in the story and a decisive influence over its events (Aerith was conceived by Sakaguchi).

Even before Aerith’s destiny and true identity become apparent she’s making things happen in the Wall Market so it’s not just a matter of Aerith being more special than Tifa but a personality-driven thing. Because it seems Nomura prefers it this way.

Contrary to a perception that Tifa “punches her problems in the face until they stop being problems” she is instead made to wait until the problem grows overwhelming, and is in general a passive-reactive person even before then. Which is where her lack of a unique or especially quixotic interest in the journey really manifests. Moreover this misperception is supposedly what makes her superior to the “annoying damsel” of Aerith. Which has always read as thinly veiled bitterness about Aerith being the obvious driver of the story between the two.

Now, just take away everything interesting about FF7 as a whole, which I glossed over and which hide these “shortcomings”, and you get a Kairi.

There are story and development related reasons for all of this, it works well for her role in the story, and it’s not at all an issue for a secondary character like her (which is why it totally works) but it’s also true that much of it was down to overall high quality of FF7 and its main hero. She’s interesting mainly because Cloud is interesting
 
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Berrakh said:
Well it’s the steelmanned example of a Nomura-made waifu/love interest. Justifiably his most popular female creation. None other than Tifa Lockheart! She was his first widely popular character, and he did play a more direct role in her creation. And she remains his best, but also arguably an unofficial blueprint of how he tends to write girls or love interests.
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That's pretty accurate yeah, if i had to attribute his method to something it'd be that either Nomura just doesn't interact with women much, or he just prefers to write men and that's it.

The Tifa blueprint does fit most of his other characters, thinking back to KH and Kairi, Xion, Namine etc, but even Aqua, who has more agency and even stars in her own title, has the same goal of "being there for the characters with actual development"

I cant really fault or berate him for that, to be honest. His stories (usually) work regardless of how he writes his female characters, and he's such a good designer that as bland as they are, are still able to gather enough of a fanbase from pure looks alone
 
Psyduck said:
I cant really fault or berate him for that, to be honest. His stories (usually) work regardless of how he writes his female characters, and he's such a good designer that as bland as they are, are still able to gather enough of a fanbase from pure looks alone
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That’s true. It functions on a deep level which people naturally respond well to. IE pretty girl who is a bit indistinct without her personal connection to her man.

However FF has a very progtarded fanbase (currently weeping for Palestine, after rooting for Hamas) so this dissonance leads to vindictively shallow pretzel logic. Such as criticizing Aerith for being kidnapped when it’s not a reflection of inner weakness in any way. That way Tifa gets to stay (comparatively) empowered.
 
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Berrakh said:
That’s true. It functions on a deep level which people naturally respond well to. IE pretty girl who is a but indistinct without her personal connection to her man.

However FF has a very progtarded fanbase (currently weeping for Palestine, after rooting for Hamas) so this dissonance leads to vindictively shallow pretzel logic. Such as criticizing Aerith for being kidnapped when it’s not a reflection of inner weakness in any way. That way Tifa gets to stay (comparatively) empowered.
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Female characters have to be the most restrictive type of characters to write today. Regardless of what you do with them, groups will get upset. No wonder Nomura shuts that off and lets his art do the talking.
 
Gravemind said:
My guy I think you just hate women with conventional sex appeal in video games.
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If I started off saying “people like Tifa for her tits” you’d be strenuously denying that.

I like Dorothea from Fire Emblem and played DoA Beach Volleyball BEFORE I ever touched Final Fantasy. All of whom have better tits than Tifa in my opinion. Since we all know “conventionally attractive” is a euphemism for her tits (when was the last time an FF girl wasn’t exceptionally attractive?)

Maybe I just like the passionate vixen personality? But I don’t think I’m wrong to prefer more active characters. Or to notice when a character is treated as more active than they really are.

I even said she’s overall a quality character. It just so happens a lot of Nomura cliches are apparent with her.
 
Berrakh said:
If I started off saying “people like Tifa for her tits” you’d be strenuously denying that.

I like Dorothea from Fire Emblem and played DoA Beach Volleyball BEFORE I ever touched Final Fantasy. All of whom have better tits than Tifa in my opinion. Since we all know “conventionally attractive” is a euphemism for her tits (when was the last time an FF girl wasn’t exceptionally attractive?)

Maybe I just like the passionate vixen personality? But I don’t think I’m wrong to prefer more active characters. Or to notice when a character is treated as more active than they really are.

I even said she’s overall a quality character. It just so happens a lot of Nomura cliches are apparent with her.
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So when are you gonna put both Hilda and Tifa as your avatar?
 
@Berrakh , couldn't reply to one of you above post because of bug so I'm stuck "atting" you.

To sound a bit condescinding and self-important, I think I already explained well the difference and thought process between Aeris and Tifa in terms of writing, but I'll do it again because its not as simple as Nomura being a Tifa fanboy as you (and I think someone) seem to suggest.

It basically comes down to which character was conceived first and what the writers felt thought they should do with them. Aeris was clearly conceived before Tifa, and it was never intended for her to simply be a love interest for the main character. The latter is obvious when the writers decided Aeris should have to make some kind of sacrifice.

Now consider next, Cloud's whole identity crisis issue. Ask yourself this, how does Cloud resolve this problem? Should the writers have him fix himself? They could have done that, but if they did it would be a bit boring and the audience would likely question why wasn't Cloud able to help himself before. So they probably, ok, we'll have another character help him, but who would do that? Obviously not Aeris, not unless they wanted her to to help Cloud from the Lifestream. Even then if they did do that, it wouldn't be very convincing for Aeris to do that because how would she be able to help someone understand who he actually is (or was) when she barely knows who he is. The only thing about this particular scenario that makes sense is that it would fit her character (if you want you could think of this as her having the motivation, but not the means). So what did they do to resolve this problem? Introduce another character that does know Cloud and who would be there to help him at his lowest moment. I'm sure the writers also did this just so that there would be at least 1 more playable character in particular another female character, and I'm also sure later that they felt like adding the whole love triangle dynamic going on between the characters along with accentuating and differentiating Aeris and Tifa personalities

Put simply this whole Nomura Tifa thing you and I think someone else keeps bringing up is ridiculous. You make it sound as if Nomura pretty much had the final say on how this character would be written and how she would fit into the grand scheme along with fauning over a character that came later which makes little sense. Writers almost always favor the first couple of characters they created and built their story around.
 
Gravemind said:
People hate XVI?
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Hate is a strong word but I didn't like 16 much after the halfway point. If you skip the side quests that dont have a plus mark it's probably fine, but its just so repetitive.
SSj_Ness said:
And the graphics still hold up crazy well.
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The crystal tools engine may have been a huge pain in the ass to work with, but it sure still holds up.
Berrakh said:
Was Nomura involved with XV? Because that’s such a Nomura hallmark it’s unreal. The gay shipping in Kingdom Hearts, besides the larger than usual female fanbase, is so pronounced because Kairi’s presence/chemistry is so nominal.
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ill admit It's kinda weird becouse the only game Nomura actually directly wrote parts of was 358/days and that had the best romance of the series with Xion and Roxas. (though he shared writing with two others)

Id say Aqua was pretty great as far as characters go, being the most rational and badass member of the group, yet having enough flaws to be a teachers pet and unintentionally push away Terra with that. The romance angle was completely ambiguous though.

Kairi got shafted for a while until remind, and even in melody of memory had to get bailed out. However, I respect that Nomura is slowly building her up instead of just automatically making her a badass because everyone demanded it.

Resunoit said:
Noctis had far more chemistry with his car than he did with Luna.
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Frankly im shocked nobody has brought up stella. She was the original chick before she got replaced ONE HUNDRED PERCENT BY Hajime Tabata. NOT NOMURA.
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Tell me the Original isnt 1000 times more interesting then the paper doll that is luna.


(if your wondering about the fan dub, this scene was voiceless in the original preview trailer)


What happened is she and almost all the edgy elements of the original plot got cut out and replaced with Subpar shit by Taba. They were going for some real romeo and juliet stuff between her and Noctis and they would have had a lot more chemistry and scenes together. Noctis was not the the hero in that game.


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It's the same reason the empire has such a lack of screentime. Ardyn was not supposed to be the final boss.

They cut out so many characters its ridiculous

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This guy was supposed to be a general for the empire


Stella's brother was supposed to have a more antagonistic dynamic to Noctis.

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Promto was a psycho killer

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Noctis's family were full on yakuza gangsters. It just goes on and on.

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I cant find the link, but I distinctly remember an older interview where Nomura described Noctis as the greatest monster he had ever created.

We were robbed.
 
Frankly im shocked nobody has brought up stella.
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I did. But yes, they butchered her, along with several other good ideas. Stella to Luna has to be one of the biggest character downgrades I've ever seen, if not the biggest.
 
The Fair Lady said:
I did. But yes, they butchered her, along with several other good ideas. Stella to Luna has to be one of the biggest character downgrades I've ever seen, if not the biggest.
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One of the things that had made me very VERY intrigued by the new kingdom hearts is the idea that Nomura is building a backdoor into versus through it.

People think he's just using other characters to tell the same plot but I'm not convinced he won't use the opportunity to actually leave the door open for a reboot with noctis.


This nameless star is Stella


Yozora is a fragmented noctis.









If interviews can be trusted, im getting the idea he'll take care of soras story first, then go nuts.
 
I might need to ask for a reminder of what the Stella-Luna business was? Is it another casualty of XV’s long ass development and roots in 13 Versus?
 
Berrakh said:
I might need to ask for a reminder of what the Stella-Luna business was? Is it another casualty of XV’s long ass development and roots in 13 Versus?
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I don't know why the hell he did it aside from vanity and ego but the new director tabata essentially erased Stella for luna the moment he took over. She had an established arc and plotline and he erased it for convenience's sake

Here's a quote in his own words.

"As we made adjustments and tried to complete the story of FFXV in a single title, it soon became clear that we needed to change the heroine's role into something bigger."



"Single title"

They shafted a potential trilogy for a quick buck. Taba even admitted the game was unfinished here. https://kotaku.com/final-fantasy-xvs-director-clears-up-a-major-ending-plo-1805820500. I don't buy his bullshit about not cutting the versus story for a second.

The kingsglave cg prequel, despite being the best actual part of 15 for example, was originally about noctis and not about his bodyguards.


Eventually Taba "left" the company when the dlc got shit canned and is now spending his days working on mobile games that are either non-existent or canceled within a year. Let's just say he pissed a lot of people off.


Jill from 16 owes a lot of Stella in terms of design and personality.
 
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