Various stuffs about FF

[A Black Falcon]

I think you're confusing "giving the base something that they can related to" for "sexism". Let's face it, gaming is dominated by males and, as such, a lot of gaming protagonists are also male. That's not a fluke.

That is true. It's also a self-fulfilling argument -- the audience demands the games, so the games are made for the audience... neither end extends the market beyond where it started. "It's sexist because that's what people want"? True, but is that really addressing the issue?

What I mean by bringing that up is that you're trying to meld two seperate issues into some overarching problem and I don't think you can do that. Sexism is a negative portrayal of woman or limiting them to bit parts, not necessarily having them in major supporting roles.

If I make one game without a main female characters, that's not sexism, but if I make a hundred it is?

If you make a hundred games with male protagonists and none with female ones then yes, it is sexism.

Well, so much for "virtually all".

Not so much when you consider that the reason for that is probably that women are seen as more vulnerable by audiences, so seeing them get killed by the monsters does better than seeing men get killed... or perhaps it's that men prefer to see female victims (and survivors -- I remember an article a while back about horror movies, talking about how the same audience that earlier on was happily watching some female characters get butchered was later rooting for the last one (the main character) to survive and defeat the bad guy...) while women don't care and like the movies either way? Either way there are some definite issues there.

If by "scantily-clad" you mean "having as much clothes or more than most women you'll see on a summer day in the city" then yeah, I guess so.

It's a shot of Samus not wearing her bulky suit, not the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition.

So? That doesn't change the fact that my point is accurate. The image was originally meant as a reward for winning, really... it was interesting that they made the reward image the character you had been playing as, but still, the purpose is the same.

No, it actually is quite far off. But mostly becausing your confusing several issues here.

No, not really. Most people just don't consider most of these issues problems.

Without hestitation, a great deal of them would.

Perhaps. I probably should have followed that up by saying "but they do it right anyway, because character creation is better than forcing you to use one specific character." :)

Even so though, I think that if Western RPGs were designed that way games with female main characters would be more common than they are in Japanese RPGs. I mean, looking at writing and character designs in Western and Eastern RPGs as they are I see much less stereotyping and sexism in Western RPGs than I do in Eastern. Sure there are some of the same things going on, but it's just less... maybe I'm putting too much weight onto the major serieses like D&D games and Wizardry and stuff, but in most PC RPGs, the characters wear (or can wear) clothing or armor that actually makes sense given what they are doing, often have sprites or models that reflect their equipped armor, etc. No "one silly image and model of someone in some ridiculous costume and that's all you get" in most PC RPGs. There are exceptions of course, like the more console-style titles, but for the most part... sure, in Baldur's Gate for instance there is not total equality since the guards are all male and stuff, but that's minor and there are plenty of strong female roles (including your character of course if you create it that way). Some console RPGs do things better than most -- I thought that Summon Night: Swordcraft Story did a fantastic job for instance, and Skies of Arcadia shows you how a game can be cliche and not very sexist (though it's got many of the same old cliches I've mentioned here as well, I just felt that it had more good points than bad on the issue), but by and large...

How many Japanese RPGs have you played recently, Brian? I can think of a lot that don't do or at least have very strong female characters in major supporting roles and that's just glancing through my PSX game collection.

Hmm... I've been playing the two Summon Night Swordcraft Story games for GBA (which have sidescrolling action combat battles but are RPGs), which both do a really good job with scripting, and have a choice between a male or female character (which makes some scenes pretty funny either way, as they don't change the situations much between genders so some things just end up weird... :D Not a bad kind of weird, though. :) ), Skies of Arcadia again (as I said), Etrian Odyssey (which has no plot)... tried the first few hours of Breath of Fire (1) and almost bored myself to sleep... and some other stuff if I go back farther... so yeah, some of those games do have reasonably strong female characters. That doesn't mean that the overall tone of the genre, or games, is any different.

For instance, Lunar: Dragon Song. The male main character does like six times more damage than the main female character; she has healing magic but it runs out really fast. She attacks with a umbrella (what a SENSIBLE weapon to be fighting with... ), him with martial arts (feet primarily). There are several more characters, some female, but still... I know that main characters are often the most powerful characters in the party by far, but this is kind of ridiculous. The plot is ... meh... there but unremarkable... but the game is somewhat addictive, for some reason...

On the other hand, I really liked Summon Night Swordcraft Story 1. The main character is of the gender you choose; you have a companion, a 'Summon Creature', which casts your magic spells during battle and talks and stuff. There are four, you choose which one you want. There are also lots of conversation points thoughout the game and they actually matter... you can't just keep asking questions and get all the paths, you're stuck with the one you take. At one point late in the game your choice determines which character ending variant you get, but taking one for a character you haven't been talking to in the end-of-day conversations (which there are a limited number of and you can only choose one character's to see each time) would be pointless... anyway, I'd like to talk about the various characters and why I thought the game was so good, but that'd completely spoil the whole game and I don't want to do that for a game that you people should play... :)