About SAM sharing armor.

[Jonnycbad]

Samurai were an elevated social class of of warriors who fought for lord in exchange for land and status, similar to knights in medieval Europe. Now, Samurai existed for a period of several hundred years. During the feudal period, Samurai wore the heavy armor with the lacquered leather/metal plates, fastened with silken cords and a kabuto helm. This was a period of time where Japan was divided up into many small city-states thought frequently fought each other constantly for local power.Once Japan was unified, swords and other weapons were confiscated by the emperor and only samurai were allowed to brandish weapons. During this Meiji period, Japan was rather peaceful, there were no long open large-scale wars being fought so there was no need to walk around fully clad in heavy armor. Samurai wore haori and other types of robe. Because they were wearing lighter clothing instead of heavier armor, they wore their swords higher on their waist and due to this started wearing them blade facing up for a higher draw above the waist (as opposed to heavy armored samurai who wore katana with blade-edge facing the ground for a low-mid draw). It's kind of like how knights in the high medieval period wore thick plate mail and a full helm, but during the renaissance period they wore a tabard and tunic with a rapier+buckler.

That said, Samurai in FF5, FFT, FFXI were based on the former, and wore heavier armor (easily coulda been Maiming DPS) but the latter type I mentioned is what FFXI samurai are based on.

Yoshi-P even said his inspiration for SAM is Ruroni Kenshin.

Actually he said he was inspired by Seven Samurai

[Kaedan]

Actually he said he was inspired by Seven Samurai

No, Yoshi-P was quite specific in an interview. He said that his image of what a Samurai would be in FF14 is the lightly outfitted iaijutsu masters like Ruroni Kenshin.

Granted, the interview is in Japanese, so it's not likely to be well-known outside reddit, where a few people translated it (luckily I read Japanese myself).

EDIT: Ahh, I see what you were referring to. It was a later interview than the one he did in Japanese where he does mention Seven Samurai. Which fits, since some of the characters match with the image he said he had when he decided to implement SAM.

[TouchandFeel]

Samurai were an elevated social class of of warriors who fought for lord in exchange for land and status, similar to knights in medieval Europe. Now, Samurai existed for a period of several hundred years. During the feudal period, Samurai wore the heavy armor with the lacquered leather/metal plates, fastened with silken cords and a kabuto helm. This was a period of time where Japan was divided up into many small city-states thought frequently fought each other constantly for local power.Once Japan was unified, swords and other weapons were confiscated by the emperor and only samurai were allowed to brandish weapons. During this Meiji period, Japan was rather peaceful, there were no long open large-scale wars being fought so there was no need to walk around fully clad in heavy armor. Samurai wore haori and other types of robe. Because they were wearing lighter clothing instead of heavier armor, they wore their swords higher on their waist and due to this started wearing them blade facing up for a higher draw above the waist (as opposed to heavy armored samurai who wore katana with blade-edge facing the ground for a low-mid draw). It's kind of like how knights in the high medieval period wore thick plate mail and a full helm, but during the renaissance period they wore a tabard and tunic with a rapier+buckler.

That said, Samurai in FF5, FFT, FFXI were based on the former, and wore heavier armor (easily coulda been Maiming DPS) but the latter type I mentioned is what FFXI samurai are based on.



Actually he said he was inspired by Seven Samurai

While you are correct on many of the general ideas, the historical accuracy of some of the finer details are a bit off.

The Samurai in this game are mostly based on a pop-culture image of Samurai from the Edo Period; with the Hingan culture, or at least what is on display in Kugane being a bit of a mash-up of Edo and Meiji.

The "Warring States" or Sengoku period is the one that you referenced as to when Japan was consumed by constant conflict due to the violent power struggles between regional lords (Daimyo) that were attempting to gain power and influence through military might with hopes of supplanting the established Shogunate at the time. During this time Samurai wore all the traditional trappings of war such as heavy armor as their place was on the battlefield, fighting and often dying in all the politically motivated wars of the period.

The Sengoku period ended when Tokugawa Ieyasu was able to emerge victorious against the other clans/families and unify Japan again under the newly established and stronger Tokugawa Shogunate. This began the Edo Period which was seen as a time of peace and a "golden age" of traditional Japanese art and culture. Laws were strictly enforced and wars or conflict were forbidden. The country also became intensely isolationist, cutting off trade with most foreign Nations and outlawing the practice or existence of foreign ideas and influence such as Christianity. During this period, Samurai no longer were warriors fighting on battlefields for their masters and instead morphed into a more symbolic representation of the military and political power of the Shogunate, often taking positions of governance to oversee a portion of their lord's domain. As war was essentially banned, weapons and instruments of war were as well, with only select privileged groups such as the Samurai allowed to own and carry arms, with the Daisho becoming a symbol of the Samurai class. Acting as politicians and the embodiment of the law meant that they dressed according to their position, often being the formal dress of the aristocracy. It was also during this period that sword fighting took on the more glorified image of a revered artform, with many fencing schools and styles springing up, with a focus on dueling since honor duels or exhibition duels were the new form of battle that Samurai fought. This period is the one most often portrayed in Japanese period films featuring samurai, such as many of Kurosawa's films.

The Meiji Restoration/Revolution put an end to the Edo Period, when the overarching power of the Shogunate was overthrown and a centralized Imperial government was put back into place giving birth to the Meiji Period. This was a period of drastic change due to the country opening itself to Western trade after Commodore Perry showed up with his fleet of warships and convinced the government to sign trade treaties. This resulted in an almost explosive push for Westernization and Modernization in the country, supplanting many of the more traditional ways of life. One of the most notable of these changes was the dissolution of the previous class based system for a more Westernized organization of political power. With this shift of power, the samurai class was viewed as no longer necessary and was essentially taxed into extinction by the government, forcing many former samurai to give up their positions and find a place for themselves within the new government bureaucracy.