Revelations from Keynote III (2019)

[Wyssahtyn]

At the risk of phrasing it too bluntly, this may be the closest I've seen anyone come to just saying, "In my opinion it looks hypocritical to to disregard the lore for fifty other kinds of PC-vanity only to suddenly invoke it as defense for denying character creation options that don't seem to with fit Japan's more comfortably traditional gender norms." without making it weird and/or being insulting. <raises glass>

I'll... take that as a compliment?

Let's be honest - even if they outright said they didn't want to make male Viera because they find the notion distasteful (or whatever), people would still be up in arms over the sexism. Hell, it might be even worse of a shitstorm if they said that. No matter what reason they give there will still be people out for blood over the very fact male Viera aren't playable - if they have a lore reason it makes in-universe sense, at least.

... saw this coming a mile away when Return to Ivalice was announced...


I'm not going to deny that it's sexist and hypocritical, but... have they said lore is why the male Viera aren't playable? Have they given any lore on the Hrothgar, let alone explanation as to why the females (apparently) aren't playable? Have they said male Viera won't be playable? Etc etc etc. It's not over until the fat lady sings...

Sure the community would be up in arms about it, but at least the devs would have been honest about it. Honestly they should have nipped it in the bud back at the EU fanfest when Yoshi-P got asked whether male Viera was going to be a thing instead of being coy about it. Would have had an entire month or so for the discontent to die down. As for the lore, it was stated as the reason during the English commentary. It might have just been an offhand comment by Koji Fox, but seeing as how he's supposed to be translating the event (so far as I know), it's not unreasonable to believe that that is the actual reason.

Really the only reason I care about this whole debacle (other than finding genderlocking to be asinine in general) is that they tried to use lore as a reason for genderlocking in the first place when it just falls apart so quickly. Lack of consistency is cause for concern.