The tawdry female bosses are tiresome, and we could do with more male fanservice.

[Roda]

yes, and Im suggesting that your emphasis on their racial characterization is on the 'fish", not the human(oid) aspect, and are defining how they should be by what you consider fish to have. This doesnt even address that fish is short hand, or that not everything that lives in rivers and oceans are 'fish', so they could be more closely related to mammalia and we wouldnt know (after all we literally have things like platypus, whales, sea lions, and other creatures on earth here who dont quite fit into the basic characteristics we describe).

"The Sahagin (サハギン, Sahagin?) is a recurring enemy from the series. It appears in most games, and often has stronger counterparts. The Sahagin is usually portrayed as a fish that walks on land, though in Final Fantasy VII (and other games of the compilation) and Final Fantasy IX, they appear as spear-carrying turtle-like creatures who can hide in their shells to nullify physical damage, and in Final Fantasy XV they are crocodiles. While they are usually aquatic, in some games there is a species of Sahagin that lives in the desert."

Until the game tells me about or shows me a sahagin/ondo baby suckling on a sahagin/ondo teet I'm going to keep interpretting these scaled, finned, glassy eyed, acquatic creatures as fish people. (Cetaceans and pinnipeds show every feature that the layman would consider mammalian, and monotremes are also only majorly separated by the fact they lay eggs. All still are warm blooded, have body hair, and, the thing our class is named after, have mammary glands and produce milk. There's nothing subversive about them.)

Youre doing the same thing as the creatives, just from 'the other direction'. A brood mother should be like x and y, cause real world and simplification of a concept.

I refuse to engage with the notion that critique looks like this:



In critique you listen to the intent, you look at the execution, you observe its effect, and you try to find a way where all 3 line up in agreement. This is what I am doing. I am told this fish creature is a fish mom who lays fish eggs that hatch into fish people, but I am shown something that has a characteristic that does not agree with all parts of its description and am giving my critique according to my experience.

It's not unknown what I put in the spoiler texts. It specifies one species in particular but the quest plotline implies most (if not all) of them are under the same condition.

It's unknown if the allagan- wait not it's not unknown

The ondo exist on the first, the allagans do not, and the allagan's very soft counterpart, the ronkans, have not shown any interest in creating allagan-like chimeras. And since we haven't seen any said spoilery beastmen counterparts I think it's safe to assume that the ondo/sahagin aren't a created race like those spoilery beastmen. So yeah no that sounds like headcanon to me.

You can pretty much break down everything to a 'design' short cut depending on how you classify it. Want to quickly establish a character is threatening or menacing - give them spiking or pointed armor or clothing that evokes such.

You want to quickly establish a female, well, in human terms, things like breasts do it quickly particularly on humanoids. Furthermore, you actually dont know what the biology is or how they function reproductively. What little we know has been extremely simplistic and describe in quick terms to get a basic point across.

Gonna have to keep breaking this down farther I guess.

"Design shortcuts that have no functional use within the story itself" is the problem.

The whole sentence is the statement, not the first part.
Yes all art is constructed from tropes, and the expectations and responses to those expectations are what shapes it. And I prefer these tropes to be delicately implemented and not half-used. The fish tiddies are so misused that, like I said, I don't think they're suppsoed to be breasts, it really just looks like they wanted her to be fat and thought fat deposits go on the chest, even though that's really only a simian thing (intentionally not saying human here). They tell less of her fish femininity than her pearl necklace.

We didnt sit down and have a lesson on "This is the reproductive and mating procedures of sagahagin."

Do the side quests? We literally help a clutchmother give birth.

We are asked if we want to be the father

In fact, going back to my initial point - the fact that you consider a horrific brood chamber to be the hallmarks of a 'fish mom' is how you personally interpret how it should look, which is a subjective thing. Fish reproduce in a variety of ways, and having some horrific chamber filled with nothing but eggs like a kind of hive is what you think ti should be like. How do you know it wouldnt have neetly deposited eggs, or what those eggs would even look like, or instead of eggs in piles, you have spawning pools that are hidden from view. Perhaps eggs are depositied underwater so you wouldnt even see them at all.

A horrific brood chamber is A way to signal fish mom. I never specified an amount of eggs or how messy they would be placed (I was honestly gonna link some squid or octopus egg strings, which are very neat, but didn't feel like it D; )

They would be deposited under water, sidequests tell us that.
Anamnesis anyder was underwater before bizmarck blew his bubble on it.

But the thing you did was went to fish boobs. To give you another perspective, albeit anecdotal, I literally didnt realize she had breasts until a month ago, and Ive been doing that in roulettes since it came out. I never noticed it on the design, and knew she was female because we were told so in character dialogue, which short of knowing the exact anatomy of a species or relying on short hands, is pretty much best you can ask for.

If you didn't even notice the fish boobies then why would they be considered a good shortcut for motherhood? Why not signify her role with something that isn't just not overused but can help you learn something instead?

Let's brainstorm:
Why not have her be the size of the room and reuse the demonwall skeleton instead of the turtleguy one? You'd go into that dungeon being like "I don't get why she's so huge compared to the male ondo that doesn't make sense" you bring it up in conversation, and I BUST DOWN THE DOOR TO TELL YOU ABOUT THE BLANKET OCTOPUS. (god I love the ocean) Hell it would even make more sense as to why you wouldn't be able to see the female ondo in the cups, since she wouldn't be able to move.

She should still have the add spawning mechanic, but instead of having ondo pop up through the grates somehow (do the grates pop open? I've never seen it), how about having strands of eggs hanging from the ceiling? The jets of water would be magic and instantly hatch and mature the eggs. When she casts it she should shout something like "Your time is come my children, the ocean brings life, and our life brings the invaders' deaths!" Upon successful execution of the mechanic she could respond with "You dare deny me my children?!"

The splitting the room in half could still work but she wouldn't jump from end to end, so instead lets say she has two tells "punch near" and "punch far" (I ain't got names for these) and you have to tell which side of the line to be on (her hitbox should be adjusted so that melee could still hit her if near is unsafe)

The run from one side to the other mechanic would have to be turned 90 degrees, but it could still be kept in

The mechanic where all 8 grates splash could still be kept too, just have to do the same thing with the eggs, and the hands would block the water instead of killing her own children. (honesetly that's better too, having kids takes a lot of energy, why waste them?)

The radial aoe, honestly was always weak, just have it track the players before telegraphing and have them move out of the way before they go off. That should make up for the angle change.

In the end, when you defeat her, she could just sink into an abyss somewhere within the chamber uncovering all those floaty crystals That way there's a big reveal of where you that's more than "I've loaded in now!", you don't have to worry about maybe doing a genocide on that ondo tribe, and you don't have to worry about having that super important revelation cutscene with a quickly rotting fishmom corpse sitting somewhere near you.

Boom, a boss arena that's personally more interesting than just "it's a fish in a square and the fish has boobies"
(wait now that I'm thinking about it, why would that place have drains?)

Its a matter of preference and perspective in regards to this. design choices you either do or dont approve of.

Literally yes? I'm just describing my experiences with the design and how I think the design could've been improved. I honestly can't understand the reasoning to your comments about my interpretations outside of "pls stop thinking so hard about art"

An antichamber filled with oozing eggs and something out of a horror movie is cliche to me. It would get your point across, sure, but its also been done to death.

And breasts on not-mammals haven't been done to death either? I've been bored out of my mind of the trope since I was a child.

[ElciaDeiLinus]

Not sure what the issue is- obviously attractive men in no clothing compared to obviously attractive women in minimal clothing. Perhaps you'd like to go into more detail into why you think such a clear and obvious comparison is something incomparable? Is 'well he is made of rock so even though he looks like the stereotype of male attraction that's thousands of years old, he is not handsome because... he's made of rock' truly so grand an argument you'd consider it worthy of utterly dismissing what I said without any further thought?

[Iscah]

It's not unknown what I put in the spoiler texts. It specifies one species in particular but the quest plotline implies most (if not all) of them are under the same condition.

It's only "not unknown" about the Ixal who were singled out and shown in the dungeon. There is no direct implication at all about the other beast tribes. Anything else is speculation, if not disproven by their presence in the First.

We didnt sit down and have a lesson on "This is the reproductive and mating procedures of sagahagin."

We did, actually. The Sahagin tribe questline went into it - not in great detail, but we know that the Sahagin matriarch rewards warriors with clutches of eggs, and it is they who take the eggs and raise the children as "clutchfather" apparently with no further input from the matriarch. This is covered in the lorebook as well.

This seems to line up entirely with what we see at the Ondo settlement, though the culture around it may be slightly different. The clutchmother births many eggs and the males will take and raise them.

This alone makes it very clear that they are inspired by fish over mammalian sea creatures - if their appearance wasn't enough to make that clear. They are fish with fins and scales, traits never developed in whales, dolphins, dugongs, seals or any other aquatic mammals. Simply living in the ocean does not make them anything like a fish - their body shape has developed to be similar because that's what they need to be able to swim - but they still behave like mammals. They mate, give live birth to one or few young at a time, and the mother is needed to care for and feed her child. This is clearly not the case for Sahagin.

(And before you get picky, yes the mammals do have what might be termed "fins" but they're structured very differently to the fish-fins seen on Sahagin.)

[sarehptar]

Not sure what the issue is- obviously attractive men in no clothing compared to obviously attractive women in minimal clothing. Perhaps you'd like to go into more detail into why you think such a clear and obvious comparison is something incomparable? Is 'well he is made of rock so even though he looks like the stereotype of male attraction that's thousands of years old, he is not handsome because... he's made of rock' truly so grand an argument you'd consider it worthy of utterly dismissing what I said without any further thought?

I just... have so many questions about your definition of "attractive male." So. many. questions.

[Melichoir]

"The Sahagin (サハギン, Sahagin?) is a recurring enemy from the series. It appears in most games, and often has stronger counterparts. The Sahagin is usually portrayed as a fish that walks on land, though in Final Fantasy VII (and other games of the compilation) and Final Fantasy IX, they appear as spear-carrying turtle-like creatures who can hide in their shells to nullify physical damage, and in Final Fantasy XV they are crocodiles. While they are usually aquatic, in some games there is a species of Sahagin that lives in the desert."

Until the game tells me about or shows me a sahagin/ondo baby suckling on a sahagin/ondo teet I'm going to keep interpretting these scaled, finned, glassy eyed, acquatic creatures as fish people. (Cetaceans and pinnipeds show every feature that the layman would consider mammalian, and monotremes are also only majorly separated by the fact they lay eggs. All still are warm blooded, have body hair, and, the thing our class is named after, have mammary glands and produce milk. There's nothing subversive about them.)

Youre quote actually undermines your point - There is no fixed definition or ideation on what exactly a sahagin is across the series other than very loose qualifiers. A Fish is not a crocodile, and a crocodile is not a turtle, and since the interpretation of them varies across brands, it easily opens that interpretation up to be something different in the context of FFXIV. But you are saying that "Well theyre fish people and they must lay eggs cause, therefore must have a breeding cycle just like creatures that we know have eggs.

Again, youre imposing what you feel should be the interpretation of them based on the other side of the spectrum. Theyre more fish than man, therefore they shouldnt have man characteristics and should be more like fish. It's not wrong to have this view of them. But just pointing out that this is a subjective position.

I refuse to engage with the notion that critique looks like this:
In critique you listen to the intent, you look at the execution, you observe its effect, and you try to find a way where all 3 line up in agreement. This is what I am doing. I am told this fish creature is a fish mom who lays fish eggs that hatch into fish people, but I am shown something that has a characteristic that does not agree with all parts of its description and am giving my critique according to my experience.

Youre not addressing what Im telling you. Youre making a subjective critique of what you think they should be like based on your aesthetics but passing it off as objective of how they should be (or in the least that is how you are coming across to me). The foundation of your critique is based on using criteria you are selecting for - They are fish, they lay eggs, they should not have breasts cause fish dont have breasts. But the issue then is why are you suggesting they must be fish when there are other factors in play or that the species is not consistent across the genre? For starters, most fish do not have limbs in the way terrestrial animals do, or opposable thumbs, or are bipedal and walk upright.

Im not saying you have a preference for a certain look and feel of species for a greater range of design and interest is a bad thing. Im saying that condemning its design because its not your cup of tea and trying to qualify it by saying "But Fish in real life" is inconsistent when you ignore the non fish aspects of the species.

It's unknown if the allagan- wait not it's not unknown

The ondo exist on the first, the allagans do not, and the allagan's very soft counterpart, the Ronkans, have not shown any interest in creating allagan-like chimeras. And since we haven't seen any said spoilery beastmen counterparts I think it's safe to assume that the ondo/sahagin aren't a created race like those spoilery beastmen. So yeah no that sounds like headcanon to me.

Well damn, got me there. It isnt specifically outlined which beast races were made by Allag outside of the Ixal. So yeah, guess thats a touch headcanon. Oh well.

The whole sentence is the statement, not the first part.
Yes all art is constructed from tropes, and the expectations and responses to those expectations are what shapes it. And I prefer these tropes to be delicately implemented and not half-used. The fish tiddies are so misused that, like I said, I don't think they're suppsoed to be breasts, it really just looks like they wanted her to be fat and thought fat deposits go on the chest, even though that's really only a simian thing (intentionally not saying human here). They tell less of her fish femininity than her pearl necklace.

Simian thing, as in humanoid in this case, as in "Hey, they have some humanoid characteristics...like being bipdal, thumbs, limbs similar to terrestial animals and having similar configurations, forward facing eyes, etc." Its like they decided to added more than just fish characteristics to the the sahagin in FFXIV.

Do the side quests? We literally help a clutchmother give birth.

We are asked if we want to be the father

This doesnt preclude that there might be function to the structure we dont know about. Even quoting the thing you said raises question as it would imply we were a 'part of the process' beyond birth.

A horrific brood chamber is A way to signal fish mom. I never specified an amount of eggs or how messy they would be placed (I was honestly gonna link some squid or octopus egg strings, which are very neat, but didn't feel like it D; )

A way, but not the only way, which is my point. There are many ways to go about doing this, and it is a creative choice. You may not like it, but thats ok. I dont like every design choice, but Im not going to condemn the design by saying "Gee it shouldn't have x cause in the real world, theyre like y".

They would be deposited under water, sidequests tell us that.
Anamnesis anyder was underwater before bizmarck blew his bubble on it.

Hmm forgot about that. Point to you. But this would then imply that this was not a nesting ground or that the eggs were deposited somewhere deeper within or in a place we did not have access too as they are obviously not in the boss room.

If you didn't even notice the fish boobies then why would they be considered a good shortcut for motherhood? Why not signify her role with something that isn't just not overused but can help you learn something instead?

Just because I didnt notice them doesn't mean other people didnt (you certainly did). Nor does it make it not a decent short cut. You got to be looking beyond just the two of us on this. Furthermore, the intent mightve been there but they failed at actualizing it. Happens at times when designing.

Let's brainstorm:
<Snips>

That is definitely another way to do it, and has some interesting elements to it admittedly. But, again, thats personal preference too. This isnt about "No youre opinion is wrong!" but rather I am not a fan of condemning something in the fashion you did. Fish people shouldnt have boobs cause real world stuff while ignoring the blatant non fish elements, that this is a creature of fiction, therefore the design is wrong/bad. It's kind of like arguing "Well Theres no way a Pegasus should be in the game cause Horses dont have wings." Its a fictional creature, with attributes from a variety of places.

If you think it can be better or more interesting, thats one thing. Its another to say the design shouldnt have something because "real world reasons". Thats my issue.

[craybest]

I don't agree that SE lacks 'tawdry males' as the OP says. If anything I think this game has some of the best variety in both male and females. The garleans will always provide heavily armoured villains, male and female. You have fully clothed, albeit still seductive villains like Yotsuyu, Tsukoyomi. Eikons have a wide variety of body types and clothing styles. Shiva, Sophia and garuda are scanty, but so are ifrit and titan. In both cases you have near naked, highly attractive males and females following the generally accepted norms for beauty (lithe, curved females and muscular, imposing males). For clothed you have Lakshmi, Titania, Ramuh.

There's also pretty boys, like Omega and Alphinaud (clothed), final Kefka (near naked)- and a large selection of ascians and garleans who are overly handsome, plus a wealth of highly unclothed potential future bosses when they draw from previous final fantasies.

And then, there's also a large number of 'ugly' bosses and characters. I can see the argument that there's more feminine clothing and scantily dressed females than there are males, but I don't see how that's a problem when the variety is still clearly there, and for everyone from bosses to allies to our own available glamours. If you want to be fully armoured or wear an outfit that shows no skin as a female, you have numerous options- if you want to be hardly dressed as a male, you have numerous options. I'm sure males do have more full armour choices of course- but I'm also quite certain that more males are using those options, and on the flip I'm certain there's a more sizable number of females using more revealing outfits than males. In that sense I think SE has done this perfectly- both taking the majority's desire into account by providing a great amount of options for them, while still providing choice for the more niche aesthetic desires.

Ifrit is a "near naked, highly attractive male"? what drug are you on? XDDD

[Theodric]

I'd consider the Eden version of Titan to be at least somewhat attractive. A big, muscular guy in a loincloth hits many the right notes for me. Now, if only we could see more of that with regular human-like enemies and allies...

[Tsumdere]

Not sure what the issue is- obviously attractive men in no clothing compared to obviously attractive women in minimal clothing. Perhaps you'd like to go into more detail into why you think such a clear and obvious comparison is something incomparable? Is 'well he is made of rock so even though he looks like the stereotype of male attraction that's thousands of years old, he is not handsome because... he's made of rock' truly so grand an argument you'd consider it worthy of utterly dismissing what I said without any further thought?

Titan straight up looks like Thanos. Last time I checked, Thanos was not the stereotype of male attraction. Also Ifrit is a lipless demon. Surprisingly, the nakedness is not the only qualifier for if someone is hot or not. Go figure.

Innocence, Byakko, and Seiryu are the closest to traditionally attractive and even they have no comparisons to the nakie females. Innocence is fully armoured, Byakko has a weird tiger arm, and Seiryu is snake centaur.

Now sure, you could think they are perfectly attractive, but you can't ignore the fact there is basically only three bosses in the whole game (that I can think of off the top of my head) that are traditionally attractive and don't look like monsters or aliens, while you can list off dozens of sexy humanoid females.

Edit : I totally did not quote the wrong person first time around.

[linayar]

So, I don't know if anyone has paid attention to this; I believe it's from the same dungeon as the female boss that may have caused the creation of this thread:

[Alleo]

Actually that last boss is exactly what people want in this thread, no? If you take away the breasts, its just an androgynous fish person. Sure, they're probably biologically redundant (or who knows, there might be more eggs in there), but how else do you work in its gender into its visual design?

For me it would be perfectly fine without any female body parts. They could show that its a female without that. Voice, small changes between the genders like color. Stuff like that.

And honestly the ugly character part for JRPG mostly seems to be about the females, because we have lots of monstrous male as bosses.