What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[Vyrerus]

intuiting

You could just, you know, admit to being in error.











Anyway, for as long as the series has stuck to having Biseinen and what not, the games that do the best are the ones that feature characters outside of that mold.

IV has Yang
VI has Sabin, Gau, Cyan, Gogo, Umaro, General Leo, Shadow, Mog, Strago, and depending on which Amano art you're looking at, Edgar is also drawn with a wide, dimpled manly chin
VII has Barrett, Red XIII, Cait Sith, and Cid
IX has Steiner, Amarant
X has Wakka and Khimari
XI has Galkas(and Galka Mayo. Don't google that)

Also though, note that official Amano art isn't what sold the early games. We got weird western art portrayals for the earliest Final Fantasies. VI was actually the first one to really openly share the Amano art, having detail character bios in its instruction manual complete with both Amano portrayals of each character.

In the gameplay, of course the graphics at the time limit how the characters look, but they don't call to mind their art. They still all had stand out designs, and were unmistakably different. In the earliest games this took the form of different job designs, rather than characters.

[CrownySuccubus]

IV has Yang

Who I mentioned along with Cid and Tellah.

VI has Sabin, Gau, Cyan, Gogo, Umaro, General Leo, Shadow, Mog, Strago, and depending on which Amano art you're looking at, Edgar is also drawn with a wide, dimpled manly chin

Mentioned all of them except for Gau. Gogo, Umaro, Mog, and Shadow I mentioned as part as having "no human features". Leo is a relatively minor character, so we could technically mention General Ranjit or Rammbroes here if we wanted to be picky. And yes, Edgar's chin depends on the artwork.

I also said that VI has such a HUGE cast that you're bound to find more characters in it that break the mold. However, Amano was specifically instructed to make all of the main male characters that the player would interact with more regularly as "approachable" as possible -- which in Japanese media, meant "pretty". Locke, for instance, was originally designed to be an older rogue with a mustache before Amano was asked to redesign. All of the "unapproachable" features were moved over to Shadow, instead.

Likewise, Galuf and Ricard Highwind are temporary guest characters that get written out of the story or killed off at some point. It's not like FFXIV doesn't have guest party members like Gotetsu or temporary playable characters such as Hien.

VII has Barrett, Red XIII, Cait Sith, and Cid
IX has Steiner, Amarant
X has Wakka and Khimari

I specifically said pre-PS1 era, and I likewise said that Nomura typically has a somewhat more varied diversity.

FFVII is also special, because Nomura was ordered to draw against his normal style for that game. Due to the limitations of early PS1 technical knowledge, they needed the characters to be exaggerated and recognizable by their basic shapes alone.


You could follow the whole conversation rather than call someone else "in error".