What is with this game and half-naked women as bosses?

[Niqote]

I also dislike the modern trope of female nudity = mystical and/or empowering, while male nudity = humorous and/or demoralizing. look at the example of Y'shtola emerging naked from the sea of aether it was very mystical and really cool looking, ment to be a powerful cs, when the same thing happens to Thancred his nudity is played off for a laugh. Though the trope goes well beyond just ffxiv.

While I'm not disagreeing with you, I find the situations suited the characters. Y'shtola is and always was serious and mystic. Thancred most certainly is not. Convenient censor Nutkin was perfect for his romp in the woods.

As someone who has done live figure drawing and painting as a hobby for many years, I wish we could reach a point where we are comfortable with both male and female non-sexualized nudity or partial nudity. While it seems like this game is pretty much there for the famale side, Sophia and the 24 man raid bosses look great imo, they are tasteful and serious and just plain cool looking. The male side could use some work. From an artistic side, and my personal preference, themematicly I love the idea of the transient nude male figure. Like Dr Manhattan or the Renaissance Man, using nudity to show they have forgone normal man and became something more perfect.

Thank you.
I think people become too focused on the simple flesh that is exposed and don't appreciate the design choices.

As for the point about more (half naked) female focus on bosses... They are Gods. They should really be more naked (Eg. Siren) if anything because they don't give a damn about your mortal concerns of which they have transcended long ago.
But aren't they based off the will of the people who first summoned them lore wise?

Man, it's almost like the cosplaying hobby is overwhelmingly dominated by women?.

Not just that, but classic characters like Shiva and Garuda are simply more popular. They are represented in a much greater volume in many other fan based arts.
There is a lot of love for Ser (Da)Aymeric, but the amount of representation for a character exclusive to one instalment, will likely never be able to catch up to years and multiple incarnations of final fantasy icons like Shiva, naked or not.

Sophia was not designed like this by accident.

But do keep in mind her skin colour was changed specifically because they thought she was too sexy.

Q: Sophia: Skin tone is different from FF6. What's the reason for this?
Yoshi: "It was too sexy? lol". In Eorzean lore and Primal lore, summoned primals take the shape of those that summon them based on their beliefs and expectations. Those who summoned her expected this, and so it was.

[Shippuu]

It's almost like intention means nothing... Sure, there will be subsets of people who find anything attractive and anything empowering. Someone probably thinks Arachne Eve is hot as all get-out. I'm sure some women think Xande is smokin, and indeed, some girls are sure to find Echidna's scintillating thong-filled crack empowering...
But if you can't tell the difference between a boss intentionally designed to appeal sexually and one not intentionally designed to appeal sexually, I have no idea what you're doing in this conversation.

It's almost like you can inject whatever intention you want to push a narrative. Sophia has a revealing appearance, but she doesn't anything overtly sexual in the slightest, none of her actions or behaviors imply that kind of context or intention. You can have completely nude people and it not be a sexual thing.

She's meant to be sexually appealing, utilizing broadly accepted standards of human beauty.

You can say that about absolutely everything though. Just because you think it's designed to be sexually appealing or not doesn't necessarily mean that it was or wasn't. It's something that's entirely subjective.

But are a disproportionate number of major female bosses designed to be conventionally sexually appealing even when it makes no sense for them to be so? Yeah, they are.

There really isn't though, you can count them on pretty much one hand. Garuda (arguable, she's still very monstrous), Shiva, Sophia, Cloud of Darkness, Califosteri. And half of those appear as they do to properly pay homage to their presence in past FF games, so you arguably can't say that these devs designed them with any other intent aside from maintaining the identity (with their own twists) to past enemies/bosses. You also have bosses such as Succubi and Sirens, but their design certainly doesn't fall under the "makes no sense for them to be so" since by definition they're meant to play on those tropes. Ferdiad is potentially a male example of this, because arguably one could attribute his design to an incubus trope.

[sarehptar]

But do keep in mind her skin colour was changed specifically because they thought she was too sexy.

That has a whole other set of unsavory implications...

Sophia has a revealing appearance, but she doesn't anything overtly sexual in the slightest, none of her actions or behaviors imply that kind of context or intention. You can have completely nude people and it not be a sexual thing. You can say that about absolutely everything though. Just because you think it's designed to be sexually appealing or not doesn't necessarily mean that it was or wasn't. It's something that's entirely subjective.

I think I'm just going to step out of this conversation with you. If you can't discern a common core of appealing traits and recognize that there is--regardless of how far taste varies--at least some vague standards for the depiction of attractive human figures in media, then we're living in two totally different worlds. To suggest that all attraction is subjective and disregard the concept that there are bodily features which are more frequently appreciated and put forward specifically to be sexually appealing completely undermines logic, character design theory, and basic market research. Attraction in specific terms is individualistic. But trying to argue there are no standards of beauty (imposed on entire gender) in media like video games so that the characters can be easily packaged for standard viewer consumption is ridiculous at best and grossly dismissive at worst.

I suppose it's honestly never occurred to you that someone doesn't have to do anything overtly sexual in order to be sexualized?

[Shippuu]

But do keep in mind her skin colour was changed specifically because they thought she was too sexy.

This can actually be somewhat observed as something that seems to have been a later change too. When viewing Sophia's model (and even the decoration of her) through something like a model viewing program, her model has a very human skin-tone color texture. This likely means her design was more true to her old appearance in FF6, but perhaps didn't make it past ratings restrictions and necessitated a change requiring them to do a "fix" so to speak by altering some aspect of it to make her pale skin color the black it is now.

[Niqote]

That has a whole other set of unsavory implications...

I don't understand how. It's a decision that strengthens her imagery as an old god rather then a being of flesh and blood, hence your urgency to defeat her/survive her trial.

This can actually be somewhat observed as something that seems to have been a later change too. When viewing Sophia's model (and even the decoration of her) through something like a model viewing program, her model has a very human skin-tone color texture. This likely means her design was more true to her old appearance in FF6, but perhaps didn't make it past ratings restrictions and necessitated a change requiring them to do a "fix" so to speak by altering some aspect of it to make her pale skin color the black it is now.

I think she would have made it fine, since we can wear even less clothes then her, but yes it does suggest it was a later change; for the better in my humble opinion.

[Magic-Mal]

Sophia's original light skin tone was "too sexy for T ratings" so they made her skin black in color...

*looks at self*..
*sadface*

[Neri]

Sophia's original light skin tone was "too sexy for T ratings" so they made her skin black in color...

*looks at self*..
*sadface*

I don't think her skin is black though, it seems kinda...I don't know how to describe it...metallic? Kinda like a metallic statue.

But hey, what are you talking about, black skin is beautiful too.

[sarehptar]

I don't think her skin is black though, it seems kinda...I don't know how to describe it...metallic? Kinda like a metallic statue.

But hey, what are you talking about, black skin is beautiful too.

I also personally think the gunmetal grey skin is a vast improvement over a plain light skin tone. The silver and gold contrast is nice.

I was actually being mostly facetious with my comment about the unsavory implications, but yeah, it is kinda... :/ (read as: mrgh) that the solution to the problem of "She's too sexy" was "Change her skin color" instead of, you know... virtually any other thing they could have done. Also kind of uncomfortably implies that a female character's skin and hair color are less meaningful features of her design than her state of undress when paying homage to historical in-series depictions, but that's just in my mind, I'm sure.

[Clethoria]

Can you show some proof

Modern Tales of Games.

[Nestama]

Modern Tales of Games.

There's a disturbing lack of bara in that image!