Quote Originally Posted by Theodric View Post
Sort of, yeah. Seifer from FFVIII, Jecht from FFX, Basch from FFXII, Reeve and Rufus from FFVII are good examples of what I like. I don't know how to explain it but there's something very 'off' to me about a lot of character models in this game. Some border heavily on uncanny valley territory. Maybe the upcoming texture update will change that though.
The male characters who have been pushed into the spotlight in this game recently have been visually unimpressive for the most part, or otherwise too young and boyish looking to accurately portray their ages. Thancred is supposed to be in his 30s yet he has a face that looks like a 17 year old. G’raha Tia has the most offputting of the available miqote faces and only stands to look even stranger when the graphics update comes around in 7.0. Then there’s the case of Estinien, who fulfils the niche in the party of being the “high elf warrior” or whatever else that archetype can be called – only for him to have his hair tied up in a stupid looking ponytail because of how aggressively averse this game is to clipping while failing to accommodate long hair with sensible solutions like giving him a new armor set instead.

Hien was a character who had an excellent visual design and didn't come with the personality and mannerism issues associated with the likes of G'raha Tia, but like Aymeric he is held hostage by writers who refuse to let the city state leaders do anything. This combined with no new main party members confirmed so far leads to a male cast that is utterly lackluster. The only males allowed to take up any spotlight have to either be teenagers or look like them, no gruff and tough looking characters like Gaius are allowed on stage for any prolonged period of time despite him being the obvious choice to take on a trip to Garlemald. The culmination of all this is a cast that is overtly tilted away from traditional "heroic" looking men and those who they insist fulfill that role like Thancred or Estinien have been gutted by both their current writing and visual design.

Other Final Fantasy games do not have this issue so pronounced except for FFV, in which 3 of the 4 remaining party members are female. Most of the time the cast is balanced in such a way that there is a good mix of youthful and older, more masculine figures. FFXII had Vaan, Balthier, and Basch. FFXV had Noctis, Prompto, Ignis, and Gladiolus. Something for everyone, yet in FFXIV it feels like we've been cheated out of having that and the writers continue to rub it in people's faces the more they push nonsense scenes with the likes of G'raha or further dampening down Estinien's personality.

- for better or worse, it at least appears that FFXVI will pivot away from this trend with that game's story now confirmed to last not only from Clive's teen years to his early 20s, but also well into his 30s putting him in the same age range as Jack Garland. A limited AI controlled party was also confirmed and it will be interesting to see if those party members grow up alongside Clive like how FFXV's party members did. A recent tweet from Ishikawa that roughly translates to her only knowing the same information of FFXVI as the general public has been taken by many to suggest that she is not involved at all with FFXVI's writing, and Yoship recently reaffirming that this game will appeal to those of us who enjoyed the story of Heavensward.

The problem for FFXIV however is why we can't have Heavensward return here? After literally going to the edge of the universe and promises to reground the story at the start of Season 2, so many potential plot threads were sloppily ended and for now at least we appear to still be stuck with the same cast. It's impossible to know which writers are responsible for what issues have appeared in recent patches, all I know is that too many things went wrong in quick succession. The only saving grace in recent memory was the Omega questline which offered the player some agency, even if it was quite limited. Given the direction the writing for this game seems to be going in, following in WoW's footsteps in veering into further and further absurd situations, combined with a mix of other gameplay and content issues no wonder people are concerned for what surprises await us in 6.2.