Square Enix censors skimpy male costume from upcoming Final Fantasy game

[Albetta]

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/final-fantasy-butt

So some prudes on the internet decided that this characters magnificent male form was too much for their squishy soft delicate view spheres and demanded Squenix cover him up. I for one am outraged, and not even ironically. I am a firm believer that the solution to skimpy female armor is equal opportunity male skimpy armor. For christ sakes people, Conan the barbarian had this down decades ago. Allegedly Square is open to bringing the original costume back if enough people ask for it, which to be honest kind of sounds like a marketing ploy. Regardless, I hope that the fans realize whats best for them and disrobe him once more.

 

[Fappy]

I wouldn't describe it as "censoring", but I agree that it is silly. So what, Japanese teens love scantly clad women but they can't handle dude's with side abs? Fuckin' double standards, yo!

 

[ninja666]

I think it's for the better. The original costume looked plain stupid.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

The original outfit looks stupid. Good call in re-designing it.

 

[CrimsonBlaze]

Yeah, not sure if there was a underlying reason for the original design, but I would say it looked stupid as apposed to sexy or revealing.

I can understand if there was more to go on or if the characters was meant to be a bad guy/joke character, but it seems that this wasn't the case and the redesign seems a bit more reasonable.

 

[DementedSheep]

The original looked retarded but then the same is true of 90% of "sexy" female outfits.

 

[Silvanus]

That's a pity. Revealing get-ups for male characters are few and far between, and I'd have liked to see that.

 

[Danny Dowling]

Can literally see no point in the pre change costume. Even the points you raised aren't really valid.

For Conan, it's set to a timeline designed to be fairly close to real life; Conan's getup is somewhat "traditional". But this guy just looked like some sort of male sex toy, like 50 Shades of gay as fuck. In other words the designed served no rhyme or reason, it's just male Bayonetta.

If you're into lads dressing like somewhere on the lady boy spectrum, fine, but there's no reason for that in this context. it's the sort of thing best kept in your in-private browsing window.

Also in general, it just looks utterly stupid.

 

[FirstNameLastName]

Eh, Square Enix had no obligation to change it or acknowledge the complaints, but it's their choice to do so, as usual in these cases. That's not to say you have to be fine with it, but I don't see this as any real injustice.

Besides, I don't really see this as the same type of issue as the female equivalent. This isn't a bunch of people who may or may not have any interest in the game, all banding together with the intention of getting it removed for political purposes. In fact, go by the information in the article, there doesn't seem to be any concerted effort amongst gamers to change the design, Square Enix simply revealed the character (no pun intended) and everyone remarked on how stupid the character looks, so now they've decided to change the design.

Besides, I've never been a fan of skimpy armour regardless of the gender of the character underneath; not because it offends me, but because it looks really really stupid. Besides, I have no real interest in Final Fantasy anyway, so this doesn't bother me one way or another.

 

[Don Incognito]

HOW DARE THEY

Self-censorship! Artistic integrity! Free speech! SJWs! Politics in our games! RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE!

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I'm still annoyed about the Bravo Bikini in Bravely Default. The censorship is way, way worse in context -- having it cover the character better actually kills the joke. The whole thing is that it was made by a perverted old sage, the heroine (who was entering a beauty contest in a quest reminiscent of the infamous wall market sequence from FFVII) was going to wear it but decided against it in a hilarious scene where we don't actually see it, but everyone except for the sage and Ringabel (the party's resident chivalrous pervert) is absolutely scandalized. Then the other girl in the party takes a liking to it, and we actually see her wearing it in a side quest shortly afterwards (she uses herself as bait for a philandering villain), annnnnnd it's not actually all that skimpy, because they censored it during localization. Completely kills it.

OT: Does anyone have another article? This one is pretty badly sensationalized, and despite the title and the overall claim of censorship, doesn't actually do a good job of tying the single complaint they brought up to Kitase's decision to change the costume. It looks like an honest to god design decision, mixed with a little bit of not so stealthy market research (hey girls and gay guys, let us know if you'd rather this character be even sexier!).

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Posted from the other thread, this is a previous character design from Square

Tell me again what line this new character any male character could possibly cross when there's a dude with a showgirl skirt and a man thong.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

HOW DARE THEY

Self-censorship! Artistic integrity! Free speech! SJWs! Politics in our games! RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE!

I see what you're doing there, and instead of lowering yourself to someone elses level you could rephrase your comment better to be more productive and maybe even give your intended snark audience some critical thinking to the people you're making fun of with it.


OT: While I think the original design is a bit stupid, I really wish they didn't change it, equal opportunity and such, I mean fuck, do they even REMEMBER they made FFX-2? (let alone all the other skimpy girl outfits across the games.)

would have rather had a redesign that was still "skimpy" but cool looking, but whatev's.

 

[Silvanus]

Posted from the other thread, this is a previous character design from Square

[Kuja Picture]

Tell me again what line this new character any male character could possibly cross when there's a dude with a showgirl skirt and a man thong.

Agreed for the most part, though I'd speculate people are more comfortable fighting somebody dressed like that than playing as him.

Not that I agree with them, note. I'd have preferred the Mobius design to stay as it was, revealingness and all.

 

[Don Incognito]

HOW DARE THEY

Self-censorship! Artistic integrity! Free speech! SJWs! Politics in our games! RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE!

I see what you're doing there, and instead of lowering yourself to someone elses level you could rephrase your comment better to be more productive and maybe even give your intended snark audience some critical thinking to the people you're making fun of with it.


OT: While I think the original design is a bit stupid, I really wish they didn't change it, equal opportunity and such, I mean fuck, do they even REMEMBER they made FFX-2? (let alone all the other skimpy girl outfits across the games.)

would have rather had a redesign that was still "skimpy" but cool looking, but whatev's.

I considered it, but I decided that no, I'm completely happy with the level of snark and dismissiveness contained in the above post, because great googly-moogly, I'm sick to death of all the tired claims of censorship (that doesn't exist) and the menace of politics (which exists everywhere and always has and always will, so for crying out loud, deal with it).

I hope the game is good. FF has never really been my bag.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

I like to think they only altered it because clearly that man was making the majority of male gamers insecure. Or as Penny Arcade put it several years ago:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/12/31/

Say what you will about Japan, they're all for equal opportunity fanservice.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Posted from the other thread, this is a previous character design from Square

[Kuja Picture]

Tell me again what line this new character any male character could possibly cross when there's a dude with a showgirl skirt and a man thong.

Agreed for the most part, though I'd speculate people are more comfortable fighting somebody dressed like that than playing as him.

Not that I agree with them, note. I'd have preferred the Mobius design to stay as it was, revealingness and all.

Well, trampstamp aside, we've played as half-shorts ripped abs and a sleeveless monkey man with a frilly jabot (had to look up what those were called). Final Fantasy Fetish Fighters has been a staple of the series.

Oh, and this.

I'm fairly certain that's a mesh shirt.

 

[Silvanus]

Well, trampstamp aside, we've played as half-shorts ripped abs and a sleeveless monkey man with a frilly jabot (had to look up what those were called). Final Fantasy Fetish Fighters has been a staple of the series.

Oh, and this.

I'm fairly certain that's a mesh shirt.

EDIT: Oh, it's Bartz from FFV (forgive me, I haven't played that one). This is what he looks like in-game, though;

...Which doesn't quite inflame the loins.

In fairness, I wouldn't consider Zidane [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f6/Zidane_Tribal.png] sexualised either, if he's the sleeveless monkey-man. He's just sixteen, for one, and looks even younger.

 

[RJ Dalton]

I think it's for the better. The original costume looked plain stupid.

I'm with you there. I can't say I agree with their reason for the change, but I think the new outfit is at least an improvement.
Maybe if we all complain enough, we can get them to change the costumes of their other characters to make them look less silly.

Oh, I was just looking at the tags on that article. Somebody actually tagged that with an NSFW tag. I didn't know exposing a thin line of skin down a man's side was not safe for work.

 

[Stg]

This is exactly why game developers need to just erase all traces of themselves from social media and just stick to their own webpage/forums. Branching out to Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, etc. is only asking for the insane asshats out there to demand they modify their game just because they may find something offensive. It's their game, they should develop it how they want and if people find it offensive, they don't have to play the game. I understand it's all about publicity now and pandering to the weak-minded kids seems to be en vogue now, but this shit has got to stop before we have fanatics being hired as consultants to make sure everything is as gender neutral as humanly possible. Heaven forbid we step on anyone's toes or inadvertently hurt someone's feelings.

Edit: Since I see people are posting pictures, it just reminds me of the instruction manual drawings of Kefka from FF3/6 which looked like a drag queen, yet his in-game sprite looks bad ass. That always bugged me, but I always accepted that's how someone wanted Kefka to be drawn.