I, myself, am a female gamer. I was given my first playstation for my 6th birthday and have had an interest in video games ever since. The Final Fantasy games have always been my favourite, as well as Diablo and a variety of FPS and RPG games. Even though I am female, having Lightning as my central character in FF13 was somewhat disconcerting. This could be due to a number of reasons. The first being that I am familiar with central male characters from the previous games. Another could be that since gaming is [apparently] seen as a more male activity and I have been gaming for the majority of my life, I have fallen into a similar method of thinking female characters are inferior to male characters and should be left in the background only used to heal (Thanks Aeris, FF7). Or maybe the familiarity of being female and controlling a female character was frustrating, i.e. I am not like her, at least when a guy is my central character there are blatant differences that separate us and the level of reality is limited. However, Lightning yields all the attributes all the other male protagonists from the Final Fantasy games have had, the only thing that really separates her is that she's a bit of an angsty, moody girl.
Anyway, I guess my point here is that maybe gender issues/roles/ideas are becoming more open and noticed in the world of gaming. FF13 took a pretty big risk in making Lightning the central character, and I can imagine there was a relatively high level of negative feedback just on that topic. Personally I did not really like it, but let's be honest, FF13 was pretty disappointing all together. Perhaps male gamers would enjoy playing as Lightning as there is that level of unreality for them, experiencing something new, something you can only do in the world of video games? Or the opposite, it could threaten their manhood? Or maybe they wouldn't even care. I hope there are some Final Fantasy fans out there who can comment on this.
To be honest, I was so excited when square enix revealed that the main protagonist in FF13 was going to be female. A 'female version of cloud' they said. well. It guess that's a dead giveaway that they can't move away from masculine main protagonist. Even though she's a woman she has almost no feminine qualities.
ReplyDeleteAnd whilst the love stories in final fantasy is usually based around the main character, it isn't in FF13. Which suggests that the dominant character has to show no soft or tender side.
So yea, a disappointment.
The healer/women being weaker characters thing is kind of true... (boo Aeris)
but what about Tifa and Lulu? They always dealt quite a lot of damage in my games. Maybe I was just insistent that women had to play some role in the game so i always trained them up.
Anyway, sorry this is so long. I have waaayyy too much to say about Final fantasy.
What you have said is interesting, but both of the main characters in FF6 are female (the game is split up into two acts), and the game itself is commonly celebrated as being the best Final Fantasy (the older fan-base would argue that it is a better game than 7). I'm not entirely sure what that implicates (possibly that FF6 is just a really really good game, and would've done better had it had male protagonists) and certainly doesn't write what you've said off, but it is interesting to note.
ReplyDeleteOn the flip-side, there was FFX-2, which tried to be empowering to women but also tried to appeal to men by dressing the girls in ridiculous outfits, and that game is commonly seen as being awful despite the well-done gameplay, so perhaps there is still a stigma in gamers against having female avatars.