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I just realized that all the male characters so far are actually wearing shirts. YEA!

Androgyny taken to new heights

They dun look like pretty girls so...that's a win.

Omg, me too! Haha.

<33 najs, Tetsuya Nomura pwns! :)

So these are cut scenes?

And they are definitely femme pretty boys, or is it a mixture of men and women... I can't tell. I don't see the fascination... but then again, I'm married and straight.

Excellent quality renders though... but if they are pre-rendered... I don't see the big deal.

Why do they keep designing these shemale looking characters? I really don't think it's a preferred look for a protagonist.

the more beautiful a man becomes the more he resembles a female. You need to understand the japanese market as well.. They find handsome men with female like features..this has proved in manga comics, anime, and video games. Ayami Kojima is a good example who is the artist for the castlevania series

in the western market we might associate a gruff, tough, mean looking guy as the protagonist, but in japan it is different. I think it is all to do with heroes who are sensitive, quiet, tortured, mysterious and yet there for the main female lead etc..

Plus, in certain parts of japanese people look like these characters, hairstyles and all. Even look at famous japan actors and singers, Gackt, Takeshi Kaneshiro etc.

I like the artstyle of the final fantasy series/japan games. It is beautiful and suits the story. Like the small screen capture in pic 2, where 2 of them look like fighting each other..shields, swords surrounding each other..awesome

Tetsuya Nomura's behind this one. Nobody should be surprised about the character design.

Personally, I find these shemale looking characters much more interesting than a big muscular guy-like Schwarzenegger..

And damn, why can i not achieve such hairsytle?

These type of characters is what makes final fantasy great, its what draws you in..

you dont want some big ol Hulk guy picking his nose and flicking his bugers at the enemy for 100 points of damage do you?

and plus.... a tortured/ sensative guy fits better in cut scenes with females... it makes you feel more of their pain, love for the female character..

But then again.. what do i know =/

Slightly boring with the same old FF character designs with all the pretty boy heroes. Just goes to show they are still designing with the Japanese market in mind rather than the doing what others have realized they need to do which is appeal to the gaming world.

You guys are totally wrong, Shane saw the trailer from which these screens are taken and he said it looked really serious and the characters all wore 'normal' quotes.

This looks very anti-Final Fantasy and dark. Game for mature gamers no doubt.

Duno where you've been but FF has been appealing to the whole gaming world since FF7, duno why Japanese devs need to change their style to appeal to the west when westeen devs don't for them.

It realy makes me wonder why guys have such a big problem with metrosexual character designs, perhaps its comes from an insecurity ... ?

FF and KH are about the only jrpg series (as a series whole, not a game entry here and there) that appeals (and sells) well to the gaming world as a whole.

so ironically, Nomura (and FF/KH) has the least incentive of anyone to change direction.

Dunno, a quick peek at vgchartz tells me that the games have massive gaps in launch numbers between japan and the us and then again between the us and the rest of the world (FFX i.e.).

Could of course just be that us Europeans are sick an tired of waiting till the end of time before a japanese developer thinks that we are worthy enough and mass import it. ;p

Looking at the same charts.

Japan = 2.42 Million
Rest of the World = 2.59 Million

Thats pretty good if you ask me.

A look at FF10.

Japan = 3.02 Million
Rest of the World = 4.93 Million

Where as a game like DQ8 solds very poorly in the West compared to Japan, but did slightly better in the rest of the world than America and still managed to sell over a million regardless.

Oppss

wow jollipop, you tottaly proved his point lol

Huh how ?

I wasn't trying to disprove him, I was just saying that total sales are fairly even between Japan and the rest of the world.

I don't really see how launch numbers matter, the PS3 won't have enough units out there to come even close to either FF12 and FF10 so launch numbers.

The character design is awesome, except for in FF12, there was nothing that i liked about how they designed the main character.

FF7 - FF9 were the best of the series. FF10 was ok. But if they ever make another Final Fantasy game like Final Fantasy X-2, ill fucking kill myself.

The knights in FFXII are some of best character designs in ANY Square-Enix game, period.

Why is it that on the other hand, there are people that have a big problem with big, burly character designs? Maybe that comes from an insecurity... ?

And hell, nobody is saying that all characters need to be big and hypermasculine...there is a decent amount of middle ground between pretty-boy and he-man.

Maybe because all FF characters tend to look A LOT alike over the years so it's easy to bring up

All FF characters don't tend to look alike. Cloud, Squall ,Zidane, and Tidus DO NOT look alike.