Final Fantasy character designs
Sick in bed, twingey headaches zapping all motivation to do real work.
In any case, been obsessing slightly with FF and Square Enix character designs. It’s been a dozen years or so since I’ve actively liked characters by their designers, or rather lately I don’t really bother to check who designed what since I haven’t really liked many characters.
That changed with the Final Fantasy XIII trailer showing Jihl Nabaat. Wowza. It’s been months and I still think she’s gorgeous. And now that it’s almost release time and the site’s been getting more and more updates, I can’t help but fall in love with the gorgeous beautiful art of all the characters. Well, half the characters.
Jihl’s definitely still my favourite, but Yun Fang is way up there too coz she’s got dark hair and dair eyes and is badass. Next would be Gadot, who just oozes charisma. Lightning, I’m not too hot on, but that picture of her riding Odin, that’s an amazing piece of art.
But I think the character I like the most of the FFXIII games, is Noctis. What a beautiful design. Or perhaps I just like the trailer, which is dark and gorgeous. Ah, I can’t help reusing that word over and over. Gorgeous… simply gorgeous. I remember why I love anime and games again.
After a bit of wiki-ing, found out about Square’s chara designers. Nomura Tetsuya did much of the FFXIII work, and FFX and FFX-2 too. I loved Yuna, and although Rikku and Paine don’t appeal as much, their costumes are wonderful. Lightning’s not bad, but I think she’s unfairly crippled because her sexiness got given away to Yun Fang, heh. Yun Fang looks amazing at times, a bit too dark at others. I think I may like Ikeda Nao’s work more. More dynamic for guys, more anime-ish I suppose. Jihl is an amazing creation. Too bad she suffers from inflated chest syndrome.
Been playing FFXII, and I realized that I like the faces for FFXII a lot. Ashe is really pretty. Not hot in the vixen sense, but just amazingly pretty. Don’t like the kids, but Vossler is simply incredible, and Basche as well. The costumes are interesting, but perhaps this is where Ikeda Nao is just better. FFXII was the Vagrant Story team, so it’s not surprising I like the designs and the game system. I loved the directing for Vagrant Story, and FFXII feels similar. I think FFXIII is overacted in a very typical Japanese way and it detracts from my enjoyment (it’s so beautiful and so painful to watch at the same time). Vagrant Story was true art. FFXII holds hints, but unfortunately was not completely free of bad acting direction.
The trailer for FFXIV looks amazing. I love the character design for the main guy in that. And surprise, it’s by the FFXII team! Minagawa Hiroshi gets kudos for this. Can’t wait! Did you see the detail on his armour?!
In other news (to me), Matsuno Yasumi who was the brains behind Vagrant Story and FFXII has left Square Enix. I wonder if he will create games of that breath and caliber again. Damn you Square for dumbing down FFXII with Vaan! The game woulda rocked with Basche as the hero. Time to play Vagrant Story again.
