Square-Enix has gone in an interesting direction with their main characters in recent days. With Final Fantasy VII and FFVIII, they featured two very bishie men, who had major angst in life which they dealt with throughout the course of the games. Plenty of people loved them, but some complained. Since about 2000, Square has instead featured ridiculously happy, upbeat characters. Sometimes dumb characters. Zidane was a pretty awesome alternative from the Clouds and Squalls of the past, but Tidus? He's ridiculously optimistic and oblivious in life, and just seems out of place with a Final Fantasy game. Granted, because FFX was so excellent, they tied him in well and really gave him a meaning throughout the game, but still.
And now, we have Vaan. Vaan has little personality, and really doesn't do much at all throughout the game besides hang out with Ashe and Balthier. Why is he there? The creators would have done better to make Ashe the main character - somebody with personality, a conflict, and meaning, rather than this happy-go-lucky guy who has an annoying little friend and impersonates Captain Basch fon Ronsenburg of Dalmasca.
I was never a huge fan of Cloud or Squall. They're cool guys, and fit in with their respective games, to be sure, just never really did anything for me. This new trend seems to be even worse, though. I would take dark and brooding over happy and meaningless any day.
2 comments:
Hey I liked Tidus. Oh well. C' est la vie. At least they have cool outfits. And some of the new guys in the impending FF13 look badass. Let's hope.
Although I agree with wil about tidus, I also agree with you about their optimistic and oblivious attitudes i would enjoy a dark-always-in-a-bad-mood kind of character as well.
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