Original post: https://bsky.app/profile/rebeccamwrites.bsky.social/post/3m6a62btty226
Here's the dataset and their website if you are interested, there's more games beyond Final Fantasy that they've looked at.
Main findings
- 35% of words were spoken by female characters.
- 29% of characters were female, which suggests the imbalance is driven by a lack of female characters.
- 94% of games had more male dialogue than female dialogue.
Squeenix right now seems to want to chase success over acclaim. Real heads k ow Final Fantasy 6 was Square's announcement to the world that a golden age had begun. People like to point to 7 because of the sales numbers, but that's just when the public caught on to what was happening. You could make a case for 4 too, since it was a big step up in storytelling for the genre. But 6 is when Square seemed to realize the full potential of the medium and the genre to build a more complex story and genre.
It would sell, but it doesn't market itself as readily as 7 does. Theres not the same nostalgia factor in play for as many people, and square would have to work harder at the hype.
I agree 4 walked so 6 can run, firstly.
And secondly I agree, that the nostalgia-bait runs strong for the privileged Playstation petite bourgeois, enough so any money vampire would have to have their nose cut off to not smell the metric shittons of cash they'd make off of that nostalgia. But I make the case that they can make possibly even more money by cashing in on both the more limited nostalgia ff6 has and combine it with the internationally recognized prestigious acclaim the frogs made with their final fantastical expedition 33.
I'm praying E33 has ushered in a new golden age for jrpgs
Honestly the graphics are also a major limiting factor. FFVI just isn't anywhere near as engaging once you've played 7+. It's why I would love to see a remake - I totally believe that it's great but between the menu based gameplay and the graphics it just doesn't capture me.
Imo FF6 looks much better than 7, with one being close yo the peak of a pixel art era and the other being the rough start of the polygon. Admittedly, 6 does look much better on on a CRT monitor and the remake's color chpices are very questionable. If that's your first exposure I kind get it.
But 6 and 7 both have menu-based gameplay. Or were you were referring to 7r?
7 has absolutely beautiful hand rendered backgrounds, as do 8 and especially 9. The repetitive, tile based fields of 6 really don't come close. Yes, the sprites are nicer in 6, but they're just... Nothing. They're irrelevant. There's nothing in 6 that compares to climbing the graffiti covered wall leaving the slums, or the bizarre architecture of the city of the ancients, or even things like the golden saucer etc.
They both have the menu based gameplay which of course is great once you get the hang of it, and yes, 6 does better at the stuff pixel art really excels at. But 7 is set in a beautiful world, while 6 is set in a series of repetitive assemblages of tiles.
Gonna have to agree to disagree on that one. 7 is more varied, but IMO not a great looking game