Iām replaying Final Fantasy XII (Part 2 of ???)
i woke up this morning and decided to play an hour of Fina Fantasy XII rather than get ready for work because I was slightly hungover from a birthday celebration and my girl is out of town for 3 days. Prior to this session I wanted to write a post about the racial diversity and shocking lack of overt racism in XII, but unfortunately this morning my characters entered the Ogir-Yensa Sandsea and encountered the Urutan-Yensa.
Who are a near copyright violation of Disney-owned characters, who of course themselves were crude caricatures of Bedouin tribespeople. You could argue thereās a monstrosity to them that the other races in XII donāt demonstrate, but their use of tools makes it clear these are intelligent people weāre just supposed to view of inhuman nuisances to be dealt with.
I did get a 78 chain combo on them this morning which was pretty dope.
Anyway, its a shame because the racial diversity in XII is really one of its more interesting elements, and really instrumental in fleshing out this lush and detailed reimagining of Medieval Middle East theyāve put together.
The Middle East really was the center of the economic and intellectual world for a long time, so it makes sense if youāre trying to replicate it to populate your cities with really diverse people, lots of cultures intermixing.
I just love the city scenes in this game, theyāre so full of people and the buildings seem detailed and aged. Very few other games of this era did a really good job of conveying the sense of being in a place where people live and have lived for a long time.
Your team is unfortunately human-dominated (do we really need Penelo, with the lamest character design since FFI? Sheās like 4 polygons colored in at random, a complete afterthought of a character. Why canāt she be a moogle or one of those lizard people?) aside from Fran, who is problematic in her own ways.
Franās a Viera, and I guess its not surprising that a franchise with an abysmal track record on gender and representation would make the one non-human in your party a magical, statuesque rabbit creature in dominatrix leather. Still, I just plain like Fran: people really babble on with so much seriousness and machismo in this game, but she only talks when she has something important, direct, and consequential to say. I like that she uses bows and has high magic stats, making her pretty damn powerful early in the game. I like her relationship with Balthier, the way they seem to have worked together long enough to know what each other is thinking. For a cartoonish character she is subtly vital to the whole tone of the game.
Plus I love the expression on her face, its so blank without evoking the stock ātough bitch in a sci -fi settingā character. Again, her portrayal is problematic as fuck, as is the fact that sheās the only representation of the gameās diversity within your team proper, but Iād really argue that by standing outside the main action of the plot Fran becomes possibly the most interesting character in the game.
Which I think I had previous said about Balthier but whatever. By next post Iāll be saying Vaan is the most interesting character (LOL I fucking doubt it!!).
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