Editorial: Lightning Returns to Sexy: Why SE Risks Destroying Lightning's Strengths

Yes, but that outfit is not appropriate to wear in battle.

Lightning is sexy. But she doesn't need to get her tits out to do so. This is not fanart, this is an honest to god part of the game that Square Enix have included. You argue that it's an easter egg, but it's even easier to obtain - there is no Justin Bailey code to input, you're likely able to buy this at a store. Which implies that Lightning has either no reservations or actively enjoys wearing something like that, which has - in my opinion - been demonstrated as false throughout the previous two games.

Even her "goddess battle armour" was not overly sexualised. If you click here, you can see there's a bit of thigh showing, but it is for all intents and purposes still battle-worthy armour, and covers her goddamn breasts up.

Lighting was supposed to stand on the other side of this trope but including her in revealing and out of character costumes as part of the game is undermining that.

Originally Posted by Jiro

Yes, but that outfit is not appropriate to wear in battle.

Lightning is sexy. But she doesn't need to get her tits out to do so. This is not fanart, this is an honest to god part of the game that Square Enix have included. You argue that it's an easter egg, but it's even easier to obtain - there is no Justin Bailey code to input, you're likely able to buy this at a store. Which implies that Lightning has either no reservations or actively enjoys wearing something like that, which has - in my opinion - been demonstrated as false throughout the previous two games.

Even her "goddess battle armour" was not overly sexualised. If you click here, you can see there's a bit of thigh showing, but it is for all intents and purposes still battle-worthy armour, and covers her goddamn breasts up.

Lighting was supposed to stand on the other side of this trope but including her in revealing and out of character costumes as part of the game is undermining that.

Again, there is like dozen or so outfits we know about actually aren't skimpy. Especially when that one costume/pose is just taken directly from another game: List of Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII Garb - The Final Fantasy Wiki has more Final Fantasy information than Cid could research

Originally Posted by ShinGundam

Again, there is like dozen or so outfits we know about actually aren't skimpy. Especially when that one costume/pose is just taken directly from another game: List of Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII Garb - The Final Fantasy Wiki has more Final Fantasy information than Cid could research

Yes. But all of those outfits still feature her increased breast size. And here is an image showing several other outfits, one of which is a ballgown which is out of character and terrible as battle wear. My point is that even a single skimpy outfit puts cracks in the positive steps that Square Enix have made when it comes to strong female characters that don't need to be hypersexualised in order to be popular/whatever.

Clearly they've been taking a little too many cues from the folks who worked on Dragon Quest VIII's Jessica. If the one outfit was Viera based or Rikku based, would that make it any less revealing and out of character? No, it would be stupid and it would undermine the fact that Lightning is a conservatively and appropriately dressed warrior.

I understand that "one outfit" is not a big deal. But do you also see that it's a series full of girls who have to dress slutty and have gigantic tits in order to be popular? I want to see a strong female character who doesn't have to be relegated to the eye candy department and have to have over the top "sex appeal" in order to be considered a good leading female.

Lightning can still be sexy and confident with her clothes on. Adding the Miqo'te outfit is not necessary - you could have added the female hume starting outfit to get the same cross-over content without turning her into a smurfing cat girl who leans forward, jiggly her tits, to celebrate a victory in battle. It's almost the smurfing same as Lulu, which Raistlin already highlighted in his sexism series.

The same thing goes both ways though. What would you think if they remade Final Fantasy VII and made this an option for Cloud to wear? Does that fit with his SOLDIER 1ST CLASS personality? (I realise that his personality was stolen from Zack and he was only a Shinra guard but that's not the smurfing point.) By undermining the true strengths of the character and relying on sex appeal to try and gain favour, they have actually ruined everything that make Lightning a progressive female lead.

EDIT: Well, almost everything. If Lightning spends all her smurfing time thinking about boys, I will pack it in and quit Final Fantasy for good.

I don't think having one sexy outfit is a big deal in a game where a core mechanic is changing the character's outfit. The thing that bugs me more about Lightning is that SE keeps shoving her down our throats in these out-of-context scenarios. She was a likable character in FFXIII but not even close to the level of popularity that SE seems to think she is. Maybe it's different in Japan.

Originally Posted by Jiro

Originally Posted by ShinGundam

Again, there is like dozen or so outfits we know about actually aren't skimpy. Especially when that one costume/pose is just taken directly from another game: List of Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII Garb - The Final Fantasy Wiki has more Final Fantasy information than Cid could research

Yes. But all of those outfits still feature her increased breast size. And here is an image showing several other outfits, one of which is a ballgown which is out of character and terrible as battle wear. My point is that even a single skimpy outfit puts cracks in the positive steps that Square Enix have made when it comes to strong female characters that don't need to be hypersexualised in order to be popular/whatever.

Clearly they've been taking a little too many cues from the folks who worked on Dragon Quest VIII's Jessica. If the one outfit was Viera based or Rikku based, would that make it any less revealing and out of character? No, it would be stupid and it would undermine the fact that Lightning is a conservatively and appropriately dressed warrior.

I understand that "one outfit" is not a big deal. But do you also see that it's a series full of girls who have to dress slutty and have gigantic tits in order to be popular? I want to see a strong female character who doesn't have to be relegated to the eye candy department and have to have over the top "sex appeal" in order to be considered a good leading female.

Lightning can still be sexy and confident with her clothes on. Adding the Miqo'te outfit is not necessary - you could have added the female hume starting outfit to get the same cross-over content without turning her into a smurfing cat girl who leans forward, jiggly her tits, to celebrate a victory in battle. It's almost the smurfing same as Lulu, which Raistlin already highlighted in his sexism series.

The same thing goes both ways though. What would you think if they remade Final Fantasy VII and made this an option for Cloud to wear? Does that fit with his SOLDIER 1ST CLASS personality? (I realise that his personality was stolen from Zack and he was only a Shinra guard but that's not the smurfing point.) By undermining the true strengths of the character and relying on sex appeal to try and gain favour, they have actually ruined everything that make Lightning a progressive female lead.

EDIT: Well, almost everything. If Lightning spends all her smurfing time thinking about boys, I will pack it in and quit Final Fantasy for good.

You can quit series now for all i care if a slightly noticeable change in a character's render in one game is such a big issue to you.

Personally, the whole thing is blown out of proportion, the increase/physics isn't even noticeable in most outfits nor it is new to FF or any game to have minor changes in renderes. And there dozen, if not more outfits so far that cover her up than her older outfits.

I feel FF threads tend to be a mixture of very opinionated and exaggerating stuff. It feels gamers get more and more insatiable these days...

Do you understand what I mean by undermine? The fact that there are a bunch of other outfits that match her personality is good, but the fact that one or more doesn't is the point. Why does it need to be there? It does nothing but alter her character in a negative way. There are enough cookie-cutter 'sexy girls' in the series; we don't need Lightning to turn into one too.

I'm frustrated because everyone is content to hand wave it away as not a big deal when sexism in the video games industry is rampant. That Feminist Frequency series, as flawed as it might be, tried to highlight the issues and the chick was threatened with rape and death. I think that by giving gamers strong female characters that don't need to turn the sex appeal up to 11, we might see a little bit of a shift in mentality as younger gamers grow up.

But even apart from that, retaining a little bit of artistic integrity when it comes to character design would be nice. Why bother giving us Lightning for the third time if she's going to be altered?

And my last comment was intended as tongue in cheek; forgetting to add the appropriate smiley obviously confused it for the tone of the rest of my post. I am just disappointed that Square Enix and apparently its fans are more than happy to reinforce stereotypes without batting an eyelid.

Maybe she gets skills like Tantalise, Manipulate or Confuse from it.

While I have criticized Square-Enix's conduct here and hoped that they do not continue down this path to create more serious issues, I want to point out what this is not: I am not saying that Lightning will be turned into a pure sex object, that Lightning's character is at this point forever ruined, or that these decisions mean the end of Final Fantasy. I am simply uttering words of caution.

Contrast that with this hysterical screed which claims that "Square Enix has lost the plot" and that "Final Fantasy is dead," based on the same two things I pointed out in this editorial: the Miqo'te outfit and the boob physics. The author (Chris Kohler of Wired UK) gets a lot of things very wrong, and then offers and wildly disproportional reaction to them.

First, the claim that SE "lost the plot" by focusing on Lightning's boobs misses the point entirely. Have you seen Tifa Lockhart? The development team had a poll about whether to give her a mini-skirt (which succeeded) and then gave her a tight, white shirt to cover her ginormous boobs. Focusing on Lightning's boobs is not some derailment, but a return to the status quo. Saying that this is some horrifyingly unique new development misses the sexism issue entirely by giving everything that came before it a complete pass -- while undermining the significant progress SE has made in recent years.

And because it is a return to form, it can hardly be said to be ruining Final Fantasy. FFVII-X were widely celebrated games, despite having a number of sexism issues -- and many more significant than Lightning having a revealing DLC outfit.

There are numerous reasons to be concerned about the Final Fantasy series. The long development times and silences, the lack of epic storylines (FFXIII), or just very sloppy storytelling (FFXII). The increased emphasis on graphics taking away from the RPG experience (FFXIII not having traditional towns and NPCs). But SE has actually been better recently on sexism issues, and a Lightning promo pic involving her being shoved into a silly outfit doesn't change that.

This is not the end of the franchise. It is a word of caution for SE to resist the temptation to revert to form, and instead continue its the progress it has made toward developing and respecting unique female characters. The Wired article, on the other hand, is sensationalist nonsense that manages to do more harm than good, despite essentially agreeing with my conclusion.

While I do think that the recent decisions regarding Lightning are pandering to the lowest common denominator, it barely even registers as anything at all for me on a personal level. I believe the reason I feel that way is that Lightning has never been a compelling character in my eyes. To me, she seems to be written as a collection of tropes rather than an actual character, which is primarily because Motomu Toriyama's writing and plotting are middling at the best of times and soporific tripe on average.

Originally Posted by Raistlin

Square-Enix should stay true to that character, and resist turning Lightning into just another sexy body to turn into fan service for horny teenagers.

>>> True, true, we have Serah for that..
Lightning`s job is to bring severe pain by stomping on our balls ..