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Lunafreya is a god AWFUL name.

Also her character design is super ugly.

No it isn't. It has my name in it

I agree completely. Stella, or at least, what we saw of her, seemed so much more interesting. I liked the dualism between her and Noctis. Of them being enemies, but having an unusual sense of respect between each other despite the conflict. And I've already mentioned the name but I'll mention it again: Lunafreya is a pretty godawful name. Heck, shortening her name to just 'Luna' or just 'Freya' would have been preferable.

I know we haven't seen much of Luna, and hopefully we will see more in trailers, but as it stands currently, it doesn't look great.

Idk, I like the name Lunafreya, and I like her design, and I think she's way prettier than Stella, but I still would have preferred we could have both

'Luna' is a great name, 'Freya' is a great name. The two together? Not so much. xD

Also, you can't really call her the exact same character when they've confirmed that, although Luna is replacing Stella, her role and story will be different.

RE: Not wanting to play a game without a female character
I've played many games with a male lead or male-only character. I still enjoy them, but I enjoy playing a female avatar better. And this game in particular just doesn't interest me anymore, and part of it is lack of women. I don't see what's sad or boring about that. It's just not really something I think I'll enjoy.

Originally Posted by Jinx

'Luna' is a great name, 'Freya' is a great name. The two together? Not so much. xD

Yeah, this. Pretty sure that they're calling her Luna for short, though, which is great. Hopefully Lunafreya is said about as often as Ashelia B'nargin Dalmasca was said in FFXII.

Originally Posted by Jinx

Also, you can't really call her the exact same character when they've confirmed that, although Luna is replacing Stella, her role and story will be different.

Yeah but it's a role and story that, in both cases, nobody knows anything about. Grieving for a character only seen in a couple of trailers here and there is just odd to me. What's more, based on a couple of trailers people have decided that Stella is somehow superior when we'll never know. I don't know if people just think Tabata decided "hey we have a great character here... let's pull her out and replace her with something awful instead!" but chances are Stella just wasn't working and having her be replaced is an improvement.

RE: Not wanting to play a game without a female character
I've played many games with a male lead or male-only character. I still enjoy them, but I enjoy playing a female avatar better. And this game in particular just doesn't interest me anymore, and part of it is lack of women. I don't see what's sad or boring about that. It's just not really something I think I'll enjoy.

Sure, that's your prerogative and we all enjoy what we enjoy, I'm just trying to understand. Just out of curiosity, do you find things like The Lord of the Rings or The Godfather to be unwatchable because of this issue? What about games (there aren't very many though!) where there's a non-white protagonist? Does that also put you off? I remember back in the day a lot of people on GameFAQs (I know, I know) claimed they wanted nothing to do with GTA San Andreas because they couldn't relate to a black main character. I just assumed it was typical bigotry but I dunno, maybe there's more to it.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy are my favorite movies. I also really love the books. I enjoy a lot of things with male protagonists--and let's be frank, that's a lot of things. I can't remember playing a game with a non-white protagonist, but they don't put me off. Nor does any other media with non-white protagonists. I don't care about consuming media with protagonists who are different than I am. I actually really enjoy it because it allows me into the mind and allows me to gain perspective of people who are different than me.

In the case of this game, they've really been trying to sell that it's a bro-fest. It's not just there's no playable female characters (although that does make me less inclined to go out of my way to play it), it's that they're really pushing that it's a game about a boy's club and that just doesn't appeal to me at all.

Originally Posted by Sephex

Originally Posted by Del Murder

I think it is good that he is making it his own rather than try to fit to what was supposed to be Versus. But I still wish we had gotten the original Versus and then use all these new concepts for a completely new FFXV.

It would have been nice to see how FFXV would have turned out in 2032.

What do you mean would have? That's probably when it's coming out regardless.

Originally Posted by Psychotic

I don't get this "I'm not playing this now because there's no female characters!" when there's exactly the same amount of female characters as there's always been, just different ones.

I don't get it anyway, actually. I'm going to bring FFX-2 into it whether people like that or not, but not as a "it balances it out and therefore that makes it okay" but from personal perspective. I loved FFX-2 even though there was no male avatar for me. It wasn't even an issue, I didn't think twice about it, and you know what? I had a blast.

Don't get me wrong, diversity is always a positive and it's good to have someone similar to yourself to relate to, but having it as a dealbreaker is just strange to me. I mean if you desperately need a protagonist of the same gender that's your prerogative, I just think that must be a miserable way to live life. "Can't be reading Lord of the Rings or the Hobbit!" or "Portal? Nah, no dudes, sorry, I'm out". That's just outright weird to me.

It's just as Tara said. Now we're left with the unzipped female mechanic and another dull female side character. It's a disappointing revelation.

How do you know she's dull or a side character? From what was revealed at the end of Duscae I suspect - and I could be wrong - she will be a central figure to the plot. Also there's Badass Dragoon Lady and the green eyed woman too, we just don't know their names yet. Square have said there will be more female characters revealed in time.

I'm with Psychotic on this one. I have no issues with someone saying they might be less likely to play a game because of an all female or all male playable cast. That's not something that bothers me personally, but everyone's different and I also get that males are more common to play as than females in games. The lack of female playable characters is another issue altogether though, and it's one that has been confirmed since Tabata started talking about the game. It's something I thought was a thing since we first started seeing gameplay type stuff when it was still Versus XIII. Either way, the idea of this road trip adventure between just guys could easily be a turn off for someone. It's understandable.

The thing I don't understand, like Psychotic, is what the big deal is with Luna. Sure, Stella looked cool and she doesn't exist. That's kind of sad. I can also see it be kind of sad for the people thinking we were getting another interesting female character but instead one is being replaced. But we literally know nothing about Luna to make any kind of judgment on what she'll be like as a character. Literally just a couple of seconds of her sitting there gives nothing to go off of. She could very well be a dull character. I doubt it, but it's possible. I'm sure elements of Stella will still be present for her. They've hinted that she'll be a central character to the plot just like Stella was, so her role will still be big. We'll just have to wait and see before we can start claiming what kind of character she is. Likewise, it's possible that outside of the few scenes shown to us of Stella, she would have turned out to be a rather dull character or had little presence in the story. Unlikely, but possible. We didn't have much more to go off of there.

We'll just have to wait and see. We might get female characters joining our party as guests. I think they've hinted at that possibility. We might get a lot of cool female NPCs in the world that aren't as big a role as the three they've already kind of shown. Dragoon lady, Luna, and the green eyed girl might turn out to be the best characters in the game and hold more importance than most of the guys. Who knows. We're all just making assumptions here with little info to go on when it comes to the characters.

I think the question isn't if Luna will play a big role to play in the game; no doubt she probably will (though it would have been nice to have illustrated that more fully).

I think the real question is what her big role will be in game. Another damsel in distress or a strong, powerful woman? First impressions matter when you're trying to create build-up around characters. We really didn't see much of Stella, but it was already enough for people to be excited and think she was a determined, strong character. Her characterization was evident in really not that much material. My problem with Luna is that I'm struggling to get a grasp of her character. It doesn't help that we haven't seen very much of her at all.

Square Enix must have anticipated that people will be rightly worried that they were removing Stella from the game. She was sort of the psuedo-female lead - paired off with her interactions with Noctis. What they should have done when introducing Luna was to show us more of her, to reassure us that Luna will still be just as good as Stella. They kept dodging the 'Where's Stella' question with sort of vague answers which only fueled speculation. Ultimately, it was a missed opportunity to really sell off Luna. Because Luna will be compared to Stella for a long while as her replacement.

What it boils down to is that it's a product and some people will like it and some people won't and there's really no wrong side. Some people might be really excited for a largely male main cast, and some might be turned off by it. I think a lot of the issue with those turned off by it is that there are so many male dominant games, and if you like playing as a woman, it's nice to have women. I like female characters on average more than male characters, but I still enjoy playing some male characters as well. But because so many protagonists are male, I find it very refreshing when I can play as a female protagonist because it isn't as common. And that's just with RPG's, there are some genres where it's much harder to find stong, non-sexualized, lead female characters.

This doesn't mean I can't play as men, but I still have a preference as I'm sure a lot of people do. I really don't generally like the jerk protagonist, but some people love those types. I'll still play them, but I prefer something different. And as far as my personal feelings, female characters are what draw me in to a game. I see a female character I like, I look up the game, I possibly buy it. Different things attract different people and that's the main one for me. At this rate, if I wasn't such a loyal FF fan, there would have been nothing to draw me in to the game so far. Stella didn't interest me that much either to be completely honest, the only one who has is the green eyed girl and they haven't given me nearly enough to get hyped about. Doesn't mean I'm mad or feel cheated, but the hook for me just isn't there right now. Really the only reason I'm interested is because it's Final Fantasy. That could still change, but who knows!

I think the main issue with Stella is they've shown us scenes where she's having the standoff with Noctis and a few others wheras they haven't shown us those types of things with Luna. Why? Is it because she's a more passive character? Is it because the character change is relatively new and they don't have much yet? I have no idea! Personally I find her more visually appealing than Stella, I like her design more, and Stella never interested me much, so I was just hoping for another lady. But that might be the issue some have with the change. They've shown Stella as being a way they're excited for and now they show Luna in a less exciting way, which can be disappointing.

But at the end of the day people are allowed to buy or not buy this game for whatever reason they want to and they're also allowed to be excited or disappointed about the changes being made. This is a Final Fantasy forum, we've been waiting for this game forever, people are going to be passionate. When you wait that long for something you're excited about, you WANT to like it, you WANT it to be worth the wait, so seeing stuff you may not like can be pretty disappointing. I actually think it's nice to see people getting passionate about the game. We have disagreements and stuff with the older games and I'm sure it happened when they were new as well. What characters were good and bad, who was better, why the game was better or worse. No one is really wrong it's just different opinions.

At the end of the day if someone chooses not to play because they changed Stella or don't have enough female characters, well it's a video game and it's for fun so why would they buy something to be disappointed with it? And if someone buys it because it has so many main male characters or because they didn't seem to like Stella but seem more excited about Luna, then hey maybe they'll like the game and it will be money well spent! When it comes to entertainment we just have to find what suits us

honestly just googled freya:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freyja

First line

'In Norse mythology, Freyja (/ˈfreɪə/; Old Norse for "(the) Lady") is a goddess associated with love, sexuality, beauty, fertility, gold, seiðr, war, and death. '

I have a feeling the names in FFXV mean something metaphoric (obviouslyyyyy) so maybe luna isn't that far off from the idea of stella......

Or maybe they just wanted a shout-out to FFIX. They've been doing a lot of shout-outs with this game so far.

that's right everyone.

Originally Posted by Fynn

Or maybe they just wanted a shout-out to FFIX. They've been doing a lot of shout-outs with this game so far.

That is totally a possibility, why the smurf not. Freya from FF9 was awesome so I'm okay with this !

Wait, her name is Lunafreya? o__O

Originally Posted by Pumpkin

But at the end of the day people are allowed to buy or not buy this game for whatever reason they want to and they're also allowed to be excited or disappointed about the changes being made.

Well that's been my point all along. If someone makes a bunch of posts about how they won't buy this game because they don't like characters whose names begin with Q then that's their right. But then I'm absolutely going to ask why and point out that we don't even have all the information as to who the characters even are yet and we don't even know they're going to have names beginning with Q!

Originally Posted by Jinx

In the case of this game, they've really been trying to sell that it's a bro-fest. It's not just there's no playable female characters (although that does make me less inclined to go out of my way to play it), it's that they're really pushing that it's a game about a boy's club and that just doesn't appeal to me at all.

Having played through the primary marketing material for this game, Episode Duscae, it really does not come across as a boys' club or brofest to me. They're men and they're friends, but there's no stereotypical dudebro stuff like chugging beer, sport, MMM LETS PICK UP CHICKS etc. I think the worst thing was one of them calling another a princess in a teasing way.