I've reached the elderly age of 30....

This is basically a new version of an old thread, I'll find the link later...

So recently, I acquired two of the 20th Anniversary FF Ultimania guides that were released a few years back and contains information on all of the numbered FFs from FF to FFXII. While I can't exactly read Kanji and thus most of the book is lost on me, it doesn't take much to figure out some things.

Probably one of the funniest things I've noticed is how odd the ages are in the games. Not only are a few of them retconned from older source materials (okay, maybe just one) but starting with FFVII, the ages of the cast remain within a very tight age group. What this means, is that often times, characters who play the role of "token cranky old man" are actually relatively young.

Basically, its the anime age joke"

Prime of your life - 15-20
Veteran and world worn - 21-25
Old man - 26-35
Elderly old man/corpse - 36-40
Ancient magical being - 41-infinity

This doesn't quite just extend to the later FFs the older ones have some weird things as well. Mainly a high number of children fighting...

So here's some fun facts about age:

VII has the distinction of having both the oldest male main protagonist and the oldest female main protagonist in the series.

Cloud is 21
Tifa is 20
Aerith is 22

Yes... that means every other protagonist is under those ages. There is one exception and that is if you feel Locke is a main protagonist, he's also 22.

XII's Cid has the distinction of being the oldest Cid in the main numbered series at 56. It should be noted that not all of the Cid's have ages listed. II, III, V, and XI's Cid's don't have ages given. What surprised me was how young many of them were. Despite it always being there in the manual, I have a very hard time believing Cid Highwind is only 32 years old and actually one of the younger members of VII's cast. :p Cid of Fabul is also 35 despite having gray hair and an epic mustache. His wife is 25 for those wondering...

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Basch is actually older than Auron by a year.
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Gestahl's age appears to have been retconned. The Timeline in the SSH Character guides have his age set at 78. The new Ultimania has it retconned to 50, making him roughly the same age as Cyan.

Also, Cecil is the second youngest male character in FFIV at the age of 20. Kain is 21 and Edge is 24 and from there it just gets higher... Despite his goofy antics, Bartz is 20, and after Galuf dies, is tied with Faris as the oldest party members.

Anyone else get a fun kick out of learning how weird the ages are for some of the characters? Course I have a weakness for useless trivia. :D

The age thing has always been pretty smurfed up to me. Too many characters where it's up or down. By their standards, I'm such an old bastard. >[

But RPGs are targeted to the bb crowd, I guess. Just how it will be. My latest lol wut is Vanille, yeesh. My boyfriend said she'd make a cute couple with Hope, and I had to destroy his dreams by telling him Vanille is 19 and Hope is 14, it'd be like a university student dating an 8th grader.

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The age thing has always been pretty smurfed up to me.

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Me too.
I think I didn't know about Cid's age in IX. It might've been in the game somewhere. Can't remember.

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But RPGs are targeted to the bb crowd, I guess.

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What's a bb crowd?

I also noticed that Beatrix is 28. I always thought she was at least 32.

I feel the two groups that throw me off the most are the "older" characters and in he early games, the "younger" characters.

Alus from FFIII is only 10 years old was a surprise, Palom and Porom are 4. Stuff like that. I can't get over Cecil, Kain, and Rosa being 20, 21, and 19 cause I always thought they were in their mid-twenties. Cid Highwind looks older than his actual age while Cid Fabool looks older than he really is.

Having kids take staring roles in video games/anime is always a pet peeve of mine. I have a lot of experience coaching kids. I know exactly how well they are developed physiologically and psychological at different ages. Even 18 isn't close to being an adult from a sports perspective.

That and listed weights always irk me quite a bit. They always seem completely out to lunch. Typically they are WAY over light to someone of a similar height and build having to meet the physical strains of saving the world-ing.

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Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno

...XI's Cid's don't have ages given. What surprised me was how young many of them were.

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Just to add, Cid in FFXI is 51-years-old according to the Bastokian timeline.

I know people who've gone grey in their 20s but I don't think Square Enix were looking to raise awareness about early onset Silver Fox syndrome. I think they're just whack

(SPOILER)Vanille is over 500 years old though. :p

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Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno

Palom and Porom are 4.

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Wait, what!? I've always found the ages of some of the characters strange to say the least, but that one has to take the cake for me. I don't know if the writer for FFIV ever actually met a 4 year old, but they could not do half of what they did in that game. Mind you, it does explain Porom's behaviour to a certain extent (or was it Palom? I can never keep them straight when I'm not playing the game for some reason).

At first I was confused when you said that 32 is young by VII's standards, then I remembered the kind of characters we were dealing with. Given that VII was given a lot of praise, perhaps they should consider an older mean age for their next games.

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Originally Posted by qwertysaur

(SPOILER)Vanille is over 500 years old though. :p

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(SPOILER)Only 19 years of brain and body development, though, so in every other sense she is actually a mere 19 years old.

It is definitely amusing how the ages are so varied. But then, it certainly is fantasy!

Their respective planets all have really eccentric orbits around their respective suns. Issue resolved. :cool:

I actually tend to round up the age to an acceptable standard in almost every video game I play.

I think this is necessary because this standard shows no sign of changing any time soon. It might work for a younger generation, but I certainly don't care to see 15 year olds save the world anymore as I am no longer a teenager, and I want to see adults with adult problems rather than children with adult problems.

George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series saw me adding five years or more to pretty much every single younger protagonist.

Wasn't Yuffie the only who was 15 during the events of the game?

I refuse to believe Palom and Porom were 4. They seemed at least Eiko's age.

I do the same as others on here. I add a about 4 to 7 years on everyone's age in the games.

How old was Cid in VIII supposed to be? I always put him in the mid to late 40's. They'll probably say he's 29 and call it ancient.

(SPOILER)Also, if we're divulging Vanille's real age, how old is Aerith from VII supposed to be? She is the last Ancient, after all.

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Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno

Alus from FFIII is only 10 years old was a surprise

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>>> His 8-bit sprite resembles a 6 year old boy or something, Im a bit surprised about palom and porom though..:luca:

And the ages from the FF8 characters were ridiculous..

Ancients is just the name people gave to the species Cetra. It has nothing to do with actual age. Not to mention she is half human anyways.

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Originally Posted by black orb

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Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno

Alus from FFIII is only 10 years old was a surprise

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>>> His 8-bit sprite resembles a 6 year old boy or something, Im a bit surprised about palom and porom though..:luca:

And the ages from the FF8 characters were ridiculous..

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My experience with FFIII is just the DS version where he looks the same age as the main cast. Though his Amano design makes it more clear...

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Originally Posted by VeloZer0

Ancients is just the name people gave to the species Cetra. It has nothing to do with actual age. Not to mention she is half human anyways.

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All right then. It's been so long, I thought she was supposed to be old along with being part of an ancient race. Carry on!

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Originally Posted by Jiro

I know people who've gone grey in their 20s but I don't think Square Enix were looking to raise awareness about early onset Silver Fox syndrome. I think they're just whack

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I can't seem to locate to which post this was responding... are you just talking out of your hat? :cool:

Experiences in life can have a drastic effect on your physical appearance. Heightened levels of stress due to personal loss, wars, and other hardships can make people look older in appearance despite their age. Sure, it's not going to make them taller any sooner but as VeloZero pointed out, children develop physiologically at separate paces and there is no way to predict how genealogy and environment will impact an adult much less a still developing child.

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Originally Posted by Depression Moon

Wasn't Yuffie the only who was 15 during the events of the game?

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16

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Originally Posted by Depression Moon

Wasn't Yuffie the only who was 15 during the events of the game?

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I think thats Rikku in X,
Yuffie is 16 in VII

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Originally Posted by Mercen-X

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Originally Posted by Jiro

I know people who've gone grey in their 20s but I don't think Square Enix were looking to raise awareness about early onset Silver Fox syndrome. I think they're just whack

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I can't seem to locate to which post this was responding... are you just talking out of your hat? :cool:

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Look at Cid Fabul. 35 and full of grey hair. WK's original post is what I responded to there :p