Eyes on Feminine Features

[RedPouch]

Not true. There are story elements, themes, and crystals that also give attachment. I want to know how you think that Auron, any of the Cids, Cloud, Squall, Zell, Kain, Shadow, Tellah, Barret, Wakka, Basch, Balthier, Snow, Amarant, Vivi, Kimahri, Locke, Umaro, Sabin, Edgar, Golbez and Steiner look feminine.

^ This.

All they did was give him long hair and a dress. The facial structure is still the same.

I can tell you lack any knowledge of anatomical/artistic study of males and females, especially when it comes to facial structure, but I'll just give a quick rhetorical as an example. You do realize how easily most women can actually look male by just wearing some different clothes and getting a masculine haircut, right? You're pretty deluded if you think any of the guys Wolf Kanno mentioned look "feminine". Just because the Japanese typically do cleaner cut faces with chiseled facial-bone structures in no way depicts femininity [they don't have to look like Jack Black just to be considered looking "male"]. If anything, it sounds like you have a 70's-American-media-influenced opinion on what males "should" look like. Either go watch some cowboy movies or go play Street Fighter IV/WoW.

...he looks like a very cute girl if I may add.

No. Just no. Cloud looks cute as a guy, however he looks ugly as a female in this picture you showed. His cheeks are way too thick for the female hair that was put on him, and whoever designed the body made it too bulky [or "fat" for lack of a better word]. His cheekbone placement also make it a dead-giveaway that he's actually male, so it sorta kills the image of this possibly being a female.

I personally adored XII and was happy to see SE try to break away from the stifling forumlatic approach that most JRPGs were doing at the time. It was more of an FF to me than X was as I felt XII really tried to redefine the genre and created new expectations that I have for the series.

I really hated the character designs for FF XII [and I'll have to say that Vaan is one of the few that actually does look feminine], but it was a great installment in the FF series. I would much rather have played as Reks though, but I guess I should have expected SE to stick me with someone second-rate [at least it wasn't Tidus though]. This game really restored a lot of my faith though. I was so happy with FF IX, then FF X was such a disappointment and FF X-2 was even worse, I was starting to lose my faith again. I'm having some doubts about FF XIII but I'll give it a fair chance like the others.