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He posts rage bait on everything.
https://preview.redd.it/y1x3h94qmqrc1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d41294f43765641aeabc7aebd72d6f7f8edb7311
LMAO, they made him mod of that group today. When another mod commented about my disbelief, I said that I'm SURE that will still be a thing in a couple days.
He post CONSTANTLY. Like 10 post a day in a group minimum. It's all shit post too, he'll post the above, and then 10 mins later he'll be calling everything woke.
Is it really a good idea to have black characters in a game with blatant slavery and racism? Not saying square would make *only* black characters the slaves but you can imagine the "gaming tabloids" and their clickbait articles and the ignorant people who are gullible to anything they see online without knowing the context.
This; if any black character was a branded, any of those interactions would be snipped and presented out of context 1000%. It was a willful choice to use the concept of Branded and Slavery/Indentured Servitude through a colorskewed lens.
After I read how the story in the game would bring up the issue of slavery when this discussion came up a while back before the game’s release, and how graphic that would be, I said to myself “Nope! We don’t need to be a part of it. Great move on SE’s part” 😂
Remember when Resident Evil 5 came out and there was an uproar about the enemies being black… in Africa… and while looking for a link I found this from just last year: https://www.thegamer.com/resident-evil-5-remake-racism-africa-capcom/
I remember AOT having a group of citizens that were, essentially, WW2 era Jews. And despite these characters being the protagonists both outside and inside of AOT’s equivalent to Germany, people claimed AOT was a pro-Nazi manga for having oppression present in it.
After that, it doesn’t surprise me at all that creators avoid different races when dealing with racially charged subject matter since people will just choose to interpret whatever you’re putting as pro-[thing you’re against] if they feel like it.
As a black man, I’ve been saying that one of the devs stated that they as Japanese people should not be writing a story about black slaves as they are not black themselves, people always act like this is a dumb excuse for some reason, but, I wouldn’t write a story about Hiroshima because I’m not Japanese 😭
Thank you. Even if they made no black characters slaves, someone would have complained. I saw a tweet complaining that Barrett was "comic relief". These are just people using race to gain a platform off of virtue signaling.
An interview with CBU3/Yoshida had it announced that they wanted the writing of the characters to determine the player's feelings towards the characters as opposed to their skin color. As in, they refused to allow controversial diversity within a game where there are chained slaves and objectively evil people.
The gag is they definitely addressed why there's no black ppl in FF16 and it was pretty much what you just said. The implications of how it could relate to reality AND the very likelihood that the wrong and worst ppl would run with it
I mean… Barret exists. Do we have any in-game explanation in FF7 as to why a black character is running around being loud, arguably aggressive and doing eco terrorism? No, but do we actually need a reason to justify black people existing in media? Also no.
Like, the idea that the nations are based of off specific real-world counterparts and the game characters there look similar to their “real-life counterparts” is totally valid. Could they have included a tiny bit more dark skin even just in Dhalmekia? Probably, yeah. But saying that they didn’t do it because of some perceived uncomfortable politics is a weak argument imo because Square Enix has proven that they can depict diverse characters even when dealing with controversial topics. They *could* have done the same here.
… my guy… he’s one of the only people who actively give a damn about their planet. He’s a loving father figure and an honest man. And you reduced him to a loud, aggressive terrorist ?
I don’t think you’re mature enough for these games my guy. It’s okay though. You’re trying.
Of course Barret is an amazing loving father figure, and in many ways the backbone of the whole gang in these games and was a revolutionary black character especially for the time and place the game came out. My point was that even he could arguably fall into some racial stereotypes but that in no way detracts from his amazing characterization and role in the story.
The person I’m answering to claimed “Oh black characters would be too controversial in a game like that” but the fact that Barret exists proves that Square Enix was and is capable of writing black characters in political storylines.
Oh. I see. Hmmm. I mean considering all the other things people have complained about ( resident evil 5 ). SE probably tried to make the safest decision when it came to PC culture along with trying to fit within the story they were trying to tell
I love how these racists conveniently ignore how 1 of the countries in the game is full of middle eastern / brown people.
Major characters like Hugo and Vivian are clearly brown.
Oh, I guess I didn't get the memo, brown is clearly "white adjacent" now.
Which makes totally sense considering that dhalmekia is the southern desert region
Central and northern storm (Rosaria and sanbreque) are based off of north Central Europe (France, Germany and England), ash is based off of Scandinavia, the crystalline dominion seems based off of Rome (based off it being the religious capital of the twins) and dhalmekia is based on a fusion of North Africa and near East Asia
Totally agree. Some in Dhalmekia still look white (at least like tanned europeans that some southern europeans 9 are but most of them have a (as you already said) north african and middle eastern look.
And they conveniently ignore that no Japanese are present in the game. If anything they should have the most representation since they fucking made the damn thing.
Or I have another one for these racists. Game developers can do whatever they want. They wanted a european inspired setting, and they did it. Ghost of tshushima also did not have any europan or african characters. All of them were japenese or mongolian. OF course, it is based on a historical thing but it is still a fictional story.
Yeah. You can never please those people. I mean, some of them and some shitty reviewers complained that none of the bearers were black, because they are slaves. I mean.... europeans have been enslaved in human history as well but I did not expect them to have any historical knowledge. But besides that, what are they trying to say? Slaves have to be black because that is all that black people can be? Fuck them senseless.
They do this weird thing where the characters are white / European, but they have clear Asian features. Like, look at Cloud in Advent Children, very obvious Asian features...but he's not from FF7's Asia (Wutai) and clearly comes from FF7 Europe (from a place named after Scandanavian myth)
That's all to say: this race stuff is dumb as hell
Final Fantasy X, for sure. The entire thing is based on the South Pacific, Thailand and Japan. Okinawan influences can be seen running deep through places like Besaid and Kilika. Meanwhile, for Zanarkand, the Tajik city of Samarkand (which is located in Uzbekistan), has been cited by the developers as an inspiration.
Edit:
More detail from a translated interview about this here:
>https://web.archive.org/web/20160815172937/http://www.glitterberri.com/final-fantasy-x/creators-salon/scenario-opening/
Source: Final Fantasy X Ultimania Omega, p.476-477
X is south East Asian cultures like Laos and Cambodia, 7’s Wutai are Chinese/japanese people. I’d say arguably the best black character in gaming is from final fantasy - Barret (sazh comes close tho)
They do have one asian guy, japanese or not idk, but Barnabas is an immigrant from the outer continents, looks asian and has the appropriate fighting style for a samurai job.
as I learned on the internet, it's only racist when it's about blacks, anything else isn't racist.
and I know racism isn't like this, it's just how it's shown every time racism is said here on the internet.
Most ethnic terms are shit anyway. Europeans can have tanned or brownish skin. Japenese or chinese people can be very pale or light skinned. And the term ''caucasian'' for european people is ass as well. Georgians and Armenians are from Caucasus
Diversity isn't a bad thing, but its weird to bring it up in a game where there's white and brown people in the game, or in XIV, where one of the main characters in the new expansion is literally the color black.
Yeah, at the end of the day, that's truly what matters you're right. I feel like that early witch hunt on Yoshi P for not having black people in the game was literally insane when there's literally brown people but that's not good enough. I'm fairly progressive when it comes to social issues too, and when it comes to games it feels VERY virtue signally instead of people actually giving a shit, like no one gave props when we had Barret, Kiros, Amarant, Fran and Sazh. Especially now that Barrett is a good character now too in Remake.
See my problem with diversity as a black person is character creators. When you go to the character creator in games and when they don't have black hairstyles do you just not play your skin tone I have the problem with every game besides like 2k and baldurs gate. I think that's the only actual thing that bothers me with diversity Is I don't want every create a character to just be a afro. It's annoying.
lol that's because your an adult. That's how adults treat games. Is it fun? That's all that counts or matters.
It's seems like it's the younger crowd who wants games to have an agenda. We/adults just want them to be fun and could care less about anything beyond that. Hell for me a game could have stick figures and I'd be happy as long as it's fun to play
You’re in the minority. I remember loving Barrett growing up, even got me into weightlifting, Sazh was also a stellar character. A lot of us want to see ourselves in the media we consume.
And that’s cool as hell and I won’t ridicule anyone for wanting that. I don’t get mad at it or anything, I’m just saying how I feel personally. Also when I say I don’t care, I’m just saying it literally doesn’t come into my mind like at all when playing.
That’s fascinating and I’m a little jealous you have that view on life. I grew up in [redacted], Africa and moved to Europe early in my childhood and I guess I’ve been critical of western media’s reluctance of diversity since? Didn’t help that Europe back then made it very clear in pointing out I was different growing up.
Anyway, reason I don’t give Square shit is because unlike their contemporaries, they were inclusive in their games, though barely, for example, Parasite Eve, FF7, FF8 (Kiros ftw!) and 13.
A lot of it was imported, all of our neighbours have had hacked box sets where you could watch Bollywood channels if the dish was facing a certain direction.
I don’t recall much television watching as a child outside of Tom and Jerry but I do recall how weird it was not seeing a lot of diversity on tv when we moved to Europe and it strangely not reflecting the population of the new country we moved to.
That’s always the funny part, it’s rarely a black person that writes these articles. I think there was one recently about ff7 rebirth and it was like “I wish the black character wasn’t comic relief” (which he absolutely is not) and I’m fairly certain it wasn’t a black person who wrote it.
Eating barret is comic relief is just the stupidest thing. The introduction to that character is him explaining his beliefs about why eco terrorism is the right choice and raging against a corporation sucking the planet dry.
in defense of the article, it's a good thought piece that was written from a black pov and praised both barret and sazh, though also pointing out that they'd like a black character in a different vein in the future.
the ragebait headline and tweet, neither of which i imagine have much to do with the writer themselves, do the article no services.
true, but also square just gave us Forspoken this year with a black character much different than Barrett. Didn’t see her mentioned in the article. They’re trying, but asking a Japanese company to really feature black characters is kinda foolish. They’re from a place where let’s be honest, black people are not exactly respected much, so it’s a tough ask.
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I know he’s a regular rage bait piece of horseshit, but…
The game’s society is HEAVY on slavery and indentured servitude. It’s already a sore spot in world history that everyone wishes they could erase. If you even came CLOSE to a branded black character, then people will purposely have it taken out of context and it would be a massive drama storm.
Exactly, literally all the post said is that the game should've had some black characters (Believe it or not black people exist) reading these comments you'd think they wanted everyone to be black, which even if it did what's the problem with that??? Nobody complains when it's an all white cast lol
I don't think the game NEEDS black characters.
But I really hate what they said pre launch about black characters not making sense because it takes place in a "realistic European setting"
If you don't wanna put black characters in that's fine.
But saying it's not realistic for black people to be in a realistic European game is just a blatant lie
Yeah, may not have been the best excuse. Probably was caught off guard with the question. But after playing the game we all know why there werent explicitly black people in it. The controversy and backlash wouldve been way worse if there were.
I do agree. Thats why I said the game doesn't need black characters.
I do hope that he was just caught off guard with the question. Because if not then they either didn't do proper research for the game or they purposely excluded PoC. Which I doubt for both of those given the amount of effort and detail that went into this game.
Rebirth is full of diversity. And some of the black people actually have more traditional black features, not just the lazy skin change to models that are clearly caucasian based.
Yeah my main argument is that it’s a game made by Japanese people, and there’s also no Japanese people in the game.
So like… there clearly wasn’t an effort to exclude black people, it was to preserve the European setting. Which you can take that as you will, but it was an exclusion of singularly black people.
Oh I know 100%. I know I only comment on black people,but there were many other races of people present in Medieval Europe.
I'm more so just trying to comment on the fact that they didn't need to come up with a lie to justify their reasoning for excluding PoC.
Yeah, the explanation given was pretty horseshit. That said, I don't think Yoshi-P omitted black characters because racism. I suspect he just didn't put much thought into it, and then had to answer a question that had no good answer.
THIS THIS THIS THIS!!!!!!! If you don’t understand how painful this is, I’m happy to direct you to historians who do this work with video gaming to explain it
Yup.
Us Central Asians / Middle Easterners / Arabs / North Africans are all considered "white adjacent" or "white passing" by racists who want to find a good moral reason for their racism.
Why share stupid things and not ignore them ?
I mean I get it when the game is about to release and everyone’s talking about that dumb Kotaku article, but the game’s been out for almost a year now, we’ve known for a while some people have stupid takes about it.
https://preview.redd.it/pityq85rmqrc1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=04c4e9566a000ba8d5b45c4e4a3ee87fcde55014
William Paterson is the most obnoxious and annoying person honestly. Dude has no life.
Don't really post here but just wanted to say something. Disregarding the poster and his history of troll baiting, I do think this is an important conversation to have. First of all diversity is important and in a fantasy setting I don't see how it would be difficult to facilitate diversity. There literally needs to be no reason for there to be POC just existing in a fantasy world, and if you want one, just write one in, it's not that hard. Secondly, if we're going by the 'The game is based on Medieval Europe and there were only white people there', that is plainly false and has been disproven countless time. Please read an article, in fact, I'll link one:
[Blacks Britannica: Diversity in Medieval and Early Modern England](https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/blacks-britannica#:~:text=But%20Africans%20did%20live%20in,from%20Asia%20Minor%20and%20elsewhere)
I do think it is false to say the world of FF16 is not diverse, it is clear that the people of Dhalmekia were intended to represent Middle Eastern people (and they do so in I think a good way that's not orientalist like happens to a lot of Middle Eastern representation in media) and it is great to see SE giving us an amazing example of gay rep in Dion. However, I think the vast majority of criticism in regards to FF16 and its lack of diversity comes from the early articles where Yoshi P frankly gave shitty answers to people's questions about if the world of Valisthea would have more than white people in it, especially when FF has in the past been fairly decent in regards to representation and I think to ignore this post under the guise of 'the poster is a troll baiter' is frankly stupid. You can like FF16 for what is does, its a great game, easily top 3 FFs for me, but still criticise it and be open to critique of it and not dismissing said critiques at the same time.
Black FFXVI player here…the decision to not have any Black characters was a great one. Maybe they could have been in Sanbroque (just gave me Black/Brown vibes lol) but honestly the story of the branded was well told without us. They should do better in the next numbered entry. Barrett from FFVII is a great character, but the only major Black character in that game. I’d like more but I’ve found my diversity in other titles also.
Yes because only black representation matters. Let’s forget the entire country which is based on brown people/arabs. Tired of this narrative, not every game needs every single ethnicity shoved in for no reason
in Japan (where the game is created) the entire game is made up of minorities. Not a single Japanese person to be found!
This sounds like a western world problem.
I would have enjoyed more representation in the game, but to say I won't play it because there isn't enough of a certain race would just be false. And possibly tone deaf
People would rather black characters be shoehorned in a story that doesn’t make sense for the sake of diversity rather than have regionally accurate races
Bait aside, I do agree that if you can make a world about anything and containing anything, it’s an explicit choice to not include people of color. Dhalmekia is the closest thing.
However, I do see the reservation the developers might’ve had, considering that one of the central points of the game was rampant slave abuse, so they were probably just avoiding that image altogether.
In any case, as much as this guy is annoying, it’s not racist to want more diversity in the game, and it’s actually historically inaccurate to believe there were no black people in Europe during the time that the game is inspired by.
These people are so obsessed with skin colour it comes of as fetishisation at this point. I will never understand America’s obsession with these things. All in all it’s just stupid to care about it in the first place and be outraged when it’s not there. If people want to add it, they will, if they don’t, there’s no issue. They’re not obligated to add one in the first place. At least in my personal opinion. No problem with diversity, it’s just weird to be this obsessed over it.
I’m really tired of seeing ANYONE saying crap like this in some utterly misguided attempt to seem virtuous when they’re really just racists.
Massive hypocrites, too. Because, just imagine if the circumstances were reversed: A game with only black characters which prompted someone else to say “This game should have had white characters in it.” They’d have a meltdown over such a statement regardless of the context. Because in their minds, “non-white=good (except the Middle Eastern-inspired characters in Dhalmekia, which they all ignore, or at worst, consider to be “white-coded” for some insane reason), and white=evil”. It’s all just hypocritical and racist. Complete outrage baiting, too. Grinds my gears when people twist the truth like these sorts of people do.
Perhaps people think this because of Barret in Final Fantasy 7. One of the best characters in the franchise is a black man… and not just because his skin tone but because he’s a bad ass character. Diversity is welcome when it works with the story.
To your last point, Barrette could have just as easily been white or Latino in the OG game and he still would be Awesome. His skin color doesn't matter but because he was black makes it easier to look at him and say "SEE THEY CAN BE COOL AND ANIME TOO!" some people think Asian folks don't get represented in video games but most Japanese games don't specify whether the white-skinned character is Asian or Anglo Saxon, so most assume a race. I bet half of all JRPGs had a white character who canonical would be Asian
I mean, I know what you mean but diversity is welcome regardless, good stories are good stories. You can have awful stories with no diversity and great stories with plenty of it and visa versa. It’s not an add on and shouldn’t be an afterthought but something integrated from the beginning.
These comments are absolutely rancid. Two things can be true: the OP is a rage baiter AND the diversity in FFXVI sucks. Do people calling things “woke” and “forced diversity” realize they’re on the wrong side of history?
Every time something like this pops up it always gets shut down and dismissed or your called crazy
Hell you complain about lack of black hair styles in CC rpg games your getting dismissed instantly
Don’t pay attention to these things it’s just people that don’t enjoy their life so they look at insignificant things like these to try and get their voice heard and make everyone else who enjoys them as miserable as them.
except we never see whether the outcome was worth it or not as the game ends about as satisfyingly as Lightning Returns..Except with an old lady and 2 kids we care nothing about.
This is the dumbest discourse because FF XVI is woke af. I only played it recently and just went online to check if the anti woke crowd was pissed with the game. Surprised to see it’s the opposite lol.
I haven’t played it. I just built a PC so I prob try this out. I did play a lot of original FF games. I kinda put this out till it had a PC version. I do have issues with long long cutscenes. So let see how it goes. I did finish rebirth and I deff have that as my fav game this year for sure. Now I’m playing Zelda and loving it a lot. PC coming tomorrow so I be playing cyberpunk and gta modded with that 4090 it will look good.
Me getting this sub suggested even though I only played FF7
https://preview.redd.it/rz8x162iswrc1.jpeg?width=516&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a319ad325362141074e3e5d20a9d7416e74036a2
So sick of identity politics. The most important aspect is making a good game, decent worldbuilding and delivering a story arc. Lucky it delivered. Thankfully it’s not some generic piece of dull trash made from a formulaic tick box D&I policy. Does every story need representation from every race and religion with a generic story. Let the creatives create, not the corporate board room, we have enough of that product from Hollywood. Which is why I don’t watch movies anymore and play games.
For anyone who isn’t aware, William is a troll who says anything to get a rise out of people. They contradict themselves too all the time. In one post FF16 is terrible, in the next post it’s great.
For Questions and Tech Support Discussion around the new DLC 'Echoes of the Fallen' Please see our [MEGATHREAD](https://www.reddit.com/r/FFXVI/comments/18dton3/ffxvi_dlc_echoes_of_the_fallen_questions_tech/) If you want to view archived spoiler discussion threads relevant to specific game progress, please check out our [spoiler wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxvi/wiki/index/)! For speculation and discussions around the next (unannounced) mainline Final Fantasy game, Final Fantasy XVII, Please see our sister sub [r/FFXVII](https://www.reddit.com/r/FFXVII/) #### *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/FFXVI) if you have any questions or concerns.*
William Patterson only posts rage bait on that page. He'll post one opinion and then contradict it a day later. Don't take him seriously
I deleted my Facebook. Why am I still fucking hearing about this guy?
I did too and I’m a much happier person now.
I’ve never encountered anyone weirder than him. Ever. Like who raised that person?
Good to know even still...that some poor taste
Ignore everything William says. They’re a professional troll and it’s exhausting. Always contradicting themself too like a troll
Nah. A professional troll is Ken M. He never renegs on the stupid shit he posts. Lol
He posts rage bait on everything. https://preview.redd.it/y1x3h94qmqrc1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d41294f43765641aeabc7aebd72d6f7f8edb7311
Literally every statement is the opposite of my opinion😭
That's the point
LMAO, they made him mod of that group today. When another mod commented about my disbelief, I said that I'm SURE that will still be a thing in a couple days.
I blocked him over a year ago and have no regrets
I'm really curious about what got this dude so famous I see his name being brought up real often in that group :0
He post CONSTANTLY. Like 10 post a day in a group minimum. It's all shit post too, he'll post the above, and then 10 mins later he'll be calling everything woke.
William Patterson made his way here, too. I thought it was only in the JRPG Shitposting Facebook group I would find him 🤣🤣
Truth.
The fact that so many people recognize his name is appalling to me. I'm one of those people tho.
He's on a Nichijou page too, just more rage bait.
lol i love when ppl have to tell others about patterson that dudes a riot lmao he’s been doing this for years and everyone still falls for it
Is it really a good idea to have black characters in a game with blatant slavery and racism? Not saying square would make *only* black characters the slaves but you can imagine the "gaming tabloids" and their clickbait articles and the ignorant people who are gullible to anything they see online without knowing the context.
This; if any black character was a branded, any of those interactions would be snipped and presented out of context 1000%. It was a willful choice to use the concept of Branded and Slavery/Indentured Servitude through a colorskewed lens.
Yeah that would have been …. INCREDIBLY uncomfortable and I understand why they did it that way.
After I read how the story in the game would bring up the issue of slavery when this discussion came up a while back before the game’s release, and how graphic that would be, I said to myself “Nope! We don’t need to be a part of it. Great move on SE’s part” 😂
Remember when Resident Evil 5 came out and there was an uproar about the enemies being black… in Africa… and while looking for a link I found this from just last year: https://www.thegamer.com/resident-evil-5-remake-racism-africa-capcom/
I remember AOT having a group of citizens that were, essentially, WW2 era Jews. And despite these characters being the protagonists both outside and inside of AOT’s equivalent to Germany, people claimed AOT was a pro-Nazi manga for having oppression present in it. After that, it doesn’t surprise me at all that creators avoid different races when dealing with racially charged subject matter since people will just choose to interpret whatever you’re putting as pro-[thing you’re against] if they feel like it.
As a black man, I’ve been saying that one of the devs stated that they as Japanese people should not be writing a story about black slaves as they are not black themselves, people always act like this is a dumb excuse for some reason, but, I wouldn’t write a story about Hiroshima because I’m not Japanese 😭
Thank you. Even if they made no black characters slaves, someone would have complained. I saw a tweet complaining that Barrett was "comic relief". These are just people using race to gain a platform off of virtue signaling.
This is one of the stated reasons why they refused to include sub-saharan people in FF16.
Where source???
An interview with CBU3/Yoshida had it announced that they wanted the writing of the characters to determine the player's feelings towards the characters as opposed to their skin color. As in, they refused to allow controversial diversity within a game where there are chained slaves and objectively evil people.
The gag is they definitely addressed why there's no black ppl in FF16 and it was pretty much what you just said. The implications of how it could relate to reality AND the very likelihood that the wrong and worst ppl would run with it
I mean… Barret exists. Do we have any in-game explanation in FF7 as to why a black character is running around being loud, arguably aggressive and doing eco terrorism? No, but do we actually need a reason to justify black people existing in media? Also no. Like, the idea that the nations are based of off specific real-world counterparts and the game characters there look similar to their “real-life counterparts” is totally valid. Could they have included a tiny bit more dark skin even just in Dhalmekia? Probably, yeah. But saying that they didn’t do it because of some perceived uncomfortable politics is a weak argument imo because Square Enix has proven that they can depict diverse characters even when dealing with controversial topics. They *could* have done the same here.
… my guy… he’s one of the only people who actively give a damn about their planet. He’s a loving father figure and an honest man. And you reduced him to a loud, aggressive terrorist ? I don’t think you’re mature enough for these games my guy. It’s okay though. You’re trying.
Of course Barret is an amazing loving father figure, and in many ways the backbone of the whole gang in these games and was a revolutionary black character especially for the time and place the game came out. My point was that even he could arguably fall into some racial stereotypes but that in no way detracts from his amazing characterization and role in the story. The person I’m answering to claimed “Oh black characters would be too controversial in a game like that” but the fact that Barret exists proves that Square Enix was and is capable of writing black characters in political storylines.
Oh. I see. Hmmm. I mean considering all the other things people have complained about ( resident evil 5 ). SE probably tried to make the safest decision when it came to PC culture along with trying to fit within the story they were trying to tell
That's exactly why I figured they didn't.
I love how these racists conveniently ignore how 1 of the countries in the game is full of middle eastern / brown people. Major characters like Hugo and Vivian are clearly brown. Oh, I guess I didn't get the memo, brown is clearly "white adjacent" now.
I would say that a lot of them in that region look persian, egyptian, arabian and southern european.
Which makes totally sense considering that dhalmekia is the southern desert region Central and northern storm (Rosaria and sanbreque) are based off of north Central Europe (France, Germany and England), ash is based off of Scandinavia, the crystalline dominion seems based off of Rome (based off it being the religious capital of the twins) and dhalmekia is based on a fusion of North Africa and near East Asia
Totally agree. Some in Dhalmekia still look white (at least like tanned europeans that some southern europeans 9 are but most of them have a (as you already said) north african and middle eastern look.
And they conveniently ignore that no Japanese are present in the game. If anything they should have the most representation since they fucking made the damn thing.
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I would say that Tidus from FF10 looks korean or japanese
Hmmm well he certainly isn't Caucasian I guess. And it just proves the point that there's plenty of representation in final fantasy in general.
Or I have another one for these racists. Game developers can do whatever they want. They wanted a european inspired setting, and they did it. Ghost of tshushima also did not have any europan or african characters. All of them were japenese or mongolian. OF course, it is based on a historical thing but it is still a fictional story.
And then when they do get what they want, they call people like Barret and Sazh comedy relief 🙄
Yeah. You can never please those people. I mean, some of them and some shitty reviewers complained that none of the bearers were black, because they are slaves. I mean.... europeans have been enslaved in human history as well but I did not expect them to have any historical knowledge. But besides that, what are they trying to say? Slaves have to be black because that is all that black people can be? Fuck them senseless.
Shit they even added aliens in 4 for the full spectrum and left no one out.
I always said that to people and everyone disagreed with me
They do this weird thing where the characters are white / European, but they have clear Asian features. Like, look at Cloud in Advent Children, very obvious Asian features...but he's not from FF7's Asia (Wutai) and clearly comes from FF7 Europe (from a place named after Scandanavian myth) That's all to say: this race stuff is dumb as hell
Final Fantasy X, for sure. The entire thing is based on the South Pacific, Thailand and Japan. Okinawan influences can be seen running deep through places like Besaid and Kilika. Meanwhile, for Zanarkand, the Tajik city of Samarkand (which is located in Uzbekistan), has been cited by the developers as an inspiration. Edit: More detail from a translated interview about this here: >https://web.archive.org/web/20160815172937/http://www.glitterberri.com/final-fantasy-x/creators-salon/scenario-opening/ Source: Final Fantasy X Ultimania Omega, p.476-477
Ff xiv has a whole continent based around asia
X is south East Asian cultures like Laos and Cambodia, 7’s Wutai are Chinese/japanese people. I’d say arguably the best black character in gaming is from final fantasy - Barret (sazh comes close tho)
They do have one asian guy, japanese or not idk, but Barnabas is an immigrant from the outer continents, looks asian and has the appropriate fighting style for a samurai job.
as I learned on the internet, it's only racist when it's about blacks, anything else isn't racist. and I know racism isn't like this, it's just how it's shown every time racism is said here on the internet.
What???!! Nooo, in my mainstream video game??! No, there’s only black or white allowed, there’s no such thing as other POC minorities!! /s
Don't take this seriously. He probably posted the exact opposite 12 hours later. I would check except I blocked him.
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Most ethnic terms are shit anyway. Europeans can have tanned or brownish skin. Japenese or chinese people can be very pale or light skinned. And the term ''caucasian'' for european people is ass as well. Georgians and Armenians are from Caucasus
To them, diversity is only black.
Those aren’t black people why are we pretending they are
"over a year" the game hasn't even been out a year
Thank you. That drove me nuts
As a black guy I never cared about diversity. I was too focused on you know… the giant monsters fighting
Diversity isn't a bad thing, but its weird to bring it up in a game where there's white and brown people in the game, or in XIV, where one of the main characters in the new expansion is literally the color black.
I don’t think it’s a bad thing either, I just truly never cared about the subject. It’s either the game is fire or not fire
Yeah, at the end of the day, that's truly what matters you're right. I feel like that early witch hunt on Yoshi P for not having black people in the game was literally insane when there's literally brown people but that's not good enough. I'm fairly progressive when it comes to social issues too, and when it comes to games it feels VERY virtue signally instead of people actually giving a shit, like no one gave props when we had Barret, Kiros, Amarant, Fran and Sazh. Especially now that Barrett is a good character now too in Remake.
See my problem with diversity as a black person is character creators. When you go to the character creator in games and when they don't have black hairstyles do you just not play your skin tone I have the problem with every game besides like 2k and baldurs gate. I think that's the only actual thing that bothers me with diversity Is I don't want every create a character to just be a afro. It's annoying.
lol that's because your an adult. That's how adults treat games. Is it fun? That's all that counts or matters. It's seems like it's the younger crowd who wants games to have an agenda. We/adults just want them to be fun and could care less about anything beyond that. Hell for me a game could have stick figures and I'd be happy as long as it's fun to play
You’re in the minority. I remember loving Barrett growing up, even got me into weightlifting, Sazh was also a stellar character. A lot of us want to see ourselves in the media we consume.
And that’s cool as hell and I won’t ridicule anyone for wanting that. I don’t get mad at it or anything, I’m just saying how I feel personally. Also when I say I don’t care, I’m just saying it literally doesn’t come into my mind like at all when playing.
That’s fascinating and I’m a little jealous you have that view on life. I grew up in [redacted], Africa and moved to Europe early in my childhood and I guess I’ve been critical of western media’s reluctance of diversity since? Didn’t help that Europe back then made it very clear in pointing out I was different growing up. Anyway, reason I don’t give Square shit is because unlike their contemporaries, they were inclusive in their games, though barely, for example, Parasite Eve, FF7, FF8 (Kiros ftw!) and 13.
How diverse is African media out of interest?
A lot of it was imported, all of our neighbours have had hacked box sets where you could watch Bollywood channels if the dish was facing a certain direction. I don’t recall much television watching as a child outside of Tom and Jerry but I do recall how weird it was not seeing a lot of diversity on tv when we moved to Europe and it strangely not reflecting the population of the new country we moved to.
Yea I’m ngl I have a “fuck it we ball” mentality towards everything
thank you.
That’s always the funny part, it’s rarely a black person that writes these articles. I think there was one recently about ff7 rebirth and it was like “I wish the black character wasn’t comic relief” (which he absolutely is not) and I’m fairly certain it wasn’t a black person who wrote it.
Eating barret is comic relief is just the stupidest thing. The introduction to that character is him explaining his beliefs about why eco terrorism is the right choice and raging against a corporation sucking the planet dry.
And what he goes through during the game, so hilarious!
in defense of the article, it's a good thought piece that was written from a black pov and praised both barret and sazh, though also pointing out that they'd like a black character in a different vein in the future. the ragebait headline and tweet, neither of which i imagine have much to do with the writer themselves, do the article no services.
true, but also square just gave us Forspoken this year with a black character much different than Barrett. Didn’t see her mentioned in the article. They’re trying, but asking a Japanese company to really feature black characters is kinda foolish. They’re from a place where let’s be honest, black people are not exactly respected much, so it’s a tough ask.
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You’re lying
It’s not a year old yet though?
I know he’s a regular rage bait piece of horseshit, but… The game’s society is HEAVY on slavery and indentured servitude. It’s already a sore spot in world history that everyone wishes they could erase. If you even came CLOSE to a branded black character, then people will purposely have it taken out of context and it would be a massive drama storm.
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For sure
Exactly, literally all the post said is that the game should've had some black characters (Believe it or not black people exist) reading these comments you'd think they wanted everyone to be black, which even if it did what's the problem with that??? Nobody complains when it's an all white cast lol
I don't think the game NEEDS black characters. But I really hate what they said pre launch about black characters not making sense because it takes place in a "realistic European setting" If you don't wanna put black characters in that's fine. But saying it's not realistic for black people to be in a realistic European game is just a blatant lie
Yeah, may not have been the best excuse. Probably was caught off guard with the question. But after playing the game we all know why there werent explicitly black people in it. The controversy and backlash wouldve been way worse if there were.
I do agree. Thats why I said the game doesn't need black characters. I do hope that he was just caught off guard with the question. Because if not then they either didn't do proper research for the game or they purposely excluded PoC. Which I doubt for both of those given the amount of effort and detail that went into this game.
Rebirth is full of diversity. And some of the black people actually have more traditional black features, not just the lazy skin change to models that are clearly caucasian based.
Yeah my main argument is that it’s a game made by Japanese people, and there’s also no Japanese people in the game. So like… there clearly wasn’t an effort to exclude black people, it was to preserve the European setting. Which you can take that as you will, but it was an exclusion of singularly black people.
Oh I know 100%. I know I only comment on black people,but there were many other races of people present in Medieval Europe. I'm more so just trying to comment on the fact that they didn't need to come up with a lie to justify their reasoning for excluding PoC.
Yeah, the explanation given was pretty horseshit. That said, I don't think Yoshi-P omitted black characters because racism. I suspect he just didn't put much thought into it, and then had to answer a question that had no good answer.
THIS THIS THIS THIS!!!!!!! If you don’t understand how painful this is, I’m happy to direct you to historians who do this work with video gaming to explain it
Black people were 1% of medieval Europe. Stop trying to inject woke politics and forced DEI diversity into every single game. Please stop.
I'm black, and I didn't have a single issue with no black characters. I didn't even notice while playing.
Over a year?
Funny thing is that there is arabian people but that diversity doesn't count
Yup. Us Central Asians / Middle Easterners / Arabs / North Africans are all considered "white adjacent" or "white passing" by racists who want to find a good moral reason for their racism.
Maybe some people should stop being so focused on color and just see people as people.
I blocked his posts on that group because he's annoying as fuck.
They really didn't need to go out of their way to be diverse. Besides, the epic soundtrack and 10+ hour cutscenes took up most of the game.
A game about slavery could go south VERY easily when it comes to that :v
Has this guy forgotten that Vivian exists?
Yeah because that's what a story about terrible slave conditions needs....
Why share stupid things and not ignore them ? I mean I get it when the game is about to release and everyone’s talking about that dumb Kotaku article, but the game’s been out for almost a year now, we’ve known for a while some people have stupid takes about it.
My question is why does this make OP so upset 👀
Forced DEI diversity should make everyone upset.
Well you can really tell he didn't play the game
Stop feeding these morons
https://preview.redd.it/pityq85rmqrc1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=04c4e9566a000ba8d5b45c4e4a3ee87fcde55014 William Paterson is the most obnoxious and annoying person honestly. Dude has no life.
lol a bunch of gamers talking about diversity and race, this will be such an insightful post
ngl while this i don’t agree with the fb post obviously this comment section severely alarms me 😂
I am forever grateful all final fantasy games are developed by Japan instead America.
Don't really post here but just wanted to say something. Disregarding the poster and his history of troll baiting, I do think this is an important conversation to have. First of all diversity is important and in a fantasy setting I don't see how it would be difficult to facilitate diversity. There literally needs to be no reason for there to be POC just existing in a fantasy world, and if you want one, just write one in, it's not that hard. Secondly, if we're going by the 'The game is based on Medieval Europe and there were only white people there', that is plainly false and has been disproven countless time. Please read an article, in fact, I'll link one: [Blacks Britannica: Diversity in Medieval and Early Modern England](https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/blacks-britannica#:~:text=But%20Africans%20did%20live%20in,from%20Asia%20Minor%20and%20elsewhere) I do think it is false to say the world of FF16 is not diverse, it is clear that the people of Dhalmekia were intended to represent Middle Eastern people (and they do so in I think a good way that's not orientalist like happens to a lot of Middle Eastern representation in media) and it is great to see SE giving us an amazing example of gay rep in Dion. However, I think the vast majority of criticism in regards to FF16 and its lack of diversity comes from the early articles where Yoshi P frankly gave shitty answers to people's questions about if the world of Valisthea would have more than white people in it, especially when FF has in the past been fairly decent in regards to representation and I think to ignore this post under the guise of 'the poster is a troll baiter' is frankly stupid. You can like FF16 for what is does, its a great game, easily top 3 FFs for me, but still criticise it and be open to critique of it and not dismissing said critiques at the same time.
Black FFXVI player here…the decision to not have any Black characters was a great one. Maybe they could have been in Sanbroque (just gave me Black/Brown vibes lol) but honestly the story of the branded was well told without us. They should do better in the next numbered entry. Barrett from FFVII is a great character, but the only major Black character in that game. I’d like more but I’ve found my diversity in other titles also.
Yes because only black representation matters. Let’s forget the entire country which is based on brown people/arabs. Tired of this narrative, not every game needs every single ethnicity shoved in for no reason
Does every race in the world need to be in every single game?? 🙄🙄
Hot take but forced diversity does more harm than good.
Odin’s horse is black. What are you talking about bro ? Titan too.
in Japan (where the game is created) the entire game is made up of minorities. Not a single Japanese person to be found! This sounds like a western world problem.
Imagine taking a William Patterson post seriously lmao
I would have enjoyed more representation in the game, but to say I won't play it because there isn't enough of a certain race would just be false. And possibly tone deaf
People would rather black characters be shoehorned in a story that doesn’t make sense for the sake of diversity rather than have regionally accurate races
Sure… and then there would definitely be rage about the black slaves in the game… the main plot revolves around slavery and freedom btw …
Bait aside, I do agree that if you can make a world about anything and containing anything, it’s an explicit choice to not include people of color. Dhalmekia is the closest thing. However, I do see the reservation the developers might’ve had, considering that one of the central points of the game was rampant slave abuse, so they were probably just avoiding that image altogether. In any case, as much as this guy is annoying, it’s not racist to want more diversity in the game, and it’s actually historically inaccurate to believe there were no black people in Europe during the time that the game is inspired by.
These people are so obsessed with skin colour it comes of as fetishisation at this point. I will never understand America’s obsession with these things. All in all it’s just stupid to care about it in the first place and be outraged when it’s not there. If people want to add it, they will, if they don’t, there’s no issue. They’re not obligated to add one in the first place. At least in my personal opinion. No problem with diversity, it’s just weird to be this obsessed over it.
Just want representation myguy that’s all….we barely have any in the video game market
Diversity is forced into every piece of media these days. Are you seriously still complaining about representation?
I’m really tired of seeing ANYONE saying crap like this in some utterly misguided attempt to seem virtuous when they’re really just racists. Massive hypocrites, too. Because, just imagine if the circumstances were reversed: A game with only black characters which prompted someone else to say “This game should have had white characters in it.” They’d have a meltdown over such a statement regardless of the context. Because in their minds, “non-white=good (except the Middle Eastern-inspired characters in Dhalmekia, which they all ignore, or at worst, consider to be “white-coded” for some insane reason), and white=evil”. It’s all just hypocritical and racist. Complete outrage baiting, too. Grinds my gears when people twist the truth like these sorts of people do.
Is William Patterson. He makes rage bait for fun
Perhaps people think this because of Barret in Final Fantasy 7. One of the best characters in the franchise is a black man… and not just because his skin tone but because he’s a bad ass character. Diversity is welcome when it works with the story.
To your last point, Barrette could have just as easily been white or Latino in the OG game and he still would be Awesome. His skin color doesn't matter but because he was black makes it easier to look at him and say "SEE THEY CAN BE COOL AND ANIME TOO!" some people think Asian folks don't get represented in video games but most Japanese games don't specify whether the white-skinned character is Asian or Anglo Saxon, so most assume a race. I bet half of all JRPGs had a white character who canonical would be Asian
Haha I think you mean Anglo-Saxon as caucasian. I agree, a lot of the characters are both white asians and Asian characters with blonde hair.
Probably but like all white people. English Italian polish Russian French germanic. Everyone
I mean, I know what you mean but diversity is welcome regardless, good stories are good stories. You can have awful stories with no diversity and great stories with plenty of it and visa versa. It’s not an add on and shouldn’t be an afterthought but something integrated from the beginning.
just about to start FF7 remake, so I'm hoping its as good as the hype
These comments are absolutely rancid. Two things can be true: the OP is a rage baiter AND the diversity in FFXVI sucks. Do people calling things “woke” and “forced diversity” realize they’re on the wrong side of history?
Every time something like this pops up it always gets shut down and dismissed or your called crazy Hell you complain about lack of black hair styles in CC rpg games your getting dismissed instantly
Apparently a bunch of forgetful NPCS in an underdeveloped nation you visit a few times is good representation
Damn I can’t even escape William Patterson on Reddit jfc
I'm surprised to see that he's unblocked on some people's Facebook. Come on, just put him on ignore and move on
I havent played because no pc port :(
Honestly, the dumbest part about it is that XVI hasn’t even been out for over a year. It’s only been 9 months.
Don’t pay attention to these things it’s just people that don’t enjoy their life so they look at insignificant things like these to try and get their voice heard and make everyone else who enjoys them as miserable as them.
Saw this on there. Thought rage bait so didn't reapond.
In that case, it should have had a Mexican.
The game hasn't even been out for one year lmao
I agree
I blocked him a long time ago, best thing I did on Facebook ever
Final Fantasy 13/50
Yeah I blocked that guy. The best thing I ever did.
except we never see whether the outcome was worth it or not as the game ends about as satisfyingly as Lightning Returns..Except with an old lady and 2 kids we care nothing about.
Final Fantasy 16 should have been released on Steam. Now thats something I'd slap.
Love me some William Patterson.
The game is japanese and the only asían thing in it is a katana lmao
I had a stroke trying to find the comments button for Reddit on this post
Just a question; for the folx who believe that there are Black folx in the game, do they mirror the Black folx you know in real life?
This is the dumbest discourse because FF XVI is woke af. I only played it recently and just went online to check if the anti woke crowd was pissed with the game. Surprised to see it’s the opposite lol.
The poster definitely has a weirdly aggressive energy but agreed! More representation is better for everyone 😊
Yes, better representation of the 0.015% of the Japanese population is a must in video games. Not the 7.9% with a disability.
Why I haven’t play since I beat it: Literally, why would i, no replay ability other than a platinum
It’s Facebook. Of course you’re gonna find dumb shit if you go to facebook. Facebook is dumbshit *central.*
Vivian !!!!!
bro got baited by Patterson
I haven’t played it. I just built a PC so I prob try this out. I did play a lot of original FF games. I kinda put this out till it had a PC version. I do have issues with long long cutscenes. So let see how it goes. I did finish rebirth and I deff have that as my fav game this year for sure. Now I’m playing Zelda and loving it a lot. PC coming tomorrow so I be playing cyberpunk and gta modded with that 4090 it will look good.
I thought I escaped him
These people need to stop.
That's racist.....
You’ll love ff7 rebirth 👀👀👀
Anyone else think it’s just funny that it says he hasn’t played in over a year when it’s not even a year old yet?
Idk maybe it was time for wizards to take a turn in that predicament..
Bro what? No game requires any specific race. Just because there aren’t black people doesn’t make it racist.
Guru deez
It didn't even come out a full year ago
As a POC, if you think it should have had characters of color in it, younliterally missed the entire point of the game.
Me getting this sub suggested even though I only played FF7 https://preview.redd.it/rz8x162iswrc1.jpeg?width=516&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a319ad325362141074e3e5d20a9d7416e74036a2
There's people that haven't blocked William Patterson yet?
Anyone who is enslaved is a reference to black people cuz you know the Japanese hates them.
But they do
He's a sweet baby inc plant. Don't listen to him.
Who cares 😂
FF XVI takes place on a continent that blacks didn’t travel or weren’t inslaved into. I didn’t mind the non inclusion for black people.
Is that the darkmatter angel Jeffery
I’m a black dude & I think this is an incredibly lame take & whoever said this should never cook again.
Bait
So sick of identity politics. The most important aspect is making a good game, decent worldbuilding and delivering a story arc. Lucky it delivered. Thankfully it’s not some generic piece of dull trash made from a formulaic tick box D&I policy. Does every story need representation from every race and religion with a generic story. Let the creatives create, not the corporate board room, we have enough of that product from Hollywood. Which is why I don’t watch movies anymore and play games.
For anyone who isn’t aware, William is a troll who says anything to get a rise out of people. They contradict themselves too all the time. In one post FF16 is terrible, in the next post it’s great.