Home

 › 

Articles

 › 

Has the Final Fantasy T&A Gone Too Far?

Has the Final Fantasy T&A Gone Too Far?

I’m excited about Final Fantasy XV , but this summer it feels like Square Enix has been doing everything it can to push me away. Instead of focusing on the interesting relationships between its four lead characters, Square Enix has been spending marketing and trade show time focusing on a single, problematic minor character: the underdressed mechanic Cindy.

Cindy is not an important character; we know this. She won’t really feature in the story beyond being the lads’ mechanic. How she’s going to do this as they take a cross-country road trip, we don’t know. Do they stow her in the trunk? Is she like Nurse Joy or Officer Jenny in Pokemon , with a Cindy clone at every garage? We don’t know. What we do know is that she wears an outfit that no person in their right mind would don in order to crawl under a car, and that middle-aged Japanese game developers think it’s fun to ogle her with VR equipment on stage in front of a large crowd. Gross.

Now, previous interviews have shown that these developers are completely clueless about why Cindy’s portrayal puts off many fans, both male and female, who don’t enjoy that kind of objectification. And objectification it is, pure and simple. Cindy isn’t treated as an interesting character, she’s treated like a blow-up sex doll, somebody to be displayed, not valued for her personality or even for her mechanical skills. Square Enix knows that a significant portion of its fanbase in North America and Europe (I don’t know about Japan) isn’t pleased with the way Cindy is portrayed. Yet instead of trying to reassure these fans, for some reason they’ve been doubling down not only on featuring her in English-language marketing, but on featuring her in the creepiest and least mainstream-friendly ways possible.

I’m actually particularly unhappy about the most recent Cindy abomination – a pinup car skin that players can obtain as optional DLC. This takes Cindy’s objectification out of the hands of the developers and puts it in the hands of the game’s main cast. Think about it – would you paint a pinup picture of a woman with whom you have a business relationship on your car? I hope most of you say no, because that’s uber-creepy. It’s also completely out of character for the main four party members in the game as they’ve been portrayed so far. It’s not just “fanservice,” it’s fanservice that actively works against the story and characterization of the game in which it’s being placed, and it’s not welcome or appropriate in a mainstream hit series like Final Fantasy .

Has the Final Fantasy T&A Gone Too Far?

Final Fantasy XV ‘s developers and marketers just need to knock it off with Cindy. She’s not an important character, they way they treat her makes many fans grossed out and uncomfortable, and it’s putting people off an entire game that actually has nearly nothing to do with objectified women. Bringing Cindy’s objectification into the game with this car skin is particularly bad because it casts the main characters in a light that isn’t consistent with who they’re supposed to be as people. We don’t need that kind of out-of-character fanservice in Final Fantasy, there are a million non-mainstream JRPGs out there for people who like that sort of thing.

Instead of this obnoxious Cindy overload, the Final Fantasy XV team should be focusing on its quality promotional material, like the Brotherhood anime series. Here, check out the latest episode that shows how Prince Noctis befriended his muscle-bound guardian, Gladiolous. There’s even a female chararacter in it – and it’s not Cindy.

To top