loolaa

I've started to replay FF13 just for the hell of it.
Vanille is a lot less annoying on the second play through. Now that I know she's from Pulse from day one it's easier to sympathise with her. Her over the top cheerfulness is just her putting on a brave face due to the constant "People from Pulse are scum" remarks. Poor kid.
Soon as I got control of the Battle Team command I switched it so I'm fighting with all three girls and I haven't looked back. Even though it means going without the Haste and Protect spells. The only male character I like is Sazh. I don't even bother upgrading Snow's and Hope's abilities or weapons. Because I hate them.
The girls are more fun to play anyway and their character design is a lot more interesting. Vanille is cute as fuck and Lightening and Fang are too cool for words.

So yeah, I'm enjoying 13 more on this second play through. The story is making more sense too. And the weapon upgrading thing isn't as much of a pain as it was on my first play through either. On my first playthrough I managed to make it to the final boss without coming close to mastering anyone's weapons or accessories once though. Not sure if that's a good thing or not.
Still don't like the restrictions on exploring the world map and the severe lack of side quests though. Side quests make a Final Fantasy game. Still, it's way better than the dull FF12 characters and even more boring FF12 story. And I don't really care about the love story between Snow and Serah. I don't care. The part of the storyline that tugs on my heartstrings is Sazh looking for his son. I already know what happens and I'm still bursting into tears on his behalf while I'm rolling my eyes at Snow and his BLOODY ANNOYING 'your hero's coming to save you Serah'. Fuck off Snow you dick.

Prompted by a Fandom Secret argument in which apparently a load of Final Fantasy fans hate Rinoa from Final Fantasy 8.
It makes me roll my eyes when people get so het up about video game characters. With a few exceptions most video game characters are completely two dimensional. Most of the emphasis is on gameplay, graphics and story. Characterisation in most cases is secondary.
I'll accept that since the Final Fantasy games are more story led than most video games their characters do have a little more depth. But also I have to point out that EVERY Final Fantasy game since FF6 up until FF12 has formulaic characters. Particularly the female characters. In EVERY game since FF6 up until FF12 the playable female character types are thus:

1. Lead Female: The Princess Type/Sweet-but-just-feisty-enough-to-not-quite-be-a-doormat/Love Interest/Willing to Sacrifice Herself To Save The World/Gets Kidnapped Or Needs To Be Rescued/Tends to wear more Clothing/Is the Last of Her Kind or Something Special to do with Magic:
FF6: Terra
FF7 Aeris
FF8 Rinoa
FF9 Dagger
FF10 Yuna
FF10-2 Yuna

2. The Tough Chick: Not As Emotional/Misunderstood/Usually Dresses Sexily/A Little Cold-but-still-compassionate-so-the-boys-still-fancy-her:
FF6: Celes
FF7 Tifa
FF8 Quistis
FF9 Freya
FF10 Lulu
FF10-2 Paine

3. The Cute One: Hyperactive/Younger/Irritating/Cocky-but-not too-much-or-the-boys-won't-fancy-her/Optimistic/Childish
FF6: Relm
FF7 Yuffie
FF8 Selphie
FF9 Eiko
FF10 Rikku
FF10-2 Rikku

FF12 only just fails to fall into this because while Penelo is blatantly the Cute/Optimistic one and Fran the Tough/Sexy one, Ashe the Princess is a little more hardcore than the other characters in category one. She's an Actual Princess and Tough Chick combined being a competent soldier, unlike Rinoa.
FF13 for all it's faults, turns the formula on it's head by having Lightening as the main character instead of a man. The Lead Female becomes The Main Character and a soldier instead of a princessy type. She has general Tough Chick personality. Vanille is The Cute Irritating One but again there's Fang as another Tough Chick.

So anyway, Rinoa in the context of the other 5 popular FF games, 6,7,8,9 and 10. I don't actually get why she is hated so much more than Dagger. Yeah she needs rescuing. But so do Terra, Aeris, Dagger and Yuna.
She's a rich kid - Yeah, so are Dagger and Ashe. Dagger and Ashe are Royalty and it shows.
Apparently she is spoilt and rude - True. But Dagger also has these moments, even if Rinoa's stand out more to some people. Being rich kid princessy types, it actually makes them more believable than it would if they were SO NICE to everyone like Yuna and Aeris. Being rich kid princessy only child types I'd actually find it hard to believe if they weren't spoilt and a bit rude. Also, NEGATIVE CHARACTER TRAITS are usually a good thing when creating a beautiful perfect girl character. Stops them being too fucking bland.
Her Rebel Group are full of fail - That may be. But she's a rich kid princessy type that bothers to actually set up a Rebel faction to fight for what she believes in. I think that says a lot about her personality even if her plans aren't that great.
She's mean to Squall that one time - Oh fuck off. He's a big boy, I'm sure he can handle one immature argument from a spoilt rich girl.
She was Ultimacia the Evil Sorceress - Uh no. She got taken over by her.  I'm pretty sure that wasn't her fault.
She's gullible - No more than Dagger. Or Terra. Even Yuna to a degree. She has a reason to be gullible. Unlike the other five characters in FF8 Rinoa wasn't trained as a soldier at school so will be the one that makes mistakes and is crap at soldier stuff.

Personally I always found Dagger more annoying. She never tried to give her life to save the world like Yuna and Aeris. She didn't start a rebel faction because she believed in something like Rinoa. Dagger spent a good part of the game moping about and being sad about the death of her evil mum, spoiling battles by being unable to fucking cast spells when I needed her to and generally just being a dull whiner.  Dagger ran off with Zidane because she wanted to find her Uncle to advise her about her mum, which is fair enough but not as interesting as founding a rebel faction of freedom fighters. That said Dagger played her part in the game and contributed to the story in her own boring way. No point in hating on her. She had a few good points, I think. Female Final Fantasy characters are hardly the well rounded female icons some people want them to be.

And lets not forget. Due to the two dimensionality of video game characters. And particularly since FF's 6,7, 8, and 9 don't have any voice acting, only text in speech bubbles. It's very easy to project a personality onto a character. It's easy to misinterpret the intention of a character in a videogame when there is little body language and no tone of voice with just a little collection of polygons to represent her.


That said. I don't really give a damn about Rinoa. Selphie was my fave girl in FF8. She was weak as fuck physically but she had NUNCHUCKS.

What it boils down to is this. Rinoa, Dagger, and all characters like them, suck.