Tag: ps4

Rating the Female Characters in FFVII Remake

Who’s the best girl in FFVII Remake?

I recently finished FFVII remake (like a year late lol). It has waifus  female characters in it, thus I shall rate them.

All ratings are based 107% on my personal, irrelevant opinions. 

My criteria essentially is:

  1. Their removal would affect the plot game
  2. They undergo some change/character development, good or bad (not as applicable in video games tbh)
  3. We see different sides of their personality
  4. They have a plot of their own that doesn’t revolve entirely around a male character. (Cloud is literally the main character; the entire game revolves around him so this one isn’t applicable)
  5. They are well-developed within the confines of the role they are written to play 
  6. They don’t toss away every traditionally feminine trait in an attempt to be a strong, independent womyn

***Spoilers Abound***

Aerith

Young woman with dark hair holding a yellow flower. Idk it's Aerith from Final Fantasy Fifteen is that helps.

  • wields a staff
  • uses magic
  • excitedly hit one of Don Corneo’s men with a chair
  • grew up imprisoned in the Shinra building, but isn’t bitter to everyone around her because of it
  • was being chased by cloaked demons and Shinra, yet was pretty chill about the whole ordeal (still picking flowers and whatnot)
  • saves Marlene
  • wasn’t mad about Cloud crushing her flowers
  • relentlessly flirts with Cloud from the moment they meet until the game’s end, yet tells him not to fall in love with her
  • is a genuinely nice person
  • can fight in that long dress without tripping
  • the last Ancient
  • basically an energizer bunny. Her really not giving a single flip going into that ghost warehouse was the sort of energy we all need to sustain in 2021.

Aerith doesn’t take anything too seriously and she’s also not socially awkward, which makes her a nice contrast to the moodier, socially awkward Cloud. She provides a nice breath of comic relief, but also has more serious moments (such as the garden scene where she talks about living in the moment……..). She’s also like incredibly chill and friendly for someone who’s being hunted by almost everyone on the planet.

Aerith Rating: 9/10

Tifa

A young woman with long, dark hair leaning her elbows on a bar table.

  • is objectively the strongest on the team
  • fine af
  • basically a mother, always concerned, always trying to help out even to the detriment of literally everyone involved
  • fights in several incredibly impractical outfits without flashing anyone
  • doesn’t like ghosts
  • obviously likes Cloud yet is pretty low-key about it

Tifa is like the cool, chic version of Aerith (minus when it comes to ghosts) except Tifa is f i n e super athletic. Literally everyone loves Tifa‘s body. 

Also, Tifa not recognizing Cloud, who she’s known since a child, in a dress will forever be the highlight of my life. 

Tifa Rating: 8/10

Jessie

Young woman with brown hair wearing a red headband and holding a grenade.

  • created the bombs that blow up the Mako reactors
  • created bombs in general
  • openly and aggressively flirted with Cloud
  • was part of Avalanche, trying to liberate the world from Shinra
  • survived for a really long time on top of that plate before dying
  • was nice to jerk Cloud
  • was bold af, inviting Cloud to her room the  literal moment an opportunity presents itself
  • wore practical clothing
  • had some great, funny lines
  • basically Aerith but somehow more chipper and direct

Basically, these Aerith, Tifa, and Jessis are the same person with different clothes. Anyway, Jessie is also very awesome and is the best girl.

Sadly, she never got Cloud that pizza. Alas, we hardly knew ye before ye perished during the collapse of Sector’s 7’s plate though.

Jessie Rating: 9.5/10

Marlene

A cute kid; also Barret’s daughter except she looks nothing like Barret.  If not for her, Aerith probably would’ve made a clean escape from Sector 7…

Marlene Rating: 5.3/10

Elmyra (Aerith’s Mom)

  • A true ride or die. Waited for her man all the years despite not knowing if he would return or not (he didn’t).
  • Took in Aerith as a child.
  • Didn’t want Aerith hanging around Cloud.
  • Queen.

Elmyra Rating: 6.5/10

Aerith’s Biological Mom

  • Dies before the game even begins.
  • Has a name, but I don’t remember it, which is telling.

Aerith’s Biological Mom Rating: 2/10

Betty

A child with her hair in a bun not impressed with your song choices. She has brown hair and is wearing a white shirt overtop a blue collared shirt.

  • Basically Marlene with a bun.
  • She likes to bust a move though and was not feeling 90% of the song choices you picked in her side quest.
  • She also makes you find her cats.

Betty Rating: 7/10

Marle

Old woman with gray hair staring at the camera or something. She's wearing a blue and gold beaded necklace

  • A landlord before Sector 7 perishes.
  • straight up threatens Cloud not to mess with Tifa.
  • sympathetic towards Avalanche and I guess lets Cloud live rent-free or something in her apartments.

She seems to view Tifa as her granddaughter. Queen.

Marle Rating: 7/10

The Woman in Sector 5 Who Sells You Items

Couldn’t find a picture but this women has an attitude for legit no reason when you go to buy items from her, more so than other shopkeepers. This is similar to Cloud at the game’s beginning, who is also a jerk for no reason. 

The Woman in Sector 5 Who Sells You Items Rating:10/10

Scarlet

Women in a red dress sitting down and using a soldier as a footstool. Not as wild as it sounds.

  • uses a Shinra soldier as a footstool/makes him follow her around like a dog
  • gets off to Materia or something
  • peaced out when the Materia went haywire, dooming the scientists to their deaths
  • is rich
  • has a typical, evil mad woman type of laugh

Red is the color of evil women. Not only is Scarlet’s name basically red, but she’s wearing all red and showing lots of cleavage – the universal signs for an evil woman in a video game/anime/manga.  Anyway, Scarlet is a queen.

Scarlet Rating: 8/10

Jenova Dreamweaver Critter

Idk a skull with teeth horns amidst a starry background.

Whatever you fight at the end with tentacles pre-Sephiroth. Not as hard as fighting Sephiroth but still it was a long battle.

Jenova  Dreamweaver Critter Rating: 7.5/10

Cloud In A Dress

  • (Tifa doesn’t recognize Cloud)
  • (Chadley doesn’t recognize Cloud)
  • (Literally no one recognizes him despite Cloud making zero effort to hide his voice)
  • Makes Aerith way too excited
  • Gets picked by Don Corneo
  • Is preceded by busting a move with Andrea at the Honeybee Inn

Cloud In Dress Rating: Sephiroth’s Final  Attack That Kills Your Party If It Reaches Ten/10

Probably missed some female characters, but oh well.

If you’re extra bored (like I clearly am), I also rated the female characters in Parasyte – the maxim, Berserk and Lookism.

Rating the Male Characters in Horizon Zero Dawn

*Spoilers*

Usually, I rate females but in HZD there are a lot of solid female characters, thus rating them seemed pointless.

All ratings are based 100% on my own opinions, which are largely irrelevant.

My criteria (for women) essentially are:

  1. Their removal would affect the plot game
  2. They undergo some change/character development, good or bad
  3. We see different sides of their personality/can understand their motivations/background  
  4. They have a plot of their own that doesn’t revolve entirely around a male character. OR
  5. They are well-developed within the confines of the role they are written to play 
  6. They don’t toss away every traditionally feminine trait in an attempt to be a strong, independent womyn – masculine trait in an attempt to be an uber woke, social justice king

Rost

  • raised Aloy to be straight gangster
  • was an outcast but didn’t seem to hold any ill-will towards the whacko Nora tribe for not allowing him back after he did them all a favor, and he literally died saving Aloy.

Furthermore, the reason he was an outcast is because he became a Death-seeker to avenge his family, then came back and no one could say ish to him because he’d done them solid. Rost also taught Aloy an invaluable lesson: that her strength only has worth if it’s used to help others and she should fight for something greater than herself.

A real one.

Rost’s Rating: 9.5/10

Sylens:

Sylens is high key a jerk and notably absent from the final battle instead choosing to wander around the desert.

But:

  • he does help you save all of humanity with his pursuit of knowledge
  • he saves you from having to fight those Corruptors after using literally all your resources beating that Behemoth.
  • he gets you the spear with the Master Override
  • it’s incredible how sure he was that Aloy would accomplish every task he sent her to do.

Sylens does tone his energy down to low key jerk levels after a bit. Furthermore, he teaches Aloy the lesson Rost was trying to teach her, which is that she needs to fight for someone besides herself. Only time will tell how badly he mucked things up now that he’s taken Hades hostage in his lantern.

Also, Sylens telling Aloy she has two mothers: a dead woman and a machine will live rent-free in my head for a long time.

Sylens Rating: 10/10

Erend

You meet him when you go looking for his sister who RIP not long after you find her. Rather than be bitter and go back to drinking, Erend pulls his pants up, takes lead of the guard, and is generally helpful from there on out.

Erend is pretty jovial and good-natured. He’s there at the final battle, somehow surviving against all odds and helps you bring down the final Deathbringer.

Erend’s Rating: 9/10

Teb

You save Teb as a child, then he grows up to be one of the few folks who are nice to you before the Proving. Although Teb is generally useless in that he gets injured and can’t really fight, he’s still there in the final battle doing medical stuff and pulls Aloy out of the rubble.

Good to know someone was still hoping she was alive and looking for her.

Teb’s Rating: 8.5/10

Vantage Point Dude

Can’t recall his name, don’t feel like looking it up. Anyway, this man did exactly what I would’ve done in this situation, which is road trip before the robots ate me.

Of all the bits from the past you stumble upon, this guy’s story is the saddest because you really saw his life and love for his mother. His dad died, then his mom married some dude named Wyatt who worked for the very corporation his dad died trying to protect because they were broke. Poor vantage point dude got addicted to drugs, then stuck on a failed vantage point project, and found out the world was ending. Rather than wallow in despair, he decided to use the vantage points to tell his story and enjoy one last tour of his fav spots.

Ultimately, he told a tale about how pointless all our achievements are in the grand scheme of things, yet still somehow life still has meaning in the individual relationships we build with one another.

Screw Ted Faro. Long live Vantage Point Dude.

Vantage Point Dude’s Rating: 10/10

Sun-King Avad…14th

Avad always seemed shocked over whatever was going on around him. However, we all know he’s straight thug as he:

  • ended the Red Raids
  • overthrew his own father, Jiran, then murdered him because he was tired of his violent clownery
  • was also nice to that fake child sun king trying to usurp him
  • welcomes Aloy with open arms. A little too open but he does apologize later on. He gets a pass as his love interest and battle buddy, Ersa, died.

Avad also outlawed slavery, removed whatever restrictions the Hunters lodges had on women/ the non-Carja, and made an effort to make amends with the Nora tribes his father terrorized. All while maintaining peaceful relationships with the Oseram.

A true woke king.

Sun-King Avad…14th Rating: 9.7/10

Nil

  • Chaotic energy
  • Formerly imprisoned in Sun Stone
  • Sole goal in life is to kill, first bandits, then Aloy.

Nil got in the way whenever I took him along to the Bandit Camps, so I usually avoided talking to him altogether. If you don’t fight him, he “helps” you in the final battle.

Nil’s Rating: 7.7/10

Zaid

Trash. Not only lies to you about his involvement in the Red Raids, but then tries to ambush you with a pittance of soldiers in a shady, desert town.

Zaid Rating 6.5/10

Olin

Initially comes off as a friend with a Focus, then you later find out he’s inadvertently responsible for Rost’s death. Olin’s redeeming factor though is he’s fully aware he’s trash, but he did it for the sake of his family.

If you don’t kill him, Olin “helps” you in the final battle, which is nice I guess. Furthermore, had Rost not died, Aloy probs wouldn’t have been looking for clues about her mother and everything else as intensely as she was.

You also get to sleep in his house.

Olin’s Rating: 8.7/10

Dervahl

Everybody trash talks Dervahl in Meridian.

Anyway, he went loco after his wife and kid died. For whatever reason, Avad decides not to kill him even though he killed Ersa which is definitely not gonna bite him in the butt later.

Dervahl’s Rating: 7/10

Various Carja Soldiers/Nora Hunters

Once saw a group of Carja Soldiers take down a Snapmaw, which was shocking given I’d seen them die fighting Watchers before..

Various Carja Solider/Nora Hunters Rating: Helis Knocking Aloy Out/10

Helis

Deluded, knight templar wholly devoted to his cause because he genuinely thought he was the chosen one doing the Sun’s will (to be fair, his name is Helis which is similar to Helios (sun god) and Heli (to ascend) so it’s hard to blame him for feeling special).

Because of him you get dumped in the Sun Ring to fight your first Behemoth (unless you accidentally run into one while exploring like I did and get merked). He also kills Rost and if Rost hadn’t been killed, Aloy wouldn’t have given a flip about the rest of the world.

Helis Rating: 9.2/10

Hades

I thought you were like gonna fight one of the metal devil looking things with tentacles for the final battle. You just fight a Deathbringer on a time crunch, which like… I had more trouble fighting Stormbirds and Rock-breakers.

Anyway, you stick Hades with the spear. Someone activated his kill-switch. Sylens absorbs him into his holy lantern. Hades really is just following it’s programming though, so it’s hard to be mad. Ted Faro sucks.

Hades Rating: 6.5/10

Apollo

Ted Faro still sucks.

Apollo Rating: Ted Faro Sucks/10

Varl

  • chief Sona’s son
  • generally affable when you meet him
  • generally useful when going into the metal ring place

You initially help him find Sona who’s on a roaring rampage of revenge, whereupon he convinces Sona to balk the Nora’s dumb traditions and throw hands outside the sacred lands.

After Aloy tells everyone to shut the flip up and stop worshipping her following the blessing of All Mother Gaia, he asks how he can help save the world.

Varl Rating: 8.5/10

Grist

Sold you stuff while you were an outcast. A real one.

Grist Rating: 10/10

Bast

  • Threw a rock at you as a child.
  • Grows up to be a jerk by (knocking your Grazer thing out of your hand, being generally petty).
  • Dies at the Proving.

Bast Rating: 7.5/10

Bahavas

Deluded, but in his defense he probably genuinely thought he was doing the Sun’s will and Hades was a god. And because of Trash Faro, he didn’t have the knowledge of knowing Hades was literally a robot with a suspiciously demonic sounding voice.

Also, his outfit is fabulous.

Bahavas Rating: Stormbird/10

Ted Faro (Sucks)

Not only does he for whatever reason think creating something called a Deathbringer would be a good idea, he makes his critters un-hackable with codes that would take eternity to break. When they begin getting out of control, his first thought isn’t “oh snap, I created robots that live off biomass who are replicating and basically sentient and they might wipe out humanity!!!” it’s “good golly gee, how can I cover this up so it doesn’t point back to me!” Had I been Elisabeth Sobeck, I would’ve killed him on sight and robbed 80,000 banks to fund HZD instead.

Ted Faro destroyed Apollo and killed his coworkers, thus dooming humanity to live in tribal stupidity. Because of his actions, the world was nearly fated to go extinct again because they didn’t know what the flip was going on with the robots or where they even came from.

Faro is a great villain, because he’s literally what the not-CEO of Amazon Jeff Bezos will do once he inevitably gets into military weapons like he’s doing with pharmaceuticals and creates killer robots with the help of Elon Musk to what a person would do in real life if this happened. I want Ted Faro to somehow be alive so I can shoot an arrow through his eyeball in HZD2.

However, without him the game would not exist.

Ted Faro Rating: A Corrupted Thunderjaw/10

No doubt, I’m missing some peeps (salty dude at the Hunter’s lodge, salty Nora dude on the wall, past characters from the Metal World) but this is getting long…

Everything Wrong With Final Fantasy XV

I’m like half a decade behind or something but whatever.

**Spoilers**

A pic of Noctis from FFXV. He has black hair or whatever, is wearing all black, and is naturally in front of an all black screen

The Train Scene

The train scene highlighted essentially everything wrong with FFXV: swaths of information that’s important to understanding what’s going on being left out or skipped over for unknown reasons.

Luna has just died. Except apparently it’s been days (weeks?) in game and Noctis is depressed about it (or something, we don’t actually see anything). Gladio gets mad and tells him to man the flip up, but like why?

Ignis is blind, Noctis got the burden of the ring now, he went through that trial, and his love died. This all happened like 5 minutes ago for me,  give my homie a break. But maybe if we’d actually witnessed Noctis acting like a whiny brat for a week and refusing to do his kingly duties while learning the world is rapidly descending into dark, daemonic chaos, Gladio’s anger might have made sense. 

Anyway, Gladio made me mad and to be petty, I refused to slow down for blind Ignis while in that underground mine.

Chapter 13

For like 20 minutes, chapter 13 was okay. Ardyn quite literally takes everything from Noctis, even his weapons. It was an interesting break in gameplay too with the stealth bits and whatnot.

But then like an hour passes and like you’re still in this dungeon (I also didn’t fully understand how to use anything except Death, so I was just running around trying to find an exit and merking daemons with the ring). Eventually, you get your sword but like you’re still in this dungeon. It’s been like 2 hours. And in case you forgot, you’re still in the dungeon. And you’re not doing anything except killing spawns of daemons.

Then, you’re forced to waltz into an obvious trap. Like Ardyn legit says, “it’s a trap lolz”, but apparently being the savior of the king of kings doesn’t give you common sense. You do get reunited with your squad, but like you’re still in the dungeon.  And you get disunited .01 seconds later for a decade.

That dungeon should’ve been like 30 minutes tops. Or interesting. Getting the ring of Lucii right off the bat minimizes the impact of losing everything – you lose it all but gain god-tier insta kill abilities a minute later. Ok.

However, having to run around totally powerless for a bit would’ve made the dungeon stressful, but more interesting. Also, why weren’t there any riddles or something Ardyn makes you figure out while you’re wandering around? Why weren’t all your homies captured and you have to rescue them one by one on a time crunch? Why can’t you find your weapons one by one via some puzzles? There were a lot of ways to make chapter 13 long but not miserable and none of them were taken.

Also, them getting separated because of the train is stupid. Literally could’ve just had them all captured and then Ardyn frees Noctis because he’s an immortal troll.

Underutilized characters

How many times do we see Dog tag Dave on screen?

Contrast that to how many times we see Aranea? Iris? The Emperor?  Ravus?? Luna???

Ravus, Noctis’ almost wife’s brother (and that’s all we learn about him), legitimately dies off-screen after all that false hype. Like you see him briefly alive and the next time he’s onscreen, he’s a dead daemon. And we never learn anything about why he was working with Ardyn/the empire. His death wasn’t even impactful like he could’ve legit been some random daemon you fight and it would’ve made zero difference.

Luna perishes before anyone has a chance to care about her, including Gladio, Prompto, and Ignis as Gladio clearly was unbothered.

We don’t know why Luna was so in love with Noctis. We don’t know why she didn’t just pick up the phone and call him if she wanted to hear his voice (??). We know almost nothing about her until she’s killed by Ardyn and we learn she was dying anyway.

Ravus could’ve just been nixed from the entire game based on his level of irrelevancy, but Luna should’ve stayed alive long enough to perish however she was going to die naturally and told Noctis about her inevitable demise. So then we get this whole Noctis is fated to save the world but can’t save the person he grows to love most plot, which is cliché but at least it would’ve made him moping over someone he barely talked to logical.

Chapter 10 could’ve been them getting to know each other (she temporarily joins the Squad to take care of Ignis or whatever), Noctis learns she’s going to die, they encounter some level 34823248390 monster Luna has to sacrifice the last of her life force to kill, she dies, and then Gladio gets mad the second time they’re on the train after Noctis has his BSOD moment and decides he ain’t gonna be king no more.

Ardyn

He ultimately achieved his goal (aside from ending the world, I suppose). Luna was dying anyway. Bye. But what did he do for 10 years while Noctis was talking to Bahamut? Sit moodily on the throne whilst fantasizing about revenge?

A single cut-scene of like Ardyn sleeping for 10 years, gaining dark energy or whatever, could’ve easily resolved this even if it was nonsense.

Ifrit

Literally why was that fight in the prologue. Luna, Ravus, even Umbra deserved that screen time.

Everything Emotional

Every emotional part of the story was grazed over. I know it’s a game but again why do we learn so much about Frog Lady, yet Noctis can’t have two minutes of woe?

Noctis’ dad died? Sorry, you can only be mad for 15 seconds, Noctis, and then literally never think about your father again.

Fiancée stabbed before your very eyes? Oh well, man up.

BFF Prompto reveals he’s a demon robot? Relevant for about 2 minutes and never brought up again.

The most emotional part of the game came after it ended (well… scrolling through all those pictures and having to pick one was pretty sad…), via that glorious camp scene and I lowkey wish that scene had come before Noctis tells his homies to stand tall, because I legitimately would’ve wept for the remainder of the game. Instead, I only wept for eight seconds because the scene ends and then more credits start rolling. Granted, it would’ve been a spoiler but like at that point didn’t we already know Noctis was going to die?

Anyway, I could probably think of more things to gripe about but overall I enjoyed FFXV, and was satisfied Noctis actually died and there wasn’t some lame cop-out or revival at the end. However, I also love a good story and I’m generally confused as to how over the course of however long it took to make this game someone couldn’t have found a way to resolve some of these issues naturally.

Open world concept but you lose your car. -1
A plethora of plot holes and focus on irrelevant characters. -1

FFXV Rating: 8/10