One of the best things about Final Fantasy heroines is that, generally speaking, they’ve tended to be strong females and haven’t really relied on fan service. Until now, that is.
At a recent Q&A session with Lighting Returns: Final Fantasy XIII‘s developers, the following question was asked: “Is it true that Lightning went from a C cup to a D cup?” This was actually first revealed during an E3 live stream with the game’s developers.
(Note: Japanese bra sizes run slightly different from American ones, but are supposedly the same as European measurements.)
Nobuhiro Goto, one of the game’s designers, replied, “Toriyama said, ‘I want to make them bigger…’” To which Motomu Toriyama, Lightning Returns‘ director, said with a chuckle, “Don’t pass the buck!” (Goto also told Dengeki Online that the decision to change the character’s breast size was “an order from Toriyama.”)
With a laugh, Goto replied, “Yes, they’re bigger.”
A follow-up question was asked: Will the character’s breasts, um, jiggle?
Toriyama replied that how much her chest moves depends on what she wears. There appear to be numerous outfits for players to dress Lightning in. Japanese game site Dengeki Online even provided recommendations on how players can best see the Lightning Returns jiggle.
Stuff like this is expected in games like Dead or Alive, but it seems out of place for Final Fantasy, no? Lots of Final Fantasy fans in Japan seem to think this addition was either “creepy” or heralds “the end of interesting Final Fantasy games.” One Japanese net user even wondered, “Is it appropriate to call a game like this Final Fantasy?”
In this same Q&A, it was revealed that Toriyama told the team to “defeat Skyrim.” You’ll need more than fancy logos and bigger boobs to do that.
『ライトニング リターンズ ファイナルファンタジーXIII』×プレコミュ プレミアム体験会で新情報が公開 [Famitsu via 2ch]
ライトニングの胸は“Dカップで揺れる”ことも確定! [Dengeki Online via ■■速報@保管庫(Shift)■■]
To contact the author of this post, write to bashcraftATkotaku.com or find him on Twitter @Brian_Ashcraft.
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Comments
30 responses to “For Some Reason, Lightning Returns Has Boob Jiggling”
This saddens me.
Hey, how about that. This title belongs a bashcraft article.
I don’t know why everyone’s reporting on polygon breasts when they also stated the more noteworthy fact that their open world scale will “beat Skyrim”. While Skyrim wasn’t the largest open world game in history, it makes for more interesting news than this.
Tits for the clicks my friend
They’ve got to do something to get people to buy FF13 games.
Who needs strong female characters when you can have Jiggle Physics.
One does not automatically preclude the other. A maturity level in line with that of a gibbering 13yo school boy experiencing exposed flesh for the first time however can make it difficult to take the person it is attached to seriously (punctuation casts vanish, it’s super effective). Granted, it “hasn’t” been done, but that doesn’t mean it “can’t” be done.
Actually Lara Croft is a pretty strong female character now that I think about it and her breasts……..well. But then again they dont have you playing dressup with her nor having pictures like the one at the top of the page either. On an unrelated note It’s hilarious that Toriyama apparently told the team to beat Skyrim.
Actually the early Tomb Raiders had a lot of promo materials in which Lara wears evening dresses, swimsuits etc. However in context this was one of the first games to actually feature female kickass characters and so she was like a pinup girl for magazine spreads too. Note also that none of these outfits never went near the game design table, unlike this Lightning one 🙁
Boobs should jiggle, laws of physics
It’s honestly among the most worrying things to be seeing Square doing.
Japanese publishers have a really big issue with anything that could be seen as a risk, they can’t trust games to sell on their own so there needs to be some form of blatant pandering to guarantee sales. Previously Square had seemed to be one of the few who was both making big money and above that trend, but I guess that’s changing and they gotta cash-in on them DLC jiggles and skimpy costumes.
This is the sort of thing I’d expect from smaller Japanese developers who make niche games like GUST.
Can someone please fire Toriyama? The franchise has been dying since he took over. He just wants to write porn.
im trying really hard, but i fail to see the problem here
Speaking to strangers: Ugghhh…Typical sexist drivel that makes us all look bad. Female characters will never be taken seriously until they stop this nonsense.
Speaking to the missus: Honey, i have a great idea for your next cosplay!
no shit they are gonna be jiggling in a fan service costume like that, once again the media has blown it out of proportion and most people are eating it up as usual.
Yes!!!!!!!
I’m confused, it seems the only real addition is the upgrade in size. Let’s do a checklist
Physics that do include the breast moving (instead of being solid stone): Check, it’s been around for a while in FF Games.
Dressing Characters up in Costumes: Check, in fact it’s been around in a few FF games
Slightly bigger breasts: No idea, I don’t go around comparing the breast size of characters
Guys, it’s just an extra size. Will it demean the character? No. Will the extra size make her less of a female character? Only if you’re a juvenile sexist teenage boy who can’t see past breasts. Does it mean that Square might have used it to cover up for a lack of personality? Possibly, but have you played the game yet? Can you tell me this is true, instead of pulling it out of your ass
Look, I get it, every author or editor has slow news days where they still have to pump out articles, but come on, have some journalistic integrity
If the author followed the official FFXIV blog, he’d have a fair bit to report on.
For example: Lightning confirmed to temporarily appear in FFXIV:ARR. I’m sure that could have turned a few heads.
See, that might be interesting
All he needs to do is… a little copy and paste here and there and… done: http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/blog/post/455
I should get paid for all this hard work 😛
And yet they’re still smaller than Tifa’s (and Lightning is surprisingly still wearing more in the Miqo’te outfit than Tifa’s regular garb in FFVII).
Well that’s disappointing. One of the things that really impressed me about FF13 was that it featured such a strong woman as its protagonist, but now they’ve turned her into the typical sexist symbol you see in most games (particularly those coming out of Japan). I guess we should have known this was coming, after that shots of her in that stupid miniskirt came out, and it is Japan. My interest in this game is now at zero.
“Oh no. A strong female character is wearing a completely optional outfit that just so happens to be a skit (which is what all female Miqo’te from FFXIV start of in). Now the game is ruined… even though Tifa from FFVII wore less and had even bigger boobs and was still a strong female character herself.”
I do not care if I was rude.
And I don’t care that you’re a misogynist asshole who can’t see why this is an issue, so I guess we’re both good.
Jiggle physics added in? That’s fine. Boobs do move.
But to increase her bust size? Why? You go through all this trouble to create a very strong female character and yet now you decide to sexualise her?
“Oh no! A female character’s breasts jiggle, just like in real life! SAVE THE CHILDREN!”
I think we have all been playing games for so long that we forgot that boobs exist in real life, and they jiggle.
Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn both have jiggle physics, and they’re good games
^This. Physics is expected and realistic. If they design characters in a questionable way, that’s a different issue altogether. (See FFX-2. Which was mechanically a great game, but was let down by certain fan-service issues.)
On another note, FF XIV 2.0 is looking really good (been in the beta since Phase 2) and would be a more noteworthy news item. In fact the public beta should be starting soon enough, so I expect to see some positive articles relating to that.
If they even feel like talking about the game (if you read the SE E3 article from last month, the way it was written implied they didn’t care about FFXIV at all).
So this is how they plan on making the game “Better then skyrim”