“I just wish [Final Fantasy 12]’s main character weren’t this pretty boy shithead,” says Kirk on today’s big Q&A episode of Kotaku Splitscreen.
We start off the ep by talking Final Fantasy 12 (6:20), Grand Theft Auto 4 (20:12) and Red Dead Redemption (26:58) before opening up the mailbag (33:15) and answering your questions about weird JRPGs, video game release dates, and the future of Nintendo.
You can get the MP3 right here.
As always, you can find Splitscreen on Apple Podcasts and Google Play.
Comments
3 responses to “Podcast: Vaan Really Sucks”
Vaan is fine, as long as you just see him as a conduit for the player to get to know the world of Ivalice. He is the Tabula Rasa and isn’t meant to have his own story. The real story is that of Ashelia B’nargin Dalmasca, or Captain Baasch fon Ronsenburg, or Ex-Judge Ffamran the Leading man. Hell, even Penelo develops a friendship with Larsa. Focus on the stories that get told.
You are 100% correct that he is without story and is used as some device for player self-insertion.
And this is exactly why he’s such a shithouse character. That method of storytelling is bullshit for so many reasons, not the least of which is that it leaves a gaping hole in the web of relationships and stories for the player to have some kind of agency and empowerment, while also being a bland piece of nothing to such an extent that it stretches the limits of suspension of disbelief.
That inoffensively generic self-insertion crap is the reason so much anime sucks balls.
Pretty boy? Not at all what I would call him. Street rat is more like it.