While you have been playing the Final Fantasy XV demo this week, did you perhaps notice anything...unusual? Or perhaps, something that was missing that could speak to a large yet still underrepresented portion of the human race?
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Episode Duscae is the Emerson-esque tale of men getting back to nature, and where men go, women should dare not follow. Director Hajime Tabata, in an interview with Gamestop, kind of put foot in mouth when discussing the need for main character Noctis' dude crew:
"Speaking honestly, an all-male party feels almost more approachable for players. Even the presence of one female in the group will change their behavior, so that they'll act differently. So to give the most natural feeling, to make them feel sincere and honest, having them all the same gender made sense in that way."
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While we can't deny the sense of behavior modification a group of any single gender will undergo when interacting with the opposite sex, we can't help but think back to basically any of the other Final Fantasy games. Really, pretty much any of them. And yes, we level the same complaint towards X-2, but at least they were being honest about it.
Surprisingly, as we have all hopefully learned throughout the years, people act like people, regardless of what they're packing.
"The world might be ready to see the curtain lifted on what boys do when girls aren't around, when they come out of the tent all prim and proper. That's kind of the idea behind it... we think, male or female player, that everyone will feel a certain connection and bond with the four characters."
See! There's a girl. She's literally in a support position and dressed...absurdly, but there are girls.
From personal experience, I have been on many an outdoor excursion with talented and tough women and everyone's gotten along just fine. If you approach women not as objects or romantic companions - as if often the case - you would be amazed at how crass and 'boyish' they can be. Likewise, you can be amazed at how "prim and proper" boys can be when surrounded by women.
So make an all male-party or don't, but just don't hide behind some curtain of "masculine mystique". It's not like very nearly the entire spectrum of eastern and western literature and mythology is about that very subject.
