Male or Female Heroes?

[Locke4God]

This is a multi-faceted question.

First, who do we like more. The Terra, Ashe, Yuna, Garnett hero, or the Cloud, Tidus, Zidane, Cecil hero?

Second, I'd like to note how the female leads have typically remained very similar. Most are white mages, or at least mages of some sort, and most are fairly strong women who bear great burdens. That descrpition fits all 4 of the women above and others too. The men however have changed greatly. Cecil, Cloud, & Squall were all very much warries, but later on, Vaan & Tidus weren't the pure fighters than the earlier leads were. Zidane & Locke kind of fit a medium between those two molds as thieves. What do we think about that, and what do we prefer?

[Superjord]

Interesting but on that note for some of the heroes the heroin helps toward making them what they are or what they become because of their support or the hero just wanting to get some zidane+garnet, tidus+yuna hehe.

I find it hard to pick a better between the males and females because they compliment each other so much!

Bit of a fail post to this thread really but hey

[Zidane77]

I like heros like:

girls:
-Terra
-Yuna
-Lightning
-Garnet
-Freya
-Beatrix

guys:
-Locke
-Cloud
-Zack
-Zidane
-Steiner (question his motives but his loyalty is what counts)
-Squall
-Cecil

and also Palom and Porom, what they did was so unselfish, like a real hero would do.
Don't like most of the new types, dont seem interesting but few of them are..

[Kai The Red Mage]

i personally like Cecil from FF4 the best without question.

[Yoko]

I'll give you my short list:

Male:
Squall
Cloud
ZACK
Balthier
And you have to admit, Auron was pretty badass. You should be ashamed that he isn't on any of your lists. (sorry, that's very opinion based...You're entitled to your own opinion)

Female:
Yuna
Lightning
Ashe

And the villains that I saw as good leaders (I know the title says hero, but hear me out) are:
Seifer
Sephiroth
Seymour

The heroes wouldn't really be heroes without the villains. Oddly, they all start with 's'. Tidus wouldn't BE a hero without Seymour. That's my opinion though.

[Xithor]

I know that females typically are given the role of different types of mages but I tend to like the stronger woman more and most of them aren't mages although there are a few. Here is my woman list:
- Tifa
- Garnet
- Yuna
- Lightning
- Fang

For the male characters I like a wide spectrum of types and they vary from the strong warrior, the sly thief, and the mages. Here are the males:
- Zidane
- Cloud
- Vincent
- Squall
- Auron
- Vivi
- Red XIII

[IdiotWithHair]

And you have to admit, Auron was pretty badass. You should be ashamed that he isn't on any of your lists. (sorry, that's very opinion based...You're entitled to your own opinion)

No, no, that's a FACT. You did right.

My favorites are the grizzled old vets, like Auron, Basche, Cid Highwind... those are really the only two grizzled old vets, aren't they? At least in the games that MATTER (post-16 bit era). Actually, seems like there should've been some in Tactics, but I'm drawing a blank.TG Cid?

[Illusion]

I personally would like to see more female lead characters, but so far none of the ones I have seen have been the kind of character I would like to see as the lead of an FF game. The male characters seem to simplistic to me.

[Cecil Harvey]

i personally like Cecil from FF4 the best without question.

Me too

Cecil is my favourite with Zidane coming second. As for female's the only female Final Fantasy character that I like is Lightning. She is the coolest female character out of any Final Fantasy game in my opinion.

[Cait Sith]

Depends on the character actually.
I like Cloud but not Lightning. She just seems far too cold whereas Cloud has his warm moments.
I like Terra, as she was different from the hero mold.
I think that it really revolves around the character's personality and interactions...
But overall, I refer males. Which is saying something as I am a female.

[Judge Magistrate]

I'm not biased for either or. I like to have a variety to work with, but I do like Lightning, Cloud, and Zack. Out of all the FF characters those three are my favorites, I don't know why, they just are.

[Linus Li Lelouch]

I would disagree (not totally) with the post about them complimenting each other.

Zidane was pure awesomesauceness with or without Garnet or Dagger or whatever the hell she calls herself.

Squall was badass with or without Rinoa.

Vaan and Ashe on the other hand, Vaan would do or say something a little crazy then next thing you know Ashe would put her foot in his ass. Ashe was a much needed character to keep Vaan's annoying ass in check.

Tidus and Yuna (in my opinion) are the best characters that compliment each other ever. Tidus was cool before Yuna was introduced, and got even cooler once they met and the story started to evolve around them.

Cloud and Tifa or Aerith or whoever (I don't care) was just weird and hard to understand.

As far as that great burden thing goes (pfft), throw that away, Ashe did have a great burden, but that wasn't what made her excellent, it was her.

Yuna also had a great burden but hell we didn't know about that until halfway into the game.

As far as your question goes, I'd prefer the Terra, Yuna, and Ashe, over the Locke, Tidus, and Vaan hero group. Let's face it, the Ladies owned in these games, another exception would be Zidane over Garnet, he made FFIX (my opinion).

If you are wondering what happened to the other FF games, well I didn't have a problem with the characters so they escaped from my review unscathed.

Now let's get into FFXIII.... *sigh* Lightning was.....screw her, Fang was the shit though, Lightning is the meaning of permanent PMS.

[Cait Sith]

I would disagree (not totally) with the post about them complimenting each other.

Zidane was pure awesomesauceness with or without Garnet or Dagger or whatever the hell she calls herself.

Squall was badass with or without Rinoa.

Vaan and Ashe on the other hand, Vaan would do or say something a little crazy then next thing you know Ashe would put her foot in his ass. Ashe was a much needed character to keep Vaan's annoying ass in check.

You sir, just made my day with that. XD
I think they are amazing on their own but their differences highlight qualities in the other character... Square has a habit of doing things like that.
And trios I noticed.

[Cloud Strife]

Order of preference, both Male and Female.

1. Lightning
2. Cloud
3. Zidane
4. Tidus
5. Terra

Though, I do agree with the point that the core Male and Female characters in each game do compliment each other. At least, they do for story line purposes anyway.

[joleine taylor]

Hey my list of heroes is
Males
1. Cloud
2. cid
3. Red XIII (I call him Nanaki)
4. Squall
5. Zell
6. Zidane
7. Tidus
8. Auron
9. Vaan

Now for females.
1. Tifa
2. Garnet/Dagger
3. Yuna
4. Ashe
5. Lightning
6. Fang
and there you are that is my list of males and females heroes.

[Cereal~Killer]

Generally, I think I prefer male heroes. But it's really hard to choose, to be honest.

My top three favorite male lead heroes of the series, in order, would probably be:

1) Cloud (He was strong. He had a cool look and nice weapons and abilities)
2) Zidane (A fun character. A light-hearted guy who just likes to enjoy the joys in life)
3) Cecil (Maybe he didn't have quite as much personality as the later heroes of the series, but he still had a cool look, especially as the dark knight, strong and really useful)

Females:

1) Terra (A strong woman, she is. I liked her look and her character backstory. And she's half esper, which was pretty cool.)

2) Garnet (I said this somewhere else, but she's just a down-to-earth nice and loveable person. I also liked her character progression throughout the story, going from a young, naive princess who barely ever stepped foot outside of her home town to a strong, smart independent woman, and eventually becoming queen and ruler of her home town)

3) Aeris (A sweet, innocent girl. You (most people anyway) were just gutted when she died. She goes in third place, though, since she was only with you for about half the game.)

If I combined those to do a complete top three, it'd probably go:

1) Terra
2) Cloud
3) Garnet

I guess going by that, it seems I prefer female leads...hmm...well, I guess so, then.

[Firefly]

I love having male leaders in FF,but I would also like to see some more female leads :] Anyways here's my list(some of this aren't exactly leaders):

Females:
1.Rinoa
2.Yuna
3.Terra
4.Ashe
5.Lightning
6.Dagger/Garnet

Males:
1.Zidane
2.Tidus
3.Squall
4.Balthier
5.Hope
6.Cecil

[Musashiden]

Male protagonists in FF tend to be whiny and/or self-absorbed pussies, so I don't generally favor them. I'll go with the ass-kicking name-taking female protagonists like Tifa, Fang, and Lightning. The exceptions to that for me are two of the Cids. FFIV's Cid and FFVII's Cid. FFIV's Cid is bone-headed, but despite his donkey-like nature, the party wouldn't have gotten anywhere without him. As for FFVII's Cid, SIT DOWN AND DRINK YOUR GODDAMN TEA. That is all I have to say about that.

[Hero without a Name]

I like both the male and female heroes a lot of them balance each other out. For example Zidane is awesome but he wouldn't of been as awesome if it wasn't for Garnet and I personally think although Tidus said this is his story, without Yuna guiding him along, he's lot in the tides.

That being said, these are my favorite FF heroes

Males:
FFIV: Cecil, Yang
FFVI: Sabin, Sezter, Edgar
FFVII: Every male character
FFVIII: Squall
FFIX: Zidane
FFX: Auron (cause he's like a batman but with a bigger sword!)

Females
FFIV: Rydia
FFVI: Terra, Celes
FFVII: Tifa (not just because she has large...ahem)
FFX: Yuna, Lulu
FFXIII: Lightning

All of these characters not only were powerful on the battlefield, I just liked their story and I felt they brought the hero mentality to the table more than anyone. IMO anyway

[The_Dream_Recluse]

This is a multi-faceted question.

First, who do we like more. The Terra, Ashe, Yuna, Garnett hero, or the Cloud, Tidus, Zidane, Cecil hero?

Personally, i've always preferred the male leads in Final Fantasy games - not that i have anything against the females, but i tend to connect more with the males (obviously since i'm a guy). Plus, in most regards, having spent so long playing with said characters, they almost become a part of you in a way. Like, you WANT to see them achieve their goals, because they have become real in your eyes, like a friend or sibling or even a pixelated extension of yourself.

Second, I'd like to note how the female leads have typically remained very similar. Most are white mages, or at least mages of some sort, and most are fairly strong women who bear great burdens. That descrpition fits all 4 of the women above and others too. The men however have changed greatly. Cecil, Cloud, & Squall were all very much warries, but later on, Vaan & Tidus weren't the pure fighters than the earlier leads were. Zidane & Locke kind of fit a medium between those two molds as thieves. What do we think about that, and what do we prefer?

I'm not really sure with this part of the question as i think the female leads are just as adept as the men. Maybe it has to do with the stereotype of men being physically stronger than women? Lightning is an obvious exception to this rule, and i think it would be good to have more physically oriented female leads in future titles.