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FOAMGaP 14 Star Ocean character design tropes
6 months ago
So for whatever reason I’ve had Star Ocean and some of the random reoccurring character design tropes in the Star Ocean games, so why not take the opportunity of April Fools as a day to do weird/random/unhinged things (admittedly usually with the intent jokes and humor but whatever) to indulge in a little random rambling
Male leads with blue/blonde hair who wield a sword
So first the obvious one for anyone fairly familiar with the series and paying attention, but the male lead of each game is a swordsman with alternating blue (‘odd numbered’ entries) or blonde (‘even numbered’ entries) hair. Honestly I find it hard to say anything about this though, I mean sword wielding male leads in JRPGs (and even RPGs broadly for the most part) are so common a lead character not being a sword fighter of some flavor is all but unheard. Though the hair thing is a bit more specifically Star Ocean original but it feels less like an intentional design plan and more like a set of coincidences they just decided to lean into as the design of the male leads don’t have any real overlap beyond that with outside of a near exception of 2/3 blonde leads (Claud C. Kennny from 2 and Edge Maverick from 4) are humans and two of the blue haired leads (Roddick Farrence from 1 and Fidel Camuze from 5) are ‘aliens’ (Fellpool and Faykreedian respectively) but then Fayt Leingod from 3 is a blue haired human and Raymond Lawrence from 6 is an alien (Verguldian specifically) so even that’s not a thing… unless multiples of three swap the human/lien blonde/hair thing…
Blonde Female martial artist
So this is one of the most frequent design tropes the series has with examples from 3 games: Ilia Silvestri form 1, Mirage Koas from 3, and Elena from 6. There is even overlap with all three having long hair and are second commands of a space ship as well. Honestly given that this first showed up in the original game and the amount of story similarities among all three feels like this is intentional but I’m not sure to what end. There is also a near miss from 5 in Anne Patriceani who fits every detail of this save for having green hair. though given Anne is one of two humans in party of planet natives with the other human being her commander and potential love interest, a (cross)bow wielding member of the Kenny lineage, they might have realized they were less referencing and more copying the Ronyx+Ilia setup from one and rolled things back a bit
Female short range fighters with red hair
Would you believe me if I said this was the trope that got me thinking about all this? How about if I point out all three examples (Phia Melle from 1, Chisato Madison from 2, and Nel Zelpher from 3) have short hair while reminding you one of my oldest OCs is Amanda? I actually noticed this first while playing 6 as the side game (Es’owa) had pieces for all party members from prior games and I noticed all three of the them in my deck for a good portion of the mid game and realized all three of them were staples of my parties in their respective games, which given Nel is kind of the default option you have to actively avoid recruiting isn’t to notable but given the other two are harder to recruit (Phia requires passing up on two other party members going a long time with only two party members or waiting until late game when you likely already have a full party and Chistao is one of the last two recruitable characters again not being recruitable until after you likely have a full party). Make of this info what you will, but I do hope we see a return of this trope in a future game.
The long haired brooding male warrior
This feels a little like cheating I mean long haired brooding/edge warriors in anime and JRPGs are pretty common; However given there were three of these back to back (Dias Flak in 2, Albel Nox in 3, and Arumat P. Thantos in 4) and then abandoned the idea feels like there is something there. More so in that the idea didn’t come back. There is room to argue the late 90’s and 00’s edginess epidemic (2 came out in ‘98 3 in ’03 and 4 in ’09) that was waning going into the ‘10s (5 came out in ’16) but while that would fit American pop culture lens I’m not sure if Japanese pop culture saw a similar boom and bust of edginess around the same time frame.
Sexy and Scantily clad mage
Given Symbology (the in universe take on magic in the games) uses symbols which are commonly drawn on the user gives the ability to justify having fan servicey character designs for mages. That said the series hasn’t taken that route all that often with there being only 3 overt examples: Celine Jules from 2, Myuria Tionysus from 4, and Fiore Brunelli from 5. If you step outside the scope of generic anime fanservice definitions of sexy Adray Landsbard might qualify; being a buff and perpetually shirtless man in his 50’s I could see a term like DILF applying to them but I am the wrong person to judge or elaborate on that idea.
So yeah… didn’t really have a point to this but its been bouncing around my head for a few weeks and I figured why not
Male leads with blue/blonde hair who wield a sword
So first the obvious one for anyone fairly familiar with the series and paying attention, but the male lead of each game is a swordsman with alternating blue (‘odd numbered’ entries) or blonde (‘even numbered’ entries) hair. Honestly I find it hard to say anything about this though, I mean sword wielding male leads in JRPGs (and even RPGs broadly for the most part) are so common a lead character not being a sword fighter of some flavor is all but unheard. Though the hair thing is a bit more specifically Star Ocean original but it feels less like an intentional design plan and more like a set of coincidences they just decided to lean into as the design of the male leads don’t have any real overlap beyond that with outside of a near exception of 2/3 blonde leads (Claud C. Kennny from 2 and Edge Maverick from 4) are humans and two of the blue haired leads (Roddick Farrence from 1 and Fidel Camuze from 5) are ‘aliens’ (Fellpool and Faykreedian respectively) but then Fayt Leingod from 3 is a blue haired human and Raymond Lawrence from 6 is an alien (Verguldian specifically) so even that’s not a thing… unless multiples of three swap the human/lien blonde/hair thing…
Blonde Female martial artist
So this is one of the most frequent design tropes the series has with examples from 3 games: Ilia Silvestri form 1, Mirage Koas from 3, and Elena from 6. There is even overlap with all three having long hair and are second commands of a space ship as well. Honestly given that this first showed up in the original game and the amount of story similarities among all three feels like this is intentional but I’m not sure to what end. There is also a near miss from 5 in Anne Patriceani who fits every detail of this save for having green hair. though given Anne is one of two humans in party of planet natives with the other human being her commander and potential love interest, a (cross)bow wielding member of the Kenny lineage, they might have realized they were less referencing and more copying the Ronyx+Ilia setup from one and rolled things back a bit
Female short range fighters with red hair
Would you believe me if I said this was the trope that got me thinking about all this? How about if I point out all three examples (Phia Melle from 1, Chisato Madison from 2, and Nel Zelpher from 3) have short hair while reminding you one of my oldest OCs is Amanda? I actually noticed this first while playing 6 as the side game (Es’owa) had pieces for all party members from prior games and I noticed all three of the them in my deck for a good portion of the mid game and realized all three of them were staples of my parties in their respective games, which given Nel is kind of the default option you have to actively avoid recruiting isn’t to notable but given the other two are harder to recruit (Phia requires passing up on two other party members going a long time with only two party members or waiting until late game when you likely already have a full party and Chistao is one of the last two recruitable characters again not being recruitable until after you likely have a full party). Make of this info what you will, but I do hope we see a return of this trope in a future game.
The long haired brooding male warrior
This feels a little like cheating I mean long haired brooding/edge warriors in anime and JRPGs are pretty common; However given there were three of these back to back (Dias Flak in 2, Albel Nox in 3, and Arumat P. Thantos in 4) and then abandoned the idea feels like there is something there. More so in that the idea didn’t come back. There is room to argue the late 90’s and 00’s edginess epidemic (2 came out in ‘98 3 in ’03 and 4 in ’09) that was waning going into the ‘10s (5 came out in ’16) but while that would fit American pop culture lens I’m not sure if Japanese pop culture saw a similar boom and bust of edginess around the same time frame.
Sexy and Scantily clad mage
Given Symbology (the in universe take on magic in the games) uses symbols which are commonly drawn on the user gives the ability to justify having fan servicey character designs for mages. That said the series hasn’t taken that route all that often with there being only 3 overt examples: Celine Jules from 2, Myuria Tionysus from 4, and Fiore Brunelli from 5. If you step outside the scope of generic anime fanservice definitions of sexy Adray Landsbard might qualify; being a buff and perpetually shirtless man in his 50’s I could see a term like DILF applying to them but I am the wrong person to judge or elaborate on that idea.
So yeah… didn’t really have a point to this but its been bouncing around my head for a few weeks and I figured why not
