December 22nd, 2002

While many people were moaning about the wild and risqué designs of Yuna and Rikku for FFX-2, I was just waiting for Square to top themselves.

Well guess what? They just did.

Squallette?

Square has finally released all the design work for the new heroine in FFX-2, who goes by the name of, Paine. Go ahead and just call her Pain if you want, because her design will certainly be painful to quite a few FF fans.

Not your run of the mill dainty FF Girl...

Gender-bender characters are nothing new with FF titles - after all, who can forget about Faris in FFV or Kuja from FFIX? Paine seems to surpass them all though, since many people thought she was a guy in early images. She looks like an 80’s rock star with a spooky gothic style. Not only that, but she looks very similar to Squall in terms of hair color and their shared taste in dark clothing. Her eyes also seem to have a deep crimson color that looks quite menacing. Of course, she also has the large sword with a big skull on it - so she certainly doesn’t look like a pushover. It’s obvious that she will probably have a serious attitude problem in the game and that might prove interesting if Square does it right. If some new male character with black hair and a blue outfit gets created, we’ll know then that Square as truly gone off the deep end.

Breath a little easier though, since these designs Square have also come out with screenshots that show Wakka, Lulu, and Kimahri. All three of them look the same as they did in FFX, and Lulu decided not to join the FFX-2 bikini club.

Let's just hope they don't get a makeover before the big release...