I've had Final Fantasy on the brain since the HD rerelease of X just hit steam. And while playing it, I realised something which one way or another I think is very telling of how the series has changed in recent years (whether for better or worse is up to you).
In modern Final Fantasy games (I guess, starting with XII) every character is beautiful. Your party in XII, XIII and XIV is populated with beautiful, angelic looking people. (I haven't played either of the online games, so I can't comment on those).

In X, you had some super models in Tidus (or 'Spunch Nicely' as he's called in my game), Yuna, Rikku and Lulu. But Wakka's got a square faced islander thing going on, Auron is rugged and scared, and Kimahri is a big wrinkly blue cat man (sorry James Cameron). And I can see similar diversity in VII and IX (haven't played the others)

But now, everyone is a gorgious plastic child. Think about that. Whatever you think about how Final Fantasy has changed, you've gotta admit, that's pretty telling.

To me it feels like modern Final Fantasy is helmed by frustrated fashion designers, who just want to bea round beautiful people all the time. Somebody in charge over there has a personal obsession and they can't bare to change their ideas even if it would benefit the production.

"I think Lightning needs a personality" says one guy.

"I already gave her pink hair!" comes the response.

What do you guys think? Am I imagining things, or is the ton of plastic surgery it looks like every party member in modern Final Fantasy has undergone an interesting little analogy of the direction the series has gone recently?

You're right she's pretty cute.

Both XII and XIII saga were a bit dissapointing to me when it comes to the characters. But that is because of the writing not the designs. I think the varity of the character designs has always been there, especially when you take into consideration all the important NPCs, and villains. Not just the main characters.

Strangely. XV seems to testing something different. In order to explore that "brotherhood bond" theme, they are designing the main characters so they share obvious similarities. But still, when you look at all the important characters, I think the varity of designs is intact.

In modern Final Fantasy, could you honestly see them ever making a character like Steiner again? No seriously, think about it, heck any of Final Fantasy 9's cast are all cartoony misfits and fit perfectly in the game. FF6 had a yeti, a mog and a feral boy as part of the party.

God, can you imagine what new Red XIII will look like in the remake (to make it a completely different game) of 7? Probably this:
http://orig01.deviantart.net/5208/f/2016/030/6/d/joycelyn_ddi07_red_xiii__cait_sith_by_toydreamer-d9pu6t0.jpg

everything depends on setting. if ff goes a more realistic route the characters tend to be made good looking. if it's going in the fantasy/fairytale direction you'll get something like quina in ff9. ff8 characters were also good looking as well so it already happened before ff12. i'd say since kingdom hearts appeared, ff is using the more realistic approach.