Silver Rocket
The Exchanger
I get what you're saying here. While I was trying out different MMORPGs, my friend kept trying to get me into World of Warcraft. I wanted to play it 'cause at least she would be around to help me in the game, but I was totally turned off by the character design. The only characters that looked cool were the Blood Elves. After that, I decided to just stick with FFXI 'cause the character design is amazing imo.
I don't really like "manly men," but I think my definition of manly men may be a bit extreme. For instance, a character with a terribly distracting and unrealistic muscular body who is just gruff, rough, && without much of a personality. Unfortunately, that's how I stereotypically define "manly men." With that said, I don't see much of that in FF games. Barret may have tons of muscles, but he also had a personality && he wasn't a hollow vessel of destruction, lol.
I'm not so sure I would consider Cloud, Snow, Noel, Vincent, etc. as "manly men" 'cause they just don't exude that sorta aura to me. Plus, they have pretty boy faces imo, lol. Maybe Auron and Cid could be "manly men" 'cause of their demeanor && gruffness (although they're not overly muscular, so it's a bit of a contradiction from what I stated earlier, lol...)
Interesting topic! xD
But what about the humans and the Worgen!
Cloud, Snow, Noel, and Vincent (Well, questionably Vincent. He's in the body of a 27 year old for christ sakes) are fairly young, but can still be considered "manly." Cloud carries around a sword that's twice his size.