I don't think I agree with characters like Cloud and Noctis being "feminized." I don't want to get banned from the thread here, but I think that the topics of culture and art style are relevant even to this thread's questions about changes to the Aloy character model. Let me explain:
Japanese art is quite a bit different from at least a number of other cultural 'norms' for art such as modern Western art, Middle Eastern art and South American. The first main difference is that if you look at the art in anime and movies...most of the characters are not visually identifiable as Asian. While the other art styles and cultures I mentioned tend to represent characters as their host ethnicity. So that's a big difference.
Secondly, on feminization, I don't believe that's what characters like Cloud and Noctis represent. If this was a trend, you would expect to see more consistency, but as noted here, characters like Gladioulos exist and are very definitely alpha male types. Japanese art tends to represent younger and inexperienced male characters in the ways that Cloud and Noctis are represented. Not 'feminized' per se, but definitely not as fully mature males. They are often surrounded by older, more experienced male mentors or friends however, that ARE very definitely male. Also, even if you take Cloud and Noctis..while they may seem feminized in comparison to those older male mentors, they are still very definitely male and easily distinguished from the female characters. Female characters have this same difference with young or more innocent females being portrayed as less feminine, younger women or childlike. The more powerful and mature females (Tika and Jessie for example in FF 7) are very definitely female. So Japanese art uses youth and non maturity to represent the innocence of the characters or the beginning of the hero's journey. I think that's what is at work in Japanese games, anime and art, not what we see as 'feminization.' This makes sense as well since Japanese culture and history was very alpha male and male dominated.
It is modern Western art where we see more of this true feminization of male characters. Actually it's more like a move towards androgyny. While male characters look less typically MALE, we also see female characters looking less like the typical female ideals. Interestingly, this is a pattern in history. You can look up on youtube...there are a few professors who have written about art and the arc of civilizations (Camille Paglia is one you can find videos and written articles about). The short version of it is this...in multiple ancient cultures or world powers, you can see that the art early and thru the prime of those powers was very representative of male power and female femine qualities. However, towards the end of these civilizations, the art androgenizes and your see more feminine males and more masculine females in the art. You can see this for example in early Greek and Roman sculptures as opposed to sculptures from just a few decades before the fall of those empires. Same with the Medio-Persian and Egyptian powers as well. Fascinating stuff. It really makes me think of art and culture mirroring that old saying about how 'hard times make strong men...strong men make good times...'
So bottom line, while I agree that what we're seeing (to a lesser degree here with Aloy) in Western games with character design is representative of the move to androgenize the sexes, I don't think that's what is being reflected in the Japanese games. I've never gotten the sense from those games that that was the intent either.
Just my two cents..