So I happened across these Samus renditions on Reddit: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/lNBbJ
I'll include the portrait below:
I need it.
Love it.
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Why women criticise sexualised character designs |OT2| I have no pants and I must scream (READ OP)
- Thread starter Persephone
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Love it.
The dark mage outfit is so bad in Fates, haha.
It's a shame, because her high crit rate made her a fun unit.
Just like Silvia shortly before her, I can't say I'm surprised at their outfits in Heroes given their original designs.
I'm really hoping Three Houses takes a step back from all this, but we'll see I guess.
So the new direct was great and all but there was one trailer conspicuously absent from it.
I wonder why? It's such a mystery. No, really, why is Nintendo getting the skeeviest versions of franchises? Like, Senran Kaguran is a very fanservice heavy game but like...a game where you massage a girl's thighs? Really!?!
I wonder why? It's such a mystery. No, really, why is Nintendo getting the skeeviest versions of franchises? Like, Senran Kaguran is a very fanservice heavy game but like...a game where you massage a girl's thighs? Really!?!
A great many manga and character illustrators started out as a hentai artist, to be fair, which I suppose explains a lot of things.
It's not even really a manga thing. A lot of western illustrators and character designers are also huge perverts
yes, even the ones who did your favorite Nickelodeon shows
it's not their fault they stared out as white heterosexual males
...well, the 1990s was when children cartoons started to become more noticeably adult when you look at a closer eye.
I'm not sure if I talked about this in the old thread or in the Smash thread, but it's very likely that Three Houses' character designer is Kurahana Chinatsu, who is well-known for her work in franchises aimed at women like Uta no Prince-sama.
We had a thread sometimes back from some artist who talked about his experience as a freelance artist.
Basically, he did commissions of Furry-Porn drawings to pay the bill under an alias and draws normal stuff for his professional repertoire. Some 3 to 4 days of Hentai work can tide you over for a month or two.
There are some western hentai artists who make 5 to 10k+ $ a month on Patreon.
I am glad to have a new artist to change things up, and expected a change since FE has never been a series that sticks with a single artist.I'm not sure if I talked about this in the old thread or in the Smash thread, but it's very likely that Three Houses' character designer is Kurahana Chinatsu, who is well-known for her work in franchises aimed at women like Uta no Prince-sama.
The real question though, is if there's a new art director, because that's where the more problematic designs in recent games comes from.
I really hope IS can turn things around with Three Houses. It's unfortunate to have a game with such good gameplay as Conquest, but not being able to easily recommend it because of everything else that's wrong with it.
It's hard to imagine they would want to given the success of recent entries and especially FeH. Call me a pessimist, but I have about zero expectations. I'll gladly be wrong.
I understand that.
But Fates was a mess behind the scenes, and if what I've heard about there being a divide in the direction people wanted to take the game is true, then I'm hoping FEH is where the trashy side of things end up.
Personally, I don't think the doubling down on fanservice was so important to the series' recent success, it's just a question of how IS sees it.
Echoes was already much better then Fates in regards to character designs so I don't think you need to be worried.
While true, that game was the remake of another one. Which means they had many more reasons to stay true to older, more reserved designs. I'd be hesitant to call it a shift in art direction.
The character designer is the art director, though? They're the ones deciding on the character designs, at least.
And Echoes still had a few silly design traits, even if the art was clearly classier.
Has nothing to do with it being a remake, all of the characters had basically complete redesigns and there were many new characters added. I would attribute most of the difference to the artist they hired, Hidari.
A lot of designs were changed for Echoes. I think Gaiden doesn't have a lot of official artwork either.
The game has plenty of issues with how it presents women in the story, but the character designs are a bit less ridiculous than Fates, and I'm not so sure it being a remake is the only reason at the moment.
Ah, I misread your post. I thought you were talking about the artist alone.
Yikes.
People don't get that the virgin killer sweater is not for every day use.
This is just my opinion, so feel free to disagree, but I think most redesigns still stay true to the spirit of the original game. Some characters received major reworks, that is true, but in many cases the clothing or armor simply was updated to show more detail and a different set of colors. Overall, these makeovers are more akin to updates to me than they are complete redesigns.
Since they are creating a completely new Fire Emblem this time around, I am not convinced they will continue with the art direction they chose to use for Echoes.
This is pretty great, if only for reiterating that sexy outfits, even when over the top, aren't necessarily a bad thing, but they are ALWAYS a bad thing when they are the default. Give the player the agency to have their big anime titties if they so choose, but do not sacrifice your creative design because someone told you you had to sell to 12-28 male market demographic. I'm looking at you Monolith.
Half of these designs are, like I said, nearly complete redesigns. Obviously they aren't using the same art direction they used for Echoes, because they hired an entirely new artist to do the character. It is entirely reasonable to infer that the designs will be less egregious then Fates though, because the designs we've seen thus far are clearly heavily influenced by the style of character design seen in Otome titles (most of the speculation about who the artist is revolves around artists known for their work in Shojo manga or Otome games, one of the possible artists was posted earlier in this thread). I mean I can't say with 100% certainty that there won't be Fates-esque designs but all signs point to that being unlikely given what we actually know and have seen about the game itself.This is just my opinion, so feel free to disagree, but I think most redesigns still stay true to the spirit of the original game. Some characters received major reworks, that is true, but in many cases the clothing or armor simply was updated to show more detail and a different set of colors. Overall, these makeovers are more akin to updates to me than they are complete redesigns.
Since they are creating a completely new Fire Emblem this time around, I am not convinced they will continue with the art direction they chose to use for Echoes.
I think this goes back to what I first said.This is just my opinion, so feel free to disagree, but I think most redesigns still stay true to the spirit of the original game. Some characters received major reworks, that is true, but in many cases the clothing or armor simply was updated to show more detail and a different set of colors. Overall, these makeovers are more akin to updates to me than they are complete redesigns.
Since they are creating a completely new Fire Emblem this time around, I am not convinced they will continue with the art direction they chose to use for Echoes.
The question is, who is the art director and what direction do they want to take it?
I'm not really convinced on any direction it might take yet, the one trailer we have is not enough to go by. Artistically, FE is a series that constantly changes things up, and Three Houses is the next change up. I just think it can go either way at this point, depending all on who are now in control of the game's art direction.
(The art director for Awakening and Fates moved on to be the director of Echoes, so things have been shifting around. If he was still just the art director on recent games I'd be a bit more worried about design, instead I'm just worried he will have any influence on Three Houses' story)
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This type of thinking gives too much credit to the artist.
Unless it is a really small indie team, the artist had a specific briefing and had to do more than one variation and adjustments to the design.
The problem is not previous porn experience is the exec in suit asking for porn skills at the job of designing a woman
I doubt it's even the exec to be honest. I know every now and then directors or producers will request certain artists, but even that's rare. In many cases it's probably because the artist is cheap to contract for (because porn isn't real work you see) and is good at ridiculous turn around times. Maybe they're also up and coming and before they recognize they're being exploited, they're willing to work well below what they are likely capable of achieving.
That said, to a certain degree, being complacent is also part of the problem, and it's difficult to escape because money is money and most aren't going to let ethical quandaries overrule it (and in some cases there have been artists who have mentioned these problems).
Just a big ol' shit circle.
We're also not allowed to criticise it without adding an essay on the colonial misadventures of Lara Croft, violence vis-a-vis 30 years of shooters and elimination of enemy units in game theory going back to chess. We've all got 28 days to hand in our dissertation or we get our 'moaning about sexism' privileges removed :P
Can I crib some notes pls
For as many people in these threads so deeply concerned with the depiction of violence in video games, I'm surprised we don't have dozens of threads a day about it.
While I won't go into the complex subject of whether characters, female or male, need to be "sexy" or not (the answer for me is, most likely "depends on the character/story/artistic decision, shouldn't be the default for sure") - and I am certainly not going to go into representation of religion in games (personally, I have an issue with all the world's religions, so I'm not the person to comment that) - but I have to say this: just as I have a problem with insisting that certain characters need to be sexualised just for the sake of sexualization (not against it when there is a good reason, I think 'sexy' can be an important artistic decision), I also have a problem when sexuality must be hidden just because someone has problems with the human form (in this case - the female body) - for whatever reason. As I said: a very complex subject, one that easily offends one side or the other.
I think he was asking for a link to the Etcetera thread actually.
Yeah, I was actually trying to respond to the post he was quoting - my bad.
Hahah, so true. But then again if whataboutists were in any way sincere, we'd have several threads a day asking for games like God of War to stop objectifying men, and for trading cards to be regulated as gambling.
There's a double standard there, and think we shouldn't ignore it, even though of course using it as a whataboutism is disingenuous.
I'm just not sure myself what it entails. Of course it can be argued that the effects of sexism affect more people than the effects of physical violence. Almost all of mankind is impacted by sexism one way or another, whereas fortunately only a part of it is impacted by physical violence.
It's still extremely disturbing to see how much desensitized we are with regard to physical violence.
Edit: And I'm not talking about graphical violence. Most fictions, be it tv shows or video games involve some form of physical violence at some point. I mean violence exist and as such should be represented obviously, but when so many games have a "combat system" as one of their core elements, questions should be raised.
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I'm with you on this, that's why it's so frustrating to see it almost exclusively brought up to shut down other angles of criticism. It's disingenuous, to say the least.
While whataboutism are mostly used as a deflection tactic, it doesn't mean that it can't have a real impact.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/41939509?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
Truman addressing NAACP as the first American president to do so, was a situation partly forced by the Soviet Union by "highlighting American hypocrisy" while deflecting their own issues.
It wouldn't surprise me if violence in games becomes more highlighted in reviews in the future as a response from angry readers under cheerleading mentality. It's often brought up under a west versus east paradigm, though mostly driven by individuals perception of differences rather than actual ones.
I'm kinda think videogame violence might become another hot topic for whichever game gen adapts to VR.
To put that kind of stuff in your hands than at the press of a button sounds...way different in some ways
I don't know if I agree with that. TLOU2 is tilting some heads already with its ultra-realistic depiction of violence.
I'm sure more realistic and visceral environments will lead to stronger reactions, but that's a separate thing from what I meant. It's answering the why and how particular games are violent. Earlier questions have centered around games and their relation to violence as a cause (school shootings etc.), but not really interested in why violent expression is such a presence in mainstream video game monoculture.
It feels a bit like having your cake and eating it too when that violence is exerted both against humans and flower zombies, if it's intended as a statement (which I believe they've said that it is).
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I know I'm a little late to this one, but in regards to FE Echo's female characters, I feel they took a step forward from a character design standpoint while also being just as bad or worse from a writing standpoint. The two newly added characters, Faye and Rinea, stand out to me as being almost out of place and are both just accessories to some dude. Faye's entire personality is that she really just wants to fuck alm. That's it. It's sooooo jarring when compared to the rest of the cast. Some people like to say she's a deconstruction of the trope, but I don't see it from anything other than a gameplay perspective, and only then if you squint. Heck, at least Tharja had the creepy hex thing going.
Rinea on the other hand, just exsists ro be a great waifu for Berkut so when he
you can feel bad. What a big meanie he is for doing that to his perfect waifu.
Rinea on the other hand, just exsists ro be a great waifu for Berkut so when he
torches her
While it's definitely less proeminent in other media, if you look at say the most successful Netflix shows for example, you'll find a lot of shows which have quite a bit of face punching at the very least, and up to dismemberment at its worst.
We seem to enjoy our fictional violence. It probably has a lot to do with catharsis but then again I'm not sur if it explains the double standard which seem to occur there.
Or maybe we're just all different and some people take more issue with sexualisation and other people take more issue with violence IDK. But I often wonder why I'm more bothered by shit like Xenoblade 2 designs than by Geralt's way of removing heads and other limbs from his foes' bodies.
Edit: Largely agree with the post above (FE 15).
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Probably because beheading of medieval bandits or monsters is utterly disconnected from our every day life and can be enjoyed as pure fiction, whereas the objectification of women is a very real aspect of our real lives.
Yeah, could very well be the simplest explanation.
I'm still kind of baffled at how many "things" we get to kill in our average video game.
I'm not against discussing violence in the thread, as long as it's an earnest effort like the above and not a drive by derail. After all, there's a lot of intersectionality between violence and sexism. :(
For a more long-term discussion, I would love if there was a similar thread to this about violence in games, but it seems nearly impossible to do considering how deeply entrenched violence seems to be within videogames and American media. People are not just desensitized; violence has become the substrate that most games float in. Telling most gamers to worry about violence is like telling a fish to worry about water.
For a more long-term discussion, I would love if there was a similar thread to this about violence in games, but it seems nearly impossible to do considering how deeply entrenched violence seems to be within videogames and American media. People are not just desensitized; violence has become the substrate that most games float in. Telling most gamers to worry about violence is like telling a fish to worry about water.
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