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sabrina

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
5,174
newport beach, CA
In addition to a number of the ones already posted, the best female designs of the decade for me are:

Abigail "Fetch" Walker (inFAMOUS: First Light)
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Emily Pope, Helen Marshall (Control)
tumblr_pznry2RrCo1sp34g4o2_r2_500.png
latest


Kassandra (Assassin's Creed: Odyssey)
1*q4MFiVgxSPSLBU5sY_Cm4A.jpeg


Gris (Gris)
gris_feature.png


Mae Borowski (Night in the Woods)
400px-Mae.jpg


Sitara Dhawan (Watch_Dogs 2)
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Madeleine (Celeste)
latest



As far as worst goes, I'm not interested in celebrating designs I don't like.
 

Deleted member 8583

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 26, 2017
8,708
When it comes to best designs I really like Zana the Master Cartographer redesign from Path of Exile:

images


PoE has some interesting NPCs and one of the few games where armor looks the same on men's and women's. They also have some sexualized NPCs designs ( for both ) but at least they are not selling bikini armors ( yet ).
 

residentgrigo

Banned
Oct 30, 2019
3,726
Germany
KILL la KILL - IF was this year but I ain´t wasting my time shooting fish in a barrel. Tthe 1st half of the anime is alright, the 2nd is close to unwatchability.
On to Valkyria Revolution:
Review_VakyriaRevolution02.jpg

Brunhilde´s design gets more laughable the more you look at all of her from all sides. Her back is cut in a way that her underwear can shine through the leather leg stockings she wears, garters belts run right over her ass, there are hip windows cut into the top, she wears a corset with an open back, the frog perspective camera goes out of its way to show off her gyrating breasts, etc. It´s frankly hard to process.
The combat wedding dress the female lead wears is another lol design and leads to constant panty shots despite a long dress. I only played a few hours of the game due to having a modded Vita. 4/10 The artist of the main games also does hentai and it shows. That´s where some of those designs and the loli bait in VC 2 have to come from. Now for the megaton. Brunhilde should be 20 due to possessing this lady (note the brainwashing tope and you need to kill her, that´s fridging):
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Maria-senpai was adored by Amleth and company like a mother, but she was kidnapped by Claudius, who was crown prince at the time. Even while she is 20 years-old, everyone thinks of her as motherly due to her overflowing love and kindness. She always gives priority to others over herself and says considerate things. To orphans who don't know what it's like to have a family, she is a sister, a mother, and a first love.

A 20 years old sister-MILF. Hm. The Madonna-whore complex just entered the chat...
Next time, the promised Visual Novel hell. What have you wrought with your million Kickstarter?

PS: SFV´s "moral high ground" over DoA 6 is only by a few centimeters. DoA6 is also a better game and more visually consistent. DoA Xtreme 3 is a genuine sexual assault simulator on the other hand.

Edit: I looked into the VC guy´s pixiv to see if he still does porn. Huge mistake and he still does. Don´t do it Era. You´ll end up on a watch list. Never look unto what Japanese artists also do, full stop. It´s better not knowing sometimes... The Xenoblade Chronicles 2 one also does hentai for all that care. Surprise?
 
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rras1994

Member
Nov 4, 2017
5,742
Most of my favs of the decade have already been mentioned but the one that's not is: Vivienne from Dragon Age Inquisition:

hqdefault.jpg

Elegant, strong and always in command, a complex grey character who's out for her own power and doesn't just go with the player character. You'll either love her or hate her but she's never blah and it's just so rare to find a female character that's so beautiful and confident who's in her 50's never mind her being black as well. I love her character design and wish my player character could look as fancy and beautiful as she does.
 

Delphine

Fen'Harel Enansal
Administrator
Mar 30, 2018
3,658
France
Vivienne is absolutely amazing. I absolutely love her for her charisma, eloquence, poise, confidence and intellect, she's a very interesting character for sure. On my freshest playthrough of Dragon Age: Inquisition, my Inquisitor decided not to walk on eggshells around her (unlike my previous ones who tried to be more pleasing at first), and to openly and directly oppose her social and political views (which are honestly abhorrent, and the main reason I sometimes struggle with her character), and I love the way she becomes utterly passive-aggressive and petty with you, but with grace and elegance. But that's ok, I expect her to like me again once I'll do her personal quests, I guess. Either way, I really respect her a lot, even if I don't necessarily love her.

eOyGY33.gif
 
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Jamesac68

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,374
I'll never understand how people talk about xbc2 having shit designs and never even bring up the worst one. Never really gives me the impression they played really which is fine and all but yeah.





I'd take the wack ass snow bunny girl over whatever the hell this is anyday.
her design is not good either


The video starts with her from the back and all I could focus on were her Popeye arms. Once I saw that all I could do was imagine her speaking in a Popeye voice and it was all downhill from there.
 

rras1994

Member
Nov 4, 2017
5,742
Vivienne is absolutely amazing. I absolutely love her for her charisma, eloquence, poise, confidence and intellect, she's a very interesting character for sure. On my freshest playthrough of Dragon Age: Inquisition, my Inquisitor decided not to walk on eggshells around her (unlike my previous ones who tried to be more pleasing at first), and to openly and directly oppose her social and political views (which are honestly abhorrent, and the main reason I sometimes struggle with her character), and I love the way she becomes utterly passive-aggressive and petty with you, but with grace and elegance. But that's ok, I excpect her to like me a bit again once I'll do her personal quests, I guess. Either way, I really respect her a lot, even if I don't necessarily love her.
There was this one party convo that was between Cole and Vivienne that really made me see why she has the views she has, Cole was looking into her memories and if I remember correctly she accidently stode on the skull of a Tranquil which had been burnt alive by rebel mages. I don't like her views because it curtails peoples freedoms and opens mages up to abuse too easily but at the same time, I feel like people who see her as just as a villian ignore that mages are not analogous completely to real life minorities and ignore the examples of mages like Vivienne and Wynne who while don't have same political goals both agree that magic can be very very dangerous and are mages so have close experiences of the mage life that the player doesn't. They have experiences that push them to believe the way they do and aren't just selfish characters that just want to oppress for funsy's. The mage question isn't meant to have a good solution because we find out the way the world is is just completely wrong for magic causing these issues to begin with (don't really want to get into spoilers for Trespasser) so we end up with the horrible oppression of mages in the South or the tyranny and excesses of the mages to the North (i.e Tevinter) because the world is completely out of balance and wrong which is why you are going to get characters like Vivienne and Anders who are both mages that come from two different experiences and neither experiences are really wrong even though they are completely opposed. Dang, I just love me some grey characters. I also love and hate Solas both at the same time :D
 

Delphine

Fen'Harel Enansal
Administrator
Mar 30, 2018
3,658
France
There was this one party convo that was between Cole and Vivienne that really made me see why she has the views she has, Cole was looking into her memories and if I remember correctly she accidently stode on the skull of a Tranquil which had been burnt alive by rebel mages. I don't like her views because it curtails peoples freedoms and opens mages up to abuse too easily but at the same time, I feel like people who see her as just as a villian ignore that mages are not analogous completely to real life minorities and ignore the examples of mages like Vivienne and Wynne who while don't have same political goals both agree that magic can be very very dangerous and are mages so have close experiences of the mage life that the player doesn't. They have experiences that push them to believe the way they do and aren't just selfish characters that just want to oppress for funsy's. The mage question isn't meant to have a good solution because we find out the way the world is is just completely wrong for magic causing these issues to begin with (don't really want to get into spoilers for Trespasser) so we end up with the horrible oppression of mages in the South or the tyranny and excesses of the mages to the North (i.e Tevinter) because the world is completely out of balance and wrong which is why you are going to get characters like Vivienne and Anders who are both mages that come from two different experiences and neither experiences are really wrong even though they are completely opposed. Dang, I just love me some grey characters. I also love and hate Solas both at the same time :D


Oh I know, and we could honestly talk about it for days, I love everything about this game, and the way they protray their characters. I tend to play elvhen mages though, so I'm, de facto, extremely biased against Vivienne's views even if I can understand where she comes from, but I absolutely do not condone Tevinter way of doing things either. And I could talk about Solas for hours, he's my very favorite problematic fave of all time, can't wait to either save him or kill him, god knows I love this beautiful asshole, he's one hell of an extremely well-written and compelling character. DA4 is probably gonna rip my heart in million pieces and I can't wait for it.
 

rras1994

Member
Nov 4, 2017
5,742
Oh I know, and we could honestly talk about it for days, I love everything about this game, and the way they protray their characters. I tend to play elvhen mages though, so I'm, de facto, extremely biased against Vivienne's views even if I can understand where she comes from, but I absolutely do not condone Tevinter way of doing things either. And I could talk about Solas for hours, he's my very favorite problematic fave of all time, can't wait to either save him or kill him, god knows I love this beautiful asshole, he's one hell of an extremely well-written and compelling character. DA4 is probably gonna rip my heart in million pieces and I can't wait for it.
I suspect in DA4 it's not going to be a straightforward kill him or save him choice, I personally suspect at the moment that while we the player got used by Solas, I suspect he's also being used by someone else. Could be completely wrong. I just can't wait to see DA4 and fall in love with more lovable complex characters and chose a romance option who will probably betray me cus at the moment I have history with BioWare romances lol I think the only romances that haven't betrayed me in some form are Kaidan (and he was kinda not trusting me the whole of ME2 and beginning ME3) and Alistair and that playthrough ended with me sacrificing myself to save him so don't think it counts as a healthy relationship. Can't wait to be be completely emotionally broken by DA4 either :)
 

Mekanos

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Oct 17, 2018
44,088
Serious question: how do you deal with people who are like "it's just a video game, you're looking too deeply into it?" Shit like this makes me want to tear my hair out as a writer. Media is a reflection of our culture and does not exist in a vacuum! This is so fucking basic and obvious!

I was in a Discord and we were all arguing about Xenoblade 2's character designs (yeah, this is how I spend my free time apparently). I had this one thrown at me by a guy in there - and this is generally a pretty open-minded, progressive discord - and it's like, bro, how do you not realize you are repeating chud talking points? But nobody would react well to be grouped with that.
 
Aug 26, 2018
3,729
日本
Serious question: how do you deal with people who are like "it's just a video game, you're looking too deeply into it?" Shit like this makes me want to tear my hair out as a writer. Media is a reflection of our culture and does not exist in a vacuum! This is so fucking basic and obvious!

I was in a Discord and we were all arguing about Xenoblade 2's character designs (yeah, this is how I spend my free time apparently). I had this one thrown at me by a guy in there - and this is generally a pretty open-minded, progressive discord - and it's like, bro, how do you not realize you are repeating chud talking points? But nobody would react well to be grouped with that.
Probably bring up other ways that media influences real life and causes people to think certain things. Like, did you know that you actually don't get one phone call when you get arrested? Movies and TV have played that up for decades, but really they don't have to let you do anything besides get you a lawyer. And some places let you make as many phone calls as you want, but they'll charge you. Etc.

Maybe people shouldn't look too far into certain things when it comes to video games. But many people are already doing it, and that's the problem. Or they just take certain things for granted because there's nothing to challenge the idea otherwise.
 

Rae

Member
Mar 7, 2019
979
Serious question: how do you deal with people who are like "it's just a video game, you're looking too deeply into it?" Shit like this makes me want to tear my hair out as a writer. Media is a reflection of our culture and does not exist in a vacuum! This is so fucking basic and obvious!

I end up blocking them. I'm at the point where I can't get into internet fights over basic questions of ppl going I just want to play video games w/o politics so screw all the IRL suffering. I mean I read a comment where it was basically: Why can't all games be happy IDC about IRL suffering of minorities or poor ppl lol.
 
Probably bring up other ways that media influences real life and causes people to think certain things. Like, did you know that you actually don't get one phone call when you get arrested? Movies and TV have played that up for decades, but really they don't have to let you do anything besides get you a lawyer. And some places let you make as many phone calls as you want, but they'll charge you. Etc.

Maybe people shouldn't look too far into certain things when it comes to video games. But many people are already doing it, and that's the problem. Or they just take certain things for granted because there's nothing to challenge the idea otherwise.
That is always off about certain people not challenging what put in front of them. To a certain degree you can just ignore it and move on but when it involves subjecting a character to whatever means the creator wants them to be presented you still should take a deeper look at it.
 

Mifec

Member
Oct 25, 2017
17,696
Fate GO managed to sneak one more badly designed waifu for the whales before the year ended

WdVRUn8.jpg

Her design convinced me to never play Xenoblade 2.

I'll never understand why Xenoblade went that route--the other games had some poor designs, but XBC2 is made up entirely of 'em. It's revolting.
I'm glad it did because even if you did and somehow forgave the other horrible designs the game is revoltingly bad in all other aspects too.
 

timedesk

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,937
Just want to wish all the amazing contributors to this thread a Happy New Year. Let's hope the next generation of games improves on this last one. This thread has become one of my favorite places on the internet, thanks to all the great and insightful posts that you folks have made.
 

Saucycarpdog

Member
Oct 25, 2017
16,278
Just want to wish all the amazing contributors to this thread a Happy New Year. Let's hope the next generation of games improves on this last one. This thread has become one of my favorite places on the internet, thanks to all the great and insightful posts that you folks have made.
Western AAA games have overall gotten better in the past decade. We've had more many more notable female characters than the previous generation.

Japanese games have arguably gotten worse. So many JRPG's over the past several years have hopped on the waifu gravy train.

I know some lurkers have called out this thread for targeting Japanese games so frequently, but this is the reason why.

Thank god for FromSoftware.
 

RedSwirl

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,048
Western AAA games have overall gotten better in the past decade. We've had more many more notable female characters than the previous generation.

Japanese games have arguably gotten worse. So many JRPG's over the past several years have hopped on the waifu gravy train.

I know some lurkers have called out this thread for targeting Japanese games so frequently, but this is the reason why.

Thank god for FromSoftware.

It's an odd dichotomy.

I would imagine that if you ran the numbers historically, Japanese games would probably come up with an overall greater number of prominent female characters compared to western games, but the way they're depicted would probably be a decidedly mixed bag.
 

arcadepc

Banned
Dec 28, 2019
1,925
It's an odd dichotomy.

I would imagine that if you ran the numbers historically, Japanese games would probably come up with an overall greater number of prominent female characters compared to western games, but the way they're depicted would probably be a decidedly mixed bag.

Good western female characters were more prominent mainly in computer adventure games that targeted the late-teen and adult market. Characters with many lines of dialogue like the one from King's Quest, Gabriel Knight, Zak McKracken, Infocom games etc Something similar definitely exists in Japanese computer games, though I haven't explored that genre.

That market also included revealing fantasy and scifi characters inspired from music posters and comics to an extent. Not a coincidence that SNK's Athena was influenced by the poster by Bob Wakelin that depicted her with strong muscles. So regarding western games there were all sorts of titles available, on computers at least.

Japanese games on the other hand were carefully selected and edited for overseas export and in no way represented the true face of Japan. That created the wrong impression that Japan had better female characters, which wasn't the case.

Now games reached a point where Nintendo Switch gets all fanservice content and PC publishers license and even demosaic adult content from Japan, while for the rest Internet allows access to majority of Japanese console and pc games.

This shows a more balanced view of the Japanese industry, which can be quite shocking for the uninitiated too, especially concerning the VN genre. Regarding Western games, similar games moved to Patreon.

It would be better and more constructive to focus on the good side of both industries.
 

Deleted member 56306

User-requested account closure
Banned
Apr 26, 2019
2,383
I've finally "finished" the Witcher 3 and I liked it more than I initially thought and appreciated the general production. As far as women go they do have interesting arcs and motivations but by god the way that they are framed by the camera is extraordinarily male gazey. On top of that outside of the crones, female coded monsters, the women all have the same attractive build / face and wear heels.

Also the way that Ciri is framed is kinda... Weird most of the time. Her and Ves can't seem to wear shirts that close lololol.
 

RedSwirl

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,048
In the Witcher games, the sorceresses I can kind of understand because in-universe they deliberately use magic to alter their appearances, but book fans have complained for a while about Triss' game appearance overlooking injuries she got in the books.

The rest is really a modernization of typical WRPG designs, though a bit more authentically European-looking and with (thankfully) a lack of boob armor. I'd always had some small reservations about Ciri's Witcher 3 design though.
 

shiba5

I shed
Moderator
Oct 25, 2017
15,777
Character design is the reason I'll never play this game

That game is so jarring. You've got the main character, who looks like he's around 14, running around with some of the most sexualized female game characters I've ever seen - which you also collect. Oh, and then there's that thirsty hamster/rabbit thing with the robot wearing a maid costume.
It all adds up to me never touching the franchise.

Edit: For good designs, I like the new Zelda and hope her short hair in the BotW2 trailer means great things are coming.
 

Servbot24

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
43,039
Which is sad because XC2 has great gameplay,but an okey story (some things are a bit awkard, to say the least), and some great characters. Torna is WAY better in that regard for what I heard.
Thing is that even the non-sexualized characters are hideous. Rex is a disaster that I never want to have to look at.
 

HBK

Member
Oct 30, 2017
7,963
It's an odd dichotomy.

I would imagine that if you ran the numbers historically, Japanese games would probably come up with an overall greater number of prominent female characters compared to western games, but the way they're depicted would probably be a decidedly mixed bag.
Most JRPGs have cast parity, and women are very much as capable as men combat-wise (or just gameplay-wise in general). The characters are just super-gendered. Like ugh.

Nothing's perfect I guess 🤷‍♀️
 
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Babymomo

Member
Aug 14, 2019
200
I cant at her fucking pose LMAOOOO, like its so parodied and laughed at i didnt think they still did this????
LIKE????
ENsdAnsUYAAPLuK
 

Murfield

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,425
Seeing people are talking about their favourite female character designs this decade, I thought I would add the Darkmoon Knightess from darksouls:
5KhmDSu.jpg
 
Jan 2, 2018
10,699
I don't want to defend some of XB2 designs, because aside from a few good and great ones there are also really terrible ones (like Dahlia...), but isn't the reason for that that they hired a bunch of artists and gave them zero restrictions?
 
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