I figure they'd get reviewed-bombed to the depths of Cocytus if they dared rein in on the skeeviness. A shame, since the original remake was a pretty fun game :S
Why women criticise sexualised character designs | OT3 | "make her look more...corpulent, more stuffed where the eyes can't escape."
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I figure they'd get reviewed-bombed to the depths of Cocytus if they dared rein in on the skeeviness. A shame, since the original remake was a pretty fun game :S
Hmm...after reading your take on this, I can agree that I might have come across a bit too hasty in my observations. I can see where you've made certain connections that, after looking at this concept a bit more closely and on a different light, that I can also agree with as well. Looking at the eyebrows, small eyes, etc...it does certainly look like the main intentions were to make her appear older possibly. If the body weight and attractiveness of the picture were the entire reasoning as to why it needed a fan edit, then you're right, there would have been no point with attempting to correct her eyes and add the small feature of eyelashes as well.
You are correct that the game definitely does not have a wide variety of body types, at least for playable and interchangeable characters, that's for sure. This actually brings up a strikingly good point why only NPC's are the ones not limited by a certain pre-determined line of body types for characters. Oddly enough, there are quite a few NPC's that differ in shape and size, but the variety is very limited when it comes to the actual "gacha" characters. I would definitely agree that the roundness of her face was trying to keep in line with a more youthful approach like with the majority of their characters. I wonder if we could say that this goes back to the line of certain JRPG developers, even though Genshin is controlled by a Chinese developer, the stigma that some cultures have about seeing women within video games only being attractive and relatable towards their players if they remain youthful in appearance. The whole idea that there's very far and few women in games that actually show their age because the developers of those games have this personal preference or personal fear that showing an older character as a woman will not reach or resonate with the players nearly as much as a younger person would.
You're right, this doesn't reveal much of anything with the original artist. This actually seems rather tame in comparison.
I came to a similar conclusion as your initial one, though for different reasons. The fan listed 4 changes:
- Narrower head
- Smaller eyes
- Tilted eyebrows
- Eyelashes
It's horrifically gaudy and I hate that it's become the basis of so much of fantasy aesthetics in video games.
No imagine like Ellie and Abby beefing on the court trading shots while the referee Dina is just failing to reign them in and Joel is buried up to his head in sand watching. I would play that.
Didn't even notice the thinner face. I already didn't like the genshin redesign as it seemed to be doing the things the complainers over her original design wanted so I had that bias going for me. Also think that the last place we may be able to remove male gaze from is gatcha games as it's not a place that it needs to worm into, it's prebaked into them already. I'm sure there are exceptions but it seems like the primary selling point and motivation for people to spend money in them.
So lets talk about how Blaster Master Zero reboot went from a pretty cool faithful remake of the NES game from back in the day.
To pointless anime waifu bait for absolutely no reason.
This is Eve from Blaster Master Zero 1
This is also Eve from Blaster Master Zero 2
Blaster Master Zero 2 also introduces KANNA the literal watermelon boobs the character
Blaster Master Zero 2 also got a really late edition DLC which is just a mini game where you play dungeons to get gacha versions of Kanna herself
Now lets take a look at Blaster Master Zero 3
First up the Box art itself
Now lets take a look at the characters themselves
Why?
Why?
Why?
Why?
Why?
Yup, it's hot garbage and par for the course for Inta Creates. Which is a shame since the games they make are really good/fun to play. They don't fucking need to do this to sell and I've already raged out enough about this, probably in this very thread, before. Take a look at the Gunvolt games and their spinoffs for more examples that I will not post because it's mostly children.
What I hate even more is that I'm still going to buy BMZ3. At least I got out of Gunvolt/Luminous Avenger.
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Looked around for any video game female centaurs but only found these 2.
The Shining Force series comes to mind.
Designs in the original were not bad I think (that said there was an hidden Bikini and Dress for two of the mage characters). Old games were made on the Genesis by who is now Camelot with Nintendo. My understanding is the new games are made by a guy that did Hentai and sadly shows.
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I think you can separate quality and preference though, no? Having a preference for optimism is the subjective nature of it, but I'm guessing you'd acknowledge that bleak stories can also be written well even if you don't personally enjoy them.
As one example I would not blame anyone for disliking and avoiding Mad Men, but I also think it's pretty darn close to objective that the writing is extremely high quality.
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As someone with a meaty thigh, I approve! Happy to see characters with a shape like mine and artists drawing more than just big tits on a girl. lol
As someone who cares a lot about who women are depicted in media... Yeah a lot of it is exposed fighters who can't seem to find proper pants and enjoy thrusting their hips in awkward ways.
The designs are quite unique but it's obvious why they look the way they do. 🙄
What do we mean by written well? Written well according to the standards of society as a whole, sure? But if you don't enjoy a work or find any other meaning in it, then I would say it's not written well from your perspective.
And I think everyone would be much happier if they were honest with themselves and judged things by the second standard instead.
"I didn't like the writing" is much more polite and a lot less antagonizing then "It's bad writing"
If people stopped acting like their opinion is the objective truth, then we would all be happier.
I don't like country music, but I would never say that all country music is written poorly. I can acknowledge the genuine expertise and care that went into making some of the work, while still not personally enjoying it. (Of course there is also lots of country that I would just say outright sucks too)
"What does written well mean" is a huge question that I'm not pretentious enough to try to answer, lol. But I do think it is noticeable when something is performed with expertise.
This isn't really about anything recent but just a general frustration.
When discussion of the sexualisation of women in fighting games is discussed, particularly costumes or toning stuff down, inevitably there will be several people both online and offline that say something like, "We should tone stuff down BUT should have the more sexualised ones as ALTs/DLC!"
These types of comments are rarely called out but it irks me because it implies a woman simply can't be sexualised at all, that a woman who doesn't want to wear revealing costumes aren't allowed or don't sell which falls into the same "No women over 30!" Crap; That you HAVE to reward/appeal to men when it comes to women and it still treats women as commodities, just more insidiously.
When discussion of the sexualisation of women in fighting games is discussed, particularly costumes or toning stuff down, inevitably there will be several people both online and offline that say something like, "We should tone stuff down BUT should have the more sexualised ones as ALTs/DLC!"
These types of comments are rarely called out but it irks me because it implies a woman simply can't be sexualised at all, that a woman who doesn't want to wear revealing costumes aren't allowed or don't sell which falls into the same "No women over 30!" Crap; That you HAVE to reward/appeal to men when it comes to women and it still treats women as commodities, just more insidiously.
That Blizzcon video is distressing, but sadly not unexpected.
Also holy crap at the Blaster Master Zero progression. I enjoyed the first game (and played the original as a kid) and like the designs, but nope'd out of buying the sequel after seeing the art. I didn't think they could get even worse for the third game.
Also holy crap at the Blaster Master Zero progression. I enjoyed the first game (and played the original as a kid) and like the designs, but nope'd out of buying the sequel after seeing the art. I didn't think they could get even worse for the third game.
Playing some Ys Seven lately and due to me following this topic I notice a lot more problems. I starts out all well and good with Tia and Maya dressed appropriately like poor girls from the slums, no real sexualisation going on there. Later on we meet badass hammer warrior Cruxie, princess Aisha and blind prophet Mishera... Cruxie dresses alright I think, I also do like that there is a lot of middle eastern names in the localisation. Mustafa and Fatima are both elders of their respective villages.
A shame this badass hammer warrior Cruxie is using the famous pigeon toe stance, one wonders how she wings around a huge hammer like that.
The prophet Mishera is really wearing far too less for someone living so high up the mountains in a windy village.. it must be far too cold to be showing so much skin.
Aisha has some weird white things sticking out of her trousers.. while her top could be somewhat less naked as well. If she's supposed to be an arabic princess like her name suggests... more covering would make sense to protect from the sun.
Then well...
It's an old PSP game by Falcom.. so I guess it's not even all that bad considering the tripe that came out on that console.
A shame this badass hammer warrior Cruxie is using the famous pigeon toe stance, one wonders how she wings around a huge hammer like that.
The prophet Mishera is really wearing far too less for someone living so high up the mountains in a windy village.. it must be far too cold to be showing so much skin.
Aisha has some weird white things sticking out of her trousers.. while her top could be somewhat less naked as well. If she's supposed to be an arabic princess like her name suggests... more covering would make sense to protect from the sun.
Then well...
they totally ruin Tia by making her into a tattooed mostly naked sideboob on both side goth fetish shaman abomination near the end
It's an old PSP game by Falcom.. so I guess it's not even all that bad considering the tripe that came out on that console.
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Your pics are broken.
Shining Force had Mae
Shining Force 2 had... May (yes, really -- completely different character too)
Shining Force 3 had Cybel (can't find a larger pic):
Shining Force Gaiden (Game Gear game based on SF1) had Sylvia
Metalsnakezero
So lets talk about how Blaster Master Zero reboot went from a pretty cool faithful remake of the NES game from back in the day.
This is also Eve from Blaster Master Zero 2
Why?
Why?
Why?
Why?
Why?
Is that cat hoverboard a part of her outfit? Is it her legs?
I have so many questions.
OP
OP
why is it that sexualised designs are often also just like. aesthetically offensive. at least with 2B her design is bad and sexist but like... i can dig the gothic lolita black lace vibes. these are just... ugly.
Maybe it's the wine I'm drinking, but having a hoverboard in place of knees might be fun...
The NES game was just about a young boy chasing after his frog and finding a tank
He then has to use the tank to free himself and his pet frog from underground mutants.
Thats it
The boy chasing a frog etc was actually just a weird localization thing, the original had a more serious sci-fi premise, and the newer games merged the two different backstories.
I've heard similar lines of thought from people, though usually in regards to female characters getting new default designs and having their more fanservicey legacy costumes as alts or DLC for players to use. It seems you haven't even gotten the "luxury" of dealing with that particular situation and nothing else. It would be nice if fighting games didn't have to reserve development time for stuff like swimsuit DLC and made something more unique instead.
Honestly, outside of Mortal Kombat and Smash Bros., what fighting game series just don't really indulge in fanservice DLC these days?
I wonder if part of it comes from their (the audience's) need to "own" the designs. Like, it's their thing, designed for them. If people like us are turned off by it, that's good.
It's all very creepy.
What on earth happened to one of my favorite IPs in gaming history?
Gacha.
This (forward facing) design document for Blaster Master Zero (1) gives some real insight to the driving force behind the artwork/designs for women in Inti Creates games.
The only games I can think of don't have DLC costumes because their animation and/or lighting systems are too complex for alt costumes to be practical. All ArcSys fighting games, Skullgirls, Fighting Herds, Melty Blood... And out of those, only Fighting Herds and (from what I've seen of it) Melty Blood don't have any sexualized female characters in the first place.
Oh wait, I guess there's Pokken too, lol.
So creepy, "it would make good cosplay" wtf is wrong with people
This (forward facing) design document for Blaster Master Zero (1) gives some real insight to the driving force behind the artwork/designs for women in Inti Creates games.
Shame that we lost A, it looked nice
It's also funny (meaning predictable) that certain groups get mad at localization changes calling it censorship of the "vision" of original team but in case like this you never hear of them
Gentleman (like gentleman club) is code for perverts. Good cosplay means sexualised, I'm guessing.
This (forward facing) design document for Blaster Master Zero (1) gives some real insight to the driving force behind the artwork/designs for women in Inti Creates games.
These design docs also let the world know that Kanna, the plant girl was originally concepted as a shark girl in a bikini...with four breasts.
This (forward facing) design document for Blaster Master Zero (1) gives some real insight to the driving force behind the artwork/designs for women in Inti Creates games.
That reminds me that Kojima said the same thing about Quiet prior to his "words and deeds" tweet.
https://twitter.com/HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN/status/375142795779923968
Quiet and Blaster Master are probably the two most common topics of this thread (and for good reason). Not disparaging the current conversations as they are 100% necessary. Rather I find it's remarkable that in the pile of objectification that regularly occurs in gaming, those two games always find a way to stand out regardless. Says a lot about how be blatant they are in grossness and objectification.
The "funniest" part of this is that Mega Man has almost no women so this dumb gacha game has to go to comedic lengths to make it work
What on earth happened to one of my favorite IPs in gaming history?
Quiet situation is so infuriating because she is not just a throwaway gacha jpeg - there is a cool character in there! And they just completely fucked it up. Such a waste.
Not really this is a gatcha game for x characters which actually have a lot more women.
Iris, layer, Alia, pallette, cinnamon, Marino, fermhan, all those are x characters
Honestly, that's why Quiet gets mentioned so much. There's just nothing interesting to talk about with such blatant & obvious objectification that occurs in a lot of mobile & gacha games. Even more high profile games like Fire Emblem Heroes is sorta yawn inducing at this point (hence why Three Houses gets mentioned more often despite being unquestionably better). But Quiet has positive attributes and is in a well regarded game yet still turned out to be a complete disaster. Plus there's Kojima's misogynistic comments on top. It inherently makes Quite more compelling to talk about.
Which makes it worse as I do like the X series and I wish they didn't have to do this to them.
At this point it's guaranteed for gacha games, no gatcha game is exempt from it like even the Gundam mobile game where you are mostly just pulling for parts had an ai swimsuit as a part of the anniversary this week. Otaku whale a lot of money for this stuff. It's not really surprising these happen in each one (it also does help that the swimsuit characters also end up being broken gameplay wise) 99% of the time
Ah, Quiet even your uniform icons are stupid:
This reminds me about how stupid it is that Quiet's non-naked outfits cost significantly more GMP, which contributed to me running out as I was completing side-missions after beating the game. After spending hours attempting the Tsuchinoko-money-making trick (I caught several of them the first time, then was lucky to get one or two every time after that) I decided to just drop the game.
This is a completely pointless distinction. Not only does the X series fail to even remotely reach a equal representation of men to women, but the gacha game also prominently includes non-X characters such as Roll & Tron Bonne. So the game is pretty clearly catering to the franchise as a whole at this point and yet still struggles to have enough women to objectify for $$$
I fear for when we get Ace Attorney gacha
Wait that is a Mega Man game? Wut
Gacha really is the worst trend. So many IPs get ruined because of the whales that buy terrible skins and shit
Why must we sexualize freaking plants and animals? God damn.
Gacha really is the worst trend. So many IPs get ruined because of the whales that buy terrible skins and shit
UghThese design docs also let the world know that Kanna, the plant girl was originally concepted as a shark girl in a bikini...with four breasts.
Why must we sexualize freaking plants and animals? God damn.