I honestly don't know how you guys stomach JRPGs. And this is actually not even as bad as it can get.I'd downloaded the demo of Shining Resonance: Refrain to try on my lunch break- it's only about fifteen minutes long, and ten of those are cut scenes of characters with lengthy fantastical titles introducing themselves. I think this is probably the most anime game I've ever played out of over a hundred JRPGs.
This is the first character I meet, Sonia, a 'knight'. With a lacy boobplate cupping her breasts and leaving her vitals exposed, with an armoured boobstrap on top of them that has it's own boobwindow in it. Obviously stockings, figure-hugging corset 'armour', weird belt deployment, plate armour that must be wafer-thin on her deformed ankles and a a loose idea of anatomy go hand-in-hand. Her buckler is bizarrely attached to the underarm as it's more important that it somehow works as a violin (?!), and a scabbard is unnecessary as everyone's weapons teleport into existence. Which is really bloody handy for the young man who just escaped from prison and had his inner voice telling him to draw his sword.
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Why women criticise sexualised character designs (READ OP)
- Thread starter Persephone
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Every time I go shopping for my daughter, the girls stuff is a mix of passive pink and mauve hearts and glitter offset with passive grey. They are pretty much badged as a walking set of visable emotions and caregiving iconography from before they can walk, whereas boys get strong primary colours. It's sexist because it's treating them differently, sticking an emotional/social role on them. Same goes for boys wearing stuff with 'superhero' etc written on it, but the cliche is carried through to female computer game character design because even adult female characters are more likely to still be treated like girls with the hearts icongraphy, bows and pigtails etc than adult men are to be treated like male children. In the worst cases, you also end up with characters supposed to be women but with the head/body proportions of young girls while their male/adult peers look like adults, it's infantilisation.
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Yeah, this one is over my 'tolerance' line for this stuff. To be fair a good portion of my favourites sit on the other side of the line- SMTIV was on one side, whereas Apocalypse went full-on screaming into the anime 'power of friendship' and 'harem creepy stalker' stuff. Loads of them have great combat systems but just have me skipping through the cut scenes as fast as I can.
Had to search him. I can see the appeal of his art especially with less exaggerated proportions and shading but the designs on some of the characters are pretty generic at this point. The characters body proportions all look similar too and most of them seem to have same or similar faces. Some of the males look a bit more interesting but mostly in the same generic anime male lead type boat. I don't know, I do feel like I'm falling into a habit of generalizing anime styles over all.
I'd say most aren't worth playing and then you try your best to forget the awful bits. Some are more tolerable than others I guess. I still enjoy the Trails series despite feeling Cold Steel is a step back from Sky. Persona 5.... Short bursts... To let my frustrations and annoyance simmer down.
Some of us long for the day when JRPGs weren't trying to be shitty light novels/anime XD
Cold Steel 2 was definitely one where I really enjoyed the combat/character development that made up the meat of the game but had to start skipping through the repetitive, clichéd cut scenes when the same crap played out again and again at tedious length. Sky had the advantage of a party of mixed age, experience and ability. That offered variety and meant you weren't just dealing with everyone's parental issues in turn.
So many of the 'party of schoolkids' ones just play out the same notes for that subgenre on top of the same notes for cartoons and jrpgs in general, and Cold Steel 2 doubled down on tired story beats by adding a repetitive structure of never allowing the party a decisive victory over anything on top of that.
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I agree with all the characters, especially the women, looking alike. I was going to say in my previous post that it looks like they all came from the same family.
Pretty easily, at least for me. I guess I built up a tolerance, it's easier to look past certain characters designs when you enjoy the story and gameplay. As for that shining game, I was just laughing at it, but that said, I understand why people have issues with it. These design decisions just become amusing for me.
I'd downloaded the demo of Shining Resonance: Refrain to try on my lunch break- it's only about fifteen minutes long, and ten of those are cut scenes of characters with lengthy fantastical titles introducing themselves. I think this is probably the most anime game I've ever played out of over a hundred JRPGs.
This is the first character I meet, Sonia, a 'knight'. With a lacy boobplate cupping her breasts and leaving her vitals exposed, with an armoured boobstrap on top of them that has it's own boobwindow in it. Obviously stockings, figure-hugging corset 'armour', weird belt deployment, plate armour that must be wafer-thin on her deformed ankles and a a loose idea of anatomy go hand-in-hand. Her buckler is bizarrely attached to the underarm as it's more important that it somehow works as a violin (?!), and a scabbard is unnecessary as everyone's weapons teleport into existence. Which is really bloody handy for the young man who just escaped from prison and had his inner voice telling him to draw his sword.
I find with jrpgs, suspension of belief is the best policy. Not many of the armor is ever for function, just fashion.
It's titillation for the presumed male player rather than fashion, I think. Besides, I can't imagine many other knights looking at it and going 'that's totally what I'm wearing to next year's grand melee, it'll go well with my best axe'. :D
Yeah, I know, fashion as in aimed at young players/cosplayers etc
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I'd downloaded the demo of Shining Resonance: Refrain to try on my lunch break- it's only about fifteen minutes long, and ten of those are cut scenes of characters with lengthy fantastical titles introducing themselves. I think this is probably the most anime game I've ever played out of over a hundred JRPGs.
This is the first character I meet, Sonia, a 'knight'. With a lacy boobplate cupping her breasts and leaving her vitals exposed, with an armoured boobstrap on top of them that has it's own boobwindow in it. Obviously stockings, figure-hugging corset 'armour', weird belt deployment, plate armour that must be wafer-thin on her deformed ankles and a a loose idea of anatomy go hand-in-hand. Her buckler is bizarrely attached to the underarm as it's more important that it somehow works as a violin (?!), and a scabbard is unnecessary as everyone's weapons teleport into existence. Which is really bloody handy for the young man who just escaped from prison and had his inner voice telling him to draw his sword.
Isn't it funny how even when the main character is supposed to be a knight, they still manage to make her kind of look like a french maid?
Seriously, what the fuck is with Japan and making their female characters dress like french maids?
I agree with Morrigan. You can buy Shining Force I and II on Steam for like $2.99 each. The rest are harder to acquire though. Also, Tao > Anri and don't believe Morrigan's lies. :P
Yes, when comparing his designs versus artists for other JRPGs such as the ones working on the Tales series, I feel his a good portion of his characters could all be related.
I think it's lace and the implied demure attitude, a combination of the delicate and the submissive, seen as a fetish to hit when assigning one to each of your female cast to hit as many as possible rather than giving them a personality. Which is weird when by making them a knight as a job role you're also trying to imply the character is a skilled, dynamic warrior, a leader of soldiers and the right-hand get-shit-done henchwoman to royalty.
Nothing wrong with gentility- I don't begrudge anyone wearing their favourite clothes after trudging around a battlefield- but it's the bizarre mix of visable lacy lingerie and platemail, guaranteed to shred the former and make the latter ineffective, that I find odd!
I don't have a PC and only get to use portables on my commute unfortunately! I've played the GBA one (resurrection of dark dragon) though.
Yeah, pretty much. It's mind-blowing how repetitive it's become. It's like Japanese designers don't know how to design characters without starting with a fetish as a jumping-off point anymore.
Honestly, at this point, I almost think it's more of an "inmates running the asylum" kind of thing. The kind of weirdos who were into this kind of fetish crap when my generation was growing up are the ones leading teams and making games now, and therefore they put what they like in. And the complete laser-focus on that kind of stuff has attracted a particular breed of gamer to their games, which feeds into it all generating a weird Ouroboros of creepery.
This is why cries that criticism restricts creative freedom don't work for me- when all the young female characters are designed to display their breasts, arse and thighs first, it's essentially a sexualised template as a starting point that limits design being criticised, which you'd think anyone interested in creative character design would be all for.
Man, I'm trying to think of one that hasn't, and I'm having a hard ass time thinking of one. Nioh comes to mine, but then you have the magic user, but she is one out of the many characters that aren't fetishized. And even then, I do still like her outfit.
There is probably more that don't, but I just can't think of any....
I can't either, unless you want to count Morag from XC2...but her entire character design is basically founded around her being androgynous/masculine.
JRPGs have a wide variety of styles. Some of them have hot guys featured more prominently (FFXV for example). They've always been my favorite genre, and a lot of them appeal to women. Hell, I discovered yaoi thanks to FF7 and Suikoden. And I can list a ton of RPGs with kick ass female leads, Trails in the Sky and the FFXIII series, for example.
That said I'm disappointed to learn that there's a "waifu" dating element in the new shining game apparently. I haven't played the demo yet , but that just turns me off big time. The design shown I think looks cute and cool, except I'm really fucking annoyed at that obvious useless boob window -_-;
Speaking of JRPGs I've really gotten into Xenoblade and my thoughts have drifted towards playing the sequel. Now, Xenoblade isn't some kind of bastion of amazing female character design (Sharla) but it's been alright, but my impressions of Xenoblade 2 thus far seems to be that it's the worst kind of Anime Tiddies game. Any thoughts to that?
It's the kind of game that tries to have it both ways, honestly, and as a result, the sexualization and fetish elements clash wildly with the generally pretty earnest story they're trying to tell. Some people can take it, some people (myself included) find it exhausting. I gave up about 5 chapters in because I just couldn't deal with how every single female character was designed to exemplify some anime-fan's particular fetish.
Also, Tora is just the worst. It's like the developers made a real-world otaku into a playable character and then turned him into a Nopon.
No lies, just the truth. Freeze 4 + tanky defense > Blaze 4 and squishiness. It is known.
Estelle from Trails in the Sky
Nanami from Suikoden 2
Agrias, Meliadoul, Ovelia from FF Tactics
Chris from Suikoden 3
Cecilia from Wild Arms
Alys from Phantasy Star IV
Larxene from Kingdom Hearts
Kairis KH3 design and Namines design
Lucina from Fire Emblem
Many of the women in Valkyrie Chronicles
And that's just off the top of my head
Just thought of another, but it really is hard. The women from the Shin Megami Tensei series. They aren't designed for the current otaku culture.
Figures, Haven't played any of those games. As of now my current games are drpgs. And those have a crazy amount of fan service.
Namine is textbook "demure ill girl". She's the Kingdom Hearts equivalent to Rei Ayanami (even in terms of plot!).
Almost none of those games are anywhere close to recent, though. And Kairi got aged down in KH3 for some reason.
Zelda's design in Ultimate is her design in A Link Between Worlds which is based on her design in A Link to the Past. It's literally her SNES-era design.
Someone needs to have a word with the Gallian army uniform designer in Valkyrie Chronicles. Sending the young female assault troops, scouts and snipers into trench warfare while wearing short skirts and stockings to show off those thighs has got to be murder on the budget in terms of repairs rather than the tough, all-purpose shapeless combats assigned to the blokes.
Tony's designs aren't just boring, they're so similar that most couldn't even tell the characters apart. The facial and body design for his female characters are basically carbon copies of one another. If somebody asked me for "generic anime female", his designs would be at the top of the list. That said, the thing that disturbs me most about his characters are their arms. They're... disturbing, to say the least.
*sigh*
So the message is... play games from over a decade ago?
*sigh*
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I was just naming off JRPGs that came to mind. If you want to go Japanese designs on the whole? Pretty much every woman in the Dark/Demon's Souls and Bloodborne universes, outside of Gywneviere. I don't play as many JRPGs as I used to because they're a lot more scarce these days and I've been consumed with Soulsborne most my gaming time. Kat from Gravity Rush, Zelda's BotW design (people making memes notwithstanding, the design is good). Capcom's de-sexualized a lot of their designs in the Resident Evil series (compare Clair in RE2 to Revelations 2 Claire and Remake Clair). You could add Luna's design from FFXV as well as Gentiana's (spoilers about her... OTHER design aside).
Also Kairi was not aged down. She's still the same age as sora (late teens), she just got a new haircut that makes her face look younger. Bob cuts with bangs make your face look rounder and have that effect. Long hair going down the sides of your face like she had in KH2 make you look slightly older.
Hearts are mainly present in female character designs. There are probably some examples for men but I don't think they are common. The only one that sticks in my mind is Ashley from Battle Fantasia.
Second one is fanart but it shows the chest better.
Second one is fanart but it shows the chest better.
Hearts are mainly present in female character designs. There are probably some examples for men but I don't think they are common. The only one that sticks in my mind is Ashley from Battle Fantasia.
Second one is fanart but it shows the chest better.
Ansem from Kingdom Hearts has a big 'ol heart motif too.
I don't watch Jojo but I remember seeing a guy who has a heart shaped cutout on his chest.
That's all I got.
Kingdom Hearts is full of heart motifs so I don't think those count, it carries a different message. But Evil Riku has one too, I guess.
It's a well made game when you ignore that (IF you can), but yup, the designs are awful and the writing takes a hit too IMO, they go hand in hand trying to appeal to a different audience compared to XC1.
Hey, PS1 & PS2 were the golden age of JRPGs. What you got against classic games?
You could also play all the Soulsborne games, those are good with practically zero objectification / fetishization in them. Dragon Quest XI doesn't look too bad in those respects. I know DQ builders isn't (I've played it, super cute game). Kingdom Hearts in general is pretty light on that stuff (you could argue Aqua has a bit of a sexual outfit, but that's 1 character). Both Valkyria Chronicles Remastered and Trails in the Sky series aren't a decade old, and are pretty easily available. The Ni No Kuni games also spring to mind (I haven't finished either of them, but so far don't remember any fetishy characters in either of them.
Pikachu Libre is a luchador, something largely associated with men, so it feels weird to criticize Nintendo for that. In a way, it cancels out.
She's not the main character.
She's not the main character.
Precure costumes are filled with pink and hearts and it's "woker" than western "woke", to be honest.
Okay. Her armor is still designed to evoke french maid imagery, though.
The releases may be recent, but the Trails in the Sky games did originally come out in 2004-2007.
Welcome to my own personal hell. As a JRPG fan who doesn't really care for open world games or moral choice mechanics, the RPG genre is basically a rotting corpse with no new games worth playing anymore. That's why I end up playing stuff like Yakuza and Souls - it's the only stuff that isn't insultingly, painfully anime.
Those are great and among my favourites, but they're practically ancient games now. :(
Yes it is. Trails in the Sky FC is 14 years old, SC is 12 years old. They were only localized/ported on Steam recently is all. The more modern Falcom games feature a lot more sexist tropes and fetishization, sadly. They have regressed on that front.
As PlanetSmasher if you want a recent JRPG (not Souls likes but classic-style JRPG) who isn't filled to the brim with that crap, you are left wanting today. Indies like Cosmic Star Heroine help, at least.
Yakuza and Souls are both extremely anime. One utilizes popular trends in shounen and the other wears its Berserk influence on its sleeve.
We need to get away from using "anime" as a pejorative because it doesn't tell you anything. It's like saying "this is too much like a TV show." Just say too much like a light novel since there's a more ubiquitous nature to them (with some exceptions).
Yay, happy to see a fellow fan of ancient JRPGs in here :)
God I had no idea they were that old, I just recall them being a thing in the very late PSP days but I guess those were ports too? It is pretty sad that a lot of JRPGs have regressed into territory with a lot of waifu dating sim elements, or stuff like Hyper Dimension Neptunia series -_-; Apparently even Fire Emblem has started to embrace that nonsense. I actually have started Cosmic Star Heroine because of its resemblance to Phantasy Star (the series that got me hooked on RPGs) Undertale is also a great one.
I also want to make clear that by listing these games I'm by no means hand waving the stupid waifu bullshit in a lot of Japanese games. Rather it's just I spend as much time as I can seeking out stuff I like that don't have those elements so I thought I'd share them with others who may be looking for the same thing. Sometimes it feels like we're wandering in a cultural desert with some of this stuff, and we're all just pointing out oasis locations to each other.
You'll find plenty in here and on this site in general. The only difference is a chunk of those people are less selective with modern JRPGs (Idea Factory stuff, Tales, etc) as they're cool with that stuff too.
As far as JRPGs that feel like a modern interpretation of old JRPGs go, I'd say Radiant Historia, Alliance Alive, and the Bravely games are good candidates. There's probably a bunch more I'm forgetting, but the genre isn't THAT dead, even if most of the old series are.
I think from context it's not too much effort realize which sort of anime we're inferring here. Stuff like the generic, harem, ecchi bullshit. I'm a huge anime fan, and I can't stand those kinds of anime. I have a wide variety of tastes from Psycho Pass to Madoka Magica to Card Captor Sakura to Yuri on Ice, but give me stuff like SAO and I'll mostly roll my eyes at it.
Also Berserk by no means 'owns' dark fantasy. Yes, it may be an influence, but even Berserk is not your 'typical' anime as anime is known today. It's like Jojo's in that it began in the 80's and it's no longer what springs to mind for your average person when you mention 'anime'. What 'Anime' is has changed in the public conciousness. In the 80's it would have been something like Akira. In the 90's, something like Sailor Moon. Most recently it'd be stuff like SAO.
That said, there's a huge reason why Soulsborne has a much larger female audience than Berserk. Berserk in some of its more infamous moments relies on the stupid sexist trope of fridging a woman to further the male's character development. It also relies way too heavily on rape and sexualized violence for most women to stomach. Say what you will to defend it, but the Eclipse scene is horribly misogynistic and fucked up in a multitude of ways.
Soulsborne games, in spit of their dark nature tend to avoid these 'easy' ways of conveying a dark hopeless world. Any possible sexualized violence in the games is only very vageuly alluded to, in such a way that there are alternate theories to explain why something happened that doesn't come out to just 'rape' in the end.
As a reply to your other stuff about Bravely series, Tales and Idea factory games....
I haven't played Bravely yet because I've never owned a 3DS. I might buy them though since my partner owns one.
The Idea factory games are a major NO to me because they're low quality titty games. In my most desperate moment of RPG craving back in the PS3 days I played a demo of one. GOD NO, NEVER AGAIN.
I actually really like the Tales games, I've been playing them since Destiny on PS1, though on and off. I enjoyed Xilia a lot (I really liked Millia and Jude's characters). I'm very much looking forward to finally playing Vesperia (I've never owned any Xbox consoles). In general like, the Tales games are anime as fuck, but that doesn't bother me because I AM a huge weeb. 1 or 2 sexy female designs don't bug me as long as those characters are well developed, human and in control of their agency/bodies in the game. Tales also has some good looking guys in it (that Yuri<3)
EDIT: Forgot about Radiant Historia. Holy fuck this game looks dope I'm so buying this. Looks like I'll be comandeering my partner's 3DS for awhile. She never plays it anyways lol
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It's pretty fucking dead on consoles, unfortunately. And Radiant Historia was a cool idea that fucks itself up about halfway through when the stupid underage dragongirl who talks in baby talk joins the party.
Can't we just get one RPG that's about adults doing adult things? Why does every JRPG have to just be infested with the exact same idiotic tropes every time?
Then say that. No need to throw the whole medium under the bus unless you want to Sturgeon's Law everything.
I mean there's been a pretty big resurgence of stuff like Jojo and similar older shounen trope-filled stuff like Megalo Box and Devilman, so I'm not sure why a casual fan wouldn't be thinking of that when they think of anime. If you're on a forum all day and see people deconstructing the seasonal charts, sure I can see the association to the more questionable elements of the medium, but that just goes back to Sturgeon's law.
I don't even like Berserk that much so I'm not gonna go out of my way to defend it, but it's a lot more than the Eclipse. I'm just talking about the general feel of the tone and Miyazaki pretty much straight up lifting panels from the manga for certain areas. The guy is a Berserk fanatic and it shows.
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