She is cute. She does have nice skin (I guess). She's also dressed stupidly, which isn't helped by the often invasive camera angles.
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Stellar Blade - Review Thread
- Thread starter --R
- Start date
I think your post will be deleted in 3,2,1...
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i do very easily see why people would find this uncomfortable. im not invalidating anyobe perspective im just explaining and clarifying mine. im not defending korean culture im explaining it. just because i don't attack my own culture doesn't mean im defending it. i hope thats easy to understand. just as you don't appreciate hearing men explain what you don't think is wrong, i hope you can understand why i would feel uncomfortable about discussing negative aspects about my culture.
to be quite honest, i do feel like some of it feels xenophobic or at least an unfamiliarity with korean sexual expression. as kim says in my piece and i agree with him, the games market has had countless products from other countries featuring bosom sexy characters. this is just korea's version of it, problematic as anyone else's depiction.
yes and i played the whole game, im judging the entire game not isolated clips. also nier automata did this as well and the skirt was default?
thank you that's exactly what i was hoping to provide. to the best of my ability i tried to interview a korean researcher or educator on gender politics, but they did not wish to comment. i wanted a more complete picture but i still wanted to provide the cultural context.
It's hard as hell to differentiate between providing a reason for something vs providing an excuse/defense for it, even in a real life conversation. Nearly impossible to express those nuances online. I thought you did a fair job of it but it's very easy to misread things these days
I did appreciate you adding some cultural context to the game and enjoyed the read.
The clips I have seen are far, far more pronounced than any of those other games... Especially as the character is even more overtly sexualized with all the ridiculous jiggle.
Other games have been bad yes, but this is clearly taking it further and has its fair share of fanserbice nonsense.
These have potential to be considered by various outlets or critics, from indie to AAA.
January:-
Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown
No Case Should Remain Unsolved
Lil' Guardsman
Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth
Tekken 8
February:-
Helldivers 2
Balatro
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden
Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island
March:-
Unicorn Overlord
Death Of A Wish
Dragon's Dogma 2
Rise of the Ronin
April:-
Children Of The Sun
Botany Manor
Another Crab's Treasure
Minishoot' Adventures
May:-
Animal Well
Lorelei and the Laser Eyes
Homeworld 3
Hellblade 2
World Of Goo
Nine Sols
June:-
Still Wakes The Deep
July:-
Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus
SCHiM
Frostpunk 2
August:-
Dustborn
Star Wars Outlaws
Steamworld Heist 2
September:-
STALKER 2
October:-
Metaphor: ReFantazio
These don't have release dates yet:-
Hades 2
The Rise of the Golden Idol
The Plucky Squire
Thank Goodness You're Here!
The Alters
Replaced
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
Forever Skies
Flock
Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn
Baby Steps
Anger Foot
1000xRESIST
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1000 X Resist is out next month
wouldn't be surprised if Dragon Age snaks into the running.
There's also Awoved
I
sure the costumes are definitely worse than your typical game. austin wood's piece on games radar (?) was really nice in talking about how silly the outfits are (especially offering an ace perspective), but also admiring some of their design and eve's character overall.
I think being a German did not make me think of this aspect of your point / argumentation too much until now. In my country we are very anti-patriotistic and we are used to being criticized from ourselves and others. In general we rarely have the desire to defend parts of our culture, so maybe - because I viewed it out of this lense - I was so taken a back by these parts in your review? I am not sure, but I thank you for coming in here to engage with our opinions on your review, even though we probably still don't align - which is totally fine.
The only one of those games already released that I can guarantee will be on the GOTY list is Rebirth, given the critical reception.
The rest are on a "depends what else comes out, so maybe" list.
thank you for the discussion and for reading my piece! 🙏🏻 truly appreciate it
And honestly as bad as the excuses are in those games... they're also made for male gaze, despite their "deeper" meanings. Though Bayonetta was designed by a woman, who would actually troll Kamiya's requests (she gave every character glasses, including male ones because he was into glasses on women or something. She was also given far more agency than Eve) Nier and most of Yoko Taro's works tie womens sexuality thematically with the game's narrative and plot.
Yes that is dumb, and a lazy excuse. In Automata's case he was trying to make some statement about the player abusing the characters for their own satisfaction... which I thought wasn't as clever as he thought it was. Same with Kaine being over-sexualized, though she is at the very least given more agency than 2B. Same with Drakengard 3 having women only be defined by their sexual experiences... It's shit because men constantly reduce their female characters to their sexuality for narrative and selfish reasons. So when men do it in the name "art" it feels shallow, and very gross, especially to female audiences who are constantly reduced to their sexuality in media all the time (most times in stories written by men.)
It's no different here, though it feels particularly more egregious when you know the allegations against the company, the basic plot, and the lack of character agency. You could say something about the developer being mask off about their desires, but I think that's not really an excuse when it's a persistent and real problem in the industry both historic and modern.
I'm sure there are cultural reasons, but I think misogyny is so universally understood to be bad, that no amount of cultural background can really excuse stuff of this nature.
In the case of this game, I can see how comparisons with other games of it's ilk is warranted, but I also think if we're going to do that - you have to see why those games are accepted more now than they were when the discussion was more active on their negative aspects. Who knows, maybe Shift Up has some "deeper meaning" to Eve being hypersexualized and objectified too and people just don't know it yet... but I'm not going to play the game to find out as most of what I've seen looks like bog-standard action faire with no real narrative hooks to pull you in, and the allegations have me mega hesitant as well.
I was looking through X and people are apparently outraged about "MUH CENSORSHIP" in Stellar Blade now because they made some outfits arguably slightly more conservative? Freaking priceless! Not even a game with as ridiculously over the top pandering as this can appease the CHUDs.
If anything I hope some of these dummies piling onto a game that kowtows to their POV will help steer devs away from catering to those crazies.
If anything I hope some of these dummies piling onto a game that kowtows to their POV will help steer devs away from catering to those crazies.
Yeah it's a cesspoool, but I like to follow ZhugeEx and a few FF community folks who still post on there.
there actually is a narrative reason for her sexiness too, and her "lack of agency" is part of her arc as i write in my review. she ends the game with much more agency than it starts.
of course don't waste your time if none of it looks convincing. this absolutely isn't nier, if you're a learned sci fi reader this isn't going to change your life. but the reasoning for eve's body is a lot more earnest and believable than kojimas nonsense about quiet at the very least
reply continued from above (man im sorry i don't know how to delete posts here lol) it is boring and patriarchal that these are all men led projects that center feminine sexuality as a large part of its theme. again it's why stellar blade isn't anything special either. it's just another game that's like this. it's frustrating and boring.
Sorry to be a pedant but you have this a bit backwards. Kamiya was told by higher-ups that they couldn't put glasses on Bayonetta so he got Shimazaki to sneak glasses onto every single character in the game. Kamiya himself has a pair of sunglasses that he wears all the time and incorporates into his avatar on social media.
By all accounts Mari Shimazaki seemed to have a lot of freedom on the Bayonetta games but it is difficult to define based on our outsider knowledge. In the Eyes of Bayonetta documentary she seems like someone who puts a lot of thought into her work and takes criticism really seriously. Ultimately she did have Kamiya giving the final say over her designs so there is a power dynamic there to account for.
That's quite alright haha! I was shooting from the hip and just trying to recall the glasses thing. Thanks for the more accurate correction on that aspect!
And yeah, Shimazaki seems to like her design of Bayonetta, but at the end of the day Kamiya made it pretty clear he just wanted to make a sexualized main character. It's even prevelent in one of my favorite games of his Wondeful 101... and it grossed me out there too.
That's good to hear at least. I just think the concept is a bit tired at this point, and trying to narratively explain fetishized character design (specifically around sexist beauty standards) is a bit old...
That said I need to read your review. I only skimmed it when replied with the link about the allegations.
I love your writing btw. I've read past reviews and thought they were all great!
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Skill Up's review predictably complete and utter torture as he waffles on about quality of writing for aaaages in his video review. Dude is so clearly trying to make a pitch as a games writer, or trying to weirdly flex about passing English in high school.
If the last post about this creator didn't fly then I doubt this one will either.
Apologies. Sincerely. I wasn't aware of them being a no-go on here.
Because it's not feminine sexuality whatsoever. Having a hot girl to ogle in hour game with the camera zooming in on her butthole isn't feminine sexuality, it's just your standard objectification.
For instance Baldur's Gate 3 and TLoU2 showcase plenty of sexuality and it's not remotely the same thing. In fact, chuds lost their shit at the feminine sexuality in the latter lol.
Seeing some arguments in here I'm not about to touch :).
Been playing the game, and do any reviews confirm that there is like no death penalty? I'm a little over an hour in, and it seems surprising given it pretty much has souls-like bonfires in it.
Been playing the game, and do any reviews confirm that there is like no death penalty? I'm a little over an hour in, and it seems surprising given it pretty much has souls-like bonfires in it.
I learned about it myself today as well, did a little digging off Reset and can understand why it's a no-go, lol.
"You don't have to wear the lewd outfits and you'll be fine"
Like that would stop the constant tit jiggle and camera zooming on her ass 🙄
Yes, I am spoiler-tagging a gif of a fully clothed girl. And you'll see why. Because it's not just about that one outfit, no matter how obtuse some of you are being.
Far out that gif is embarrassing lol
So I decided to check some of the gameplay to see if the regular moment to moment gameplay was bearable, but plenty of the animations and close ups… like, if you're gonna turn your main character into a "sex icon" (to put it some way), at least give her the personality and independence to match that. It's like the developers were like "she needs to be tame and submissive in the way she acts, otherwise the losers who'll defend our game's sexism won't feel like she's an attainable person and might resent her".
Why the fuck does she point her gun that way? Why the fuck does she pose like that when climbing stairs? Her personality doesn't match the way she moves and does things at all.
Why the fuck does she point her gun that way? Why the fuck does she pose like that when climbing stairs? Her personality doesn't match the way she moves and does things at all.
I agree the concept is old and boring. whatever stellar blade has isn't some revolution in narrative design. It's just amother basic action game with an attractive protagonist to fiddle away 20 or so hours.
I know it's not ideal to ask for spoilers in a review thread, but any chance you could elaborate on this?
I know, never look at the comments, but some of them aimed at her seemed disgusting.
I am playing the game on a borrow copy and have probably about 1/4 of the game to go, and unless there is a "she breathes through her skin" style twist to make me ashamed of my words and deeds there has been no narrative reason for the fact that I have unlocked and can equip several outfits that could at best be described as "swimwear"
Not sure i trust user reviews especially on MC on this game personally, too much culture war surrounding it.
For any game, trusting an aggregated user score is always a bad idea I'm my experience. Lots of people can only gave a 1 or 5 star review, so I find reading the actual text of their reviews tends to yield better results in general
still, being an exclusive AND the controversy surrounding it, was expecting it to be review bombed
Really? Seems like the chuds that are involved in review bombing are the type to give it success. Unless they're upset about Hard R or vagina bones being patched out.