Luckily no surprises on the backside this time, and she even wears pants to avoid any upskirts (looking at you, Valkyrie Elysium). Heels are indeed meh though.
Why women criticise sexualised character designs | OT3 | "make her look more...corpulent, more stuffed where the eyes can't escape."
- Thread starter Persephone
- Start date
- OT
Luckily no surprises on the backside this time, and she even wears pants to avoid any upskirts (looking at you, Valkyrie Elysium). Heels are indeed meh though.
Most of Nioh 2 armor are good, and the outfit are all pretty similiar, just different body type, so not like Monhun, where male armor are mecha tank, and female are fanservice fantasy armor.
And there will be option to tweak the body, just not in the demo, so default bodytype 2 has BIG breast.
The only thing can tweak in demo is muscle
Gameplay isn't like Elden ring, more like...Sekiro and Nioh?
And instead of samurai and ninja, the player feel more like a Wuxia/Murim warrior from Chinese martial art serie
This is the dodge action
But there's a topic for it
Wo Long Fallen Dynasty Demo on PS5 & Xbox Series S/X releasing today, will last until Sept 26th
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HewmtiiOnH0 First time I'm seeing that move at 2:40.
www.resetera.com
New Pennyblood character is adorable 😭 👍
Gorgeous mix of things here. But the beautiful palette, kinda chunky school uniform... Gosh, she almost looks like some American "Card Captor Sakura" from early the ~1900s with the school uni, rod, and bows.
I love her fluffy hair (and no bangs!), but really dig the hammer too.
Thanks for posting Tycho Kepler !
New character Candy, a young suffragette
Born in Eureka Springs, Arkansas in 1909. Now 14, she currently attends the Aaron School, New York's leading private academy for privileged young women.
Day and night, Candy fights as a passionate activist for political reform, prohibition, bolstering women's rights, and protecting the environment.
Her goal in the future is to continue her education at Barnard College and become the first female American president. Candy never gives up, and has a stronger sense of justice than most.
Candy can be opinionated and has a tendency to get carried away, making her the unpredictable trickster of the team. Her weapons of choice are Crandall Hammers.
Quoting self for more Pennyblood having some great designs
Born in Paris in 1893. Now 30, Roxane spends her days singing jazz and enchanting patrons in the underground speakeasies of New York. Roxane is also a dhampir, meaning she is half-human and half-vampire.
That third girl is literally just hatless sci-fi Ryza. Someone's been copying homework.Speaking of Star Ocean, the demo for the new game is out and the main heroine is lovely in her puffy armor:
Unfortunately the other women who (briefly) appeared were more or less embarrassing:They all looked even worse in 3d.
At 30 years old, I wonder how many times the other party members will refer to her as the old lady of the group.Quoting self for more Pennyblood having some great designs
Born in Paris in 1893. Now 30, Roxane spends her days singing jazz and enchanting patrons in the underground speakeasies of New York. Roxane is also a dhampir, meaning she is half-human and half-vampire.
On the topic of Team Ninja... As surprising as it sounds, I think Team Ninja have been doing decent on the armour front for the most part since like.. Nioh? It's good to see them continue that trend with Wo Long. I don't recall wishing the armour looked more like the male versions like in other games (looking hard at you, monster hunter). They even took a historical figure, Minamoto no Yorimitsu, and genderbent the character in 2:
I'm very okay with that I think. Especially when you think about her similarly genderbent character of the same historical figure in FGO, the purple grape monster that I shall spare you the visuals of. They could have kept the character male, and it would have been a huge sausagefest since it IS a fantasy take on Japanese history, but they made the character female and didn't make it terrible. In fact, she's really cool! I played a female character and I felt cool in the armour sets of this game. It's Team freaking Ninja... of DoA fame. I don't know I was just so surprised when playing Nioh to see sensible clothing on women that didn't particularly highlight their boobs. I don't know if DoA can ever come back from ... that (I haven't actually checked the series out in a while), but I blame that hole they dug on their previous leader.
Edit: I do hope I haven't actually posted this before. SInce I have come close to doing this several times. In my memory, I never did, but I don't trust myself to remember everything correctly nowadays.
I'm very okay with that I think. Especially when you think about her similarly genderbent character of the same historical figure in FGO, the purple grape monster that I shall spare you the visuals of. They could have kept the character male, and it would have been a huge sausagefest since it IS a fantasy take on Japanese history, but they made the character female and didn't make it terrible. In fact, she's really cool! I played a female character and I felt cool in the armour sets of this game. It's Team freaking Ninja... of DoA fame. I don't know I was just so surprised when playing Nioh to see sensible clothing on women that didn't particularly highlight their boobs. I don't know if DoA can ever come back from ... that (I haven't actually checked the series out in a while), but I blame that hole they dug on their previous leader.
Edit: I do hope I haven't actually posted this before. SInce I have come close to doing this several times. In my memory, I never did, but I don't trust myself to remember everything correctly nowadays.
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You didn't, but I did :D I've talked about Nioh in the past in those threads and said similar things.
There is some questionable gender stuff in Nioh, it's not without criticism:
- How they made Ginchiyo Tachibana actually less badass than in history
- Some sexualized monsters like Kasha and the boob snake monsters -- what are even those things really xD
- How female NPCs like Mumyo do not age whatsoever in Nioh 2 despite the game spanning decades, but male characters like Tochikiro visibly age
- Some armours show a bit more skin on female MCs than male ones for some reason, though nothing severe (like this and this)
But other than those fairly minor things, Nioh is indeed shockingly tasteful (by Team Ninja standards) and even really cool when it comes to female warriors. I was rather pleased. Nioh 1 also had really badass female bosses like Yuki-onna and Lady Maria, Nioh 2 had Mumyo and Yorimitsu (whom you mentioned).
Those Devil Survivor quotes are some yikes wow. I would have hoped that when you're at the point of saying "the breasts are foundational to the character" you'd have the awareness to maybe rethink your life decisions.
en.m.wikipedia.org
But there was totally a way to do it that wasn't just boob snake lady lol. A straight up snake body with a women's head would probably make for a cooler more unnerving design too tbh.
Nure-onna - Wikipedia
But there was totally a way to do it that wasn't just boob snake lady lol. A straight up snake body with a women's head would probably make for a cooler more unnerving design too tbh.
Those Devil Survivor quotes are some yikes wow. I would have hoped that when you're at the point of saying "the breasts are foundational to the character" you'd have the awareness to maybe rethink your life decisions.
Nure-onna - Wikipedia
But there was totally a way to do it that wasn't just boob snake lady lol. A straight up snake body with a women's head would probably make for a cooler more unnerving design too tbh.
Well~ there's the mermaid(Is in demo) and snake lady in Wo-Long
It's quite telling how the original drawings back then were literally just the head of a woman on a snake, and how many modern drawings or interpretations are more sexualised. Maybe it's because the foklore drawing was more to scare people without a profit incentive and not be part of a commercial product that has to sell to a demographic, so modern drawings that are for commercial products think going for a sexy snake lady means they get more profits. Sexualised designs get more merchandise potential, fanart, and engagement I guess.Those Devil Survivor quotes are some yikes wow. I would have hoped that when you're at the point of saying "the breasts are foundational to the character" you'd have the awareness to maybe rethink your life decisions.
Nure-onna - Wikipedia
But there was totally a way to do it that wasn't just boob snake lady lol. A straight up snake body with a women's head would probably make for a cooler more unnerving design too tbh.
Kasha ia suppose to be flaming wheel, but guess they think cat girl will make it more interesting, nure onna is suppose to be snake body human head, the artbook make her look scary
Found artbook, the boob is not need, if LONG neck and face that change can be scary
Player chara not aging is because of player bloodline, Mumyo i think can either be for fanservice reason to keep her pretty, or it is a homage to the story of Yao Bikuni (A woman from japanese myth that ate mermaid meat and lived for 800 year, and in tv and anime and manga are usually protray as her 16 when she eat the mermaid meat)
Since I remember her spirit beast is a mermaid?
But I think worse is Tate Eboshi from Nioh 2, I think they are trying to do the two story mix together with the blue oni story.
And they make her tall, which maybe is homage to the Hachishaku-sama(8ft tall) yokai like Hanako from bathroom and red cape that children talk about?
So just face can be scary since is enemy and is a blue Oni?
Then full body....= =;
Well Done Wednesday
Anya Taylor Joy joins Pennyblood as a kickass robot lady
View: https://youtu.be/SVscuNM2IXU
View: https://youtu.be/nfrzkmsAQ5c
A rather sexy high slit in the design, but I love that there's no boob/butt hugging camera work despite the many easy chances for it lol.
I actually love her axe hand haha
Love that final smirk
Anya Taylor Joy joins Pennyblood as a kickass robot lady
View: https://youtu.be/SVscuNM2IXU
View: https://youtu.be/nfrzkmsAQ5c
A rather sexy high slit in the design, but I love that there's no boob/butt hugging camera work despite the many easy chances for it lol.
I actually love her axe hand haha
Love that final smirk
And of all the places they could have had the rocket shoot from they picked a reasonable one. Was funny when I looked away and looked back and just saw the back view of the rocket being fired and I thought they did something else and was happy when I skipped back to see.
Game is definitely the one I am looking forward to more between the two, and little surprised that it isn't making as much as the other one.
Fewer people care about Shadow Hearts, unfortunately. It was always more niche than its contemporaries, but the first one also released five days before FFX in the US and 3 weeks before it in Japan. Which didn't help. And they haven't been re-released in any way, whereas Wild Arms has been on PSN. Only having 3 games vs. when other JRPG franchises usually had more entries also gave it a lower profile. Reviews weren't super amazing either. They were decent, but the sequel is what put the series on the map.
There's also Marielle, who was revealed during the TGS trailer and is most similar to Maria from SO3.Speaking of Star Ocean, the demo for the new game is out and the main heroine is lovely in her puffy armor:
Unfortunately the other women who (briefly) appeared were more or less embarrassing:They all looked even worse in 3d.
It's a bit overdesigned, but I dig the costume. The short-haired character in blue and black spoiler-tagged in pigeonsteeltoes' post came so close to being perfect that I'm actually a little sad.
Also, I, umm, need all of your help with something. I'm working on a Smash thread about characters people expect to be in the next game and have a planned section to discuss the dearth of female and POC characters. I have a write-up for female characters, but I feel like it would be better to have some input from women before I release my post into the ether. I have the draft below:
Also, I, umm, need all of your help with something. I'm working on a Smash thread about characters people expect to be in the next game and have a planned section to discuss the dearth of female and POC characters. I have a write-up for female characters, but I feel like it would be better to have some input from women before I release my post into the ether. I have the draft below:
Hidden content
Yeah but by more female characters, Sakurai apparently meant embarrassing fanservice ala Pyra/Mythra
It's funny that for one of them it actually made a more reasonable design in the original game. Sure it was just a bandaid, but I know in my recent replaying of XC2 I never removed Massive Melee Mythra.
Nothing of note for Pyra, who was always the worst of the two....
Pyra's got a great (imo) alt costume, but unfortunately I think you need to buy the season pass to get it. It's her "disguise" she wears when you first get to Nia's hometown.
I mean, that's more on Nintendo who selected the DLC characters. As far as I know, Sakurai officially had little input on DLC choices beyond giving confirmation on whether he could devise a moveset. But, the alternative (had technological concerns not kicked in) would've involved Rex with Pyra and Mythra as assists, meaning we were going to have them either way, so yeah...
Also, I dug back through the thread and found this:
Does anyone know the music in this video?
No... The Nintendo chooses is just an excuse. Mythra's original Smash sprite was better but they backpedalled with the actual playable character. That's not even getting into Pyra or the boob physics. Or Sakurai's history with whining about not being able to include Palutena panty shots.
Begging Sakurai to add more women to Smash is like a monkey's paw
Do you mean POC or dark skinned character? Remember the Min-Min reveal topic?
This forum isn't remotely capable of discussing skin color for asian characters designed by Asian artists
Armed Fantasia only getting worse with the female characters:
🙄 🙄
There were character polls for this and Penny Blood being done for the Kickstarter conclusion livestream, and these two came in 1st and 3rd, respectively. By a solid margin too. Guess the Armed Fantasia devs knew what their fans wanted. :/ The main girl was 4th.
Outside of the imported physics (which are needless), how did the Smash devs backpedal with Mythra? I will not dispute that Sakurai's comments border on crass and juvenile, but he was seemingly one of the people pushing for more female characters pre-Ultimate. Many of them were alts, but the prior games' ratios were so dire that even that was at least a movement in the right direction.
Chinese folks are POC and welcome, but yes, I was specifically asking about darker-skinned characters. Min Min's reveal thread was not a good time for me or anyone.
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It's annoying. Instead of TIfa (heck even Aeris) we got Sephiroth. Maybe Dixie King could have been cool. Steve and Alex is a cool swap. Min Min was fine, but again, a lot of people wanted Twintelle (which is its own bag of worms). The Dragon Quest one was cool, but given how dang steep that game is in being """traditional"", it was all male alt characters (wish they added the lady hero from DQ4, but they chose not to).
IIRC they wanted to get Mai Shiranui which would NOT happen for...well rather obvious reasons. 🍈🍈
Fire Emblem wasn't really the problem with this. But they did opt for male heroes as the sorta "canon choice"... what a drag that even the Male/Female alts often put the male first (Pokemon trainer, or Splatoon could have used a PoC avatar)
sigh....
Anyways, godspeed Scrappy. Can't wait to read the new write up ya do.
I still can't comprehend how male Corrin was the default version in Ultimate, despite female Corrin being way more popular than him. It was also quite infuriating they released a male Byleth amiibo, yet none for female Byleth.
I think its probably because they run off who is featured in the promo material. If the female option is displayed more prominently (Splatoon, Wii Fit) then they go for that as the default option. Corrin is an interesting case because even though male Corrin was used in a lot of the initial promo material for Fates, by the time FE Warriors in 2017 came out it seemed that they switched it over to female Corrin as the "default" character. The Smash DLC came out in early 2016, so they probably were still assuming male Corrin was going to be the default used in promotional material until IS seemed to completly shift to using female Corrin as the "main Corrin" for future use. As for why they didn't change it in Smash Ultimate? Probably because they already made all the initial promotional work with male Corrin and didn't want to bother changing it for the rerelease/
For Byleth they probably went with who IS was using for promotional material at the time, which I'm assuming to be male Byleth.
IS always tries to use the male avatar as the default version. Female Corrin only became the default version because of her popularity. I do believe female Byleth is more popular, especially since 3 Hopes promotional material used female Blyleth, although it seems in Engaged they will use male Byleth.
Back on topic, for Corrin they released an amiibo for male and female version. You would think they would to the same with Byleth. That being said, only male Robin received an amiibo. Same with male Pokemon Trainer. Suppose only reason female Corrin got the privilege was, again, because of her popularity.
This also makes me wonder who decides the default version of characters with male and female version. Sakurai or someone else.
Only the last batch of Smash 3DS & Wii U DLC characters (Cloud, Corrin, Bayonetta) got notable Smash variant amiibo that changed their silhouette. Okay, Mr. Game & Watch also got them, but he's flat. I fear Corrin would've probably been stuck with one Smash amiibo had the character debuted in Ultimate.
The lack of female Heroes eludes me. I don't know, I believe Sakurai alluded to Square Enix being selectively difficult when Nintendo was perusing content for Dragon Quest, but I'm not sure if that extended to barring lady Erdrick or Sofia for choices. As you all know, Smash is not made in a vacuum, it's a reflection of the industry in the best and worst ways. The Smash team/Nintendo will have to go out of their way to alleviate some of these issues, because this industry won't change fast enough for Smash to reflect it "naturally." I don't think there's really a "natural" way to do this anyways, these are all business decisions by individual artists and developers with their own personal biases. Such is life.
Thank you.
The lack of female Heroes eludes me. I don't know, I believe Sakurai alluded to Square Enix being selectively difficult when Nintendo was perusing content for Dragon Quest, but I'm not sure if that extended to barring lady Erdrick or Sofia for choices. As you all know, Smash is not made in a vacuum, it's a reflection of the industry in the best and worst ways. The Smash team/Nintendo will have to go out of their way to alleviate some of these issues, because this industry won't change fast enough for Smash to reflect it "naturally." I don't think there's really a "natural" way to do this anyways, these are all business decisions by individual artists and developers with their own personal biases. Such is life.
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Aaah the cycle. We put male characters up to bat more so they're more popular and will join smash.
Current Gen's placing a better emphasis on female heroes (too!) will hopefully help longterm.
But man this gets even worse with PoC characters. Since they're in such small roles in the games they manage to be in, there's even less a chance they're popular enough for Smash.
... A little late but makes me wanna add that "diversity for smash" ribbon, cuz yeah... :😬
A lot of fighting games go for real world settings, funny enough, which makes them way more open to different types of characters they have. This is obviously an aspect that Smash Bros doesn't run on with its "all stars" approach. And said "All Stars" tells you a different story about gaming biases, sadly.
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To be fair Sephiroth is just infinitely cooler 👀
Don't mind me though I don't even play Smash
Heh believe me I appreciate that angle. But since the Smash roster favours both men and Sword-users, it felt a little less novel than... Just about anyone else they coulda used. (lol I'd have taken Red XIII)
A bit late on the discussion but I have something to add. Sakurai may say that he recognizes the problem of few female characters being in Smash but that doesn't mean he is willing to make an effort to solve the problem. If we look at the DLC characters for Ultimate there were only 4 female characters added:
- Female Byleth
- Min Min
- Alex
- Pyra/Mythra
Female Byleth and Alex were just convenient alts for the characters he (or Nintendo, I guess, but you can't tell me that Nintendo specifically demanded he put Byleth in Smash. The request was surely just "a main character from 3H" and he picked Male Byleth) actually wanted to add, Min Min got in but Sakurai confirmed that he was unsure whether to add her or Ninjara to represent ARMS and it was the ARMS director that convinced him to pick her in the end.
Many have complained that Sakurai missed the perfect chance to add a black character to Smash and that isn't a good look for him, but to me the even more damning revelation is that in the ONE OCCASION he had to cherry pick any character he wanted (because none of them were particularly popular) he didn't make a rule for himself like "I will limit my options to just the women of the roster".
And with Pyra/Mythra he also admitted that he wanted to make the fighter Rex w/ Pyra initially but couldn't because of technical limitation. It was technical limitations the lead to Pyra/Mythra, not Sakurai wanting to add female characters.
It's not bad enough that we only got 2 slots in the DLC dedicated to female characters. Even those only happened because of either technical limitations, or Sakurai letting another person choose for him. Based on this evidence this doesn't look like a man who is passionate about adding female characters to Smash.
I love Sakurai, he is a genius and has a lot of good qualities but he honestly doesn't care much about issues of representation and we have to accept it.
At this point we need to hope that a Nintendo higher up will specifically request him to add some specific characters that are women/PoC in the next Smash OR that he won't be the one to make the next Smash.
It's one or the other.
Relevant part starts at 2:30
Tanchiky - ENERGY SYNERGY MATRIX(Extended) [Official Audio]
Tanchiky - ENERGY SYNERGY MATRIX(Extended) / 2019.04-----more Listen Here!!!👇👇-----◆Apple Music◆https://music.apple.com/jp/album/power/1464904236◆Spotify◆h...
www.youtube.com
In regards to women in Smash, I remember there being a video from some people at GameXplain (before they left to form Good Vibes Gaming) of 100 different women they could add to the roster. So Nintendo has the options available, they just choose to be disappointing.
Thank you, Bloodarmz. On the subject of that GameXplain list, it does remind me that gaming is a sausage fest, but it's not a wasteland. Some characters could do better in contemporary times if they were just given the chance.
I won't psychoanalyze the man because I don't know him, but there is definitely a rigidity to how Sakurai picks/approves characters. Prominence and moveset potential seem to rule over everything else. He can and will subvert things as he deems necessary -- see Lucina and Robin over Chrom, or Min Min and hypothetically Ninjara over designated poster boy Spring Man -- but those are the exceptions, not the rule. That's not to say he doesn't take things like aesthetics, personality, and fandom into consideration, but he defers to the legacy franchise's poster children 90% of the time, which means overwhelmingly male characters are chosen and further advertised within the platform fighter's own sphere. Smash is as much a participant in this industry's own trends as it is a beneficiary/victim of them. So yes, Sakurai or anyone else would need to actually take other factors into consideration when selecting characters for the next rodeo, because the industry won't change fast enough on its own terms to begin alleviating the representation problems.
Smash Bros. is a museum, and a very impressive one at that. But museums curate, which means they're a reflection of the tastemakers', well, tastes. That can be good and bad, and yeah, sometimes it's arbitrary to the layperson and the professional. Whatever gets included is put on a pedestal, which means whatever doesn't get included can be deemed lesser even when the curators don't mean to do so. At some point, I did want to comment on the two slots for female characters in Ultimate's DLC. It's oddly telling that they came from Nintendo's own stable. There's no shortage of popular/iconic female third-party characters, they just never made it to the final round of selection. If you took Smash Bros. as the sole arbiter of franchise/character importance -- and you shouldn't, Sakurai wouldn't want that, but let's pretend for the sake of argument -- you'd think series like Tomb Raider, Puyo Puyo, Atelier, and Touhou Project left no mark on the industry whatsoever. I can extend that observation to the lack of darker-skinned POC leads in Smash when some do exist elsewhere and are as theoretically viable as anyone else. Or non-Japanese franchises. Or PC games. This series is a work in progress in many ways (some more important than others), and I'd imagine Nintendo is satisfied but not permanently so with its current state.
Sometimes, you (not you you, but the people in the industry) just need to look at a situation from a different angle and see what may be missing.
I refrained from mentioning Ultimate because it was a backslide from Sakurai's earlier comments (and the waters of who picked who were muddied, though within the confines Sakurai mentioned, he didn't always go for options most ideal for our specific concerns). People noticed how bad Ultimate got with the series' gender ratio because of the desert of female picks between 2018 and early 2020. The ballooning roster count and folks like Neoxon busting out hard data to bring the disparity into stark view made fans realize that Smash had somehow gotten worse than the already low numbers circa 2014.
I won't psychoanalyze the man because I don't know him, but there is definitely a rigidity to how Sakurai picks/approves characters. Prominence and moveset potential seem to rule over everything else. He can and will subvert things as he deems necessary -- see Lucina and Robin over Chrom, or Min Min and hypothetically Ninjara over designated poster boy Spring Man -- but those are the exceptions, not the rule. That's not to say he doesn't take things like aesthetics, personality, and fandom into consideration, but he defers to the legacy franchise's poster children 90% of the time, which means overwhelmingly male characters are chosen and further advertised within the platform fighter's own sphere. Smash is as much a participant in this industry's own trends as it is a beneficiary/victim of them. So yes, Sakurai or anyone else would need to actually take other factors into consideration when selecting characters for the next rodeo, because the industry won't change fast enough on its own terms to begin alleviating the representation problems.
Smash Bros. is a museum, and a very impressive one at that. But museums curate, which means they're a reflection of the tastemakers', well, tastes. That can be good and bad, and yeah, sometimes it's arbitrary to the layperson and the professional. Whatever gets included is put on a pedestal, which means whatever doesn't get included can be deemed lesser even when the curators don't mean to do so. At some point, I did want to comment on the two slots for female characters in Ultimate's DLC. It's oddly telling that they came from Nintendo's own stable. There's no shortage of popular/iconic female third-party characters, they just never made it to the final round of selection. If you took Smash Bros. as the sole arbiter of franchise/character importance -- and you shouldn't, Sakurai wouldn't want that, but let's pretend for the sake of argument -- you'd think series like Tomb Raider, Puyo Puyo, Atelier, and Touhou Project left no mark on the industry whatsoever. I can extend that observation to the lack of darker-skinned POC leads in Smash when some do exist elsewhere and are as theoretically viable as anyone else. Or non-Japanese franchises. Or PC games. This series is a work in progress in many ways (some more important than others), and I'd imagine Nintendo is satisfied but not permanently so with its current state.
Sometimes, you (not you you, but the people in the industry) just need to look at a situation from a different angle and see what may be missing.
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It's actually like this for Dragon Quest fans too. The female heroes are actually really popular especially Sofia (DQ4) and it's a MIRACLE if they're acknowledged. Even Fire Emblem is better in this regard.
Back when Hero was datamined as Brave and heavily rumored, there was a 2ch rumor that the alts were going to be Erdrick (default), Female Erdrick, Eleven/Luminary, and Anlucia from DQX. Since DQX is infamously Japan only and Sakurai confirmed Erdrick was originally the default. I can absolutely believe this might've been an early plan before they finalized it into what we got.
But man we could've had HER:
I mean, I know I know "The bare thighs are dumb" but it still would've been a great addition to Smash.
I do remember that rumor. I appreciate the wider variety of games represented by the official version of Hero, but it would've been nice to have the female alts.
It's actually like this for Dragon Quest fans too. The female heroes are actually really popular especially Sofia (DQ4) and it's a MIRACLE if they're acknowledged. Even Fire Emblem is better in this regard.
Back when Hero was datamined as Brave and heavily rumored, there was a 2ch rumor that the alts were going to be Erdrick (default), Female Erdrick, Eleven/Luminary, and Anlucia from DQX. Since DQX is infamously Japan only and Sakurai confirmed Erdrick was originally the default. I can absolutely believe this might've been an early plan before they finalized it into what we got.
But man we could've had HER:
I mean, I know I know "The bare thighs are dumb" but it still would've been a great addition to Smash.
I have...like... no love for DBZ (sorry lol).
But holy smokes I LOVE how Toriyama draws ladies. The amount of times he doesn't just default to "brunette with bangs" heroines (see: Final Fantasy) and tends to hit some pretty cool fashions... both realistic and just totally out there.
WHEN DO GIRLS EVER GET CUTE SHORT CURLY TURQUOISE HAIR!!??! 💚💙
Seriously, they're adorable and somehow badass looking.
Maribel gracing the cover of the game eating an apple and wearing a bonnet not giving a fuck
He's such a fun character designer. I'm not even a big DQ fan, but I get excited with every new game's cast.
I think your second paragraph reflects the selection process more accurately than the first. Sakurai is on record for saying he wants promote Japanese games and to celebrate gaming with the character choices. Beyond that, I suspect that the real reasons for the selections are rather banal, like Nintendo had existing professional relations with people who own certain characters, or someone in the decision making chain (could be Sakurai but not necessarily) favored those characters. There is usually some neutral sounding reason for choosing character X over character Y, but it is important to keep in mind that the selection of criteria is subjective, and which ones you choose and how you weight them can lead to radically different outcomes. I do not think rigidity of the selection process is at all a good reason for the lack of female characters.
The best example of using selective criteria for post-hoc justification of a character choice is Terry Bogard. SNK is an important part of the fighting game genre, so that might be why a SNK character is desirable. But which one? You can choose the most popular SNK character, in which case it is Terry Bogard. You could choose the protagonist of SNK's most popular series, in which case you would use Kyo Kusanagi from King of Fighters. You could note that SNK's most enduring contributions are the super meter and the weapon fighting genre, in which case you would choose a Samurai Shodown character. Nakoruru is the most iconic SamSho character. Now we have swapped a white, male American for an indigenous female Ainu.
Stripped of the subjective weighing of criteria and evaluation along those criteria, we are really only left with a few broad rules: 1. The character must be prominent or represent a prominent franchise. 2. The character should be from a Japanese game. Beyond that, and we get into post-hoc justifications. With these rules in mind, there are plenty of female characters Sakurai could have chosen and did not, pretty much due to business convenience and preferences at Nintendo or of Sakurai.
I've been playing the original God of War games and currently on God of War 3. No surprise that I've been eye-rolling and cringing at a lot of the game's treatment and designs for the women characters but God of War 3 really has pissed me off in just how far it goes and I've just had to stop playing for a bit because of one sequence.
(Content warning, implied sexual abuse) The sequence happens when you reach Poseidon's Chambers and you find a woman begging for help who has a rope attached around her neck and it's implied she is a kidnap victim of Poseidon who then made her into a sex slave. So the game then treats her for comedy as she's scared for her life, objectifies her do to her exposed breast and the camera's focus on those and then finally has Kratos murder her to he can keep a door open. This all happens just before Apthrodite shows up (who like most modern versions remove most of her traits and boil her down to sexy woman who likes sex a lot) for an optional sex mini game.
I've seen several times of the years from press, fans and GOW's creator David Jaffe claim that Kratos (and in some cases GOW as a series) is somehow not misogynistic and I don't understand how you can genuinely say that with stuff like that in the games. Like that sequence in particular kind of makes it crystal clear how the developers making the game thought about women, you can't escape that. I'm not even going into the "It's justified/explained in-universe" justification because that's just an obviously bad argument. And it wasn't just the games, I remember the marketing for these games by Sony and it was sexist as Styx.
(Content warning, implied sexual abuse) The sequence happens when you reach Poseidon's Chambers and you find a woman begging for help who has a rope attached around her neck and it's implied she is a kidnap victim of Poseidon who then made her into a sex slave. So the game then treats her for comedy as she's scared for her life, objectifies her do to her exposed breast and the camera's focus on those and then finally has Kratos murder her to he can keep a door open. This all happens just before Apthrodite shows up (who like most modern versions remove most of her traits and boil her down to sexy woman who likes sex a lot) for an optional sex mini game.
I've seen several times of the years from press, fans and GOW's creator David Jaffe claim that Kratos (and in some cases GOW as a series) is somehow not misogynistic and I don't understand how you can genuinely say that with stuff like that in the games. Like that sequence in particular kind of makes it crystal clear how the developers making the game thought about women, you can't escape that. I'm not even going into the "It's justified/explained in-universe" justification because that's just an obviously bad argument. And it wasn't just the games, I remember the marketing for these games by Sony and it was sexist as Styx.
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Few things make me as uncomfortable as the trope of women being used for titillation and then violently killed once the narrative is "done" with them. I wish God of War 3 was the last high profile example of this, but....... it's not.
Think the original God of War releases were the last games I hate played. Did not enjoy the feeling and have avoided it since. There were some interesting things in them but it was below the line for me and more a need to complete them all after enjoying the first when it came out. Even with all the praise I've avoided the newer one but will probably give it a try when/if it gets cheap on PC
Inti Creates and Wayforward games are the closest thing to that feeling now for me, but I enjoy the actual moment to moment gameplay a lot more comparatively. The background noise of actively not enjoying some of the characters/story points is always humming for me though.
Inti Creates and Wayforward games are the closest thing to that feeling now for me, but I enjoy the actual moment to moment gameplay a lot more comparatively. The background noise of actively not enjoying some of the characters/story points is always humming for me though.