Is ShockingAlberto going to have to share his tag soon?
Damn, I had to do an
Advanced Search just to figure out what you were on about.
Er... Thanks, I guess? Hah. Here I go!
People in this thread need to watch this
trailer of Ayesha, it is the most refined, most beautiful video game trailer I have seen in a very long time...
That's the opening cinematic. It may have been a trailer at one point, but regardless of whether everything is about presentation these days, it tells me absolutely nothing about the game, other than the art style and general aesthetic.
You are right in the rest of your post though, in that it's catered to a certain audience and I'm sure people play to relax more than anything else. JRPGs haven't clicked with me in a while, and unfortunately I don't see this kind of game making me pick them up again, but I can understand why people might play them on a completely rational level.
Atelier, Disgaea, Ar Tornelico, Neptunia, Idea Factory, Compile Heart, Gust, NIS, etc. do nothing for me, to be perfectly honest. I know some of those companies/games are unrelated, but I kinda just group them together because I don't necessarily care for any of them. I've tried so many times to get into these games and I can never play them for more than 2 hours. Gust, NIS, Idea Factory, and Compile Heart games seem to resonate between fans so maybe that's why I consider them from the same family, I don't know. I wouldn't call them pedophile games, but they are certainly ultra Japanese games../
Yet another great post by someone who is not only well-informed, but also has a relevant, well-thought-out view. The reason why others dig these games and you don't simply seems to boil down to aesthetics (an example made by bababouille previously. Or, if you think the word "aesthetics" is too pompous, it's purely a matter of taste. People become attached to these games because of the characters and situations involved. Whether you read into the design too much or not enough is not really important - as others have said, the whole paedophile reaction should remain unsaid. It's way beyond a playful stab and really is too much.
Well, I'm not gonna lie, I did find the fanservicey bits kind of uncomfortable, but I recognize the cultural differences inherent in the design philosophy of a game like this.
It's irritating to me from my perspective, because the game and cute characters can stand on their own without needing to get all creepy, but having gamed through the 90s I simply can't support obliterating a product to make it more culturally acceptable for certain markets or demographics.
Basically, the one game in the series I've played is Meruru, and I thought the game would have worked no matter the kind of cute characters included. If the game had been full of cats it would have been still been fun and cute without needing the creepy bits, but since they know their demographic, they went with little girls in skirts.
This is a almost a decent counter-argument, but I think it falls down when you say the games would still have worked with different protagonists. I haven't played the games, but all I can say to it is this: do you really expect the human race to be that dull at this stage? Think about what we're discussing here - the depiction of young females in fantasy video games. I am no anthropologist, but I'll bet there has been a
tonne of controversy over the depiction of
everything in ancient and modern art. I'm not calling these games art by any stretch, but there are always people trying to wrap their heads around the meaning and significance of media, and why people are drawn to it.
Isn't that even a little fascinating? If all these games were just about cats, I think we'd be an extremely boring species at best. At worst... well, let's not go there.
Listen, as long as you guys aren't luring kids into a van, with promises of candy, you can like whatever creepy games you want.
Not exactly eloquently put, but this definitely could have been the end of the thread many,
many times over.