I don't dislike all types of sexuality in video games. I'm a woman. I have boobs. Embracing your sexuality is fine. That's just part of human nature.
But when it comes to games, the questions are:
- How much is too much without it feeling tacky?
- Maybe it's not okay that some characters are certain ages but they push the envelope too much.
- She looks like she's ____, but she's really thousands of years old is a stupid excuse.
- Having a fanservice character there for the sake of fanservice
- Making your
entire game like that is incredibly offputting. There is really nothing wrong with putting boobs in your games. Women have them in all sizes, so it's unavoidable. But using them as your focal point and selling point is pretty absurd.
- How will fanbases make this become your IP's focal point through discussion and doujin materials, and thus you end up factoring that in for the next game in the project?
A manga artist, whose manga I read when I was younger (ex: Galaxy Express 999 and Space Battleship Yamato), had said a while ago, "We owe a great deal to maniacs, but we can't make good works if we only pander to them." Making many games focus on that aspect ends up making it feel so homogenous that it gets difficult to not generalize.
I don't necessarily think stuff like Dragon's Crown or the big-breasted characters in 999/VLR are a super-huge problem, despite all of them exhibiting that trope. But that's just my opinion and other women aren't going to feel that way. Bayonetta is basically sexuality to the max with a dash of empowerment, and it works in the context of the game. It's not super-tasteful, but it works within the context and makes sense (like Village said, it's like a Trish/Catwoman/Wonder Woman sort of thing).
Dragon's Crown's character designs seem to go back to older fantasy designs. As I look at some of the DragonLance book covers on the shelf behind me, some of the females do look like that. While I don't condone it, I get the idea behind the character design. It's just like the male character designs in that game being all buff and stuff.
Making it a focus in your game, which isn't an adult ero/hentai game, and maybe even coupling it with iffy chronophilia, is the thing that becomes incredibly offputting. These 'touch the girl' games, especially. Especially if the characters in the game behave as though they are in a lower age-group than the age-group they are chronologically listed as. It makes me feel very uncomfortable, especially when trying to discuss a game, but much of the discussion is centred around the fanservice instead (sometimes towards characters who aren't of-age). I've played some RPGs that are directed towards adult audiences on PC before (some of which had decent mechanics which was my draw to them), so I just wonder why they don't bother just outright making an eroge instead of beating around the bush (outside of the obvious "it probably won't sell as much").
I just feel like it's a huge bummer. You have stuff like Little Battlers Experience, Dragon Quest games, Fantasy Life Link, but those aren't localized. But then looking at the Japanese release lists, a lot of the games seem to have less-than-savoury stuff. Especially on handhelds. Really weird. I guess it's just a selling point now, after Love Plus's success last generation.
Sorry for derailing the thread. I've been down about this since yesterday and even my taichi/boxing/muay thai class last night didn't help.
Lilith's design makes sense considering her
mythology. Not really creepy to me.
