I don't see how the image being available as a pre-order changes anything, really. It's not in the game, but they were still willing to sell the girls out for basic pandering, and that's my biggest hang up. I'm not even opposed to smut if it's appropriate or fitting (like in Senran Kagura), but seeing the FC girls in tasteless outfits and sexualized poses is just...wrong. Doubly so because the Sky games have this wholesome aesthetic and are really good about avoiding pandering when it comes to female characters, so it's basically insult to injury. Like, "The only gratuitous thing in game was the hotspring scene" is nonsense because the Sky were completely devoid of it originally. I've played countless of RPGs that were amazing but "they had that one dumb fanservice sequence" that people groaned about, so when I played through FC, it was refreshing to see them avoid that even during the original hotspring sequence.
And man, even disregarding that, the new designs are straight up ugly. It's charmless and processed. Look at Zin and tell me he's the same character. I don't even want to talk about Joshua.
