Psycho_Mantis
Banned
Where is this present in the game?
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Dragon's Crown (Vanillaware PS3/PSV) Sorceress Trailer
- Thread starter Takao
- Start date
Where is this present in the game?
Sorcerer Supreme
Member
I know who I'm playing.
For the sorcery of course.
For the sorcery of course.
nailbombxx
Member
There is no misogyny, only an exaggerative art style. It is an exaggeration of what people like visually about women, so there is no hate. The male characters are just as heavily exaggerated as the females, yet no one is claiming there is any misandry in this game.
I have yet to see why this matters in a fantasy video game.
I have yet to see why this matters in a fantasy video game.
Coulomb_Barrier
Member
Reminds me of Capcom's Red Earth/War-Zard for some (completely random) reason.
Pyrrhus
Member
The game is pretty clearly made for a male, straight audience who likes fantasy and anime tropes. The males aren't there to be eye candy for women. It's not bad or disqualifying that it's made for straight guys. It would be more intellectually honest to just admit that, yeah, it's a guilty pleasure, and then say "so what?" The problem with otaku is not so much that they exist but that they've gotten so goddamn self-righteous in the last twenty years.
There's so much "wink wink... nudge, nudge!" going on with basically everything she does, haha. Bravo to the artist and animators, sure, but... err.. yeah.
I guess it boils down to a fight of "There is a time and place for everything" VS "All times, all places, do everything!" type personalities.
Man, I remember trying to explain DOA and Mai to my sisters as a barely-teen... thankfully, it's understood as "the Option" now (Since you could disable bounce in DOA1 with the age select), and that's pretty much enough.
IHaveCandy
Banned
Mysogynistic is the most overused word around here. I think a lot of people don't understand what it really means. It's like when people think racial stereotyping = racism. People shouldn't water down words like racism or misogyny by improperly using it.
Am I allowed to like this style of game, hate this style of art, and not because I'm some bullshit white knight? When I see art like this in video games I enjoy playing it makes me ashamed. It makes me ashamed of video gaming as a hobby. Why does it have to be that base and childish? Might as well have the warrior character with testicle cleavage through his loincloth. This pure T&A stuff is so damn lazy, it is done because they are too inept or lazy to come up with a character design people are interested in that doesnt revolve around how much cleavage they can show. I guess for every Aerith and Hilde there has to be a Tifa and Ivy?
Black Door
Banned
You can come off as being less of a white knight by not using loaded words like "lazy" and "childish"
Coulomb_Barrier
Member
It's not misogynistic, it's fantasy, for lord's sake.
Anything featuring extreme violence and mass murder is fair game it seems. But anything to do with sex - Ohh nooo. We can't have that.
This is what is weird about Western culture. It is also very stupid.
Anything featuring extreme violence and mass murder is fair game it seems. But anything to do with sex - Ohh nooo. We can't have that.
This is what is weird about Western culture. It is also very stupid.
Coulomb_Barrier
Member
Exactly.
nailbombxx
Member
If that was true every character would look like the sorceress.
Seriously.
If you had stopped there, yeah.
djplaeskool
Member
You are well within your right to dislike the art.
I feel, however, you are WAY off-base in calling it lazy or inept. Kamitani and crew have a pedigree of more than 15 years in this type of art direction.
It's unfortunate if you cannot see how much work has gone into creating a game like this.
CrazyTank940
Member
This game seriously needs to come out already. Got my pre-order paid in full and ready to go.
I just find this stuff really dumb, and don't have the patience for it anymore. I just find it insulting that some game designer thinks what I want to see is the male warriors end game armor set be full plate with a closed visor, and the female warriors armor set is nipple shields and chanmail miniskirt.
nailbombxx
Member
Its hard for me to believe that this game is really coming to NA. It feels like it has been in limbo forever.
Going to proudly buy both PS3 and Vita versions.
Going to proudly buy both PS3 and Vita versions.
Agree in many cases, not here. There's many a time when "sexy" is used because the designer doesn't know how to give a woman a personality....
But there's also a time when "sexy" is used because THAT is the personality you want the woman to give off.
Even your Aerith and Hilde VS Tifa and Ivy example just shows how great the characters are as foils for each other; Neither would be special, if the other example didn't exist.
One element of maturity is to be able to observe the whole picture, and make a judgement off a full set of information. While that doesn't diminish the feeling of each of these designs on their own, I do appreciate the fact that, as a whole, we've got a product here that at LEAST understands that these kind of designs are just a type of woman, rather than the definition of women in their world.
djplaeskool
Member
Vanillaware makes games that Vanillaware wants to make.
Kamitani actually said in an interview that he considers his team extremely fortunate to have this sort of freedom in development.
If the game's design and your tastes don't align, so be it.
Don't be so thin-skinned as to think they are specifically trying to insult you.
Knux-Future
Banned
Then don't play it?
It really isn't that hard.
I know you aren't saying this, but it seems like many of you want all games to be or look the same. That is the great part of our hobby...not every game has the same aesthetics.
or at least they used to. I mean does every game has to be completely realistic and PC?
I just don't get it. I get not liking it...that is fine. There are some art styles that don't do it for me either.
But to be this mad and upset over it...is crazy.
Pyrrhus
Member
A lot of people don't like excessively violent games either. But context is important. The vast majority of people don't like games about meaningless, graphic slaughter of unacceptable targets. A game about cutting up school kids would not be tolerated.
Fine Ham Abounds
Member
That's certainly a way to consider it. To be clear, I think sexual objectification of a human being is generally only problematic depending on context, as is true for nearly everything sexual. Sex too is not inherently bad or evil, and glorification and exaggeration of sex organs in art humans create seems perfectly logical. Any motivation can lead to any kind of art, and someone who worships women can just as easily create this kind of art (as I believe is the case here), and while that arguably may be creepy or weird, that does not alone make him dangerous or his art harmful.
I do not want to downplay how disgusting misogyny is, but to give the subject the importance it deserves, it should not be something that is a conclusion jumped to at first glance. There is so much subtle misogyny in the world, especially in daily language and conversation, that it could numb you to more insidious usage when you get easily distracted by big, loud, possibly meaningless things. I'm also not saying something big and obvious can't be misogynistic, I'm saying understand things before you judge them.
I agree we should call a spade a spade here. There is a clear demographic for this game and the characters are designed with that in mind.
That said, the resident lady gamer is in love with the dwarf.
But it is way more common to see people complaining about women with small clothes than violence. Way more.
I can understand people complaining about loli, I also dislike it. I can also understand disliking the art on Dragon's Crown, but to say it makes them ashamed of playing video games seems kinda extreme.
And september GTA releases, and (almost) everybody will be shooting everyone on the streets, killing prostitutes to get their money back and feeling awesome about it.
Augemitbutter
Member
just on gaf and other message boards. i've never heard anybody complaining about this in real life.
Here's the thing: The games industry, gamers, and the gaming press have been having a very long, very involved discussion about violence in video games. The notion that violence in video games has been given a pass while sexualized characters haven't just isn't true. Heck, a major game was recently released (Spec Ops: The Line) that continues this critical conversation. I would say that the discussion of objectification in games is just starting to boil up, comparatively.
Why is everytime someone complains about an element of the game, the first response is don't play it? It's perfectly normal to bitch about specific elements of a game you find faulty, especially when the rest looks so good. I didn't like the covenant system in Dark Souls, doesn't mean the game wasn't fantastic. I think the combat is garbage in Skyrim, still fun entertainment though.
I don't need a game to be realistic or PC, not at all. However, there is a big difference when talking about violence in video games between games like Manhunt vs Arkham Asylum. Just like there is a difference between making the female characters attractive, vs having their super attack being shooting milk. Yes, it may be all a spectrum of the same thing, but just because I complain when someone is setting the dial to 10, doesn't mean I'm not allowed to play the game or that I'm not allowed to not complain if a game has the dial set at 6.
Look, all I'm asking for is that if someone walks by me playing a game. I don't want to be ashamed socially, morally, or ethically about what's on the screen. If the character art for the Sorceress is up on my big screen, I would be. If I was fighting Rathalos in Monster Hunter, I wouldn't be. It's not because I'm some white knight or anything like that. I'm ashamed of it intellectually, it insults my intelligence and my dignity that someone thinks "this is what appeals to the gamer demographic". I'm not some champion of Feminism or Peace, I just want to have a hobby I can play in the living room and not be ashamed of.
Deified Data
Banned
She needs all the support she can get.
Why would you even be ashamed in the first place? I dont get it...
XBOX HIVES
Banned
All this politically correct bullshit is depressing as fuck. This game is going to be fun as hell co-op with friends and that's all that matters to me. I'm playing a fucking video game, not attending a rally for activists
nailbombxx
Member
Who here also thinks that the fairies in Rayman Origins are degrading to women?
Anybody?
No?
Anybody?
No?
I don't think a single person here is saying they want games to look the same. Many just think certain elements of exaggeration are in poor taste.
And it's easy to see why people would be mad or upset with a niche genre getting an even more niche artistic sensability applied to it; when you only get 1 game of this calibur, with this budget, in multiple console generations, wouldn't you be angry if the ONE you get pushes past your taste limits?
And the whole "it's fantasy, get over it!" angle many have is laughable to me. People form entire ideals, belief systems, and concepts over things that were once based in fantasy. We take quotes from characters, and repeat them as life lessons. We reference fake wars to steel ourselves for real battles. We thank lessons from childhood cartoons for ways of living that we still follow in our adulthood.
Not the best basis at all, but all give subtle nudges to us, and help formulate our thoughts. Every creative person involved with a work, has a bit of responsibility for what they influence. To me, it's one of the coolest part of being creative!
Deified Data
Banned
It's possible to see different aspects of a game simultaneously. Whether or not the game is "fun" can be separate from how it depicts its characters or what it suggests about them. The term "politically correct" is not an argument unto itself.
Karsticles
Member
Links to said Christmas cards? I would love to see this.
Pyrrhus
Member
You know, you're doing a good job of making a point for the people who don't like the extreme sexualization of the character designs. This sort of aesthetic used to be reserved for hentai doujins created for the express purpose of masturbation rather than dragged out into mainstream products. I would be interested to know what percentage of the folks who don't seem to be able to compute why this would be an uncomfortable development for some people are teenagers or twenty-somethings who live alone or in a dorm setting and who also have a predilection for hentai.
Murder. She Wrote
Member
Gameplay looks fun but I will never play a game with a female design like that.
djplaeskool
Member
As much as you are not a champion of Feminism, neither is Dragon's Crown some penultimate statement or representative of all video games. Don't worry, your hobby can still be enjoyed without it.
Personally speaking, I've never quite gotten the concept of shame in gaming.
Psycho_Mantis
Banned
Yeah except I dunno one of gaming's biggest franchises: GTA. Come September people will be murdering innocent civilians in the game with machetes, uzi's and rocket launchers, killing hookers and going to strip clubs but hey having a character with massive tits is way more offensive.
Ok, now animate her so that every flutter of her wings causes chest-ripple. Or add in DOA beach vollyball-style "Each Breast has a mind of it's own!" physics! I'm sure this will go over well!
(Truly, I was surprised in how human-sexy she was, in a world with RAYMAN. It's like watching a capcom fighter character walk into the door of a stickman animation.... )
Yeah... they'd have fun animating that. I'm sure Vanillaware could put a girl into Fighter's armor, and still figure out ways to give us some sexy skin-peeks.
Did anyone say this in this thread? Who are you arguing with?
So you support a double standard, then.
I don't have anything more to say to such an argument.
Who are you to tell me that I have to like the way strong men are portrayed in media but despise the way they portray sexy women?
I think you need to get off your high horse perhaps? Your moral standards do not belong to every other person in the world.