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[LotusHD]

Perfect.

 

[Riposte]

Loved Nier and Drakengard, but this comes off as pretty childish. For someone who purports to be as dark and grim as Taro, I'd expect him to ignore this shit and make his art rather than stoop to trolling critics. Guess pettiness isn't beneath him, huh?

Also, there's some rich irony in how uncomfortable he is with exposing himself in interviews, but he's fine with exposing others' bodies. Like, bro, you do realize that if anyone is actually pissed its because of the same problems with voyeurism that seem to bother you? I know Taro's comments frustrated some people in this thread, but honestly, when I think about it and his mask gimmick, it all just comes off as really fragile. :\

Still looking forward to this game, but I hope he finds a better way to respond to critics in the future.

This is a perfect example of someone projecting their defensiveness onto others.

 

[plasmawave]

Don't be afraid of sexy Joseph. And I mean what I say, even though I did my best to make it come across as a shitpost. I have not come across any of his game that I found to be genuinely good (D1 is awful in almost every way, Nier repeating a poorly executed story gimmick with an admittedly good ending), but he sure as shit has interesting ideas. Trying to make him change through internet backlash would neuter the one thing he's good at, i.e. making unique experiences, good or bad.

I'll live with the extremely sexualized designs and I'll live with the Yoko Taro/Nier fanatics who thinks everything he shits out is a masterpiece.

 

[Dio]

Don't be afraid of sexy Joseph. And I mean what I say. I have not come across any of his game that I found to be genuinely good (D1 is awful in almost every way, Nier repeating a poorly executed story gimmick with an admittedly good ending), but he sure as shit has interesting ideas.

Taro has been wrestling with Cavia being unable to properly stick the landing making his visions come to fruition for ages now, the Automata team is the first team he hasn't gotten angry at. Gives him more time to get drunk, because like he says his best work is done when he's hammered.

 

[Lernaean]

Android bae should be named 2F.

That's 2 fucks given.

 

[QisTopTier]

Well then there argument is that dev teams need to be much more diverse than just straight white men.

Writers/Producers/Directors are what you are looking for not so much grunt dev team members and those 3 positions are hard to land for anyone

 

[Theosmeo]

I feel like Taro is getting a lot of drive by shit here by people who probably haven't bothered to understand that his appeal isn't just his inherent memeyness but also his unique perspective and thoughtfulness. While he doesn't always make the proper choice when writing characters or making gameplay decisions he always has a reason for that choice that is usually deeper than you'd think. One of my favorite things he's ever done is this discussion on game violence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD6xCLlF5dY

While the fact that he's making some pretty immature statements here stands I don't think he's doing it because upper management wants him to sell a waifu or his libido is out of control. He's probably just trying to get his fans to like him more, after seeing how nintendo got backlash for shutting down NSFW tumblrs for example.

Oh and yeah I and most of his fans have problems with all his games, I don't think he's consistently a genius but damn he shines sometimes.

 

[Evil Monkey DTT]

I'll live with the extremely sexualized designs and I'll live with the Yoko Taro/Nier fanatics who thinks everything he shits out is a masterpiece.

I mean, ignoring the obvious problems with budget and poor teams he's worked with who has called every game of his a masterpiece? Every game he has ever made has been "man this parts amazing but this section is objectively awful". I'm just excited now that he's working with platinum I might not have to complain again.

 

[Dio]

I mean, ignoring the obvious problems with budget and poor teams he's worked with who has called every game of his a masterpiece? Every game he has ever made has been "man this parts amazing but this section is objectively awful". I'm just excited now that he's working with platinum I might not have to complain again.

Yeah, this. All my interaction with the Nier/Drakengard fandom has been intense love for a deep world with tons of lore, interconnected stories, unique and bizarrely interesting characters, and sometimes surprising gameplay twists.

Not once have I seen any number of Taro fans suddenly saying "WOW THESE GAMES ARE MASTERPIECES WITHOUT FLAWS!!!!!!!!!!!" That's just shit made up by that guy to get a reaction, I've never seen that being said by anyone but the occasional weirdo.

The reason the fanbase is so excited about Automata is because Taro no longer has his work hindered by super tiny budgets and shit performance from Cavia/Access Games.

This sounds like shoving away all of Taro's faults off to his development team. He hasn't made a good first impression with the demo for me (in regards to some of the writing and the character designs), so I'm not willing to put him on a pedestal. I hope Automata turns out good tho, I really do. But seeing taro being like "I saw the complaints. Now I want all the fap material of 2B!" just makes me think my impression of him is spot on.

I'm paraphrasing him. He said himself that Automata was the first time he didn't get super angry at the team he was working with because of all the development problems that came along.

Note: Access Games made D3 and they're the same people who created the technical disaster that was Deadly Premonition.

Taro is a writer/director and the writing is the best part by far of all the games he's involved with.

 

[Mexen]

I can confirm that the tweet mentions 2 B and zip.

 

[RM8]

This sounds like shoving away all of Taro's faults off to his development team. He hasn't made a good first impression with the demo for me (in regards to some of the writing and the character designs), so I'm not willing to put him on a pedestal. I hope Automata turns out good tho, I really do. But seeing taro being like "I saw the complaints. Now I want all the fap material of 2B!" just makes me think my impression of him is spot on.

The truth is quite a lot of these Japanese developers seem to design characters with their fetishes in mind. Some of them even accept it like the Dragon's Crown guy, and then we have the Yoko Shimomura quote which I imagine describes a pretty common situation, lol.

Chun-Li has big thighs, right? So back in the day, I asked Mr. Yasuda, "Why does she have such big thighs?" And he started shouting and went off and was like, "I can't believe you don't understand the appeal." And he started explaining the attraction. And you know, I'm a woman and I asked the question but it kind of got awkward when he started explaining his fetishes. I mean, he has really strong feelings toward his creations. There's a reason for everything being the way that it is. When I heard that, I thought maybe that's something that everybody thinks, but everybody doesn't go out telling everybody. But he just told me.

 

[Dio]

Over the course of years on gaf, I've seen, I'd say, way too many people defend Nier's combat and some of its shitty story elements, D3's technical issues and whatnot. You're right that this isn't the majority, but I don't mean to say the majority is fanatical.

I'm willing to forgive a lot of D3's technical issues, which are normally completely unforgivable, on the strength of my connection with the story, characters, music, and gameplay.

I mean for fucks sake, the dragon vs cannon fight literally dropped to 0.5 FPS for me and then my PS3 crashed after I attempted to do the fight at half a frame per second.

On the other hand, when it ran smoothly, D3's combat felt great to play - Intoner Mode where Zero screams and the soundtrack changes was incredible and felt super powerful to play, the floating weapons that allow you to chain weapon attacks like the fast spear barrage into sword skills into gauntlets all felt like they had tons of feedback and felt appropriately satisfying to hit people with. Even the items/coins bursting out of enemies had that feeling to them, the sort of 'I want to hear more' sound effect you get in Mario when you get a coin.

Of course, I would absolutely love more enemy variety, better looking environments, more levels, 60fps instead of struggling to reach 25 most of the time, et cetera.

That being said, all of these issues get washed away when, for example, the ending of Branch C of D3 plays this song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWiFbZCLMkM

and I get the shivers and realize the true significance of them playing a remix of a song from D1 on this particular branch. That sort of thing just gets me going, too.

 

[Zaventem]

omfg. This man is great.

 

[thunder_snail]

Imma gonna buy the PC version for the mods.

 

[Dunan]

http://rologeass.tumblr.com/post/73676488142/in-depth-with-drakengards-world-language-and

Nier, in the Black Scrawl.

This was discovered here on GAF long before anyone on Tumblr ever found it. You'd think that Rologeass person would give us a shout-out before plagiarizing almost word for word:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=28132837&postcount=7754 ^_^;

 

[Ban Puncher]

Imma gonna buy the PC version for the mods.

 

[Dio]

And whereas Automata seems to have fixed the combat issue, as the demo plays wonderfully, I saw no indication of it improving on Nier's shoddy writing and character designs.
And that bums me out.

2B's design is causing a firestorm of art and adoration on how much they like her design - people were creating tons of Toobie fanart before people started zeroing in on her ass thanks to the demo. I think your opinion on her design might be in the minority here.

 

[TatteredHat]

2B reminds me of Maiden in Black from Demon's Souls, whose outfit was also fantastic.

 

[Audioboxer]

I know of the popularity of 2B, though design criticism is often an opinion based thing (aside from some...extreme cases). Honestly, the ass thing is worse than the rest of her design, which is fine overall. Generic black attire, short skirt, boob window which seems to be a popular thing for some reason, thick thighs and a quirky blindfold. It does the job. I find the guy to look boring more than anything. I'm sure robutts are programmed to wear all-black/dark or something.

That being said, I do find that the Maiden in Black's design is miles ahead of 2Bs and is amazing overall.

Sex appeal/eye candy. It's undeniable, but it's not automatically some sinister blight on humanity. The majority of us will spent some effort trying to make ourselves look presentable and enjoy being in our own skin. There's only so much you can do in life considering you get given your genes and general looks from birth, and what you do from there is only influenced by your lifestyle choices and decisions. It's why discrimination based on looks is pretty shitty considering everyone's building blocks are given to them whether they are ideal or not.

Give an artist a blank slate to draw/create whatever they want, and most will end up with drifting towards some idealised version of a human portrait they find attractive/eye pleasing/cool/etc. It's one of the times in life you can allow your imagination to perfect just about anything, and biology, genes and "real life" don't get in your way. None of this hand-waves a desire for a games industry with diversity, but I think some need to understand why the majority of videogame characters are idealised beauties/heroes. It's often an escapism trope to get away from real life and live in fantasy. Books are often no different. Movies/TV shows, ymmv, but look at how "presentable" your average film stars are. The games industry has a majority of male designers and creators, so I've always argued the best route to diversity is to get more women involved in development/studio ownership, not necessarily go after current devs with angry pitchforks and demand they bend their work under the threat of name-calling. However don't be surprised to see women developers/creators largely end up with the same idealised imagination tropes as men, it's just going to happen in pure fantasy based work a lot of the time. The sexes themselves have varied interests in sexual stimulation, there's probably a tilt towards men getting titillated from content such as games, where women on average may lean towards written sexual fantasy (I doubt it's the "anime boys" buying all the top selling romance novels). This isn't sexism, it's evolutionary psychology. It can be objectively studied and researched, and duh, of course, any findings/averages don't cluster a whole sex together. It's always a scale of findings with outliers. I'd also say most people/gamers when they're being critical though don't ask for forced censorship/change, that is often a trope defence forces run to to try and silence criticism of work (I seen very few if any GAFers actually demand Quiet/Cindy be changed, they just criticised). As always debate is healthy, demands not so much. If something can pass ESRB/PEGI rating then it doesn't require a "demand" to change. If devs decide to change something due to feedback, that is their choice. Such as the GoW devs changing a trophy name. Feedback for it wasn't great, but ultimately the game was "legal" to be sold and they could have stuck to their guns and said we're happy.

 

[Pancakes R Us]

Haha.

 

[YoRHa No.2 Type B]

She looks beautiful

Is that official?

 

[YoRHa No.2 Type B]

Where's the zip folder? And why isn't it in the OP!?

 

[OmegaX0]

That being said, the skirt seems to occasionally clip through her ass. Might want to work on that.

It's not a bug, it's a feature.

 

[YoRHa No.2 Type B]

If you want pornography, just search for "Nier Automata" and rule 34 or something, or go to reddit and add nsfw:yes, or go to a booru or...well, you get the gist.

Yeah but why bother myself searching if someone already did it?

 

[NEO0MJ]

Wow, this thread really blew up since yesterday. If this is reflected across the net then his plan worked better than I could have imagined.

 

[Prithee Be Careful]

And when we speak that this kind design needs the aprove of a creepy man in suit people say we are crazy.

When we say that designs affects how people see the character as a piece of meat people say we are crazy

There you are, living proof of both

Androids, how do they work.

 

[Forkball]

I see a ton of fanart of this girl on Twitter. I knew she was from the new Nier game, but I had no idea her name was 2B until I saw this thread.

Anyways, designers have a right to make any character they find appealing and the audience has a right to criticize it for whatever reason. You can either address those criticisms as legitimate and learn from them, or ignore them. Either path may lead to more criticism or backlash.

My personal stance is I 100% understand why creators create a character like 2B that is sexually appealing. The target audience is guys, and guys like sexy girls. I also completely understand why people would be turned off by it.

 

[Kinyou]

Wow, this thread really blew up since yesterday. If this is reflected across the net then his plan worked better than I could have imagined.

He made a small joke. It's even in Japanese so there was no intention to spread it internationally. To say that this was some grandiose plan is absurd.

 

[Gbraga]

"Emotions are prohibited."

Holy shit, anime boy. Almost 1GB?

 

[Audioboxer]

I don't think anyone said anything of the sort. I played through Nier without at any moment being bothered by Kaine's design (though the attire is completely open for criticism). Sex Appeal is something designers in any form of media go for and it has its place. I've defended DOAX3's existence, despite some dismissing it and the designers for creating it.

I think that, in case of Nier, I very much appreciated Daddy Nier completely disregarding beauty standards and looking like some kind of ogre, despite his attire looking like a wardrobe malfunction. I think my issue with 2B's design is less the fanservice and more the fact that she looks like an idealized character again. A tight, consistent, all-black attire worn by an attractively designed woman. It's like FFXV all over again. I am certainly not demanding or asking for change, but I'm just criticizing and expressing disappointment.

That being said, the skirt seems to occasionally clip through her ass. Might want to work on that.

Yeah maybe that was a bit harsh conjecture to use, but there are some remarks at times that seem to straddle the lines between objective feedback, and sexual shaming. Some of the "anime boy" rhetoric is a bit uncalled for. I know there is an unscrupulous bunch online who hide behind anime avatars, but let's be honest, gaming and animation have a large cross-over. Most people online have avatars of their favourite content, and we all know there is nothing wrong with that.

Ideological purity tests rarely end up being productive, hence why objective feedback and criticism need not bleed into demands and name-calling.

Cosplay

Damn, took me a couple of looks to see that was a real person.

 

[Squire]

Is that official?

Cosplay

 

[Mana Sin]

I think I love Yoko Taro and I am ashamed that I have never heard of him before I became interested in Nier: Automata.

 

[Prithee Be Careful]

Considering the lack of faults for being progressive yes being progressive is an inherently good quality. How is it not? How is better representation and equality not an inherent positive? The fuck...

Imagine a black director working on a new project that tells the story of his/her own community and features an entirely black cast and crew. Imagine someone tells them: "it needs better representation for whites, latin Americans, native Americans and minority relgious and gender groups - that would improve your film, because more representation is inherently positive."

This is plainly ridiculous. The biggest problem with the modern progressive movement is so many of those aligned to its (normally very laudable) causes, struggle to imagine how what they believe could possibly be wrong - how opposing opinions could every be anything but misguided. Your post kind of exemplifies this - "The fuck...", indeed.

 

[Dio]

He made a small joke. It's even in Japanese so there was no intention to spread it internationally. To say that this was some grandiose plan is absurd.

Yeah, come on. That's just a little conspiracy theory-ish.

If you want something done, like finding all the right images, you have to do it yourself. Are you really going to treat your penis or vagina with whatever someone else gathered up?

"Someone else" also gathered up all the images on those aggregators, picking and choosing what to upload on r34 or a booru anyway. Plenty of artists on Pixiv only get the work that appeals most to some random person browsing their profile uploaded to those sites, so if you REALLY want the most you're going to need to browse tumblr, pixiv, nijie, enty, patreon, twitter and various random JP blogs to be sure you've got all the right images and that the uploader didn't miss anything.

 

[Inuhanyou]

I think I love Yoko Taro and I am ashamed that I have never heard of him before I became interested in Nier: Automata.

Be ashamed of your words and deeds.

 

[Audioboxer]

That actually reminds me of a question I had...
What the hell is an anime boy?

A meme spawned earlier in this topic where a GAFer used it as a dismissive term lol. It somewhat ties into what I said above, because there's a minority on the web who are assholes and often have anime avatars, it's become a way to dismiss/silence people from a conversation/debate in suggesting they're "just another GGer/anime troll" because they have an anime avatar. Completely disregarding as I said above gaming and animation have a huge cross-over, and anime in general is hugely popular.

Anyone who is going to behave terribly online is going to be hiding behind some sort of avatar as not to signal their identity/where they live/who they are. To be honest at this point I think it's become a sort of meta-game with the trolls anyway. They know anime avatars get a rise out of their detractors, so a portion of them are probably dawning avatars from anime they haven't even seen just to shitpost behind them. We've seen what pepe the damn frog produced in the American election, so it's no wonder that frog is plastered all over Twitter and Reddit.

 

[TheStig88]

Holy shit, anime boy. Almost 1GB?

Shit loads of duplicates. It's more like 450MB.

Ignoring the porn, there is some fantastic stuff in there though.

 

[Comfort Jones]

I really feel like the reason there's a controversy around this design is due to people liking what they see gameplay wise and then getting turned off by what they see with the mc's actual design.

There's nothing wrong with sexualization inherently IMO. At least, nothing any more wrong than basically glorifying violence which like 99% of all games made do, but I think it's fair for people to feel kinda thrown off when the character's visual design seems to completely betray the game she's in. It honestly annoys the fuck out of me too how often it occurs with female characters in Japanese games, especially the way the game's world/characters seem to kinda ignore it. Men wear suits of armor or cool outfits and girls wear skin tight ultra revealing outfits or something equally stupid. It's just blatant silliness.

That being said if you think you're being progressive for shaming a sexual design just because it's a sexual design you are actually going backwards.

On a side note Yoko Taro is not that good of a writer or game designer and it's super telling that the most hyped game he's behind is getting a lot of that hype probably more due to Platinum's involvement than anything else. He gives me that annoying Suda 51 style over substance vibe, just shit out wacky ideas and coast off that cult following.

 

[strafer]

"Emotions are prohibited."

That is almost that Natalie Portman user folder thread level.

Forgot the name.

 

[Audioboxer]

I really feel like the reason there's a controversy around this design is due to people liking what they see gameplay wise and then getting turned off by what they see with the mc's actual design.

There's nothing wrong with sexualization inherently IMO. At least, nothing anymore wrong than basically glorifying violence which like 99% of all games made do, but I think it's fair for people to feel kinda thrown off when the character's visual design seems to completely betray the game she's in. It honestly annoys the fuck out of me too how often it occurs with female characters in Japanese games, especially the way the game's world/characters seem to kinda ignore it. Men wear suits of armor or cool outfits and girls wear skin tight ultra revealing outfits or something equally stupid. It's just blatant silliness.

That being said if you think you're being progressive for shaming a sexual design just because it's a sexual design you are actually going backwards.

Hero/damsel in distress trope, and yeah 9 times out of 10 it is objectively silly. It's a power/fantasy play, and obviously sexualisation on top to titillate. All of which is okay to do, but yeah, it's done so damn much it's obviously going to get critical feedback as gaming as a hobby grew from 90% straight males to a whole range of gamers. Especially when it bleeds into more mainstream titles. FF ain't niche anymore Square, so be prepared for a spectrum of feedback! Nier definitely isn't a mainstream title though, which is why someone like Taro is largely going to shrug and say "have you seen my history of games development?". Doesn't mean you can't offer your 2 cents on what he does, but it's largely like going to Kamiya on Twitter and asking he does something you want him to do. He'll block you lol. As always honesty and being upfront will be respected more than trying to dupe your audience.

 

[Ban Puncher]

Ignoring the porn

 

[Gbraga]

Shit loads of duplicates. It's more like 450MB.

Ignoring the porn, there is some fantastic stuff in there though.

I'll take a look later at home.

 

[Comfort Jones]

Hero/damsel in distress trope, and yeah 9 times out of 10 it is objectively silly. It's a power/fantasy play, and obviously sexualisation on top to titillate. All of which is okay to do, but yeah, it's done so damn much it's obviously going to get critical feedback as gaming as a hobby grew from 90% straight males to a whole range of gamers. Especially when it bleeds into more mainstream titles. FF ain't niche anymore Square, so be prepared for a spectrum of feedback! Nier definitely isn't a mainstream title though, which is why someone like Taro is largely going to shrug and say "have you seen my history of games development?". Doesn't mean you can't offer your 2 cents on what he does, but it's largely like going to Kamiya on Twitter and asking he does something you want him to do. He'll block you lol. As always honesty and being upfront will be respected more than trying to dupe your audience.

Honestly the thing that gets me is these female characters aren't even damsels in distress. The MC for this game is supposed to be some kind of badass android right? Why does absolutely nothing in her visual design explain that to me? Like if that's not objectively a failure of design I don't know what is. To me that's when sexualization is worth criticizing, when it literally is coming at a cost to the character.

I don't really blame any creators though tbh. I blame the people who keep encouraging it, that's why it keeps getting made.

Ah I see. I don't really mind it as I did start off with a shitpost and I enjoyed the reactions it got. Occasionally look for the people who give a genuine reply and focus on their responses. Can't really fault some people getting defensive.
But yeah, dismissing people based on their avatar seems to mostly happen when people with nothing particularly meaningful to say or no counter-argument to use need a way to express their opinion without having to support them. If one's going to insult me, at least do it based on my shitpost, not something I might have enjoyed at some point in time.

Worth it.

So you lived up to people's expectations to shitpost and then you wonder why they had those expectations?

 

[Doc_Drop]

Imagine a black director working on a new project that tells the story of his/her own community and features an entirely black cast and crew. Imagine someone tells them: "it needs better representation for whites, latin Americans, native Americans and minority relgious and gender groups - that would improve your film, because more representation is inherently positive."

This is plainly ridiculous.

It is plainly ridiculous. Why even draw a comparison if it's so extreme and off base. That's obviously not how progressive representation works and you're purposefully misrepresenting an argument to try and make a point.

 

[Audioboxer]

Honestly the thing that gets me is these female characters aren't even damsels in distress. The MC for this game is supposed to be some kind of badass android right? Why does absolutely nothing in her visual design explain that to me? Like if that's not objectively a failure of design I don't know what is. To me that's when sexualization is worth criticizing, when it literally is coming at a cost to the character.

I don't really blame any creators though tbh. I blame the people who keep encouraging it, that's why it keeps getting made.



So you lived up to people's expectations to shitpost and then you wonder why they had those expectations?

That comment wasn't so much about Nier, more so a ton of other JRPGs which lean on "strong hero protagonist who protects his female posse and romances them all like a stud whilst saving the world". It's the most idealised male fantasy trope you can get. Sure there's a buttload of cross-over of this trope into anime as well, but a part of that ties back to appealing to the male fantasy power play. As much as gaming has evolved to be enjoyed by many more, so has anime. Hence why some of the best-rated anime offers a bit more than just a love-letter to a strictly horny male audience. Which is why I'm all for diversity, I just think there's a ton of discussion to be had around why things can be how they are, and it doesn't just fit into a neat box of "sexism" and "anime boys". Real life isn't that simple!

It tends to be the other way around from what you're saying as well lol. If you have a well written female lead that is sexualised it'll get a pass more than the trope above. Hence why Bayonetta while criticised by many is loved by many more. Another game though where the content and creation of said content is fully honest and above board. The whole game is based around sexualisation and jabbing at it along the way by a lead who pretty much kicks the shit out of everything and everyone.

If this game pans out like other Taro games most fans will undoubtedly care far more about the story and writing than sexualisation. Precisely because he does do a pretty good job of writing engaging stories, even if they're pretty fucked up. I guess that is precisely why many like them, because another trope we're inundated with is the basic plot of "bad guy, world needs saved, everyone lives happily ever after". Danganronpa shows a bit of damn despair every now and then is a good thing!

 

[PdotMichael]

So many strong opinions about trivial things. Love it.

So anyone has a link to the weekly zips for me?

 

[Prithee Be Careful]

Honestly the thing that gets me is these female characters aren't even damsels in distress. The MC for this game is supposed to be some kind of badass android right? Why does absolutely nothing in her visual design explain that to me? Like if that's not objectively a failure of design I don't know what is. To me that's when sexualization is worth criticizing, when it literally is coming at a cost to the character.

I don't really blame any creators though tbh. I blame the people who keep encouraging it, that's why it keeps getting made.

I had the same feeling about Quiet in MGSV. I loved the game for the most part, but cringed at how flagrantly she was offered up as eye candy to the audience. Maybe it was Kojima's two fingers to what he percieved as western over-sensitivity, maybe he really did think he was making a clever statement about 'male gaze' and guilt, but that for me (and I don't think I'm alone) her design felt more conspicuously out of place than

Spoiler

a flaming unicorn

and

Spoiler

a levitating, psycho-kinetic child

, indicates he might perhaps have missed the mark on this.

 

[Dio]

Honestly the thing that gets me is these female characters aren't even damsels in distress. The MC for this game is supposed to be some kind of badass android right? Why does absolutely nothing in her visual design explain that to me? Like if that's not objectively a failure of design I don't know what is. To me that's when sexualization is worth criticizing, when it literally is coming at a cost to the character.

I don't really blame any creators though tbh. I blame the people who keep encouraging it, that's why it keeps getting made.

That being said, that's not how the crew designs characters. I realized D3's art director isn't the same and Yoshida wasn't on board for D3, but take this:

http://www.siliconera.com/2014/04/09/drakengard-3-art-director-designed-games-characters/

”Not for Drakengard 3 in particular per se; I would say this is more of [director] Yoko-san's general method but he is the type of director who checks out the character design and based on their appearance, he intentionally changes their personality to the opposite of what they look like," Fujisaka says later in the interview.

”Because of this, I don't really design characters based on their personality, or I wouldn't design facial features in a certain way because they're supposed to be cynical... etc. There's none of that. In terms of the look of the characters, I design them without worrying too much about their personality, and it's actually the other way around—details of the characters like their personality aspects get decided afterwards."

I forgot to reply to the rest of your post.
Well that depends on what you mean by "at the cost to the character". Her design doesn't scream much of anything, whether that be a damsel or a badass. It isn't dissonant, nor does it fully align with their roles. Or rather, what we know of it so far (as Kaine had a purpose for her attire written into her character). Problem with such things is that whenever writers/designers then try to justify their creation of a sexualized character for the sole purpose of sexualization, it often comes off as intentionally dishonest, as was the case with Quiet from MGS. I enjoy the case with Bayonetta, as her design is very clearly made with fanservice in mind, yet it works as part of her character.

Well, it's very possible thanks to the themes/characters of previous games that 2B and the rest of the androids were designed very sexually because the humans use them as realdolls. I wouldn't be surprised, since D3's protagonist was a former prostitute who fucks her male harem nightly.

 

[Dio]

Oh. Well. All righty then.

It's likely Yoshida thinks the same way as Fujisaka there. Design the character first, and then Taro comes in makes the opposite of what you'd think - an ugly, abrasive personality to contrast with a beautiful character and vice versa. Kaine and Zero come to mind, where they're both foul mouthed, violent and murderous but their character designs are beautiful. On the other hand, Emil looks like a villain after his transformation where he stays most of the game but he's one of the nicest characters in the game.

 

[NEO0MJ]

He made a small joke. It's even in Japanese so there was no intention to spread it internationally. To say that this was some grandiose plan is absurd.

I'm just saying, it's mighty suspicious. I mean, the man wears a mask! Who knows what dark secrets and skeletons he keeps in the closet.