I went and looked at Pyra's original costume to understand what some folks were talking about.
And yeah I think the Smash design is a good example of how turning down your horny a bit can actually improve a character's design.
I kinda think they made the red one's design MORE horny actually, whatever their intention was.
People said the same about the outfit Mythra got as a Smash spirit (which then got added into Xenoblade 2 as an option). Giving her leggings only made her design more attractive to some folks.
someone pointed out that the new smash character appears as like, the second result if you google image search for 'objectively bad character design'
the first result is the guy in that trailer
I like Rex's design. He's poor, so he's just wearing a wetsuit and bits of his diving suit. Here's what he looks like with the rest of it on:
I'm still not wild about it? A good design shouldn't need to be defended or explained, his standard outfit still looks bad even if it makes sense in context. And the full diving suit isn't great for two reasons:
Diving suits either need to be made rigid to protect against the pressure of extreme depths, or they don't. Rex has vambraces and greaves, but a soft, flexible body and upper extremities; it wouldn't work in the lower depths, and it's unneeded bulk and weight above that.
The baggy pants. Rex is a salvage diver, isn't he? The last thing you want is baggy clothing that could snag on a piece of wreckage. I doubt even someone nature diving would want that around coral.
Xenoblade 2 designs are ludicrously horny. Brighid is probably the best example of a “sexy” design that doesn’t make you roll your eyes. And the worst part is I think the same guy who designed Pyra/Mythra designed Brighid so...what the fuck?
Xenoblade 2 designs are ludicrously horny. Brighid is probably the best example of a “sexy” design that doesn’t make you roll your eyes. And the worst part is I think the same guy who designed Pyra/Mythra designed Brighid so...what the fuck?
Also the artist for Pandoria, who's much more reasonable as well.
It's a shame, since there's a number of perfectly good female designs going. Adenine's design is great. Agate, Herald. Ursula is as far from sexualized as you can possibly get.
The characters have what one might call sexy designs. But the story and characters dont treat them as sexy. There is no oh my god so hot nose bleed reaction bullshit.
They just people, people with questionable fashion sense. And jiggle physics.
Kupi's Armchair Game Design Corner: World of Light is based around the idea of fighting replicas of the main playable characters possessed by "spirits", other lesser characters from the gaming pantheon. The structure of the battles follows the design of the Spirit character; Spirits of fiery characters inhabit fire-using characters and have fire-themed stage hazards, jumping characters force their host to jump all the time, and so on. But sometimes the aesthetic of the Spirit and the host character just don't sync up.
My proposal: rather than (or in addition to) having a stock set of character colors, instead pull the colors for the various regions of their outfits from a map of colors. As in, set up all the characters so that you can recolor their outfits and various other attributes like skin, eyes, and hair. As in, the Blanka Spirit wouldn't just be Pikachu with a green hat, it'd be a Pikachu that's been colored green with orange stripes. Or for the Shantae spirit, it would be Zero Suit Samus, but with a red outfit and purple hair. Once you have this system in place, you can go even further and let the player define what I'm calling "My Spirit": a color set that can be applied to every character you select while you're signed onto that profile.
Of course, the biggest obstacle is the rights-holders. Something tells me the character designers at, say, Square-Enix would have opinions about Cloud being allowed to be anything but blonde.
My favorite musical instrument is the air-raid siren.
Xenoblade 2 designs are ludicrously horny. Brighid is probably the best example of a “sexy” design that doesn’t make you roll your eyes. And the worst part is I think the same guy who designed Pyra/Mythra designed Brighid so...what the fuck?
Anime game with gacha elements. The artist was definitely required to fill out a checklist of merchandisable fetishes and character tropes before the cast was complete.
Xenoblade 2 designs are ludicrously horny. Brighid is probably the best example of a “sexy” design that doesn’t make you roll your eyes. And the worst part is I think the same guy who designed Pyra/Mythra designed Brighid so...what the fuck?
Anime game with gacha elements. The artist was definitely required to fill out a checklist of merchandisable fetishes and character tropes before the cast was complete.
There's actually a lot of guest artists involved for the non-story blades.
The characters have what one might call sexy designs. But the story and characters dont treat them as sexy. There is no oh my god so hot nose bleed reaction bullshit.
They just people, people with questionable fashion sense. And jiggle physics.
uh, there’s literally a hot springs scene in the main story, and just...Tora in general. The story and characters absolutely treat them as a pair of hot chicks.
Compared to anime like kill la kill where males will start having nose bleeds and fall down due to scantily clad women, the visual shorthand in anime for sexual arousal, it is not the same.
For a game as highly anime stylised you would think this would happen.
It's a very asexual story by anime standards.
Rex and Pyra/Mythra don't even kiss.
Perhaps it is just my own asexuality clouding my interpretation of the text, scantily clad ladies might just be designed to be lusted after.
I just dont think the story treats them the same as the gross fan art I've seen of Mario and Link seeing them in smash and having nose bleeds.
Pretty sure that hot spring scene passes the Bechdel Test as well
Xenoblade 2 designs are ludicrously horny. Brighid is probably the best example of a “sexy” design that doesn’t make you roll your eyes. And the worst part is I think the same guy who designed Pyra/Mythra designed Brighid so...what the fuck?
Anime game with gacha elements. The artist was definitely required to fill out a checklist of merchandisable fetishes and character tropes before the cast was complete.
There's actually a lot of guest artists involved for the non-story blades.
And they were all literally told "Make whatever you want" and nothing more.
I mean it doesn't excuse the designs or how you feel about them. If anything though it just says something about the industry and how the default is perceived when a group of artists were given absolutely no guidelines or checklists to follow, and that's what a lot of them still made.
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
Rex is like, 15, and Pyra/Mythra are centuries old. The fact the game had ANY hint of romance between them was extremely awful.
And the Bechdel test is not bare minimum to get some kind of feminist Seal of Approval. It was an example of patterns in media born from treating women as secondary to men.
EDIT: It doesn’t even PASS the test; they talk about Tora in the first like five seconds of the scene!
Yeah, the Bechdel Test is putting the hurdle directly on the floor. It should be ridiculously simple to clear. Passing the test doesn't mean your story is suddenly great; it should be a baseline that any story can clear. Rather, if your work fails the test, by not having even a single scene that meets the criteria, you have a serious problem.
The fact that there are so many works that don't even clear that hurdle is embarrassing.
Rex is like, 15, and Pyra/Mythra are centuries old. The fact the game had ANY hint of romance between them was extremely awful.
And the Bechdel test is not bare minimum to get some kind of feminist Seal of Approval. It was an example of patterns in media born from treating women as secondary to men.
EDIT: It doesn’t even PASS the test; they talk about Tora in the first like five seconds of the scene!
It's ambiguous, but Pyra/Mythra's actual conscious interactions with people don't seem to span that many years. I'm not sure her as an individual is all that old as a consequence of being sealed away. (Spoilers for both XC2 and Torna)
Addam awakens her from the trinity core prior to the events of Torna, but it doesn't seem like all that long prior. The length of time after that until she's sealed is also ambiguous. And then she's just in stasis in the sunken ship until Rex wakes her. Prior to Addam, her core crystal was just acting as a processor, and it's not clear that Mythra as an individual existed at all. I have to assume she came into existence with basic knowledge, etc. already formed from the background data of the system and Addam's personality traits the same as any other blade.
All things considered, her total time awake as a conscious individual before the events of XC2 proper is almost certainly <10 years. She's basically got the personality of an adult without the length of life experience? Although considering the amount of stuff she's been through I'm not sure how to evaluate that.
Pyra didn't exist at all prior to right when she was sealed, iirc - though since she's basically a fork from Mythra, I'm not even going to try and figure this out. Having essentially an adult pop into existence with personality and memories already there is kind of awkward to work with.
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edited February 2021
Kizmitt, I'm really having a hard time getting your point. It almost seems like you are trying to argue that a character design is only sexualized if other characters in the story react to it? It's just a matter of visual design, were they made conventionally attractive, and/or are they wearing more revealing outfits than would be typical for the activities they are engaged with? Are they wearing impractical clothing designed to mold the body or emphasize sexual features, like corsets or high heels? How are they posed/animated, how do shots including them tend to be framed, etc.
That the game isn't as brazen about it as Kill La Kill, which verges on softcore porn at times, is like saying a movie isn't violent unless it's as bad as Texas Chainsaw Massacre. You are setting an absurdly high bar there.
Having characters who are highly sexualized, when it is never addressed by the narrative (and thus not there for narrative or thematic reasons) is actually worse to my mind than a Bayonetta, Morrigan Aensland, or Catwoman situation where the character is sexualized because it's part of their personality and modus operandi.
I am aware that my mind is broken and wrong, that this is not the cultural norm. Giant breasts, exposed skin and curvy hips do nothing for me.
Kill la Kill was an example in how the men reacted, not at how the women were depicted.
Another example, cult classic Okami. Disgustingly leery at the female form. Nose bleeds replaced by antenna straightening, eyes following the bounce of the ample bosom etc. That game is gross and bad but it gets a pass for some reason.
The characters and story in XC2 doesnt do this. People viewing the text do this, the character designers probably do this, the director probably does this too. There are probably lingering shots you can put in a compilation to prove me wrong.
All I'm saying is Rex doesnt get an erection depicted by a nose bleed, a common anime trope, in this very anime game when he looks at Pyra and Mythra.
Probably another floor bar or a too high bar. There are a lot of bar analogies in your arguments.
I'm not trying to set up bars for something to jump over.
I view Rex as asexual, I can relate to everyone in his life assuming the girl he hangs out with is his love interest. I can relate to his friends falling in love with him and he is just not interested in that way. Is it an incorrect viewing of the text? Yeah probably. I'm not naive. But we all make our own connections with the media we consume.
I am aware that my mind is broken and wrong, that this is not the cultural norm. Giant breasts, exposed skin and curvy hips do nothing for me.
Kill la Kill was an example in how the men reacted, not at how the women were depicted.
Another example, cult classic Okami. Disgustingly leery at the female form. Nose bleeds replaced by antenna straightening, eyes following the bounce of the ample bosom etc. That game is gross and bad but it gets a pass for some reason.
The characters and story in XC2 doesnt do this. People viewing the text do this, the character designers probably do this, the director probably does this too. There are probably lingering shots you can put in a compilation to prove me wrong.
All I'm saying is Rex doesnt get an erection depicted by a nose bleed, a common anime trope, in this very anime game when he looks at Pyra and Mythra.
Probably another floor bar or a too high bar. There are a lot of bar analogies in your arguments.
I'm not trying to set up bars for something to jump over.
I view Rex as asexual, I can relate to everyone in his life assuming the girl he hangs out with is his love interest. I can relate to his friends falling in love with him and he is just not interested in that way. Is it an incorrect viewing of the text? Yeah probably. I'm not naive. But we all make our own connections with the media we consume.
I don’t know, this interaction kind of makes that reading entirely reasonable.
Rex is just the stereotypical main character of a harem anime. Not asexual, just a decent guy who’s kind of a doofus and couldn’t get a hint if you tattooed it on his face.
I am aware that my mind is broken and wrong, that this is not the cultural norm. Giant breasts, exposed skin and curvy hips do nothing for me.
Kill la Kill was an example in how the men reacted, not at how the women were depicted.
Another example, cult classic Okami. Disgustingly leery at the female form. Nose bleeds replaced by antenna straightening, eyes following the bounce of the ample bosom etc. That game is gross and bad but it gets a pass for some reason.
The characters and story in XC2 doesnt do this. People viewing the text do this, the character designers probably do this, the director probably does this too. There are probably lingering shots you can put in a compilation to prove me wrong.
All I'm saying is Rex doesnt get an erection depicted by a nose bleed, a common anime trope, in this very anime game when he looks at Pyra and Mythra.
Probably another floor bar or a too high bar. There are a lot of bar analogies in your arguments.
I'm not trying to set up bars for something to jump over.
I view Rex as asexual, I can relate to everyone in his life assuming the girl he hangs out with is his love interest. I can relate to his friends falling in love with him and he is just not interested in that way. Is it an incorrect viewing of the text? Yeah probably. I'm not naive. But we all make our own connections with the media we consume.
Woah, hold up. I didn't say there is anything wrong with you. I'm not making a value judgment, I was genuinely confused why you were responding to the running commentary about XC2 character design with how characters in the story behave. It feels like a non sequitur.
People talking about how 'horny' Pyra's costume is are discussing the designer's intended reception by the real world audience, not about how the game's story treats it.
Also like, a design being horny doesn’t make it bad. And if you enjoy horny stuff that doesn’t make you bad, and if you like to draw horny fanart or write horny fan fiction or whatever that’s fine, too.
On the flipside, if you find horny stuff to be a turnoff and feel the urge to roll your eyes at it, that’s okay too.
I'll say this -- even though I have zero interest in the characters themselves, I'm very curious to see how they play. All the DLC characters have been mechanically interesting.
I'm interested to see how the character swap mechanic works.
From my limited knowledge of XC2, I think it makes sense for Pyra to be the stronger form, and Mythra the faster one. Kinda like what they were going for with Zelda for a few games, only much more effective due to the faster swap (among other things)
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The issue with the Zelda/Sheik mechanic in older games was more that Zelda was just a trash character. It's only in Ultimate that she could really hold her own as a proper mid-tier, whereas Sheik has consistently been a top tier.
It'll also probably feel better than Z/S because they'll likely play much more similarly with tweaked stats rather than being completely different characters. The theory I saw floating around is that they'll have the same normals (likely with damage/speed tweaked) but different specials, which means you don't have to completely change your approach to neutral every time you swap.
Also Pokemon Trainer is a swapping character that works fine. People have the right of it, Zelda/Sheik wasn’t a bad idea, just very poorly executed. Zelda was consistently just kind of bad and Sheik was frequently real good and their swap wasn’t quick so it was discouraged.
Samus and ZSS were just super awkward to begin with, since they tended to swap via final smash which, on a competitive level have really not been used. Plus similar to Sheik and Zelda, Samus was kind of bad to middling most of the time while ZSS was once again... really good.
It’ll be interesting to see how they vary. Pokemon trainer works because their pokémon fit in different archetypes so there tends to be a flow. After some balancing, there is less of a lean on Ivysaur and even Charizard sees more use.
It’ll be interesting to see how they vary. Pokemon trainer works because their pokémon fit in different archetypes so there tends to be a flow. After some balancing, there is less of a lean on Ivysaur and even Charizard sees more use.
Ivysaur's d-air spike-through-the-stage and up-b killmove bullshit can go to hell.
Interesting tidbit to come out of coverage of Sakurai's latest Famitsu article. He's flirting with retirement, and said he'll stop writing his column (which he's done for 18 years!) once Smash Bros. Ultimate's DLC wraps up probably later this year.
In other words, it's probably time to let go of hopes for a third round of DLC.
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I like Rex's design. He's poor, so he's just wearing a wetsuit and bits of his diving suit. Here's what he looks like with the rest of it on:
Like, this is a revelation on the level of Vaan putting on an undershirt.
Nah some of the minor Xenoblade 2 characters are much worse. Like Dahlia/Tsuki.
I kinda think they made the red one's design MORE horny actually, whatever their intention was.
People said the same about the outfit Mythra got as a Smash spirit (which then got added into Xenoblade 2 as an option). Giving her leggings only made her design more attractive to some folks.
They are stylish af and I will die on that hill.
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I'm still not wild about it? A good design shouldn't need to be defended or explained, his standard outfit still looks bad even if it makes sense in context. And the full diving suit isn't great for two reasons:
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Also the artist for Pandoria, who's much more reasonable as well.
It's a shame, since there's a number of perfectly good female designs going. Adenine's design is great. Agate, Herald. Ursula is as far from sexualized as you can possibly get.
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They just people, people with questionable fashion sense. And jiggle physics.
My proposal: rather than (or in addition to) having a stock set of character colors, instead pull the colors for the various regions of their outfits from a map of colors. As in, set up all the characters so that you can recolor their outfits and various other attributes like skin, eyes, and hair. As in, the Blanka Spirit wouldn't just be Pikachu with a green hat, it'd be a Pikachu that's been colored green with orange stripes. Or for the Shantae spirit, it would be Zero Suit Samus, but with a red outfit and purple hair. Once you have this system in place, you can go even further and let the player define what I'm calling "My Spirit": a color set that can be applied to every character you select while you're signed onto that profile.
Of course, the biggest obstacle is the rights-holders. Something tells me the character designers at, say, Square-Enix would have opinions about Cloud being allowed to be anything but blonde.
Anime game with gacha elements. The artist was definitely required to fill out a checklist of merchandisable fetishes and character tropes before the cast was complete.
There's actually a lot of guest artists involved for the non-story blades.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
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For a game as highly anime stylised you would think this would happen.
It's a very asexual story by anime standards.
Rex and Pyra/Mythra don't even kiss.
Perhaps it is just my own asexuality clouding my interpretation of the text, scantily clad ladies might just be designed to be lusted after.
I just dont think the story treats them the same as the gross fan art I've seen of Mario and Link seeing them in smash and having nose bleeds.
Pretty sure that hot spring scene passes the Bechdel Test as well
And they were all literally told "Make whatever you want" and nothing more.
I mean it doesn't excuse the designs or how you feel about them. If anything though it just says something about the industry and how the default is perceived when a group of artists were given absolutely no guidelines or checklists to follow, and that's what a lot of them still made.
And the Bechdel test is not bare minimum to get some kind of feminist Seal of Approval. It was an example of patterns in media born from treating women as secondary to men.
EDIT: It doesn’t even PASS the test; they talk about Tora in the first like five seconds of the scene!
The fact that there are so many works that don't even clear that hurdle is embarrassing.
It's ambiguous, but Pyra/Mythra's actual conscious interactions with people don't seem to span that many years. I'm not sure her as an individual is all that old as a consequence of being sealed away. (Spoilers for both XC2 and Torna)
All things considered, her total time awake as a conscious individual before the events of XC2 proper is almost certainly <10 years. She's basically got the personality of an adult without the length of life experience? Although considering the amount of stuff she's been through I'm not sure how to evaluate that.
Pyra didn't exist at all prior to right when she was sealed, iirc - though since she's basically a fork from Mythra, I'm not even going to try and figure this out. Having essentially an adult pop into existence with personality and memories already there is kind of awkward to work with.
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That the game isn't as brazen about it as Kill La Kill, which verges on softcore porn at times, is like saying a movie isn't violent unless it's as bad as Texas Chainsaw Massacre. You are setting an absurdly high bar there.
Having characters who are highly sexualized, when it is never addressed by the narrative (and thus not there for narrative or thematic reasons) is actually worse to my mind than a Bayonetta, Morrigan Aensland, or Catwoman situation where the character is sexualized because it's part of their personality and modus operandi.
Kill la Kill was an example in how the men reacted, not at how the women were depicted.
Another example, cult classic Okami. Disgustingly leery at the female form. Nose bleeds replaced by antenna straightening, eyes following the bounce of the ample bosom etc. That game is gross and bad but it gets a pass for some reason.
The characters and story in XC2 doesnt do this. People viewing the text do this, the character designers probably do this, the director probably does this too. There are probably lingering shots you can put in a compilation to prove me wrong.
All I'm saying is Rex doesnt get an erection depicted by a nose bleed, a common anime trope, in this very anime game when he looks at Pyra and Mythra.
Probably another floor bar or a too high bar. There are a lot of bar analogies in your arguments.
I'm not trying to set up bars for something to jump over.
I view Rex as asexual, I can relate to everyone in his life assuming the girl he hangs out with is his love interest. I can relate to his friends falling in love with him and he is just not interested in that way. Is it an incorrect viewing of the text? Yeah probably. I'm not naive. But we all make our own connections with the media we consume.
I don’t know, this interaction kind of makes that reading entirely reasonable.
Clip:
Rex: Nia, I love you too!
Nia: !!!
Rex: I love you, and all you guys!”
Rex is just the stereotypical main character of a harem anime. Not asexual, just a decent guy who’s kind of a doofus and couldn’t get a hint if you tattooed it on his face.
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Woah, hold up. I didn't say there is anything wrong with you. I'm not making a value judgment, I was genuinely confused why you were responding to the running commentary about XC2 character design with how characters in the story behave. It feels like a non sequitur.
People talking about how 'horny' Pyra's costume is are discussing the designer's intended reception by the real world audience, not about how the game's story treats it.
On the flipside, if you find horny stuff to be a turnoff and feel the urge to roll your eyes at it, that’s okay too.
My Let's Play Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC2go70QLfwGq-hW4nvUqmog
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From my limited knowledge of XC2, I think it makes sense for Pyra to be the stronger form, and Mythra the faster one. Kinda like what they were going for with Zelda for a few games, only much more effective due to the faster swap (among other things)
It'll also probably feel better than Z/S because they'll likely play much more similarly with tweaked stats rather than being completely different characters. The theory I saw floating around is that they'll have the same normals (likely with damage/speed tweaked) but different specials, which means you don't have to completely change your approach to neutral every time you swap.
Samus and ZSS were just super awkward to begin with, since they tended to swap via final smash which, on a competitive level have really not been used. Plus similar to Sheik and Zelda, Samus was kind of bad to middling most of the time while ZSS was once again... really good.
Ivysaur's d-air spike-through-the-stage and up-b killmove bullshit can go to hell.
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I'm surprisingly sad about no new Xenoblade Mii Fighters. (Solely: returning Monster Hunters, Felyne hat, and Arthur from G'nG.)
In other words, it's probably time to let go of hopes for a third round of DLC.
I would like a Kid Icarus Uprising remake on Switch first though...
Well there's a difference between no longer making smash games and retiring from game development altogether.
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Keep in mind the DLC rumor mill has been pretty crap outside of that one time someone got to see Nintendo's presentation video early.