Stellar Blade (formally Project Eve) - Korean Sci-Fi Bayonetta/Nier: Automata/Sekiro Edition

BrawlMan

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And they can still continue to get fucked. Whoever started this "tradition", were and are more than likely never left high school mentally. All they ever wanted was their doll like/Greek face sculpture trophy wife or trophy husband. I get everyone has their own standards of beauty, but as I said before plenty of times: societal definitions of beauty will always be BS. That Botox is going to affect you at some point.
 
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Chimpzy

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Because that seems to be pretty much the South Korean beauty standard. Just look at any random K-pop band.
Yeah, I get that, what I'm curious about is why that is the beauty standard.

And K-pop girls, despite many no doubt getting work done, still look like people, and not uncanny dolls. Like, the main character, Eve, is supposedly based on a model named Shin Jae-eun, but they don't look much alike, neither face nor body. Tho the other female character has a way worse case of dollface. Her eyes must make up like a quarter of her head's volume.
They must have much, much better plastic surgeons over there than here then, if they actually make people look better.
Maybe, tho part of it might also be that in SK media you tend to see only successes, whereas western media often tend to highlight the failures.
 

Casual Shinji

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Yeah, I get that, what I'm curious about is why that is the beauty standard.

And K-pop girls, despite many no doubt getting work done, still look like people, and not uncanny dolls. Like, the main character, Eve, is supposedly based on a model named Shin Jae-eun, but they don't look much alike, neither face nor body. Tho the other female character has a way worse case of dollface. Her eyes must make up like a quarter of her head's volume.
I mean, you exaggerate already doll-like beauty standards in CGI (or photoshop) and this is what you get. Similar to exaggerating female proportions. Until people start to expect those exaggerations in real life. Probably why plastic surgery has run amok in South Korea.
 
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Chimpzy

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I mean, you exaggerate already doll-like beauty standards in CGI (or photoshop) and this is what you get. Similar to exaggerating female proportions. Until people start to expect those exaggerations in real life. Probably why plastic surgery has run amok in South Korea.
Yes, sure, but that's a symptom, not a cause. What I'm wondering is whether that trend in SK beauty standards has a guiding principle driving it, similar to how 'kawai' does in Japanese beauty standards.
 
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PsychedelicDiamond

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Looks fun. Even though almost everything about the artstyle looks incredibly overdesigned. The creatures, most of all.
 

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Looks fun. Even though almost everything about the artstyle looks incredibly overdesigned. The creatures, most of all.
Some of the side human characters yes, but the monsters I feel are not overly designed. But if you really want to talk about overdesigned, go back and play the first Darksiders. Or when KT went overboard on Dynasty Warriors 6 and 7.
 

Casual Shinji

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Yes, sure, but that's a symptom, not a cause. What I'm wondering is whether that trend in SK beauty standards has a guiding principle driving it, similar to how 'kawai' does in Japanese beauty standards.
Who knows, cultures are fucking weird.
 

FakeSympathy

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Something I've been wondering about for a while now, but what is up with those dollfaces on female characters in SK games? I get that it's probably some local preference, I'm just interested in the why of it.

@FakeSympathy , you got any light to shed?
Oh yes, SK has insanely high beauty standards. Any industry that are beauty or fashion-related makes absolute bangers. Which is why people who are beautiful (both males and females) but never got plastic surgeries have better reception for being "natural beauties".

Plastic surgeries are accepted, but only for once or light work; Heavy works are criticized harshly.

As for the game's character being doll-faced, I can tell you this has been going on for a very long time. For example, here are character models for a horror game called White Day: A Labyrinth named School

Review - White Day A Labyrinth Named School.jpg

Now The quality of the game aside, the game features very doll-faced HS boys and girls. On top of all this, the devs included a bunch of revealing costumes for the female models. Not to mention the three female characters are kinda of flat in terms of personalities

These types of doll-face character designs are insanely popular in SK, even with MMO games that allows you to make your custom characters; For example, Black Desert Online or Lost Ark, when creating a new character even with an average effeort you'll end up with a gorgeous character. There really isn't an option to create a hideous monstrosity.

Many fps games exclusive to Korea/Asia also feature female characters based on k-pop models, and it is probably one of the most divisive features in each game.

People have been complaining doll-faces getting very vanilla, and want to see female characters with bit more personality and quirkiness. HOWEVER, they also don't want the beauty to be sacrificed for the sake of it, something the western devs seems to be going hard on (their words, not mine).

Some of the more beloved western gaming female characters in SK are
  • Yen, Triss, and Ciri from Witcher 3
  • Judy and Panam from CP2077
  • Lady Dimistrescu from RE8
Some of the characters that are not so well received are
  • Jisoo Paik in BF2042
  • Aloy in HZD and HFW
  • Pretty much any character in Anthem
IDK, the doll-faces seem to sell. It's kinda like how we all know how crappy COD games are, yet they bring in bangers for Acti-Blizz each year.
 

TheMysteriousGX

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I mean, if they ere too much away from perfect dolls in body suits, they run the risk of appearing feminist, which involves people breaking into their offices and demanding they blacklist the first female artist they can find
 

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Yup, still into it, and it looks really fun. One day I'll get a PS5 and maybe I'll be able to play some of the games on it. One day...

Looks fun. Even though almost everything about the artstyle looks incredibly overdesigned. The creatures, most of all.
I'm not sure I'd say over-designed (at least in terms of the monsters), but they're definitely very elaborate. I forget when it was, but eventually I found myself leaning into enjoying stuff like this more than before. There's beauty in simplicity, absolutely. Buuuuut, elaborate or over-designed can be a lot of fun. You can have a sea of characters that all look similar from one another if you keep things too simple... so why not go full tilt in the other direction and attempt to stand out a little? Obviously that's not everyone's jam, of course, but still
 
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Dwarvenhobble

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I mean, if they ere too much away from perfect dolls in body suits, they run the risk of appearing feminist, which involves people breaking into their offices and demanding they blacklist the first female artist they can find

See now you say that but then they didn't need people breaking into their offices to remove activists from the team. Though with how online outrage is I'm sure some angry feminist or ally will try to now break into their offices.

F4QccQkasAAuiyW.jpg
 

PsychedelicDiamond

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Yes, sure, but that's a symptom, not a cause. What I'm wondering is whether that trend in SK beauty standards has a guiding principle driving it, similar to how 'kawai' does in Japanese beauty standards.
Korea has a very specific female beauty standard, for what it's worth Stellar Blade is actually fairly restrained. Only that purple haired girl looks really bad, the other ones just look idealised in the way Final Fantasy characters do.

1707124333727924.jpg

Korean sensibilities favour women who are very short and skinny and pale. Which, I suppose, reads as elegant and regal to them but honestly, to me it just looks frail and sickly. It reminds me of that whole "heroin chic" fashion thing that was popular in the 00's, which I always found very gross.
 
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CriticalGaming

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See now you say that but then they didn't need people breaking into their offices to remove activists from the team. Though with how online outrage is I'm sure some angry feminist or ally will try to now break into their offices.

View attachment 10555
To me it sounds like these people were trying to inject and force their political ideals into the game where it didn't the belong and the company removed them for toxicity against the project. Which is perfectly within the company's right to do, when you clash with the company culture or clash against doing a project then the company is going to let you go. There is no reason to keep someone around when they don't like nor agree with the vision of the company.

Most modern studios would likely have bent the knee to a screaming minority, because they already do that shit to avoid Twitter fire. But it's good to see someone kick out whinny nonsense and not bow to it for no reason.

Hopefully the game itself is good.
 
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It’s Reddit so take with grain of salt n all that, but this post by Iron-man21 may add some context -

I don't like Asmongold and he's nothing more than a bandwagon jumper. As for the two women being fired, I'm waiting at a distance to see a full story on all sides. Keep in mind that this is South Korea and they have huge issues with women wanting to be treated better and not fit the societal BS definition of beauty. For their sake I hope they weren't fired just for being feminist. Because that's a right issue right there. I don't want to hear anything from anybody else otherwise. Regardless of whatever is true or not at the moment. I'm waiting for the dust to settle and won't form my opinion until then.
 

TheMysteriousGX

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See now you say that but then they didn't need people breaking into their offices to remove activists from the team. Though with how online outrage is I'm sure some angry feminist or ally will try to now break into their offices.
See, is it really radical feminist activism to be against non-consensual voyeur porn? Did Vellmori being against that warrant an office break in? Especially considering the inciting incident was a summer wetsuit illustration she didn't even make? (This wetsuit was controversial because it wasn't a swimsuit)

Or claiming that a completely normal hand gesture is "misandry", leading to a MapleSotry promo getting removed?

Or getting an artist's Korean Arknights collaboration removed because she...praised a 2018 Women's Day Google doodle?

And this is ignoring the heinous non-videogame shit happening over there right now

Truly, the heights of toxic feminist activism going on in South Korea these days. Any accusation of "toxic feminism" coming out of South Korea needs a Morton's distribution center's worth of salt to go with it
 

BrawlMan

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See, is it really radical feminist activism to be against non-consensual voyeur porn? Did Vellmori being against that warrant an office break in? Especially considering the inciting incident was a summer wetsuit illustration she didn't even make? (This wetsuit was controversial because it wasn't a swimsuit)

Or claiming that a completely normal hand gesture is "misandry", leading to a MapleSotry promo getting removed?

Or getting an artist's Korean Arknights collaboration removed because she...praised a 2018 Women's Day Google doodle?

And this is ignoring the heinous non-videogame shit happening over there right now

Truly, the heights of toxic feminist activism going on in South Korea these days. Any accusation of "toxic feminism" coming out of South Korea needs a Morton's distribution center's worth of salt to go with it
Once again, you know your stuff and not relying on bullshit, unlike some others right now. Thank you.
 

TheMysteriousGX

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Once again, you know your stuff and not relying on bullshit, unlike some others right now. Thank you.
It's the complete lack of any evidence or argument that set me off, honestly. 'Cause that's how it works in Korea: Some guy posts a tiny snippet of somebody being a feminist (not showing them doing or saying anything otherwise wrong), and they're automatically a toxic radical feminist who needs firing and blacklisting, case closed, the industry better off without them in it. 100% mob mentality against a real actual person nobody was previously talking about, just because of a sardonic comment

Game looks fine too, if you're okay with that flavor of uncanny valley. Personally reminds me too much of certain animations from my youth, but to each their own.
 

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It's the complete lack of any evidence or argument that set me off, honestly. 'Cause that's how it works in Korea: Some guy posts a tiny snippet of somebody being a feminist (not showing them doing or saying anything otherwise wrong), and they're automatically a toxic radical feminist who needs firing and blacklisting, case closed, the industry better off without them in it. 100% mob mentality against a real actual person nobody was previously talking about, just because of a sardonic comment

Game looks fine too, if you're okay with that flavor of uncanny valley. Personally reminds me too much of certain animations from my youth, but to each their own.
I do still have interests in this game, and while I am glad it is coming out this year, it's not a high priority. Like I said before: I highly doubt women fired are assholes or unruly. If need be, I have no problem dropping the game, since they've more than likely been screwed over for petty reasons.
 

Dwarvenhobble

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See, is it really radical feminist activism to be against non-consensual voyeur porn? Did Vellmori being against that warrant an office break in? Especially considering the inciting incident was a summer wetsuit illustration she didn't even make? (This wetsuit was controversial because it wasn't a swimsuit)

Or claiming that a completely normal hand gesture is "misandry", leading to a MapleSotry promo getting removed?

Or getting an artist's Korean Arknights collaboration removed because she...praised a 2018 Women's Day Google doodle?

And this is ignoring the heinous non-videogame shit happening over there right now

Truly, the heights of toxic feminist activism going on in South Korea these days. Any accusation of "toxic feminism" coming out of South Korea needs a Morton's distribution center's worth of salt to go with it

Oh you mean the whole government with a ministry of women specifically to focus on women / women's issues being found to be caught up in a sex trafficking and prostitution scandal??


https://x.com/kenshirotism/status/1753459751554339140?s=20

So yeh I'd say pretty toxic feminism right there to be selling women into basically prostitution.

But hey considering Megalia (the dominant Feminist group as such on South Korea) have been accused of attacking people merely based on their gender and were happy to use a spycam to get nudes and then share round the nudes of male celebs then protested when one of their members got arrested for it


Yeh basically South Korea feminism is like supporting the Scum Manifesto.