Dragon's Crown Review: Buxom Babes and Battleaxes

Legion

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Eclipse Dragon said:
RapeisGenocide said:
I hate to break it to you, but men and women are completely different beings who crave completely different things. This is how it's always been, this is how it will always be.
Is there no middle ground? Surely a game can have aspects that appeal to both men and women. Also I would appreciate a source from the developers that state Dragon's Crown is made by men for only men and no one else... Actually in these days of game developers trying to "appeal to a broader audience" to make a game for only men seems like the opposite line of thought.
Nonsense! Games are for men and only men! Just look at this here:



This is actually a real advertisement for the game. It's... kind of disturbing. They also chose the worst time possible to try and advertise their crap like this. Or maybe they did it on purpose to gain attention and notoriety?

Although I cannot help but notice that it's cheap fantasy MMO's that seem to be at the forefront of this kind of thing. Which I think a lot of people neglect to mention or notice. Most sci-fi tends to have a pretty decent representation of both sexes and so do more "realistic" games.
 

Eclipse Dragon

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Legion said:
Eclipse Dragon said:
RapeisGenocide said:
I hate to break it to you, but men and women are completely different beings who crave completely different things. This is how it's always been, this is how it will always be.
Is there no middle ground? Surely a game can have aspects that appeal to both men and women. Also I would appreciate a source from the developers that state Dragon's Crown is made by men for only men and no one else... Actually in these days of game developers trying to "appeal to a broader audience" to make a game for only men seems like the opposite line of thought.
Nonsense! Games are for men and only men! Just look at this here:

This is actually a real advertisement for the game. It's... kind of disturbing.

Although I cannot help but notice that it's cheap fantasy MMO's that seem to be at the forefront of this kind of thing. Which I think a lot of people neglect to mention or notice. Most sci-fi tends to have a pretty decent representation of both sexes and so do more "realistic" games.
Hey hey I didn't say there weren't ....disturbing exceptions to the rule.
I was talking about Dragon's Crown specifically. I've actually never even heard of that Wartune game...
Is it popular? I'd be even more disturbed by that.
 

Erttheking

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Legion said:
Yeah, that is pretty slimey. It gets even more pathetic when more often than not, games that advertise like that end up being like this.

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/evonylady_1563.jpg
 

Legion

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Eclipse Dragon said:
Legion said:
Eclipse Dragon said:
RapeisGenocide said:
I hate to break it to you, but men and women are completely different beings who crave completely different things. This is how it's always been, this is how it will always be.
Is there no middle ground? Surely a game can have aspects that appeal to both men and women. Also I would appreciate a source from the developers that state Dragon's Crown is made by men for only men and no one else... Actually in these days of game developers trying to "appeal to a broader audience" to make a game for only men seems like the opposite line of thought.
Nonsense! Games are for men and only men! Just look at this here:

This is actually a real advertisement for the game. It's... kind of disturbing.

Although I cannot help but notice that it's cheap fantasy MMO's that seem to be at the forefront of this kind of thing. Which I think a lot of people neglect to mention or notice. Most sci-fi tends to have a pretty decent representation of both sexes and so do more "realistic" games.
Hey hey I didn't say there weren't ....disturbing exceptions to the rule.
I was talking about Dragon's Crown specifically. I've actually never even heard of that Wartune game...
Is it popular? I'd be even more disturbed by that.
Eh, I was trying to make a joke based upon your reasonable request that games cater to both audiences, by taking the ridiculous position that "games are clearly just for men" and using an example. My joke apparently failed badly.

As for Wartune being popular I have no idea, I just saw that advertisement today. Upon using google image to find a link I did see that it has an "adult only" game, but looking at screenshots, it seems like the advertisements are worse than the actual game. It looks like one of those games that uses sex appeal in the advertisement purely to reel people in. The game itself does seem to have skimpy outfits, but the game-play looks a little like Dragons Crown actually. A side scrolling fighting game of some kind. Mixed a bit with Evony, which is a strategy game of some kind.

erttheking said:
Legion said:
Yeah, that is pretty slimey. It gets even more pathetic when more often than not, games that advertise like that end up being like this.
That was the game I was thinking of when I mentioned games that use sex appeal for advertisement even though the game itself doesn't really have anything to do with it.

Personally I prefer the PopCap way of dealing with it:



It is a much better way of pointing out how idiotic it is than complaining I feel.
 

WindKnight

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Legion said:
Eclipse Dragon said:
RapeisGenocide said:
I hate to break it to you, but men and women are completely different beings who crave completely different things. This is how it's always been, this is how it will always be.
Is there no middle ground? Surely a game can have aspects that appeal to both men and women. Also I would appreciate a source from the developers that state Dragon's Crown is made by men for only men and no one else... Actually in these days of game developers trying to "appeal to a broader audience" to make a game for only men seems like the opposite line of thought.
Nonsense! Games are for men and only men! Just look at this here:



This is actually a real advertisement for the game. It's... kind of disturbing. They also chose the worst time possible to try and advertise their crap like this. Or maybe they did it on purpose to gain attention and notoriety?

Although I cannot help but notice that it's cheap fantasy MMO's that seem to be at the forefront of this kind of thing. Which I think a lot of people neglect to mention or notice. Most sci-fi tends to have a pretty decent representation of both sexes and so do more "realistic" games.
You should have seen the one before the ESRB slapped then on the nose for claiming it was rated Adults Only when it hadn't been rated at all. As another poster has noted, its pretty much Evony only even more desperate.
 

-Axle-

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Windknight said:
Again... A PERSON choses what they chose to wear, chooses how they act and has all the rights in the world to do whatever they please with their own body, behaviour and fashion choices.
I'm not sure I follow how you're using this in your argument considering every character that's created out of fiction is not a real person. I could understand if the depiction was of a real person and they chose to exaggerate certain features, but this discussion revolves around a fantasy fictional setting.

I'll try and break this down but please correct me if I'm misunderstanding any of your words.

Windknight said:
A CHARACTER has all this chosen for them by an artists who's intentions are in question. And in the cases that cause people Ire the intention is to provide titillation using characters who are supposed to be strong women.
I have to ask, how do you know what the characters are supposed to be like?

I can understand someone having a desire for characters to be a certain way, but "how they are supposed to be like" is really up to the artist creating them, no? Especially considering these are all net new characters.

In a related tangent, this would imply that an artist who creates male characters that provide titillation to a female audience would somehow suggest that that artists intentions should be brought into question, especially should someone deem that those characters fall short of their definition of "strong men".

Windknight said:
And if this is porn or erotica, that's no problem - sexy outfits have their place.
You say that as if they are separate subjects in all other mediums (like tv, movies, music, etc.). Are you of the opinion that they ought to be strictly separated in those mediums as well?

Windknight said:
if its a fantasy knight who's supposed to be fighting monsters with sword and shield, and the portrayal is more interested in giving us boobs and ass, its weakening the character for the sake of titillation
This is where I disagree the most, the notion that it "weakens the character" is truly a judgement made by the individual, not an objective assessment of that character.

If you simply switch the genders and present them the same way (ie. a Barbarian character like say Conan who fights with a sword and shield, and little else), few people would make the same assessment that it "weakens the character". If anything, people would see the exposed vulnerability as risk-taking and boldness "because its a male character". Can you see where my concern lies with how opinion changes based on the gender of a character?

Does it appeal more to one gender rather than the other? Absolutely.

Does it make it wrong to do so? I have to ask why?

I don't see many men interested in characters like Jacob (Twilight) / Mr Big (SatC) / etc. and likely because those characters appeal more to women than men (they were designed to). Now I'm sure someone will point out that those are all physically moderately proportioned males, and obviously because they are played by real people. Even if they were drawn, they'd likely still be less exaggerated than what you see with female characters and that's because what appeals to women is not the same as what appeals to men, especially when it comes to accentuating physical features. That doesn't equate to one being less "bad" than the other though.

Windknight said:
- this is objectification.
I also have to dispute this. How are they objectified? Are they used as an object in the game? Are they denied recognition as a human being and used as a form of currency or property? Do they not stand alongside all the other heroes on equal footing? How do you even objectify a fictional fantasy character that's not a real person to begin with?

Windknight said:
this is why people don't like the chainmail bikini, and half naked women in these kind of situations.
Agree with your choice of words here. Not liking something because it doesn't appeal to you is okay. A lot of people would also not like men in chainmail bikinis, but that wouldn't make those characters weak, worth less (at a fundamental level, not preference), or wrong compared to any other.

Windknight said:
To bring up an example from comic books, a female character is welding, has an accident and is burned. If, as scripted, she had been wearing safety gear thats all it would have been. But he artist wanted breasts, so put her in a low cut top, which ultimately made the character look like a complete idiot when she had the accident and got burned.
Do you not see how you are projecting your opinion of what constitutes as strength / intelligence in this very same situation. You are judging the character (or setup, whichever you choose) by what you think is important and value, not by what is actually described as happening.

Windknight said:
Please stop trying to say that by being against objectified characters I'm trying to 'slut shame' women who chose their own wardrobes. Its not what I'm saying and you know it.
That's not what I'm saying at all and I hope the above clarifies where I'm coming from.

What I'm against is a destructive attitude towards the portrayal itself.

Going back to the characters that appeal more to women than men. If TV / Movies / etc. were to be overly saturated with nothing but these characters, my opinion wouldn't be that those characters need to disappear / are "worth less" / "bad" / or demean men, it would be that variety is needed to enrich the medium.

For example, how many soap operas contain male characters designed to appeal to men more than women? Is it wrong that they are heavily biased to appeal to women instead of men? Does that make the writer or director have suspect intentions? I have to say no to all of those. Does it enrich the medium to have characters that appeal to both genders? Sure. After all, I'm sure most people would prefer watching Game of Thrones versus The Young and the Restless but that doesn't make The Young and the Restless a bad show because they target one audience over the other.
 

WindKnight

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-Axle- said:
Windknight said:
To bring up an example from comic books, a female character is welding, has an accident and is burned. If, as scripted, she had been wearing safety gear thats all it would have been. But he artist wanted breasts, so put her in a low cut top, which ultimately made the character look like a complete idiot when she had the accident and got burned.
Do you not see how you are projecting your opinion of what constitutes as strength / intelligence in this very same situation. You are judging the character (or setup, whichever you choose) by what you think is important and value, not by what is actually described as happening.
Welding is BLOODY DANGEROUS. people welding wear full HEAVY safety gear for a REASON - because accidents can happen and it deals with, you know, torches super-heating metals at points to be semi molten. This was why the character was scripted as wearing full protective gear - because (A) she knew what she was doing and (B) she knew she NEEDED full protective gear to do it. The artist changing and putting her in skimpy clothes so he could show off her boobs made her look like an idiot who was reckless and didn't know what she was doing. The artist undermined his character just because he wanted boobs.
 

Headdrivehardscrew

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-Dragmire- said:
Pro/Con breakdown is a great addition to the review.

This game looks stunning, I'll definitely be picking it up.
Welcome to the club.

If you liked the old fantasy beat'em slash'em burn'em ups from Capcom and the whole palette of same game, different name, different graphics and stuff, it's pretty awesome. Same basic gameplay as, say, Final Fight (Shadows over Mystara, Tower of Doom, Knights of the Round, Golden Axe, etc. etc. etc), but I find it absolutely enjoyable.
 

-Axle-

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Windknight said:
-Axle- said:
Windknight said:
To bring up an example from comic books, a female character is welding, has an accident and is burned. If, as scripted, she had been wearing safety gear thats all it would have been. But he artist wanted breasts, so put her in a low cut top, which ultimately made the character look like a complete idiot when she had the accident and got burned.
Do you not see how you are projecting your opinion of what constitutes as strength / intelligence in this very same situation. You are judging the character (or setup, whichever you choose) by what you think is important and value, not by what is actually described as happening.
Welding is BLOODY DANGEROUS. people welding wear full HEAVY safety gear for a REASON - because accidents can happen and it deals with, you know, torches super-heating metals at points to be semi molten. This was why the character was scripted as wearing full protective gear - because (A) she knew what she was doing and (B) she knew she NEEDED full protective gear to do it. The artist changing and putting her in skimpy clothes so he could show off her boobs made her look like an idiot who was reckless and didn't know what she was doing. The artist undermined his character just because he wanted boobs.
I think you're taking for granted some key assumptions that you're not presenting to others, at least I'm not seeing them.

To me, it would depend on who the character is supposed to be and what the universe is like. Are they some sort of master welder with lots of experience? I don't recall seeing Tony Stark wear full protective gear in his lab and he's constantly getting injured. If they chose to accentuate his abs or muscular waist line (not sure what those lines are called) while shooting the scene, does that make his character an idiot or weak? If so, I'd have to ask why. The same question would apply for a fictional fantasy setting or some hyperbole japanese anime. In those contexts, no, the character's intelligence or preparedness would not seem to be lacking. Their priorities / over-confidence? Sure.

If you were talking about a serious setting, then you'd have an easier time making that argument but then it completely falls out of line with the current subject considering the entire universe is based on exaggeration and exhibitionism.
 

WindKnight

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-Axle- said:
For example, how many soap operas contain male characters designed to appeal to men more than women? Is it wrong that they are heavily biased to appeal to women instead of men? Does that make the writer or director have suspect intentions? I have to say no to all of those. Does it enrich the medium to have characters that appeal to both genders? Sure. After all, I'm sure most people would prefer watching Game of Thrones versus The Young and the Restless but that doesn't make The Young and the Restless a bad show because they target one audience over the other.
The point isn't the appeal, its how the appeal is carried out. The elf character is designed to appeal to men too, but her outfit is sensible for her role. She has actual clothes and her pose it artwork is being combat ready.

There is a difference between sexy, and being sexualised. its the difference between having sex appeal as part of your character design, and having that sex appeal drown out every other aspect. The elf is sexy. The only bare chested male character, the dwarf... well, he may be sexy to some, but that's kinda drowned out by his power and strength.

Also, its the appropriateness of the sexiness. To borrow from my welding example - why did someone welding need to be sexy? whats sexy about welding? Its an industrial activity using dangerous tools. not something where 'being sexy' is a priority for choosing your attire, but again, they are not choosing their attire, are they? The artist and/or writer is.

Finally, Attractiveness is a positive, but it is not a positive that many women want to define them, and often art like this emphasizes attractiveness in a manner that undermines the positives they would rather be admired. A weightlifter would rather her physical prowess be talked about than her beauty, A scientist would prefer her intelligence and knowledge, and a soldier would prefer her experience and skill.

To go back tot he art for the Amazon and the Sorceress, we have a skilled warrior who fights with a sword, and powerful magic user commanding destructive magics. can you please tell me, how does the promotional art of them show these skills and talents?
 

WindKnight

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-Axle- said:
Windknight said:
-Axle- said:
If you were talking about a serious setting, then you'd have an easier time making that argument but then it completely falls out of line with the current subject considering the entire universe is based on exaggeration and exhibitionism.
Again the Writer had decided she knew enough about what she was doing to wear the proper gear. Doesn't that seem to suggest that the artists decision to overide that because he wanted fanservice was at bets misguided?
 

hermes

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Masterdebator said:
hermes200 said:
Masterdebator said:
Maybe one day certain individuals online will realize the strange fact that art styles/ character models in a fantasy setting are in no way bound to reflect reality.
They don't reflect reality, but they do reflect intent. Most people jumping at the defense of the art style make it look like its characteristics are on the eye of the beholder, when in truth it was an intentional decision in the part of the developer.
If accentuating physical proportions translates into an "intent", than it can be applied to every billion dollar superhero franchise in existence.
Of course it can, in fact, I am not sure how that is a counter-example.

Intent exists in every single media since, when building something from the ground up, there are few things left at random... Someone, somewhere, saw the Sorcerer and thought her wardrobe was appropriate for the game, the same way someone saw Batman's nipples in Batman & Robin or the hole where the logo usually is in Power Girl's costume and thought they were appropriate. Not only appropriate, but that they communicated what they wanted to communicate with those characters. Someone made a picture of Power Girl with a logo and another with the cleavage, and someone else decided the cleavage represented the character better. The only excuse is when the creator is too incompetent to realize his design decisions might have unfortunate consequences, reactions and interpretations (for example, the Twilight books), but given VanillaWare reputation, I believe its safe to assume that they designed and included every character to create exactly the kind of reaction that they expect. To assume otherwise would be even more insulting to the creator...

The issue is not whether the art style is adequate or not. In the end, the creator is the only one accountable for the content of the game and if he wants to show a pillar made of penises, its his prerogative. If someone enjoys it, its his prerogative too. However, the issue I have with this is when he/the community jump at a defensive stand about the decisions made, as if they own a justification for them. I would have more respect for an answer that says "I knew what I was getting into, and either I don't mind, or I like it the way it is. If you don't like it, there are other games outside..." that those that try to justify it as if the art design was something completely accidental and tangential to the game. Dragon's Crown would not be DC without the over the top, sexually heavy, stylized art style, so people shouldn't talk like their experience with the game was independent of the way VW choose it to look.
 

Ferisar

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StriderShinryu said:
Hmmm... not sure I agree with using "Questionable taste" as a con. While I can see why the reviewer may not have appreciated the visual design of the game, and I find it rather offputting as well, that's just far too subjective a thing to be labelled as a ciriticism in a professional review. We're not talking about the game allowing you to kill children here, we're just talking about women (and men) drawn in extermely exaggerated fashion.
I disagree. Questionable taste is an entirely valid criticism wrapped in some figurative language. The game's approach to design will put people off, and not in a kind of "Oh, they don't like cel-shading" kind of way. It's off-putting to the point of a good amount of people being off-put, thus worth mentioning. Also, it's a reviewer. Their job is to judge. Barring the subjective nature of life, it's entirely fair to judge based on those criteria.
 

-Axle-

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Windknight said:
-Axle- said:
For example, how many soap operas contain male characters designed to appeal to men more than women? Is it wrong that they are heavily biased to appeal to women instead of men? Does that make the writer or director have suspect intentions? I have to say no to all of those. Does it enrich the medium to have characters that appeal to both genders? Sure. After all, I'm sure most people would prefer watching Game of Thrones versus The Young and the Restless but that doesn't make The Young and the Restless a bad show because they target one audience over the other.
The point isn't the appeal, its how the appeal is carried out. The elf character is designed to appeal to men too, but her outfit is sensible for her role. She has actual clothes and her pose it artwork is being combat ready.

There is a difference between sexy, and being sexualised. its the difference between having sex appeal as part of your character design, and having that sex appeal drown out every other aspect. The elf is sexy. The only bare chested male character, the dwarf... well, he may be sexy to some, but that's kinda drowned out by his power and strength.

Also, its the appropriateness of the sexiness. To borrow from my welding example - why did someone welding need to be sexy? whats sexy about welding? Its an industrial activity using dangerous tools. not something where 'being sexy' is a priority for choosing your attire, but again, they are not choosing their attire, are they? The artist and/or writer is.

Finally, Attractiveness is a positive, but it is not a positive that many women want to define them, and often art like this emphasizes attractiveness in a manner that undermines the positives they would rather be admired. A weightlifter would rather her physical prowess be talked about than her beauty, A scientist would prefer her intelligence and knowledge, and a soldier would prefer her experience and skill.

To go back tot he art for the Amazon and the Sorceress, we have a skilled warrior who fights with a sword, and powerful magic user commanding destructive magics. can you please tell me, how does the promotional art of them show these skills and talents?
What you seem to be arguing now is a matter of "tastefulness".

I don't disagree that someone can find the art distasteful but I have to ask why that's a problem that should be addressed. I don't mean that facetiously, I ask because I think its worth mentioning that a woman wearing a skirt in the wrong culture can also be seen as distasteful to others as well.

What's "sensible" is a product of a lot of outside influences and it evolves over time and with society. What responsibility does a video game, specifically one set in a fictional fantasy setting, have towards displaying any subject matter tastefully? Should an artist always try to appeal to the sensibilities of every demographic out there? A minimum number of two demographics (male and female)?

Flipping the tables again, if someone designed the same game but with the intention to appeal primarily to a female demographic with male characters that are not seen as "tastefull" or "sensible", is that something that is wrong / negative / should not exist / etc.? And if so, why?

I have to keep coming back to the question of why and I hope you understand why that is (no pun intended).
 

StriderShinryu

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Ferisar said:
StriderShinryu said:
Hmmm... not sure I agree with using "Questionable taste" as a con. While I can see why the reviewer may not have appreciated the visual design of the game, and I find it rather offputting as well, that's just far too subjective a thing to be labelled as a ciriticism in a professional review. We're not talking about the game allowing you to kill children here, we're just talking about women (and men) drawn in extermely exaggerated fashion.
I disagree. Questionable taste is an entirely valid criticism wrapped in some figurative language. The game's approach to design will put people off, and not in a kind of "Oh, they don't like cel-shading" kind of way. It's off-putting to the point of a good amount of people being off-put, thus worth mentioning. Also, it's a reviewer. Their job is to judge. Barring the subjective nature of life, it's entirely fair to judge based on those criteria.
I can certainly respect that. It just seems, to me, that "Questionable taste" is such a blanket statement. There are many people who would find, for instance, all of the violence and death in games like Call of Duty or Gears of War to be of "questionable taste." You almost never, however, see that sort of thing listed as an onjective negative in review bullet point.

I can understand why someone may be turned off of a game due to it's visual style, and I don't expect that to not colour the review to some extent, but it just doesn't feel professional to me to use such a blanket statement in what appears as the closing remark.
 

Yuuki

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Legion said:


This is actually a real advertisement for the game. It's... kind of disturbing. They also chose the worst time possible to try and advertise their crap like this. Or maybe they did it on purpose to gain attention and notoriety?
Legion said:
Personally I prefer the PopCap way of dealing with it:



It is a much better way of pointing out how idiotic it is than complaining I feel.
You'll stop seeing such adverts when they stop WORKING and luring clicks. I thought that would have been extremely obvious.

It costs money to put adverts there, nothing is free, and the people doing it aren't morons - they know what grabs attention, what the typical gender/age of the person browsing that particular site is, etc. All they need to do after that is advertise accordingly and BAM, lots of clicks on their advert.

People like you and me (who see it as sleezy) make up maybe 0.01% of the internet's population, so I don't know what you're getting at with "the worst time possible".

Using sex to advertise products still works as good as ever, and until it stops working you won't see it go away. I'm personally fine with it, it doesn't really bother me. Because whining about it is the equivalent of beating your fists against a glacier to make it stop moving. Oh and the glacier is being pushed from the other side by 50 million people.
 

BehattedWanderer

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What I kept coming back to during this review:

It's Gauntlet, but not as good as Gauntlet. Playing this game will make you miss playing Gauntlet, and lament that Midway died.

I want to get it, but seeing as everything I saw in the video just made me want to play Gauntlet, maybe I'll just do that instead.
 

WindKnight

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-Axle- said:
What's "sensible" is a product of a lot of outside influences and it evolves over time and with society. What responsibility does a video game, specifically one set in a fictional fantasy setting, have towards displaying any subject matter tastefully? Should an artist always try to appeal to the sensibilities of every demographic out there? A minimum number of two demographics (male and female)?

Flipping the tables again, if someone designed the same game but with the intention to appeal primarily to a female demographic with male characters that are not seen as "tastefull" or "sensible", is that something that is wrong / negative / should not exist / etc.? And if so, why?

I have to keep coming back to the question of why and I hope you understand why that is (no pun intended).
Except we're not talking about one videogame here really. If it was just one videogame, no-one would really take offence or notice, apart from liking or disliking the art on its own merits according to their own personal tastes. This is about how videogames in general, comics in general and other media in general treat women. Dragons Crown is not being singled out, its being caught up alongside all the other games and comics treating women as tits and ass objects and not as characters and people. None of my arguments have been about one game specifically or one comic specifically except as examples of a trend as a whole, and that trend is women being portrayed as sexy first, and any other merits they have being ignored because they don't promote that sexiness.

And to reiterate - a lot of women do not want to be defined by their appearance, good or bad, and if their gamers, find it uncomfortable to find the vast of majority of characters of their genders are pretty much created to show off as much skin as possible - to appeal to a teenage male, without any thought to appeal to a teenage girl or a woman.

And again, if this was just one game, people would not be bothered. But it is NOT just one game. its the vast majority of them.
 

Hazy

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Are we really still going on about the game's "questionable portrayal of women"?

How about we talk about the portrayal of the men? The Fighter is tall, handsome, and battlefield-capable while still sporting a gorgeous face and luscious head of hair. The Dwarf is short, incredibly muscular, angry, and drunken. Oh, and the Wizard sports a slender physique and effeminate face.

So the male roster is comprised of a model, bishonen pretty boy, and a jacked, angry little man. I'm sure this will offend the sensibilities of all the normal, non-muscular, gorgeous, or physically fit male gamers out there, making it impossible for them to become invested in their character.

Over the top stereotypical muscle dudes in gaming?
No one complains.

Over the top sexualized women in gaming?
Now there's a problem.
 

EvilRoy

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erttheking said:
Capitano Segnaposto said:
LifeCharacter said:
That was a word for word conversation I had somebody with Twitter (yes, I know. Shame on me for using Twitter).

Also, why is it always a double standard? If you see a women with huge breasts and little clothing, it is sexist. As you put it, "being reduced to a combination of breasts, ass, a lack of clothing, and stupid poses". Yet, the same exact description holds true to the male characters like the dwarf and warrior. Little clothing, huge muscles, giant pack, "heroic" poses. Yet, you deem it as a power fantasy. It isn't to me and MANY Men out there. Most men, as has been said in this very thread, don't consider this a power fantasy.

This is the issue I have with the whole deal. It is NEVER anything but a "Power Fantasy" as you put it, even though I find it disturbing just as much as a women does with the Sorceress. Which is utter and complete bullshit and you know it.

The only difference in this whole thing is that most men out there that I know don't take offense to it. Why should we? Sure a lot of us find it disgusting, but it is a fucking GAME. A game all about overly exaggerated features. This, besides the obvious double standard that you have so clearly shown, is what I don't get.
Also, here's the thing that makes things different. Intent and purpose of design, in other words, what the intent of the design and the purpose of it. The intent of the design of characters with sexualized bodies making poses is too look sexy and the purpose of that design is to appeal to the male audience. The intent of big muscular men who beat up hundreds of people at once is to be a power fantasy, and the purpose of design is also to appeal to a male audience. And that's where the problem comes in, male characters are designed to appeal to males, but female characters are also designed to appeal to males. You may not personally like them, and a lot of people may not, but the thing is that was the intent behind their design, to pander to the male audience.
Something I thought I would just throw in here as a point of interest. The reason why he personally, me personally, likely you personally and indeed most males personally don't find the male characters appealing as a power fantasy is because they kind of aren't. Or at least they haven't been for a few decades now, it's nearly been half a century since might actually made right. What they really represent is more of an adolescent wish fulfillment fantasy, an expression of the idea that being a big strong hero would grant the admiration of peers, essentially the same as the idea that being a pretty princess would grant the admiration of peers. In order to succeed at the only thing that matters (peer perception of you) you need only be big strong and run around being big and strong, or walk about regally while being pretty.

Real male power fantasies are pretty easily found. Don Draper was voted the most influential man of 2009. Not the actor, the character. Why was he lauded as such? Because for the last at least fifty years, maybe more, real power has come wearing a suit. Even more so in the past decade as areas outside of business where men often sought out power, such as politics, are being viewed as ineffectual. Why do you think people watch wrestlers like they're circus performers, but hang on a CEO's every word? Muscles haven't meant power in a long time now.