Ok, so someone mentioned "videogames as art product" and "vote with your wallet."
Indeed.
1) Problem is Harada's not some solo act and this is kind of what makes Hideo Kojima step on his dick with the Metal Gear series.
Harada's the executive director (presumably) but he's one of a couple of hundred people, maybe a few dozen of which are core production personnel, and unlike Rembrandt Tekken needs to sell a couple of million copies to recoup it's costs.
If the public votes loudly enough anti-Chloe the outcome could very much be not just "No Chloe" but "No More Tekken" either.
I don't think that's likely, but it's possible and given how dev costs just keep going it mob opinion matters more and more. Doubly so as the size of the mob keeps growing. It'd be pretty fucking dumb for any dev to ignore the international market -especially given how Tekken has always had a pretty effective international flavor. I mean, it has 2 out of a total 4 (T. Hawk, Chief Thunder from Killer Instinct 1) Native American characters in fighting games. How cool is that?! And two Brazilians with a third coming, and a Murderous Russian Guy... it's all pretty anime cliche`, but it's kinda sweet to be inclusive all the same.
Witness Capcom's grudging willingness to finally make a Korean character _merely_ a decade or so after Fatal Fury 2 and quite a few years after Tekken 2. Unsurprisingly she's a sexual-ish sadist, but Hwoarang was a thug before Tekken unfucked him and gave Baek something to do besides be an OP accidental murderer.
By comparison Chloe's design is pretty retrograde. She's a heterochromatic cheerleader-type from America. How original.
2) http://dailycaller.com/2014/11/25/smokin-hot-mma-fighter-is-a-total-knockout-video/
Meet Paige VanZant. She's 20 years old, is 115lbs, fights as a straw weight, was on The Ultimate Fighter, and is 3-1 professionally with 3 TKO's.
She is also pretty damn cute and could probably be a body-double of Lucky Chloe. Or maybe DoA's Mila.
The difference is of course that's she's an actual fighter using MMA with a boxing core, not Magic Neko Doki-Doki Glorious Heart Spark Fist.
So it's not like, as of course Li Xiaoyu has been demonstrating for a while, objections to Chloe are a question of plausibility it's one of execution and intention.
3) Did I mention I hate Lily? There are a couple of reasons.
One is that she's not a fighter either. Her fighting style itself is a nod to Battle Angel Alita (or Gunmu, whatever you prefer) which though a series I love it's almost blasphemous to me to take independent, aloof-yet-compassionate and scrappy Alita and translate Panzer Kunst (created by war survivors turned terrorist mercenaries for killing in zero-G) into the "Graceful Miracle Prodigy Art" of a flawless, spoiled, sadistic rich girl who's interest is an almost note-for-note "homage" to Karin Kanzuki.
Another is though Asuka Kazama wasn't a great design from the start at least she had some kind of ambitious original concept: she's Jin's brawler distant cousin come to save him from himself. She didn't give a damn 'bout no 'Devil Gene,' she was here to smack some sense in to him because Jun wasn't.
...okay.
Not amazing, but still some place to start if somewhat transparently a decision to recycle Jun's fighting style back into circulation. Good enough.
(IMO one of Tekken's real strengths has been a willingness to make character actually about _tangible_ ambitions. You'll notice Paul, the closest thing to a Ryu analog, is a second-string character (at best) and generally is a bit of a butt-monkey for his knuckle-headed fixation on just proving he's the best without taking care of anything else. Hwaorang's much the same as until 5 he's pretty much just a street thug with a bruised ego. The series isn't holding him up as the noble embodiment of some arcane philosophical principle; he's a jerkbag who doesn't like to lose. Even Kuma wants to be in charge of everything to impress Panda; goofy, but tangible.
But then there's Lily and now they're Schoolgirl Rivals pretty much straight out of any Shonen High Schoolgirl Fighters manga because Lily's trolling her because she's actually only Lily's closest thing to a genuine friend because tragically lonely perfect girl blah blah blah yuri implications.
Charcter. Arc. Fail.
Remember the fan poll from earlier this year? Remember that two of the options were a really old guy who improbably kicked ass with Geezer-jitsu? And another was a salmon that couple flop around squirting eggs? And that the #2 fan pick was "Paul-chan"?
Here's what that says to me: "fuck, I'm running out of ideas!"
Those are _terrible_ ideas (ok I find some Cute Bruiser version of Paul kind of appealing; I am teh failz) because they're just _dumb_ -they're not about even faking fighting, they're just Random Japanese Wackiness! that's at best bemusing to the rest of the world and at worst a direct incentive to maybe see if Virtua Fighter's still a thing.
Or DoA. "Sure it's kind of embarrassingly sexist and face-palmingly melodramatic, but Bass is an American Veteran and Bayman's not a stock Murderous Russian Thug and Rig ...oh wait, another Korean Jerkass Villain. Well, at least they're all fighters..."
4) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxing_kangaroo.
Was actually a thing. Not a good thing -animal abuse and that, but still a thing.
Ditto Bear Bating -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bear-baiting
So let's wrap this epic up.
Take any even a little questionable design in Tekken and you end up with "is a fighter/warrior/predator-thing" eventually, but Harada's imo running out of ideas so he's rooting around in the cultural dustbin and so he already dredged up Lily, he's implementing Chloe, and all this matters because Characters and Setting are Tekken's greatest strengths.
Want a mechanically superior 3d fighting game? Choose Virtua Fighter -"learn to buffer throw escape commands based on your knowledge of the opposing fighter's arsenal and the vagaries of moment-by-moment positioning!"
Want a sexier, flashier fan service title? Try Dead or Alive -"punch your rival into a helicopter then initiate your devastating victory jiggle!"
Tekken's rather nicely balanced between the two, between improbable but plausible (Kuma, Yoshimitsu, Heihachi, Jack, etc) and ground-truth face-smash badasses (Kazuya, Bruce, Steve, Craig, Nina, Brian, etc) with a few mildly fan-servicey/charming characters (Leo, Michelle/Julia, Xiaoyu, Lei, Lee, etc) set in a slightly-more-magical world that all the same is pretty recognizable.
It's also fairly non-Dragonball-escalation-ish which is nice. There are superhuman things and people, but they're generally very rare and almost always come with overwhelming negatives and there's a minimum of both VF's and DoA "Hidden World" silliness of impossibly powerful corporate conspiracies or global demonic invasions or other crap that would utterly re-order global politics if anyone got so much as a minute's worth of cameraphone footage.
Chloe doesn't threaten all that, but she does impugn it a little. Maybe she's okay as a non-plot DLC charater like Miharu. Remember her?
No? Terrific -all's well, and we can keep on the business of demonic bloodlines and alien invasions and immortal ninja cyborgs and bikini-commandos and....
Indeed.
1) Problem is Harada's not some solo act and this is kind of what makes Hideo Kojima step on his dick with the Metal Gear series.
Harada's the executive director (presumably) but he's one of a couple of hundred people, maybe a few dozen of which are core production personnel, and unlike Rembrandt Tekken needs to sell a couple of million copies to recoup it's costs.
If the public votes loudly enough anti-Chloe the outcome could very much be not just "No Chloe" but "No More Tekken" either.
I don't think that's likely, but it's possible and given how dev costs just keep going it mob opinion matters more and more. Doubly so as the size of the mob keeps growing. It'd be pretty fucking dumb for any dev to ignore the international market -especially given how Tekken has always had a pretty effective international flavor. I mean, it has 2 out of a total 4 (T. Hawk, Chief Thunder from Killer Instinct 1) Native American characters in fighting games. How cool is that?! And two Brazilians with a third coming, and a Murderous Russian Guy... it's all pretty anime cliche`, but it's kinda sweet to be inclusive all the same.
Witness Capcom's grudging willingness to finally make a Korean character _merely_ a decade or so after Fatal Fury 2 and quite a few years after Tekken 2. Unsurprisingly she's a sexual-ish sadist, but Hwoarang was a thug before Tekken unfucked him and gave Baek something to do besides be an OP accidental murderer.
By comparison Chloe's design is pretty retrograde. She's a heterochromatic cheerleader-type from America. How original.
2) http://dailycaller.com/2014/11/25/smokin-hot-mma-fighter-is-a-total-knockout-video/
Meet Paige VanZant. She's 20 years old, is 115lbs, fights as a straw weight, was on The Ultimate Fighter, and is 3-1 professionally with 3 TKO's.
She is also pretty damn cute and could probably be a body-double of Lucky Chloe. Or maybe DoA's Mila.
The difference is of course that's she's an actual fighter using MMA with a boxing core, not Magic Neko Doki-Doki Glorious Heart Spark Fist.
So it's not like, as of course Li Xiaoyu has been demonstrating for a while, objections to Chloe are a question of plausibility it's one of execution and intention.
3) Did I mention I hate Lily? There are a couple of reasons.
One is that she's not a fighter either. Her fighting style itself is a nod to Battle Angel Alita (or Gunmu, whatever you prefer) which though a series I love it's almost blasphemous to me to take independent, aloof-yet-compassionate and scrappy Alita and translate Panzer Kunst (created by war survivors turned terrorist mercenaries for killing in zero-G) into the "Graceful Miracle Prodigy Art" of a flawless, spoiled, sadistic rich girl who's interest is an almost note-for-note "homage" to Karin Kanzuki.
Another is though Asuka Kazama wasn't a great design from the start at least she had some kind of ambitious original concept: she's Jin's brawler distant cousin come to save him from himself. She didn't give a damn 'bout no 'Devil Gene,' she was here to smack some sense in to him because Jun wasn't.
...okay.
Not amazing, but still some place to start if somewhat transparently a decision to recycle Jun's fighting style back into circulation. Good enough.
(IMO one of Tekken's real strengths has been a willingness to make character actually about _tangible_ ambitions. You'll notice Paul, the closest thing to a Ryu analog, is a second-string character (at best) and generally is a bit of a butt-monkey for his knuckle-headed fixation on just proving he's the best without taking care of anything else. Hwaorang's much the same as until 5 he's pretty much just a street thug with a bruised ego. The series isn't holding him up as the noble embodiment of some arcane philosophical principle; he's a jerkbag who doesn't like to lose. Even Kuma wants to be in charge of everything to impress Panda; goofy, but tangible.
But then there's Lily and now they're Schoolgirl Rivals pretty much straight out of any Shonen High Schoolgirl Fighters manga because Lily's trolling her because she's actually only Lily's closest thing to a genuine friend because tragically lonely perfect girl blah blah blah yuri implications.
Charcter. Arc. Fail.
Remember the fan poll from earlier this year? Remember that two of the options were a really old guy who improbably kicked ass with Geezer-jitsu? And another was a salmon that couple flop around squirting eggs? And that the #2 fan pick was "Paul-chan"?
Here's what that says to me: "fuck, I'm running out of ideas!"
Those are _terrible_ ideas (ok I find some Cute Bruiser version of Paul kind of appealing; I am teh failz) because they're just _dumb_ -they're not about even faking fighting, they're just Random Japanese Wackiness! that's at best bemusing to the rest of the world and at worst a direct incentive to maybe see if Virtua Fighter's still a thing.
Or DoA. "Sure it's kind of embarrassingly sexist and face-palmingly melodramatic, but Bass is an American Veteran and Bayman's not a stock Murderous Russian Thug and Rig ...oh wait, another Korean Jerkass Villain. Well, at least they're all fighters..."
4) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxing_kangaroo.
Was actually a thing. Not a good thing -animal abuse and that, but still a thing.
Ditto Bear Bating -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bear-baiting
So let's wrap this epic up.
Take any even a little questionable design in Tekken and you end up with "is a fighter/warrior/predator-thing" eventually, but Harada's imo running out of ideas so he's rooting around in the cultural dustbin and so he already dredged up Lily, he's implementing Chloe, and all this matters because Characters and Setting are Tekken's greatest strengths.
Want a mechanically superior 3d fighting game? Choose Virtua Fighter -"learn to buffer throw escape commands based on your knowledge of the opposing fighter's arsenal and the vagaries of moment-by-moment positioning!"
Want a sexier, flashier fan service title? Try Dead or Alive -"punch your rival into a helicopter then initiate your devastating victory jiggle!"
Tekken's rather nicely balanced between the two, between improbable but plausible (Kuma, Yoshimitsu, Heihachi, Jack, etc) and ground-truth face-smash badasses (Kazuya, Bruce, Steve, Craig, Nina, Brian, etc) with a few mildly fan-servicey/charming characters (Leo, Michelle/Julia, Xiaoyu, Lei, Lee, etc) set in a slightly-more-magical world that all the same is pretty recognizable.
It's also fairly non-Dragonball-escalation-ish which is nice. There are superhuman things and people, but they're generally very rare and almost always come with overwhelming negatives and there's a minimum of both VF's and DoA "Hidden World" silliness of impossibly powerful corporate conspiracies or global demonic invasions or other crap that would utterly re-order global politics if anyone got so much as a minute's worth of cameraphone footage.
Chloe doesn't threaten all that, but she does impugn it a little. Maybe she's okay as a non-plot DLC charater like Miharu. Remember her?
No? Terrific -all's well, and we can keep on the business of demonic bloodlines and alien invasions and immortal ninja cyborgs and bikini-commandos and....
