What I like about Dragon's Crown Artwork

[TheYellowCellPhone]

I thought in this thread we would put away the over-the-top character designs and talk about the game's painting-like, 2.5D animated graphics. Shit is the most beautiful I've ever seen, I might get the game only to see more of the pretty art and not the specifically gameplay.

I would've liked a discussion like, "Do you think the art of Dragon's Crown fits the genre?" or "Will it raise the bar in what to expect from 2.5D beat-em-ups?". Blegh, I hate the whole sexism debate.

Speaking of which, the only complaint I've heard about the game (besides the Sorceress and Amazon's character) is that it's very repetitive. Can anyone who has the game tell me if it is?

 

[DANEgerous]

You know I do not want to defend the art, I do not even want to really defend the practice rather I have a question. I want to ask if they want to make something utterly sleazy and misogynistic do they have the right to do so.

Is that okay and we just point it out in reviews do do we limit it? Id we do limit it how a rating, age restriction, outright ban? What is it? Once you declare it a problem state how to fix it. Yelling "sleazy and misogynistic! Rawr ME SMASH!" is annoying and it is giving your target advertising and basically making you a way to sell more not less copies so you do yourself no favors.

We have quite a few saying it is a problem, and almost no proposed resolutions.

 

[geizr]

...
Again, that poor woman's spine is utterly destroyed in the marketing, because no realistic characters can physically stand like that.
...

I'm probably going to get moderated for this, but, when you get some free time, google Chelsea Charms. Just as a note, they're rumored to be 30-31 pounds each.

More on topic, I have to agree with one poster that part of the problem here is the context of history. Video games have had such a problem with their portrayal of women that something like this just naturally hits a nerve. Speaking only for myself, I definitely plan on playing the game (have it queued on Gamefly) and pretty much plan on playing the elf because I prefer physical ranged characters. The nature of the game, based on the trailers, reaches back to that old-school style of over-the-top that I grew up on.

 

[lacktheknack]

...
Again, that poor woman's spine is utterly destroyed in the marketing, because no realistic characters can physically stand like that.
...

I'm probably going to get moderated for this, but, when you get some free time, google Chelsea Charms. Just as a note, they're rumored to be 30-31 pounds each.

A brief overview found no pictures of her holding her torso in a J-shape.

And this is because, sixty pounds of extra or no, human bodies cannot bend like that.

 

[BlindTom]

Strawmans don't work that way though do they?

I pointed out that this was a poor understanding of post-structuralism, I pointed out that it was essentially a strawman. This is not a point against you.

and arguing with someone based on their gender? that works exactly like you said, doesn't it?

I never argued with you based on your gender, I noted that your profile indicated you were male and a further curiosity that men have a tendency of telling women how they should feel about things.

I think everybody has a tendency of telling everybody else how they should feel about things, hence this thread. I'm not sure how finding something demeaning is telling someone else how to feel though.


The statement "Calling people dickheads is likely to upset them." is hardly telling people to be upset when people call them dickheads.

 

[geizr]

...
Again, that poor woman's spine is utterly destroyed in the marketing, because no realistic characters can physically stand like that.
...

I'm probably going to get moderated for this, but, when you get some free time, google Chelsea Charms. Just as a note, they're rumored to be 30-31 pounds each.

A brief overview found no pictures of her holding her torso in a J-shape.

And this is because, sixty pounds of extra or no, human bodies cannot bend like that.

It was more to point out that such ridiculous sizes do exist. However, as for human beings bending certain ways, you may try looking up professional/circus contortionists. They really do bend in seemingly impossible ways (of course, they've trained up to that, usually from a very young age).

EDIT: minor grammar correction.

 

[Ishal]

Truth be told it doesn't look very different from what every other game is doing in portraying female characters. I don't get it. Dead or Alive, Tomb Raider, Haunting Ground, Resident Evils 4 & 5 had jiggle physics. Okami, of all games, has jiggle physics. Why are people so concerned with Dragon Crown? Is there a threshold for jiggling and cup size? Let's drop the hipocrisy people, this is nothing new.

It has nothing to do with any of that, and its not hypocrisy either. The people getting in a tizzy over this hate all the things you mentioned just as much as this, if not more. You don't hear about it because that simply isn't how these issues work. As vehement as they sound, the people raging at his only have so much rage to go on before they start running on fumes. They pick one issue and all congregate around that, this time it happens to be dragon's crown. The cycle will continue when the game media latches onto something else.


OT: The character art is gross and childish, though on purpose, I get that. It's simply not to my taste. However, the background art looks amazing as always. I loved Muramasa to death, shame I can't get this on Steam.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

I thought in this thread we would put away the over-the-top character designs and talk about the game's painting-like, 2.5D animated graphics. Shit is the most beautiful I've ever seen, I might get the game only to see more of the pretty art and not the specifically gameplay.

I would've liked a discussion like, "Do you think the art of Dragon's Crown fits the genre?" or "Will it raise the bar in what to expect from 2.5D beat-em-ups?". Blegh, I hate the whole sexism debate.

Speaking of which, the only complaint I've heard about the game (besides the Sorceress and Amazon's character) is that it's very repetitive. Can anyone who has the game tell me if it is?

You should check out their other games:
Odin Sphere:

Spoiler

Muramasa:

Spoiler

They always have amazing sprites. I haven't played it, but it will be repetitive in nature just for being a beat'em up.

 

[default]

Just because an artist can do some extremely basic expressive poses does not forgive the subject matter nor give it depth.

Personally I don't care about how it represents women and such, I dislike it because it's just ugly as hell. Sure, the texture and the actual technical skill behind the graphics is fantastic, some of the best I've ever seen. But the aesthetic and the art style in general are just disgusting, tasteless garbage (IN MY OPINION).

I'm guessing this is the image you were referring to:

Just... look at that shit. The head of a fifteen year old Frankensteined onto the body of a 20-something roid rager. The utterly stupid proportions, the dumbass costume put together in five minutes (literally a scale-mail bikini), the GIGANTIC square barge-ass... I'm just shocked she isn't wearing high-heels. I just find it completely ugly, with the only redeeming factor being that it's quite impressive on a technical level.

It's NOT an empowering pose, it's a sultry 'look at my tits almost falling out of my bra' pose with certain limb positions to give a little bit of a sense of danger, totally undermined by the rest of the design.

 

[Zeldias]

I know that the image of glamorously ill dressed women jiggling about is not the P.C. ideal but the entire thing is so over the top it's hard to take it in any way as a serious attack on the female image. It's more of an homage to the art and might be cleverer than you may have been led to believe.

Of course the artwork of Dragon's Crown has several layers of depth that most people gloss over in their rush to criticize the artwork, but that depth is precisely what makes this so frustrating for me. Yet I don't expect those who criticize the art of Dragon's Crown on the grounds of sexual objectification to critically analyze the details of the work. I expect it no more than I would expect atheists who criticize the existence of god on empirical grounds to critically analyze Deuteronomy.

It is true that the Dragon's Crown art has depth, the Witch is a play on both the classic depictions of fertility goddesses and the lordly, masculine nature of the common fantasy necromancer. She can be seen in one picture [http://fastcache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/9/2011/06/xlarge_sor.jpg] cradling a "birthing" skeleton to her breast the way a mother would a newborn. I've seen some people equate that to a sexual act, ala motorboating, and a I think Freud would have a field day with that but I find it's a crass, immature analysis of what we're seeing.

All of that depth and all of that uniqueness is ruined once you notice that the Witch is slowly working her staff up her own ass. There is justification for a busty, wide-hipped giver of life to the dead given typical depictions of ancient fertility goddesses [https://www.google.com/search?q=Dragon's+Crown+witch&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.50165853,d.b2I,pv.xjs.s.en_US.seW1cfrvSKg.O&biw=1280&bih=899&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=6uf7Ub7mJoua9QS2pYGIBQ#um=1&hl=en&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=Fertility+Goddess&oq=Fertility+Goddess&gs_l=img.3..0l10.335581.338162.0.338444.17.11.0.6.6.0.125.908.9j2.11.0....0...1c.1.23.img..1.16.843.jvVFoHRM8J4&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.50165853%2Cd.eWU%2Cpv.xjs.s.en_US.seW1cfrvSKg.O&fp=2b1f47b0f34fb2b4&biw=1280&bih=899], but that doesn't justify the impossibly low-cut top [http://i.imgur.com/AzLODdy.jpg], the lack of bra [http://gelbooru.com/index.php?page=post&s=view&id=1187826], the ridiculous [http://i.imgur.com/9PZBhkR.gif] jiggle physics [http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/18ltqc64nulhkgif/original.gif], or the staff perfectly splaying her buttcheeks apart. What you're asking is a basic fallacy of composition, demanding we scrutinize the details and ignore the whole.

The details do not exonerate George Kamitani, the whole of the work and it's effect on observers must be taken into consideration. The depiction of the Witch and the Amazon is misogynistic, that is not to say that I think George Kamitani is a bad guy or that he's "immature" as the twat from Kotaku implied. What it means is that he's unfortunately wrapped-up in a culture where the objectification of women is so normal that no one bothers to consider how people might view his depiction of the same. The demand that critics focus on the details and influence of his work is nothing more than a red herring to silence subaltern discourse.

What do all mermaids do? They lure sailors to their deaths on the rocks.

Someone should inform Hans Christian Anderson of this, he might want to know that he should rewrite The Little Mermaid. The Sirens are simply one aspect of the mermaid folklore, it is not the only tradition and certainly not the first. This ignores other mermaid traditions like the European Melsuine, the Slavic Rusalkas, the African Mami Wata or the Hindi Suvannamaccha.

Mermaids are supposed to be titillating, they just don't work if they are not overly sensual. It's the entire point of mermaids. They are fem fatale's and as such cunning and dangerous. Not to be trifled with in the least but also compassionate and friendly to the pure of heart. Though naked it does make sense to portray a mermaid without clothing since they live in the sea where clothing would be a burden. On the point of her famous butt then I can only assume the pose is deliberate to be alluring to whomever the mermaid is currently attempting to seduce.

They're also supposed to be violent and petty. I'm guessing that Dragon's Crown didn't go with that part, but I haven't played the game yet so I can't fully comment. Still, I can give you the "folklore appreciation" angle, but not if you're just cutting out the heart of what makes the siren a compelling antagonist for the sake of fan service. There is a gulf between what I can see as the difference between the use of nudity in, say, The Void and the use of nudity in Dragon's Crown. In The Void [http://caspiancomic.com/gametheory/?p=49], you peer into the camera obscura of the Sisters served to enlighten you vis-a-vis the nature of the individual Sisters and their nudity could be interpreted as either the freedom of the Sisters as you sever their chains or the Sisters baring themselves to you, showing more and more of who they are as you feed them color. Contrast with Dragon's Crown, whose use of nudity is decidedly pure fan service; Kamitani appears to be appropriating the folklore and traditions of foreign cultures without understanding their significance.

To claim that there is something inherently wrong with depicting parts of the female body in any context, especially one that is clearly conveying some sort of depth and artistic vision, is extremely demeaning to women.

I've always found it interesting that males are the ones most willing to tell women what they should find demeaning. I don't agree that it's "demeaning" per se, as it's not a matter of dignity, but holding that depicting a nude woman is always bad is certainly bad for women. Fortunately, this is an idea that exists purely within your mind. I'm criticizing a few of the artistic depictions of women in Dragon's Crown, but this does not mean the issue for me is that there are nude women. The issue is that Vanillaware portrayed these women purely with the male gaze in mind, they exist as hyper-sexualized, overly-exaggerated caricatures of women. It's fine to depict women with large breasts and posteriors, it's even fine to have them naked. You start straining credulity when one of your characters is giving herself a colonoscopy with her own weapon.

It seems that a lot of people are not giving artists credit here and just looking for excuses to be pissed off in a way that is puritanical and oppresive to the people they're protecting. I'm reminded of when everybody looked at Mass Effect, saw some side boob, and concluded that it was a "rape simulator."

Let's compare

The Sleeping Venus [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/Giorgione_-_Sleeping_Venus_-_Google_Art_Project_2.jpg]

The High-Fantasy Stripper [http://fastcache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/9/2011/06/xlarge_sor.jpg]

Let me preface this by stating that Giorgione's work is certainly erotic. The placement of Venus' hand on her sex, the reclined position, the ruffled silver linen; it conveys Venus after the act of love-making, and I do think love-making is a more appropriate descriptor here. More than that, Venus has her body turned towards us, she's displaying herself to us as we observe her. This is male gaze, it's a symptom of an unequal power structure in media and art. Male gaze is bad, because unequal power structures between men and women in society are bad. This is a rather simplistic explanation of male gaze, but for our purposes it will do.

Now let's follow-up, just because I consider Sleeping Venus an example of male gaze does not mean I hate this painting, I love this painting. I also love Goya's La maja desnuda [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Goya_Maja_naga2.jpg], even though it's male gaze to the max! Sexism and misogyny doesn't make a work bad, that would be a fallacy of composition as I pointed out above. It only makes it bad if that part infects the whole, and thus far I think Dragon's Crown has an unfortunate few parts that need criticizing but is otherwise a really good game. Hell, it's on my list of things to buy after I get myself a Vita and a PS4.

Something that people refuse to understand is that you can criticize something and still like it, that's why I've been shaming feminists on tumblr for trying to organize a vote-bomb on the Dragon's Crown metacritic page. Nothing thus far has given me any indication that Dragon's Crown is a bad game, and if it's a good one we should hoist it up as an example to be followed...minus those few points we should be criticizing. This is neither puritanical or oppressive; I don't want to hang Kamitani for a woman-hater or destroy his games anymore than I want to burn Sleeping Venus or La maja desnuda.

By the way, focusing on the jiggly bits isn't male gaze by necessity. Male gaze only occurs when you assume a gender-neutral POV/narrative but the work still focuses on the jiggly bits. I love pointing out to anti-sex feminists that technically male-PoV pornography doesn't suffer from male gaze because the PoV/narrative is explicitly male.

I said that the initial impression is "OMG BEWBS" (because it is), and if they truly cared about how their art came across, they'd stop the painfully obvious pandering. Again, that poor woman's spine is utterly destroyed in the marketing, because no realistic characters can physically stand like that. It's there entirely for sex appeal.

But who cares about initial impressions anyway? if someone believes their initial impression has any relevance at all and they fail to actual critically analyze something then how is it the artists fault? The fact people see the sorceress and see "OMG BEWBS" or "Misogynistic pandering" is irrelevant really because they have failed to acknowledge the real intent of the artist and have instead to decided to purport the idea that their initial impressions are of any value to other people (which they aren't) and even worse that their initial impressions override the artists intentions(which they don't)

You're 45 years too late to this discussion; postmodernist interpretations of literature won the debate in the 60's [http://www.tbook.constantvzw.org/wp-content/death_authorbarthes.pdf] and literary critics generally agree with the "death of the author [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DeathOfTheAuthor]" approach to interpreting literature. It makes some sense that way, x is true because y says so" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_authority] is a fallacy, why did it take literature so long to catch up with what philosophy understood for so long?

Just popping in to say thank you for stepping out of my head and typing all this out and deconstructing this person's non-argument. I'd bake you a fruit pie if you were nearby.

 

[Altorin]

It's meant to take the Frank Frazetta art style, pump it to 11 and then take a satirical look at what comes out of it.

So popping a gasket over it is a bit silly. I certainly don't take it seriously, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have anything to say.

 

[Zeldias]

It's meant to take the Frank Frazetta art style, pump it to 11 and then take a satirical look at what comes out of it.

So popping a gasket over it is a bit silly. I certainly don't take it seriously, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have anything to say.

As someone else said, that'd work if it wasn't actually representing something that's being normalized in gaming already. Shine-spattering Liefeldian poses and platemail bikinis are jokes from the early 90s and the spirit and tradition continued on. It'd be saying a lot more if the art WASN'T catering the way it is.

If that's meant to be the take, then Kamitani is currently shitting on top of a mountain of shit. It's not really a challenging take; Bayonetta does that better than DC currently does, IMO.

 

[Altorin]

It's meant to take the Frank Frazetta art style, pump it to 11 and then take a satirical look at what comes out of it.

So popping a gasket over it is a bit silly. I certainly don't take it seriously, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have anything to say.

As someone else said, that'd work if it wasn't actually representing something that's being normalized in gaming already. Shine-spattering Liefeldian poses and platemail bikinis are jokes from the early 90s and the spirit and tradition continued on. It'd be saying a lot more if the art WASN'T catering the way it is.

If that's meant to be the take, then Kamitani is currently shitting on top of a mountain of shit. It's not really a challenging take; Bayonetta does that better than DC currently does, IMO.

Bayonetta doesn't really invoke Frank Frazetta in the same way at all.

Dragon's Crown looks almost as if it were painted by Frank himself, albeit with some anime influences and of course with every aspect of it pumped up to the extreme

It's meant to be over the top though, so criticisms about it being over the top are a little silly, that's all I was really saying

 

[Zeldias]

Ah, sorry, I didn't respond well.

I didn't mean Frazetta in particular, but the hypersexualization (which is why I brought up Bayonetta; that game plays to its hypersexualization as opposed to Dragon's Crown, which doesn't seem to acknowledge it (though I'd argue that Bayonetta, too, conveys sexist things, just different sexisms expressed differently)). I just meant to say that while it's meant to be over the top, and I can appreciate that, I don't think that guards it from being critiqued as sexist. There are plenty of ways of being over the top that don't involve that whole spine-shattering pose thing I mentioned. I'd agree with you if the conversation was that the Dwarf looks ridiculous, because he does have an absurd super-body, but as you said, that seems to be the point of the aesthetic.

I just don't think the Amazon and Sorceress have that same defense.

 

[lacktheknack]

...
Again, that poor woman's spine is utterly destroyed in the marketing, because no realistic characters can physically stand like that.
...

I'm probably going to get moderated for this, but, when you get some free time, google Chelsea Charms. Just as a note, they're rumored to be 30-31 pounds each.

A brief overview found no pictures of her holding her torso in a J-shape.

And this is because, sixty pounds of extra or no, human bodies cannot bend like that.

It was more to point out that such ridiculous sizes do exist. However, as for human beings bending certain ways, you may try looking up professional/circus contortionists. They really do bend in seemingly impossible ways (of course, they've trained up to that, usually from a very young age).

EDIT: minor grammar correction.

Yes, such sizes exist... after many, many, many, many implants, and I doubt Chelsea Charms is anywhere as physically adept as the Sorceress.

And also, I've seen contortionists. I know that body-twisting exists.

However, their appeal lies mostly in "Watch me squeeze into a 2x2x1 foot box!" and less in the "LOOK AT MAH BEWBZ". Typically, this is because contortionists have smaller breasts, because A. they have marginal body fat, and B. having large breasts makes going through a hand-mirror frame really hard. Plus, as mentioned, 60 pounds added to a contortionist's torso does not help a damn thing.

The Sorceress's appeal does not lie in "watch me squeeze into tight spaces!", her appeal is "LOOK AT MAH BEWBZ". And, as I said, once someone has contorted like that for "sexual appeal", you've gone too far.

 

[ShinyCharizard]

I don't give the slightest of fucks if the art style is sexist to some people and I laugh at the people that find it offensive. The game looks fun so I'll be getting it.

 

[FrankatronX]

Fistful of Ebola.

You make a good point. Can't believe I missed the mermaid thing *blush*.

Thanks for the thorough input I appreciate people getting into this.