Parasite Eve: 3rd Birthday OR Squeenix are a bunch of fucking idiots

[Krylo]

Well there's that and the fact that chicks don't go around staring at a dudes' junks.

It'd show their chests and stomachs, which would be mostly exposed, or their masculine thighs, or their biceps, or whatever else. Not their junks.

Maybe their ass.

I'm sure this is in large part to the fact that, speedos aside, there's not much clothing that really accentuates a dude's junk, nor is there any good way to make clothing that does without being, literally, painful to wear.

[Archbio]

But the cartoonish Ghosts And Goblins guy was cartoonish in a way that exemplified his masculine aspects: cartoonishly huge biceps, chests, etc. And while his face was definitely cartoony, it wasn't ugly, either.

The female equivalent would end up having large, if not huge breasts, and probably be blonde, and kind of doofy looking.

That just doesn't follow for me.

Attributable as being "masculine" in some vague way = sexual? I don't think so. If you're giving a character in an adventure game huge breasts you're going out of your way to sexualize it in a way that finds no equivalent in giving a male character in an adventure game visible muscles.

Which is because it's an adventure game. Not because they wanted to showcase a parody of peripheric sexual characteristics.* Huge breasts kind of come out of nowhere in that process.

Not to mention blond hair and doofy looks. What the hell?

Well there's that and the fact that chicks don't go around staring at a dudes' junks.

I wouldn't generalize too quickly on that front. Pun unintended.

*Also in the original game (I didn't know there was more than one before this thread) it might have been because of limited technical means.

[Kim]

I have seen zoomed in ass-shots during serious conversation with a female character. Maybe I missed some niche genre of games replete with male ass shots, but I haven't seen any serious conversation with a male character where the camera was zoomed in on their manly torso or ass while they were talking.

[Krylo]

The only 'unattractive' thing about the Ghost's and Goblins guy (heretofore referred to as Maximo) was his doofy face.

And large muscular men are one of the two idealized masculine forms. The other one being androgynous pretty boy.

The equivalent female idealized form is the large breasted blonde.

Maximo wasn't an unattractive character, he was an attractive guy that SHOULD have been sexualized, and would have been if our society was a little different. There was nothing unattractive about him, except maybe his largish feet?

Drawing a woman in the same way and having the same thing happen when she got hit wouldn't be seen as funny. It'd be seen as sexual.

UNLESS you went out of the way to make her ugly.

WHICH would be entirely the opposite of what they did with Maximo.

[RobinStarwing]

Actually, Game Informer did cover the whole idea of why female main characters are rare in gaming. It's for the exact reasons stated by Kyanbu.

Is it sexist? Hell yes!

Is it fair? Hell no!

Is it the way things are? Yeah, unfortunately.

Why? Gaming may get more girls these days but it is still mostly us guys out there playing. That sucks and means that we get to see stuff like this in our games.

Do I want that as a man? No, not really. My ideal female lead would be a gal like Lina Inverse from Slayers or Hotaru Tomoe from Sailor Moon. I look at them and see an inner strength and find that attractive as well as the insecurities.. Hell, Usagi Tsukino from the Sailor Moon series is a good example of an ideal for the same reasons. And nobody can accuse the manga for SM (original runs, not the re-edits for PGSM) or Slayers for trying to capitalize on Lina's body form.

In gaming, I'd like to see more gals like Lina, Hotaru, and Usagi. The gals who don't need looks to attract a fanbase both male and female. They do it by personality and their story.

[Kyanbu The Legend]

Originally Posted by Nikose Tyris

That statement is sexist every way you spin it. Every time you argue "You can't do THAT with a woman because it's sexist, you need to have the male character do that" is a sexist arguement. Androcentrism with Gynophobia is probably the better terms to use, aka "This topic revolves around males opinions and women are scary", but only if Gynophobia can be used to mean "Fear of women responding to our actions as sexist". In the same way as your everyday white dude going "Aw shit if I cut this black guy off in traffic, is that racist?" same shit, different channel.

Exactly, it's like you can't win either way.

It's the number one thing that hurts my works and my views on other works. I normal chose to just completely ignore sexual content. It's how I can almost sit through Queen's Blade. ALMOST.

[Kim]

Originally Posted by RobinStarwing

And nobody can accuse the manga for SM (original runs, not the re-edits for PGSM) or Slayers for trying to capitalize on Lina's body form.

Is this the same Slayers that had a large-breasted purple haired girl with her clothing riding up her ass, and took every opportunity it could to make a joke about HUR HUR LINA'S TITS ARE TINY?

[Archbio]

Masculine = muscular (indiscriminately) = not unattractive = undetailed (except for that beard in the older games?) == hyper-feminine = HUGE BOOBS = blond hair = explicity attractive woman in a parodic cliché sense?

UNLESS you went out of the way to make her ugly.

WHICH would be entirely the opposite of what they did with Maximo.

No, actually, the total opposite of not going out of one's way to make a character unattractive (which is how you describe Maximo: as not unattractive) is not going out of one's way to make a character unattractive. To me, that doesn't equal to: going out of one's way to try and identify a character with beauty and sex.

Something's awry there.

It seems that I've reached the point where I must step away from the computer to avoid doing something regrettable.

[RobinStarwing]

Originally Posted by NonCon

Is this the same Slayers that had a large-breasted purple haired girl with her clothing riding up her ass, and took every opportunity it could to make a joke about HUR HUR LINA'S TITS ARE TINY?

That is at least one of the movies and the manga which detail's Lina's adventures before the first anime series. Naga The Serpant is actually satire of the exact type of stuff we are talking about here.

[Krylo]

Originally Posted by Archbio

muscular (indiscriminately) = not unattractive

Actually, muscular equals attractive, not just not unattractive. At least by the same thought process that says, holy shit huge tits are awesome 110% of the time.

Edit: To clarify, the guy wasn't just "Hey, let's put some muscles on him!" It was wide chest, narrow waist, big feet (WINK WINK, NUDGE NUDGE), large biceps, big sword (WINK WINK SOME MORE), kind of funny face, and a goofy name.

He was an idealized concept of male attractiveness in a cartoonish form. Doing the same thing to a woman, welp.