When fanservice ruins internal consistancy

[Erttheking]

This isn't about sexism, this is about design. Ok? Ok. I've been playing a lot of Fire Emblem Fates lately, good game, good characters, but it kind of went all out with the fanservice. In a lot of areas its pretty good, looks like it fits the character, in some of the classes like the spell casters the fanservice is present among both genders and I actually really like some of the fanservicey designs, Azura/Aqua's in particular. Other times they really annoyed me because they took what was clearly complete armor design on a man and arbitrarily took a few chunks of it off for the sake of fanservice. For example, the male main character, Corrin' has armor that covers his whole body, while female Corrin has armor that shows off her inner thighs and a bit of her rear. And it looks freaking stupid.

Spoiler

https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/t51.2885-15/e35/12728497_768853199912630_1212887862_n.jpg?ig_cache_key=MTE5MjkyMzY5ODUwMDMwODYzNg%3D%3D.2.l

(Sorry about the crappy quality, this is all I could find)
Something like this also happens with the character Sophie.

Spoiler

http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/fireemblem/images/d/d4/Sophie_portrait.png/revision/latest?cb=20151225070352

Pretty cool looking armor, very similar to the armor that her father wears.

Spoiler

http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/fireemblem/images/d/d0/Cyrus_portrait.png/revision/latest?cb=20150601044137

Except her father's armor didn't have this little feature

Spoiler

http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/993/109/134.jpg

You can only ever see that in the combat sections, which has utterly crap resolution. So people who wanted consistent armor design don't get what they want, and people who wanted fanservice gets horrendous looking fanservice. Who is this meant to please?

This just annoys me for one main reason. Inconsistency. Mages, fighters and ninjas in this game all have fanservicey designs, regardless of gender. The males show off less than the females but it doesn't bug me too much (Minus one situation where the one male fighter you can actually control doesn't show anything off, despite every other fighter in the game doing it and him looking like he would have a very toned booty). But cases like with the main character and Sophie (and all female Cavaliers) the armor design is radically altered when going from male to female just for the sake of fanservice.

I am not criticizing fanservice. Hell, I actually really like Orochi's design in this game. I'm ragging on fanservice that directly contradicts the way the world is established to work. If mages and fighters, male and female, show off what they've got then apparently it's the way the world works. It's a tad bit silly but you know what? Fire Emblem is a silly game at times, it works. This, however, creates a direct contradiction in the way the world is supposed to work. Why do guys need to have their rears armored if they're riding on horseback but women don't?

I'm a writer, and I value world building, making the world that you write feel as alive and believable as possible. Fanservice like this just ruins that. It's there for the sake of being there and we already had plenty, much better done, fanservice.

Am I just ranting? Do you think I have a point? Can you think of any other examples of this or do you think I'm just talking out of my ass?

 

[CritialGaming]

snip

Oh you are most definitely ranting. But you are also making points. I think part of this stems from the differences in culture. Fan service is a big thing in Japan, and you can look across almost every anime and spot fan-service characters, most of which are female. So it serves in point, that Japanese games are almost always going to have that same element of fan service-ness, even in games that don't really have a place for it in the world. Some games are pure fan service like Senran Kagura, and others simply have their Fan-service moments like Fire Emblem.

I would argue that it isn't completely out of place in Fire Emblem because after all, you can breed people, so that's a thing that happens there.

But I want to point out that the games industry as a whole is improving here. At least American games seem to be. There was a time when female Paladins and Warriors in World of Warcraft wore a somehow skimpier version of the same armor the male characters did. That has long since been removed and both men and woman in WoW wear the exactly same stuff, covering the same bits and pieces.

You have to kind of weigh the difference in fan-service terms. Is it excessive in a game where it shouldn't really fit? Or is it just a bit of extra sprinkling for those who want to enjoy that stuff. Fan service has it's place and I don't think that a female character is in any way objectified by cutting select pieces of covering off their armor sets...Also because they aren't real people.

So I don't know. It is up to the player to decide if they find something going too far. But in Japanese and Korean games (Tera), one should expect some degree of this in their games. Appropriate of not.

 

[Fappy]

As the post above me stated, yeah it's annoying, but that's Japan. I played through Birthright and Conquest (will get to Revelations eventually), and I was bothered by many of the same things. I ended up just sucking it up and ignoring it in the end. Unfortunately our input isn't going to make much of an impact on the Japanese market. We can complain, and we may be justified, but they are far more concerned with their Japanese consumer-base. Considering how ingrained fanservice is in their business model I don't see them changing their ways any time soon.

The best we can do is continue to support developers who show more creative integrity and maybe some others may catch on.

And just to be clear to others, this isn't a condemnation of fan service as a concept, just of fan service that diminishes the greater work.

 

[go-10]

I've played through the game 4 times now and I never even noticed that Sophie's armor was like that 0__o double that for fem-Corrin whom I used on 2 of these playthroughs... while I agree some fan service is pointless and stupid this one hinders more on the,,, lazy developers skipping parts that players will never see anyway.
Your points are valid though

 

[NPC009]

Hah, Fates was the first thing that came to mind when I read the topic title. I really want to give all those girls some pants. I've rode enough horses to know you wear freakin' pants. Bare skin on leather is really uncomfortable, and I wouldn't even dare to imagine what metal underwear feels like.

I miss the days when Fire Emblem had more sensible character designs (especially the Cube/Wii era). It's one thing to put your dancers in skimpy outfits or to have combat maids running around the battlefield, Fire Emblems were rarely that super serious anyway, but atleast give the knights some armour, you know?

As the post above me stated, yeah it's annoying, but that's Japan. I played through Birthright and Conquest (will get to Revelations eventually), and I was bothered by many of the same things. I ended up just sucking it up and ignoring it in the end. Unfortunately our input isn't going to make much of an impact on the Japanese market. We can complain, and we may be justified, but they are far more concerned with their Japanese consumer-base. Considering how ingrained fanservice is in their business model I don't see them changing their ways any time soon.

And if they change it for the non-Japanese market, we get five angry topics for every added pair of pants...

 

[Fappy]

I've played through the game 4 times now and I never even noticed that Sophie's armor was like that 0__o double that for fem-Corrin whom I used on 2 of these playthroughs... while I agree some fan service is pointless and stupid this one hinders more on the,,, lazy developers skipping parts that players will never see anyway.
Your points are valid though

I first noticed Corrin in an early cutscene. She was facing the camera when I noticed a bit of thong peeking out. I just face palmed and continued the cutscene, lol.

 

[Fox12]

I don't get the argument that it's "just Japan." The issue is that characters are riding into battle in bikinis, which is just dumb. I mean, I get why the developer does this, but it doesn't make it any less dumb from a design standpoint.

For a non-sexy version of this, I've been having a real problem with Dark Soul's 3. There are fanservice shoutouts everywhere, and they serve no real purpose at all. "Hey, remember solaire? You like solaire, right? Here's his armor, ring, and a shield with his face on it. Here's all the equipment from the first game. Gee, Dark Souls 1 sure was great, huh?" This really bothers me. It feels like the creators are making their own fan fiction.

 

[go-10]

I've played through the game 4 times now and I never even noticed that Sophie's armor was like that 0__o double that for fem-Corrin whom I used on 2 of these playthroughs... while I agree some fan service is pointless and stupid this one hinders more on the,,, lazy developers skipping parts that players will never see anyway.
Your points are valid though

I first noticed Corrin in an early cutscene. She was facing the camera when I noticed a bit of thong peeking out. I just face palmed and continued the cutscene, lol.

Iguess since I mostly skip every cutscene and have battle animations turned off I don't really notice. I do remember not liking Corrin's design anyway but I wasn't aware of her having a thong... I think they changed her design for Smash if so

 

[Fappy]

I've played through the game 4 times now and I never even noticed that Sophie's armor was like that 0__o double that for fem-Corrin whom I used on 2 of these playthroughs... while I agree some fan service is pointless and stupid this one hinders more on the,,, lazy developers skipping parts that players will never see anyway.
Your points are valid though

I first noticed Corrin in an early cutscene. She was facing the camera when I noticed a bit of thong peeking out. I just face palmed and continued the cutscene, lol.

Iguess since I mostly skip every cutscene and have battle animations turned off I don't really notice. I do remember not liking Corrin's design anyway but I wasn't aware of her having a thong... I think they changed her design for Smash if so

Yeah, they did looks like: http://www.ssbwiki.com/Corrin

Corrin's male artwork in SSB4 is similar to his official art in Fates, albeit with his left hand in a different position and his sword being angled more downwards. The female artwork, however, is identical to her official art in Fates, though she now wears black pants covering her inner thighs.

Kinda weird since both games are rated 'T'. I guess Smash is more widely considered a family game.

 

[Erttheking]

Snip

A year ago I would've agreed with you. Now? Bayonetta is in the game. So...what is even the hell.

 

[Pirate Of PC Master race]

I would consider much more if my first answer wasn't "Eh, Japan."

But then, I did abandon much of my reasoning.

 

[ultrabiome]

The truth is that Japan and the West have different cultural attitudes towards "fan-service" (probably women in general, but that's for another discussion).

I feel the same way about XCX's bikini armor (male and female), which arrives with fanfare as you upgrade vendors (just like every other vendor upgrade, just more obvious when the armor is super skimpy), but at least in XCX there are both functional and cosmetic armor slots, so we can choose how slutty our characters look regardless of which armor we need to use.

 

[Queen Michael]

I know what you mean. I haven't played that particular game, but it bugs me when fanservice is done wrong. Reminds me of the manhwa Rebirth, where a devout Christian nun had a body with the waist and bust of a 90's superheroine, and dressed even skimpier.

 

[WindKnight]

Its not quite on topic, but this reminds me of a F2P korean MMO I played for a time called rappelz.. for the western version, they altered several of the female characters outfits to cover more of the legs.

They even did this one one particular outfit for the 'dark and sexy' race called the Skull Garb... but did nothing about the outfit leaving one breast exposed, with just a strap over the nipple.

Spoiler: korean version of the outfit

for the western version, imagine the mustard yellow goes all the way down to the shin guards

I will say, at lower levels at least, they did put males of the 'dark sexy' racy into similarly skimpy outfits to the females, but it didn't last long.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

I wouldn't call that situation where all mages have sex appeal "consistency". It just so happened that a pattern is formed but you shouldn't draw conclusions and based stuff on them needlessly. Design is based on what artists feel is aesthetically pleasing and expresses the vision they have for the character. That's all it is, to say "all mages have to be sexy" would be needlessly limiting. Hence, the lack of ths pattern in other cases is a non issue.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Except her father's armor didn't have this little feature

Spoiler

http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/993/109/134.jpg

Good thing too, he would've looked ridiculous with it.

 

[SlumlordThanatos]

A simple problem with a simple solution.

You know those Master Seals you've been hoarding?

These'll solve almost all of your wardrobe problems.

Except for Corrin's thong. You'll need a Heart Seal to solve that problem. And maybe a team of spelunkers to dig that piece of fabric out of her colon.