bikiniarmorbattledamage:

So Nintendo decided to release alternative outfits for the Zero Suit Samus in new Smash Bros. Their official statement on it goes:

Thanks to the determination of her female designer, these Zero Suit outfits got completed in time. From the ending of Metroid: Zero Mission, here’s Samus in shorts!

You can use the same outfit variations in both the 3DS and Wii U versions.

“Thanks to the determination of her female designer”, huh? What a bizzarely specific statement.
Reads more like “See, SEE? Women not only love skimpy outfits on female characters, they personally put them in games! She was DETERMINED to do it, even!”

I’m feeling like “a woman designed it, so it can not be detrimental to womankind in any way!” is some secret lost square in the Female Armor Rhetoric Bingo…

As for anyone who’d gladly claim that those are canon costumes from her earlier games: YES, THEY ARE. You know what exactly they are in canon? LEISURE OUTFITS. Samus wears them after her mission is over. She’s supposed to chill in those shorts, not fight.

Just the same, Zero Suit is basically underwear to her armor and Zero Mission’s whole point was to play Samus at her most vulnerable.

Again, how does any costume other than power armor make sense in the context of brutal tournament that is Smash Bros games?

And no, I don’t take “this series is all about fanservice” for an answer.
The designers used up all the Pointless Fanservice Credit when they gave her shoes so impossible they barely resemble stripper boots.

PS: Those heels look as idiotic as when they were first released.

PPS: Her anatomy and the poses she takes, especially in the first picture, are as much (if not more) broken as ever.

Guess the developers still like Samus promotion pics being a major candidate for an eschergirls post.

~Ozzie

I love when companies pretend that female developers have total autonomy over projects – it’s not like they answer to managers and executives who hired them to do a specific task.

It’s not like video games is an industry where employment is highly competitive or that employment in game is renown for being highly demanding at the best of times.

Surely it couldn’t be that these female designers were instructed by male managers and that the company expects their female employees to do this kind of work or find work elsewhere!

– wincenworks

This week’s throwback: why shielding a sexist female character design with “a woman was involved in creating it!” doesn’t really hold up, especially when the marketing department is so obviously desperate to highlight that particular fact.

 It should go without saying, but one person who’s okay with (and/or involved in) questionable depictions of marginalized group they belong to does not speak for how every member of the group feels (or should feel) about such depictions of themselves.

~Ozzie