..my move is just awful, it’s chauvinist! Every time I fall over my vagina and vulva is exposed. I might as well be an NPC that doesn’t know where to wander!
Felicia Day, playing as Tyris Flare in the original Golden Axe game, (x)
Golden Axe, the iconic side-scrolling hack’em up is also a pretty iconic example of bikini armor:
And yes, Dolph LundgrenAx Battler (that is his actual name!) is wearing a bikini too but as well as being a male power fantasy (or someone I’d expect to see featured at videogamesmademegay) he always looks badass posed like Conan the Barbarian or a classical mythological figure. He also quickly got an unsuccessful spinoff game and you had the option to play a dwarf who at least kept his shirt on.
Tyris on the other hand, despite having a much less ridiculous name, had to wait until 2008 when she would get to be the star. But hey, that’s like eighteen/nineteen years of social and artistic progress right? Let’s see how they portrayed her and promoted the game!
Yeah…
– wincenworks
I felt it may be time to bring this back, not because anything has happened with the Golden Axe franchise – but because there’s still apparently a wide spread believe that exposed skin is the be all and end all of sexualized armor design.
As you can see, they actually gave Tyris more clothes in her spinoff title, but less powerful presence simply by design decisions like making her muscles less defined, body language less intimidating and ensuring her extra clothes highlighting sexualized body parts.
As convenient as it would be – there is no one element of design that guarantees a design will work. Designs consist of dozens of decisions and each can improve or worsen it by degrees.
– wincenworks
