Female Armor Bingo – Bikini Armor Battle Damage

September 12, 2021February 19, 2022

Mitsuki

from Samurai Warriors 5 (her mentor, Kazuuji Nakamura, in the bottom right)

After a seven year pause in games, Samurai Warriors 5 is out and it features a new kunoichi (female ninja)

character – Mitsuki. You can tell she’s a kunoichi because she’s dressed like she’s from a ninja gaiden game. For those not aware, Ninja Gaiden is set in 1980s USA and Samurai Warriors is set in Sengoku Period (1467 – 1615) Japan.

Sadly this is an improvement for the series.

Now the thing with the Sengoku Period is that it is an area of history where we have some good evidence of female professional warriors (onna-musha) being around (though their role has historically been downplayed and so the specifics are unclear) and we have some artwork depicting what they might have looked like… unsurprisingly the armour they wore was the same as the men’s.

When not in armour, they are understood to have worn clothes typical of feudal Japan… basically the opposite of this outfit.

So… how can this be an improvement? Well from Samurai Warriors 1 – 4 the equivalent character was a kunoichi who’s name is… Kunoichi and is… *checks notes* apparently fifteen years old…

And, again… I want to stress… there are real women from his era with artistic depictions of them available, so for a game where most of the cast are historical figures… this is um… well I don’t need to tell you.

I didn’t say it was a big improvement… or one worth congratulating them on, but it is at least a very minor improvement… very, very minor.

Very, very, very minor.

– wincenworks

September 5, 2021February 19, 2022

While it may not seem like the initial bingo material – I invite you consider how the fuck she is supposed to do literally anything in this plate armor.

The helmet literally covers her eyes so she can’t see anything past her toes
Her exposed mouth and lower face, combined with clawed gauntlets, mean any attempt to adjust it would mangle herself
The armor is form fitted to her torso so she can’t bend, turn or even make big movements with her arms. I doubt she can even breathe with that boobplate.
Leg legs are locked into the “maximum thigh gap” pose. so she can’t even walk, let alone engage in combat footwork

This is not armor, this is some next level BDSM shit for people who find vacuum bondage too vanilla. (nsfw)

Bless Unleashed has been around since 2019 but has recently started more aggressive marketing – and um… wow… it’s… marketing… some of it really, really leans into the old myth, double standards, suspicious dimorphism and mistaking satirical parody for a style guide.

(Honestly glad there is no mantis race… at least I think there isn’t…)

Unsurprisingly a large part of the Steam community screenshots etc is ogling even more ridiculous sets of armor.

I don’t know which is worse, the weird horny marketing put together by the Creepy Marketing Guy or the more generic, family friendly marketing that tricks people into downloading the game and finding the options for female characters are fighting fucktoy, sexy sorcereress and bad archer..

– wincenworks

August 22, 2021February 19, 2022

Infamous gacha game Genshin Impact is introducing Kujou Sara, and I have to say… this is probably the most bizarre “sex sells but keep it family” outfit I have seen in a while.(If you’re not familiar with gacha games, they’re basically a micro-payment scam that uses fake randomness).

Not the mask used as a fascinator, not the inexplicable window on her back, not the skirts that seem to only exist only to blow up and show her legs – nor the odd peakaboo slits on the sides of her shorts, nor the or the skin tight top – but rather the weird piece of cloth that sits on top of of the vacuum sealed top to incorporate underboob and nipple tease without actually showing any torso skin.

She is also possibly the worst archer in the history of bad archers.

Now… obviously expectations are low for this genre of game, but this particular gacha game has had made spread in the market and multiple articles about tis monetization techniques – so this remains an example of how this kind of trash design goes unquestioned in modern media.

– wincenworks

August 8, 2021February 19, 2022

Saoirse from Empires and Puzzles
Referred by @jesuswasbatman

This one is particularly interesting, because Saoirse does have many traits that we don’t often get to see in heroines.

Advanced age
Powerful stance
Evidence of experience (scars and muscles)

However, when juxtaposed with, Anzogh, the first male barbarian I could find, looking in the 5 star heroes, she also serves as a great example of how media tends to present female barbarians differently.

The key consideration on this work is why is the armor and why the specific placement and design of the armor? Why this design? Particularly if its a more complicated design than regular armor.

Anzogh has a ridiculous cow skull on his belt, and a strap across his chest, bone bracelets to emphasise how little he has – it conveys that his is powerful and needs none of the convenience of civilization (like armor). Sometimes these characters have massive pauldrons to give them a more menacing silhouette

Saoirse has armor on her arms, and bits of her legs, the gaps in her armor are not to show power or independence, but to showcase her body from tits to hips. It’s to assure you that despite these weapons, her age and being on the battlefield… she’s got it going on. Generally when characters like this get shoulder, hip or thigh armor it’s to accentuate their hips and frame their torso pleasingly.

This is, of course, completely redundant. She’s got it going on, she’s an experienced woman with immense power – that is a guaranteed recipe for unmitigated horniness from large portions of the audience. Her appeal comes not despite these things, but because of them. There is absolutely no need to give her a battle bikini with a flimsy loincloth.

In conclusion, she’s better than the average bikini armor babe, but still such a missed opportunity for a genuinely great design due to general trends of female armor design that lead to the prevalence of the bikini armor babes (and the shortage of truly empowered men).

A powerful topless barbarian woman she ain’t.

– wincenworks

August 1, 2021February 19, 2022

Okay Google… show me what happens when Nier: Automata imagery gets to outright fetish levels….

Now, my housemate assures me to that 2P is a quality character but this is really an eye gouging example of what happens when certain types of executives lean into a particular mythical aspect of a complex work of media that happens to have some uniquely honest rhetoric.

Particularly I would like to draw attention to who’s not present in this marketing material ignores literally some of the most important characters in Nier: Automata.

This is why we don’t trust explanations for why female protagonists have to have convoluted sexy costumes…. because if nothing else it means that they’ve decided they’re comfortable with making that a cornerstone of their brand.

And… I don’t even know what to do with this except cringe.

– wincenworks

July 18, 2021February 19, 2022

So… Fortnite is supposed to be a game for kids, hence there’s no blood and lots of tactics to make kids scream at their parents that they totally need a skin or a dance.

So it’s kind of weird that when I did a search for best female skins, this weird rip off of Blizzard’s style pops up with her inexplicably bared armpits (do children really care if women shave their armpits?) and overly complicated boobplate.

Oh well, at least this was only the second item on the list… the first is well… I wouldn’t say its great armor but at least I can see how it is for children…

Still… can’t find any sort of female equivalent of the John Wick Skin, the ~~Totally Not John Wick~~Reaper Skin or… wait are kids watching John Wick?

I’m starting to think that maybe, a large part of their market is maladjusted adult men who throw tanrums at the slight hint of diversity in anything.

– wincenworks

July 4, 2021February 19, 2022

No More Heroes is a series which is generally hailed as being sharp satire on many aspects of the action genre… the one area where it seems to simply lean in hard to reproduction without commentary is female character design. This is from the trailer to promote the upcoming third game.

Which is baffling, because the series very much recognizes the general disconnect between wanting to be a super extra, and also wanting to be able to make no effort (see Travis, the guy in the middle). I feel the need to warn you that reading this paragraph may cause you psychic damage, I know it did to me…

Meanwhile when it comes to imagery and costumes for female characters… the series is full of, well, this….

Because I mean… this is an area of popular media is ripe for satire. Really ripe. So ripe. Over ripe. Riper than balls.

– wincenworks

April 11, 2021February 19, 2022

So, Rogue Company is the game with the most forgettable name… and the most forgettable aesthetic. At the time of this post their main video juxtaposes Ronin (above) with a male hero, Dima.

You may already have noticed some issues aside from the cringe inducing leaning into “Japanese girl with a katana” (who is also a street racing champion) archetype… in a game mostly about shooting people.

In fact, for a game about shooting people… a lot of these female characters seem determined to be shot in their sweet… sweet abs:

And/or remind you they have legs and tiddy:

So it does tend to give the impression that there is a particular design philosophy common to boys club studios…

But what can you expect from the studio that brought us Smite, Paladins and thought this was a good idea?

– wincenworks

February 21, 2021February 19, 2022

The line up currently... as per Overwatch standard there are multiple body types for men and one thin, conventionally attractive one for women. Something something sexy back, a hood without a cape is certainly a decision The most important thing when aiming a bow is to show off as much leg as possible

Hello Diablo my old friend.

They recently announced the latest class, the rogue, with a bizarre trailer and an even more bizarre costume as the iconic look which seems to try to hedge in a few ideas in bizarre contradiction.

An Assassin’s Creed style hood without any cape attached
Two part thigh highs that are cloth from the top of the calf up

But of course, they have most of the classics as well.

A Xena style combat corset with pauldrons and bracers, but no pants or helmet
Extremely high profile, attention grabbing outfit for someone who supposedly pick pockets and moves unseen
Combat style is sexy dancing with knives

Also, while she does look ambiguously brown in the final videos and character model… it seems pretty clearly this was a last minute decision based off the concept art.