If a design isnât good enough to communicate its narrative purpose to someone completely unfamiliar with the story behind it
(so each and every bikini armor falls under this), it fails as a design. As Red Queen puts it:
Itâs not the playerâs job to figure out what the designer is trying to actually tell them, as opposed to taking what is being communicated through this image at face value, before the game even begins.
And continues:
If this is what the game chooses to present to people who donât know anything about the game yet, maybe donât be quite so flippant about it when people get the wrong idea. Because then it actually matters that they donât know anything about the game.Â
So truly, insight of someone who doesnât know yet how an element that looks ridiculous is explained in-universe (or even by the creators,in some additional material), is quite valuable, as it sheds light on potentially problematic things that lore-savvy fans and creators arenât capable of noticing.Â
Weâre often accused by detractors of not having credentials to talk about (usually) a game weâre criticizing, because we supposedly never played it. Putting aside a fact that with three of us being huge nerds and pop media consumers, at least one would be somewhat familiar (unless the product is super obscure) – why would that be relevant? No matter if we know the title well or just superficially, our criticism of female visual representation is always the same.
In-depth familiarity of a story behind combat lingerie hasnât yet once made us ashamed of our words and deeds. If anything, the more we know about any particular Thermian argument, the better we are at picking it apart. So asking us to âdo our homeworkâ before we comment will make the commentary far more critical, not more lenient.
Whether or not we actually do comprehensive research for any particular piece of media depends on many factors, like:Â
how influential versus obscure the media in question is
how interesting the excuses for skimpy female costumes in it are
if weâre already familiar with it beforehand
if thereâs a Wiki for it
if a submitter provided some info
how much time we have at the moment
So while we try to at least look up everything we talk about, the amount of lore-heavy commentary (and its relative accuracy) varies from post to post.
Because, again, as we put it in our FAQ, this is not a full review blog, but one discussing character and costume design in the very specific context of in-story combat and meta-level sexism. Finishing a game or knowing a TV/comic series full storyline isnât necessary for us to point at a fictional lady who goes sword fighting in two pasties and a chainmail thong next to dudes in heavy plate armor and say this is an absurd image. It just is.Â
I just heard of a new upcoming video game called Battle Chasers: Nightwar which was based on a comic book of the same name. It seemed to be the type of game I would enjoy but first I needed to see if the designs of the characters were good (Bad designs can easily ruin the whole experience for me) so I checked on GullyâŚ
âWow! That is actually a pretty damn good design!â I said to myself.
How is that you could make one good female character design and then make a terrible female character design in the same fucking series?! HOW DID YOU SCREW THAT UP?!
So based on the promotional materials on their website, Red Monika (gee, her name reminds me of a character to whom she has a striking similarity) is a flirtatious acrobatic pirate/scoundrel type, which really makes me wonder what magical glue she uses to prevent her breasts from falling out. Her boobs also jiggle when she moves, cause thatâs totally important when your view of the battlefield looks like this:
I, too, have a sexy swashbuckler character with large breasts, and they wear a sports-bra equivalent even when they decide to flirt and show some cleavage. And they donât even do back flips in combat.
The lack of creativity here is painful in the most boring way.
But this game is based on an existing property; maybe itâs the fault of the comics that made Monika look this way.
⌠maybe not.
-Icy
90s comics was once of those amazing periods in history thatâs hard to explain to people unless they were there – I kind of hope that one day Martin Scorsese will make a movie about it.
However Battle Chasers did have a ton of interesting material and a lot of promise – by that I mean the cast who were not generic fantasy hero and generic evil sexy lady.
So, letâs take a look at what they chose for their feature video and  hope that the game creators realize that and donât think that a classically 90s comic figure and outfit is what made this comic so interestingâŚ
Awww, this is as cute as funny! The Little League gives us yet another fine example of Superman exercising male empowerment (and better exposure to sunlight).Â