Personally, I have nothing against sexualization of characters, as long it is equal between male and female characters. However, sex is seen with stricter eyes than violence these days. Nudity is being condemned as worse than bloodsplatter and beating eachother senseless in games. And so many overzealous spokespeople have crusaded against sexualization of female characters, seeing it as degrading towards the female gender.
I believe in equality, but that doesn’t necessarily mean “cover up everything on both sides”. And though I don’t mind sexualization, it doesn’t mean that I want everyone only wearing thongs. What I want first and foremost is good character design. That is alot more important to me than to show skin or cover it up.
Let’s take Kim Wu’s retro vs her original design. There are people who would like for ALL the retro costumes to be 100% true to their original designs, and that’s only fair. However, then there are those who wants a character like Kim Wu’s retro to be true to her original design for that one thing - the thong. Because they like to see her show skin, and they feel like covering her up with shorts is against their sexual preference.
I personally prefer her wearing shorts, because I thought her wearing a thong was a tasteless decision and not good character design. She’s a kung fu monk and a chosen one of the Dragon Spirit. And other than that, she was a bad Chun Li knock-off, just another bad Asian kung fu girl design, in my opinion. It didn’t make sense to me for her to wear a thong in the first place and it was clearly a decision to appeal to the straight male part of the community, as it was clear with Orchid and Maya as well. Because that was the 90’s! A much simpler time.
I like to think we’re a more progressive community today. The majority might still be that of straight male players, but there’s alot more diversity amongst gamers today, and so the game developers have had to change their strategies. Context sensitivity… If you’re an old Rare fan, you’d know the reference. What I mean with this is that giving female characters big breasts and putting them in a thong is no longer viable character design decisions, because it simply isn’t that easy anymore.
Yes… I like sex, I like nudity, and I enjoy fanservice in games and other media. But there’s a time and place for these things. When it comes to videogames, it can so easily be tasteless and tacky. And I would first and foremost want good character design in a fighting game! And I find it kinda sad that there are people who don’t put that higher than the fanservice.
but forreal tho, why do you think that way?