Fashion plate -
March 21, 2001 - Chris Jones
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed
within this column are those of the participants and the
moderator, and do not necessarily reflect those of the
GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive
material afoot.
Man, you can have my Library of Congress when you pry it out of my
cold, dead fingers!
Don't say we didn't warn you.
I just figured out that despite my best efforts to the contrary, the PS2
has managed to hype me away from the infinitely superior Dreamcast. The
Dreamcast has Skies of Arcadia, CCR, Space Channel 5, Sonic Adventure, Soul
Calibur, NFL2K1, and the PS2 has... The Bouncer. Which of these systems
should I be spending my time on? And yet which of these systems has been
getting the most attention, both in the column and on my TV?
I suck, that's all there is to it, and I apologize to Sega's
developers for not properly supporting their product.
Onward.
| What else could it be? |
| I imagine the main reason characters in video games
wear such exotic clothing is the obvious - the game takes place in an
exotic, faraway place, so of COURSE everyone's wearing strange clothes.
Still, you're right in that some clothing is just plain silly for what this band of brave adventurers is doing. Take Chrono Cross' Kid's "just enough to get around the nudity laws" getup. Which brings us to the second reason, which is far more important in game sales:
Sex appeal. Come on, do you *seriously* believe an Indiana Jones-style adventurer
like Lara Croft is going to travel frozen Arctic wastes in a midriff-baring
jacket and shorts? "But they're FUR-LINED shorts!" Sheesh. Not that the portrayal
of guys is much better in a lot of games - it seems the whole lot of them have discarded such useful concepts as "protective armor".
As for what I'd like to see... well, just as you do, I wouldn't mind seeing
a bit more realism in dress. Nothing wrong with cheesecake or beefcake in our
fictional polygons, but some common sense is called for. We want to suspend
our disbelief, not hang it until dead. _Oni_[1] is a good example - yes, the
heroine IS a cute butt-kicking babe (nearly required in a game nowadays) but she sensibly wears a suit of full body armor, SWAT-style. Heck, her chest approaches something a normal woman might possess without serious back pain, and that's nigh-blasphemy in today's games... so there's hope.
[1] True, _Oni_ is non-Square, non-Japanese, and appears on PCs as well as
consoles, but so is Tomb Raider; the example is still fairly valid.
Damien Wellman
|
Ok, yes, sex sells, no doubt. But not everybody markets their games like Eidos does, and more importantly, it's only been in the PSX era that you could sell games because of their character models. Very, very few people (fortunately) are going to get turned on by a 32x32 pixel sprite... although I admit some of Amano's SNES FF illustrations were pretty damn good.
| Ugly Americans |
| Hey Chris,
Okay Chris, here's a link provided
by a very informative Zak, that would more or less, give you a better
emphasis on what I'm about to elaborate on. The link was to a Shadow Madness
review done by none other than Thegia.com, and I shall now directly quote
from this review -- "Unfortunately, this compelling storyline is populated
by some of the most atrocious character designs in all of RPG history". If
you don't already know, Shadow Madness is an American RPG--a really bad one
too--tailored from bits and piece of Japanese-esque accompanied with a dash
of honest to goodness, all-American crapass artistical abilities. Assuming
that you haven't yet to play the aforementioned game, I shall save you from
the agonizing pleasure of discovering how poor the American art industry
actually is. Now, gathering by your blantant discontentment toward
Japanese-influenced RPG as of late, I'll assume that the topic given
yesterday was honed toward the bashing of how generic most Japanese
anime/RPG's can be, and that you would like to see a greater define emphasis
on more RPG's styled after American artowrk. Now I ask you Chris, and try
and be honest, do you really want to see more American crap like Shadow
Madness, or do you want to see more unusual but unique, and not to mention
beautiful, anime-style RPG's? Oh and keep in mind that even the best of
American by-product, Deus Ex, was slightly ruined, to say the least, by its
artociously ugly arkwork. Well, I'll let you to decide on your own. Good
day.
-Weltall, who enjoys watching the cutscene in The Bouncer more than playing
the actual game |
You wound me, sir, and more importantly you put words in my mouth, which I don't particularly care for. I don't dislike Japanese RPG designs because they're Japanese, nor do I dislike American graphic art because it's American. You're right that I do have something against most games being too generic, but as the great Ted Sturgeon once said, 90% of anything is crap. Too much Japanese stuff seems to feature women in overly revealing clothing and poses (which isn't necessarily bad, it just makes it harder to take their characters seriously), but by the same token, too many American comics seem to feature women with overly generous proportions in equally ludicrous positions. Yes, Shadow Madness was an American game that didn't look that great, but LucasArts is an American developer that's put out some wonderfully stylish stuff that few Japanese console games have come close to touching. What I want from all games, regardless of their country of origin, is unique, good looking designs that make sense in the context of the game. That's all.
| Impractical clothes
for impractical people |
| CJ,
Honestly, I really don't give a damn. I mean, yeah, sure they should be wearing
jeans and whatnot, but also, after having that sword sliced through their skull
they should be bleeding out and dying... so I'm not all that worried about realism
or proper dress in my RPG. Let's get an improved battle system that's used for more than one game first.
--Brian W. |
Yes, this is a fluff topic, and there's more important stuff we could be discussing... but heck, where would this column be without fluff topics? Where would I be without fluff topics? Probably flipping burgers at Pizza Hut, and you wouldn't want that, would you?
| "Yikes" about sums it up |
| Yikes.
A world in which Sidney sports blue jeans rather than those magic pants (how
*do* they stay up...) is not a world worth living in. Besides, Ashley
wouldn't seem like such a bad-ass to me in dungarees. I have nothing but
respect for man who can traverse dungeons with such sang froid while wearing
peak-a-boo trousers, a halter top and those dopey antenna bangs.
-big squirrel
|
Sex sells at least as much to girls as to guys, I suppose. And that's all I'll say about that.
| Making the band |
| I think it's funny what Sickpigman brought up:
"Is anyone else sick of playing as characters who look like they belong in they
next up and coming boy band? Does anyone else want to play as a 60 something
fat balding guy?"
Fat, balding guys aside, there actually may be a reason that said heroes look
the way they do. The Final Fantasy characters resemble pop-stars because they
ARE POP-STARS! Tetsuya Nomura, the artist behind the design for FFVIII and
X, has a neferious plot to kidnap all of the biggest names in the Japanese pop-music scene, replace their physical bodies with home-grown clones, (hey, that'd be a good name for a band,) and entrap their spirits within popular video games made by Square!
Don't believe me? If you've ever heard of Gackt, former singer of the band
Malice Mizer, then you've probably notice how Squall's leather jacket, with
it's fluffy fur lining and whatnot, looks EXACTLY like the jacket Gackt wore
at many of Malice Mizer's concerts. Even the hair-style is similar. Not long
after FFVIII came out, Gackt left the band to pursue a solo career, and has never been quite the same since. I think the real Gackt has been trapped in FFVIII for the last couple years.
Now to the real crux of the biscuit. FF's new hero Tida, or Tidus, Twiddledee,
or whatever the hell it is... He is none other than lead vocalist Issa from
Da Pump, a Japanese boy band! I didn't quite see it at first, but I always
had this nagging feeling I'd seen that face before, and then it hit me. I've
enclosed a picture. See if you can tell which one's the real Issa.
El Cactuar! (A very prickly bastard.) |
Considering the numerous celebrity inspirations people thought they saw in FF8's character
designs, from Leonardo DiCaprio to Sandra Bullock, I guess we shouldn't be that surprised if
Square really did rip off designs from pop bands... but on the other hand, all this is far more than
I wanted to know about Japanese boy music groups, so I'll walk away from
this letter very, very quickly.
| Ugly people just
aren't worth his valuable time |
| Dear sirs and madams at the GIA,
I play games to escape from reality. Why would I want to see a bunch of ugly
girls or normal-looking guys I can see at my high school? Granted, I don't mind
some reality aspects (the characters' attitudes in FF8 were much to my liking),
but I'd perfer to see something that's not common-place.
-Masami Eiri, who's all for dragon-riding girls in short skirts that plan on killing the man dressed in robes, anklets, and a chastity belt. |
This is just a difference of opinion - at some level, I don't think a story's worth telling
unless it's grounded in reality. There's nothing wrong with eye candy, but it'd probably
add a lot for a story to feature a seriously out of shape fat kid, or a rail-thin girl with acne
as the main protagonist. True, these are the same people you grew up with (or were yourself)
but having wild and crazy RPG stuff happening to "real" people as opposed to
super models makes things that much more interesting, as far as I'm concerned.
| Another world |
| Chris,
Yes, I'm a little tired of the boy band camp of stylization. I'd much
rather see my RPG characters in rugged gear more appropriate for venturing
into unknown areas and doing battle. On top of that, I think it would be
neat if characters' appearances changed depending on the situation. If they
were caught off guard at an inn, forced to do battle and flee, for instance,
it would enhance the feel of the situation if the characters were shown
wearing their fantasy world equivalent of jeans and t-shirt type digs until
they could better equip themselves.
What's been bothering me about RPGs more than character design, though, is
the generic feel of the settings and situations. The settings in FF VIII
and IX, for example, were very beautiful and impressive, but there's
something intangible that I thought was missing from them. The settings in
FF VII seemed better integrated into the feel of the story than those of
VIII and IX. Midgar just "felt" like a dirty hellhole, with a populace
oppressed by a massive corporation, and did more to set the stage for the
following events than an hour of backstory would have. Balamb garden, on
the other hand, felt like Nordstrom, and always succeeded in removing me
from the urgency of any situation Squall's group encountered.
With all the talk about how cinematic, mature, and story driven RPGs are
becoming, I think it's high time someone made one that looked at everything
from setting design to item management as an opportunity to enhance the feel
of the story. If my characters are on a desperate flight from vicious
hordes bent on world dominance, I don't want them doing it wearing fur lined
coats and riding in a flying fortress. I think it would be neat to be given
a timer counting down the minutes I have to gather up sets of dark clothing,
lightweight arms, and fill a few packs with necessary items before having to
flee under cover of darkness through a perilous forest, and have to live
with my equipment decisions for the next few hours of gameplay.
-lowtech |
Ok, granted, it's probably more important to have coherant design than for any individual
character to be dressed a certain way - there's a time for tuxedoes and there's a time for
bikinis, and a good game will have both in the right place. But it's only recently that we've had
enough storage space to allow for multiple costumes, so perhaps games can't be blamed too
much for having the same uniform over and over again. Although by the same token, we better
start seeing some evening wear mixed in with that surf wear FFX's pushing, or there will be pain.
| Someone from the Eidos
school of design |
| "What would you rather they wear?"
Oh now come on...you're just asking for more "NAKED!" responses again,
aren't you?
I can see right through your evil scheme I tell'z ya!
-Duncan |
I'm a freak - a properly (or partially) dressed woman has always been more interesting to me than a completely naked one. Beyond that, when you have people naked (or strongly sexualized in any other way) it's hard to keep the story from being dominated by anything other than sex.. and frankly, I'd no more trust RPGs to handle sex maturely at this point than I'd trust a seventh grader to operate a nuclear weapon.
| The clothes fit the
genre |
| I'm almost sure this topic has popped up before in
the letters column, but I suppose we might as well yap about it again.
There are plenty of examples of sensibly dressed characters in video
games, as long as you don't equate sensible with modern or insist that
every game pass inspection by the functional fashion police.
One good example of characters wearing practical attire that comes to mind is
Final Fantasy Tactics. The female job classes seem to have been outfitted quite
well. The Knight and Dragoon don't wear form fitting armor that shows off cleavage,
and the female mages haven't altered their robes to show more leg. Lead characters
like Agrias and Meliadoul are clearly dressed for battle and not a fashion show. The
same goes for characters in many SRPGs, look at the realistic style of characters in
Front Mission 3 or Ring of Red. Mega Ten/Persona games have always featured
mostly standard, modern dress along with fairly normal hairstyles. To me, certain
types of games seem more suited to "sensible" styles of dress and there are plenty of
examples if you look in the right areas.
I'm a big fan of realistic character design in many genres of games. That said,
I have no interest in seeing the cast in a game like Street Fighter get zapped
by the utilitarian styling ray. These games don't exactly feature realistic
fighting, so why should character design be plain and ordinary? Charlie's hair
blatantly defies physics because he's just_that_cool, and most KOF fans wouldn't
want Mai Shiranui to wear more clothes, much less purchase a sports bra.
Flashy/stylized/sexy clothing is usually for personality's sake, and if you think it
would be fitting for FFXIV's lead character to wear a T-shirt, and a Ben Stiller
haircut then, well... then I'd be quite puzzled. Of course headmaster Cid in FFVIII
did bear an uncomfortable resemblance to Robin Williams.... could be the wave of
the future man. Anyway, I don't expect every game that comes out to cater to my own
personal taste, and if a game is fun to play then I won't let a tight miniskirt detract too
much from my enjoyment of a game, heh.
-Mosquiton
.oO( I've been a big fan of the character design of the Resident Evil series because I find the hairstyles and dress to be believable, appropriate, and posessed of a certain degree of personality. The upcoming RE movie is looking quite lame so far though with the original story and characters... and a Duke Nukem movie? Ugh.) |
I guess it all loops back to what Brian said earlier - more unrealistic games demand a more flashy style of dress, which means my bitching about character fashions may have more to do with wanting more realistic games... big surprise.
Closing Comments:
Sorry this took so long - gotta stop watching DVDs at the same time I'm writing the column.
We've got a pretty good topic for tomorrow, and there's one or two extra's
I'll be including, for whatever reason. See you then.
-Chris Jones, remembering that they never wore iron collars in Highlander either
| Topic for Thursday,
03/22/2001 |
| Chris (or whoever's doing the letter column):
I have this research paper to do for college, and I thought about how I
could put RPGs into this. So I came up with this:
People using RPGs to teach English.
Will there actually come a day when people use Vagrant Story or Lunar 2
as study texts (or at least by reading the script) and as discussion
topics? Or perhaps the translations of FFT will be used for grammar
practice? I personally don't see it coming anytime soon, but anything
can happen.
I'd really like to know what people think of this so I can compile some
semblance of material to actually make the research paper work. If not,
maybe those great enlightened people out there could suggest other
topics for me to work on?
DMJ. |
|
