The hatred of western reviewers for games with low advertising budgets and niche audiences continues to manifest itself in further slating of ero-RPG Hyper Dimension Neptunia, with yet another big-name reviewer, in this case Eurogamer, now apparently scoring the game on the basis of feminism and political correctness – it is said to be “plain old ugly Japanese sexism” and “sexist, senseless and ultimately stupid.”
Some extracts from the review – in this case conducted by a male reviewer with some familiarity with and appreciation for JRPGs, but with some evident cultural chauvinism of his own manifesting (in this and several other reviews) whenever he has to deal with the wicked misogynist ways of the Japanese:
The wearying effect of the witless writing is exacerbated by the plain sexism on show in almost every one of the garrulous cut-scenes.
The camera lingers longingly over stills of each girl’s crotch (and, as the cast of Hyperdimension Neptunia is exclusively female, that’s a lot of crotch), while characters make lewd comments with all the awkwardness of a children’s TV presenter telling a dirty joke.
Some will claim the game is playing on established anime conventions. True. It’s playing on conventions of plain old ugly Japanese sexism, and while the Carry On tone ensures the game stops short of titillation, the innuendo leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
Not because its innuendo – we love a bit of innuendo, especially in your mum’s pretty mouth – but because it’s dull and stupid and essentially based around girls made to look and sound like schoolchildren.
In one of the earliest acts of the game, your character arrives at a busty barely-legal nurse’s home only to have her scratched, suddenly-naked body bandaged to a soundtrack of squeals of delight.
[…]
Even the most ardent JRPG fan will baulk at the roughshod simplicity of the game’s systems, restricting the game’s audience to Japanophile anime fans who can overlook the experiences shortcomings as a videogame and approach it as a cultural curio.
That is, a sexist, senseless and ultimately stupid cultural curio.
2/10
Apparently the reviewer saw the Gamespot review and decided condemning it for daring to include “disturbingly sexualised young girls” did not go far enough, and so penned his own feminist critique whilst giving it an even lower score for good measure.
Sexy heroines are presumably only permissible when they appear baying for blood alongside the muscle-bound psychopaths who pass for healthy depictions of masculinity in most western games…
Evil supporters of plain old ugly Japanese sexism can obtain the game now.
have anyone noticed that the critics are mostly always over 30 and the people who actualy enjoy the game are under 30? so i say to feminists and critics…..
“You Mad Bro?” *troll face*
Id still get it…………..lol
it looks like Fujibayashi???
People should not equate feminism with communism.
Communism is equality.
Feminism is female preferential treatment and male bashing.
communism is fine,feminism is not.
“The hatred of western reviewers for games with low advertising budgets and niche audiences continues to manifest itself (…)”
This is clearly not the case. Not a single game with low advertising budgets and niche audiences is being actively “hated” by western reviewers because of these two particular conditions, whether you agree with these reviewers’ criticism of the game as being sexist or not.
This is a specially shitty PlayStation 3-exclusive JRPG, and that’s that.
“Sexy heroines are presumably only permissible when they appear baying for blood alongside the muscle-bound psychopaths who pass for healthy depictions of masculinity in most western games…”
But only if the resulting game happens to be any good at all. Hell, even the isometric low-budget Tomb Raider game looks better than this mess of poor character models, bland dungeon textures (or just bland dungeons, period) and lame battle mechanics.