dragons-crown-amazon

Dragon’s Crown’s controversial character designs have been earning it negative scores for sexism, with its “ultimate hardbody” Amazon and “excessively animated” sorceress not proving popular with some elements of the more sexually enlightened western gaming press, to say nothing of its “groping” mini-game.

The review at the centre of the controversy, by Polygon writer Danielle Riendeau, has been proving exceeding controversial and more than a little reminiscent of that surrounding another “disturbingly sexualised” classic:

Dragon’s Crown is a fantasy-obsessed teenaged boy’s dream: crazy, violent and full of impossibly large breasts.

Recalling developer Vanillaware’s previous work on Odin’s Sphere, Dragon’s Crown is a 2D brawler/RPG hybrid starring a cast of over-the-top adventurers in a land of generic fantasy tropes.

The combat and wide variety of enemies play to Vanillaware’s strengths. But the game’s repetitive structure and a troublesome presentation of women prevent Dragon’s Crown from transcending its juvenile influences.

[…]

Dragon’s Crown’s serious liberties with female anatomy are distracting. Two player characters — the Amazon and the Sorceress — are explicitly sexualized, with breasts literally bigger than their heads with rear ends to match, and plenty of the screen real estate is dedicated to their respective jiggles and sashays. But at least these characters are powerful women, with agency and a penchant for destroying rooms full of bad guys.

The same can’t be said for the female NPCs that fill Dragon’s Crown’s dungeons and other environments. Most of the women in the game are barely clothed, with heaving chests, backs twisted into suggestive positions, some with their legs spread almost as wide as the screen. They’re presented as helpless objects, usually in need of rescue. It’s obvious, one-sided and gross.

[…]

Dragon’s Crown makes a strong first impression. It’s a fun mix of RPG tropes and dynamic brawler action. But I found its over-exaggerated art style alienating and gross in its depiction of women even as it shines in building a world of fantastic monsters and environments, and the forced grind through the same stages dulled my excitement. Dragon’s Crown is a wild place to visit, but it doesn’t quite hold up in the light of day.

Dragon’s Crown is an unapologetic adolescent fantasy

dragons-crown-unapologetic-adolescent-fantasy

Reviews less preoccupied with moral rectitude clothed as women’s rights have given the game a clean bill of health in spite of its obvious sexism, however:

dragons-crown-metascore

The game’s “touching” mini-game has also come in for accusations of sexism too, notwithstanding the fact that players can freely fondle the gigantic slabs of muscle which form the male barbarian’s chest as well – this not counting as it is “not sexual”:

bound_spirit

The game’s international release is imminent.


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    Avatar of Rinfinite
    Comment by Rinfinite
    15:50 02/08/2013 # ! Neutral (0)

    Amazon forgot upper body day.

    Comment by Anonymous
    15:59 02/08/2013 # ! Neutral (0)

    nah

    i don't mind that,still pretty cool

    love the artwork and gameplay!

    Comment by Anonymous
    16:10 02/08/2013 # ! Neutral (0)

    they forgot to add the part where the player can touch the sorcerer's boobies!!

    Comment by Anonymous
    04:48 03/08/2013 # ! Neutral (+0.2)

    You can also touch the dude's pecs :P lol, and they say there's no equality in this game...

    Comment by Anonymous
    17:46 02/08/2013 # ! Neutral (0)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWE-0zGH54g

    Avatar of HouseLife
    Comment by HouseLife
    15:54 02/08/2013 # ! Quality (+1.0)

    The exaggeration is very distracting. That is the right word.

    Adolescents wouldn't even find it that attractive, it's so absurd that it's making fun of itself, so this person, like most videogame reviewers, is up their own ass.

    Avatar of Check, Please!
    Comment by Circus
    16:33 02/08/2013 # ! Quality (+1.0)

    The reviewer is a feminist.

    Show sexualised female character, they bitch.

    Show hypermasculine shirtless male character, completely fine with that.

    Comment by Anonymous
    16:53 02/08/2013 # ! Drivel (-0.7)

    They are not 1:1 analogues. The man is a male POWER fantasy. He represents strength, masculinity, and other male desires. The woman is a male SEXUAL fantasy. She represents all the things a male desires in a woman. And in both cases, they're MALE fantasies. Nothing about them represents female desires. You can't just say, "Both are half-naked people on the screen, thus represent the same thing." because that's not even remotely true. And both represent immature desires, hence why it's an adolescent" fantasy. (That's directed to the above comment pondering why a teenage boy would want to see hyper-masculine men on their screen (as if young boys don't watch wrestling for the same reason.))

    Comment by Anonymous
    17:00 02/08/2013 # ! Neutral (0)

    Are you saying women don't want to be strong or look good?

    Comment by Anonymous
    17:20 02/08/2013 # ! Good (+0.8)

    Male POWER is women's SEXUAL fantasy.

    Avatar of HouseLife
    Comment by HouseLife
    17:21 02/08/2013 # ! Quality (+1.0)

    Women pretend that just because their fantasies are more subtle that they're not as ridiculous. The irony is that at least male fantasies divide themselves more readily from reality, hence the exaggerations and unrealistic prospects. Women who chastise men for those fantasies merely have the wherewithal to do so because they rarely recognize their fantasies as subtle expectations on reality that they are unable to separate. No man would look at those body shapes and appropriate it to reality. They are archetypes. And archetypes are designed to be larger than life fantasy to represent aspects of human ego, just as every god has since the dawn of time, through Sumeria, Greece, and and into all modern religions.

    Comment by Anonymous
    17:31 02/08/2013 # ! Neutral (0)

    Except that women don't want "male power" in the form of muscles like we do. Now if a male character was obscenely rich on the other hand...

    Comment by Anonymous
    17:33 02/08/2013 # ! Neutral (+0.2)

    Are you forgetting that women would more likely fantasize sexually about sexy buffed men than a guy would? Your thinking too much into this.

    Gou Matsuoka, from Free is a perfect excample, she just oggles @ buffed half-naked guys.

    P.S. Fuck Free!

    Comment by Anonymous
    17:36 02/08/2013 # ! Neutral (0)

    +1 Common sense points.

    Comment by Anonymous
    17:47 02/08/2013 # ! Neutral (0)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWE-0zGH54g

    Comment by Anonymous
    18:31 02/08/2013 # ! Neutral (+0.2)

    Actually she reviewed a "Leisure Suit Larry" game and said barely anything regarding the sexual content. Besides a thinly clothed, muscled dwarf and a warrior/knight with a really small head that she conveniently glossed over. Focuses on 2 of the possible 6 playable characters. Double standard anyone?

    Comment by Anonymous
    18:44 02/08/2013 # ! Quality (+1.0)

    "They are not 1:1 analogues. The man is a male POWER fantasy. He represents strength, masculinity, and other male desires"

    Basically, your argument is "men all want to have huge muscles, so it's okay to idealize them into a woman's sexual fantasy". Men aren't some unified entity, you know. We're all different. For instance, I like having a slender, cool body, so I don't identify with muscled men archetypes. I don't find having muscles like them desirable. I don't want to have the "bad ass" attitude that a lot of modern male characters have, these days. I don't want a beard or a mustache.

    Women aren't some unified entity, either. There are women who love games like this and Dead or Alive. Some of them like the designs and exaggerations and others don't. But for the ones who don't, you wouldn't openly say "Women want to look like this, so it's okay", would you? It would be sexist, right? It would imply that all women are simple and have the same likes and dislikes, correct?

    I really wish people would stop trying to use this argument. It holds no water and honestly makes me feel like people are brushing off male idealization as a non-issue when it's everywhere or that we're simple and have all the same interests.

    Comment by Anonymous
    18:48 02/08/2013 # ! Neutral (+0.2)

    "as if young boys don't watch wrestling for the same reason"

    I just read the rest of your post. I am anon 18:44.

    This is exactly what I was talking about in my post. I didn't watch wrestling as a kid. I didn't like it. Some of my friends did. Others didn't.

    We don't all have the same interests and fantasies.

    Avatar of HouseLife
    Comment by HouseLife
    19:15 02/08/2013 # ! Neutral (0)

    @ Anon 18:44

    While well-put, I feel like you are going the wrong direction. Rather than denying that we are simple, the reality isn't that one is simple and the other is complex, but that we all have simple desires wrapped in bullshit to pretend that our simple desires have complex backgrounds. We both love, admire, fear, and explore sex as a human being, both men and women. What we need to stop pretending is that we don't enjoy these crazy simplifications because it makes life nice and simple and allows us to, for even a moment, apologetically enjoy a gigantic set of breasts or a woman who just sluts herself up for just a moment to let us pretend that for just an instant, they just enjoy sex without any attached lies or social taboos, and the same for women in terms of a man being lanky and handsome, or tall and strong, being a representation of just an archetype of a man who is a servant to her sexual desires, whatever her experiences have let them evolve to be.

    Archetypes are archetypes for this reason. Humanity shelves general concepts in their minds into simpler elements for the sake of being able to focus on major elements, archetypes are nothing more than another aspect of this. Being afraid of sex because of social taboos doesn't change this at all, and people believing one aspect of sex is wrong compared to another is yet again the ego stepping in to determine those archetypes.

    Avatar of Check, Please!
    Comment by Circus
    19:50 02/08/2013 # ! Quality (+0.8)

    In the mini game video above theres a hypermasculin shirtless man he's clearly there to appeal to women (or guys who like Free!).

    Male Power is definitely a woman's sexual fantasy (unless your a dude who likes Free!).

    All im saying is, the analogue is 1:1 (unless your a fan of Free!).

    Comment by Anonymous
    04:37 03/08/2013 # ! Neutral (0)

    FACT: Feminsts understand absolutely nothing about the men they rally against and also love sweeping generalizations. Ironically, this only makes them take many steps backwards, ultimately.

    Comment by Anonymous
    04:40 03/08/2013 # ! Neutral (0)

    I know women who want to look and be like the sorceress, although they know it's just a fantasy. So that makes her a female power fantasy now, right? So fair is fair, equality reached, let the game be fairly reviewed now.

    Comment by Anonymous
    17:47 02/08/2013 # ! Neutral (0)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWE-0zGH54g

    Comment by Anonymous
    18:13 02/08/2013 # ! Good (+0.7)

    i wouldnt even call the person a feminitst, at least the "real" feminists focus on the real issues, these new age fuckwhits just try to find something to bitch about to try make a name for themselves....and subsiquently fail in the end.

    Comment by Anonymous
    21:33 02/08/2013 # ! Quality (+1.0)

    It's called "feminazi" now.

    Comment by Anonymous
    01:01 03/08/2013 # ! Neutral (0)

    There are no "real feminists". All modern day feminists fight for gender superiority.
    You can fight for equality, or you can be a feminist. You can't do both.

    Comment by Anonymous
    01:41 03/08/2013 # ! Neutral (+0.4)

    femanazis - professional victims. Just look at the cunts ( both women AND "men" ) that infest Athieism Plus. They've infected what was originally a forward thinking movement of intellectuals and critical thinkers and turned it into a pathetic bitch-fest where every person should feel justified to be offended at EVERYone if they don't fit in with their facist agenda. They're ruining everythign for everyone around the world with their nonsense. And with the women associated with that cult...fair enough, they're women who have issues with men, no matter how twisted their own ideas are. It's to be expected of butthurt, fugly bogmonsters who are self loathing and resentful of thier lack of femininity. It's boring but not that annoying. It's the emasculated limp wristed herbivore fawning pandering pathetic loser BETA-Males that support them in just yet another sneaky way to try and get in the women's underwear, like the deluded sickening white knights that they are. Cunts, every last one of them.

    Comment by Anonymous
    02:38 03/08/2013 # ! Neutral (0)

    Actually, Anon 01:01, equality is exactly what feminists fight for. Feminism just means that you want both men and women to have exactly the same rights.

    Women who hate men and who want women to be *superior*, on the other hand, are NOT feminists. They're misandrists.

    Comment by Anonymous
    04:34 03/08/2013 # ! Neutral (+0.4)

    Both "feminism" and "masculisum" are useless ideas anyways. Both males and females have been deemed both superior or inferior to each other by society in a multitude of different ways. By supporting one you're ignoring the other and that doesn't help equality in my eyes. I would think that a person who consider themselves equal would also treat everything else equally, meaning supporting a person of either sex who is being harmed or treated unfairly. It should be considered hypocritical to support the freedoms of one and not the other.

    Comment by Anonymous
    08:33 03/08/2013 # ! Neutral (0)

    Actually, if you dig a bit into feminism you'll find out that the feminism movement have never been about equality, but about increasing women's privileges.

    They have a long history of having men-hating nutjobs in powerful and influential positions, and that this hypcritical view on male vs female sexuality where bikini amazon = WRONG! while loincloth barbarian = YOU GO GIRL! is entirely in line with feminism ideology.

    Comment by Anonymous
    08:51 03/08/2013 # ! Neutral (0)

    @08:33 - there was a time when specific aspects of society required feminism, though, like the right for women to vote and the fairness of various laws. I think now we've pretty much gotten to the point where our rights have become equal but society in general just doesn't treat both men and female with equal freedom when it comes to different things.

    Feminism is only really useful now in societies where equal rights have not been achieved. Social views should be a whole other thing entirely.

    To see the state of equality for both men and women in our society today, for example, you only need to look at the toy isles and how they're separated between male and female. Society should see all those things in either aisle as acceptable for anyone of either gender to purchase, not discourage anyone. That's where all the gender stereotypes and hatred start.

    Comment by Anonymous
    08:58 03/08/2013 # ! Neutral (0)

    @01:41 - wait... Atheism Plus? You're talking about the idea that came out of the same mind that did this amazingly awesome thing?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boobquake

    Comment by Anonymous
    09:06 03/08/2013 # ! Neutral (0)

    Wow, I'm surprised that there are other sancom readers that know of the hilarious freak-show named "Atheism Plus".
    They are hilarious in their insanity, but I'm still surprised, since I always thought no more than a few hundred persons even noticed their existence.

    Comment by Anonymous
    09:21 03/08/2013 # ! Neutral (0)

    @09:06 - the funny thing is, I have yet to see any threat from the "feminist" aspect of Atheism Plus. I think it does a lot of damage when MRA or anyone in general attacks someone for even mentioning the word "feminist" and then associate it with "Dworkinism" when they haven't done or said anything to justify that level of threat. What I know about the person who started the movement, she doesn't seem at all like even Anita Sarkeesian levels of Feminazi. Not saying you guys are wrong, I'd just like an example of when Atheism Plus has done something shitty.

    I mean, there are still instances these days, like in the Fighting Game Community where there's been a case recently where a clan's team leader started treating his female member like absolute shit for no other reason besides simply her being female, and I see no problem with some kind of feminist group standing up for someone put into that horrible position.

    Comment by Anonymous
    09:23 03/08/2013 # ! Neutral (0)

    @09:06 - the funny thing is, I have yet to see any threat from the "feminist" aspect of Atheism Plus. I think it does a lot of damage when MRA or anyone in general attacks someone for even mentioning the word "feminist" and then associate it with "Dworkinism" when they haven't done or said anything to justify that level of threat. What I know about the person who started the movement, she doesn't seem at all like even Anita Sarkeesian levels of Feminazi. Not saying you guys are wrong, I'd just like an example of when Atheism Plus has done something shitty.

    Comment by Anonymous
    22:17 03/08/2013 # ! Neutral (0)

    "Women who hate men and who want women to be *superior*, on the other hand, are NOT feminists. They're misandrists."

    Well, these people do call themselves as feminist.. I'd think the real feminist as you claimed should do something to kick out this fake people from sullying the group's name.

    So far, nothing has been done, and there are many feminist(or fake, hard to tell) that I observed do have superiority mentality. Thinking their gender is better, and the manipulating the situation so it be on favor of woman, disregarding any common sense and rule.

    Comment by Anonymous
    01:41 03/08/2013 # ! Neutral (+0.2)

    What kind of feminist would hate muscular man-like women?

    Comment by Anonymous
    06:27 05/08/2013 # ! Neutral (0)

    100 years ago I figured that was their ideal, but then somewhere down the line that became sexist in and of itself because it portrayed women as only being good if they were "Like men".

    Then these same feminists antagonize girls who make cookies.

    It really doesn't make sense.

    Comment by Anonymous
    03:39 06/08/2013 # ! Neutral (0)

    The women who still like it are not feminists, they're enjoying their lives and getting shit from feminists for being different.

    Comment by Anonymous
    16:08 03/08/2013 # ! Neutral (0)

    Feminism has always been bullshit, it has always been responsible for bullshit and full of crazy sacks of shit that don't give shit about creative arts, or justice, or men or even other women.It's like a sect of crazy female KKK.

    They are all about patronizing women. deminizing men, hating on everything and demanding more privileges to their ever incresing pile of special benefits.

    They are also all about lies and bullshit.
    More men get raped than women, more men are victims of sexual violence than women, men are doing worse in education and workforce ratings, men always lose on family courts and feminists just keep trying to hide those facts.

    Comment by Anonymous

    Funny you say that. A reviewer on IGN even said the art itself was distracting. As he was playing, he would die just observing the background art.

    Comment by Anonymous
    22:22 03/08/2013 # ! Neutral (0)

    The art is trying a new approach, going all out from traditional arts that plague many games (hyper realistic, in shit load of games)..

    It can work, it can not work. The IGN people maybe hates the art, but some of other review and gamer, do appreciate the new approach.

    Comment by Anonymous
    00:56 03/08/2013 # ! Neutral (+0.2)

    It's obviously a feminist who made such a fucking stupid accusation. She didn't like the game because while she's fat and ugly the girls in the game are hotter than her.

    Comment by Anonymous
    05:32 03/08/2013 # ! Neutral (0)

    I would and HAVE found characters like some of these attractive when I was an adolescent. That goes for all 3 female body types represented in this game.

    Comment by Anonymous
    15:58 02/08/2013 # ! Neutral (0)

    its artistic and an awesome game, you can eat a dick.

    Comment by Anonymous
    16:02 02/08/2013 # ! Quality (+1.0)

    Yes I'm sure it's every Teenage boys dream to see big buff half naked men fill up 80% of the TV screen.

    That's just faptastic.

    Comment by Anonymous
    17:35 02/08/2013 # ! Neutral (+0.2)

    I think some geeky women would love to fantasize about that.

    Comment by Anonymous
    17:42 02/08/2013 # ! Drivel (-0.8)

    i think you do not know what this geeky woman finds disgusting.

    Comment by Anonymous
    18:54 02/08/2013 # ! Neutral (+0.2)

    If you are not aware, many guys would rather have less absurd proportions on the girls too.

    Comment by Anonymous
    19:03 02/08/2013 # ! Neutral (+0.2)

    I prefer the elf, actually. Dem thighs, dat dfc!

    Comment by Anonymous
    04:19 03/08/2013 # ! Neutral (+0.2)

    Exactly. Most guys life the elf and understand that the other characters are just ungainly parodies of the stereotypes. That doesn't mean we can't fap to them too, it just means that we're doing it because we're horny, and willing to find them sexy in spite of their un-appeal.

    Comment by Anonymous
    05:06 03/08/2013 # ! Neutral (0)

    This guy speaks the truth!!

    Comment by Anonymous
    05:31 03/08/2013 # ! Neutral (+0.4)

    I think every character is attractive to someone in their own ways, it's good that there's a variety.

    Comment by Anonymous
    22:09 03/08/2013 # ! Neutral (0)

    i think you do not know what this geeky woman finds disgusting.

    You are only one person. The other geek woman will appreciate it, I've found tons of hentai featuring a big muscular, big hairy man make out, drawn by fujiyoshi (Japan woman geek, gays theme lover )

    Once I stumbled across a hentai of Mario and Browser, both drawn very muscular doing "that". Hurts my eyes, but I don't mind people that enjoy it, to enjoy the book.

    Comment by Anonymous
    04:28 03/08/2013 # ! Neutral (+0.4)

    Did you know that you can even poke his nipple with the cursor and he makes some kind of erotic sound as a reaction?

    BUT NO, MALE POWER FANTASY, LOLOLOL.

    Avatar of Imyou
    Comment by Imyou
    06:10 03/08/2013 # ! Neutral (0)

    Or maybe... they put that in to preemptively counter the inevitable criticisms about objectifying the girls? Or even as a joke, like the guy you can do that with in ちゅ~かな雀士てんほー牌娘? (and the rest of the cast of girls...)

    Comment by Anonymous
    16:10 03/08/2013 # ! Neutral (+0.2)

    The 3 male characters mimic the 3 female characters almost perfectly.
    One pretty huge chested one, one tanned and full of muscles and one more normal looking and delicate and cute.
    They are on the same level of service, but for women and gays.

    Comment by Anonymous
    04:34 04/08/2013 # ! Neutral (0)

    06:10 - you can reason anything to support one side over the other, but I think you're really stretching...

    I say that Kamitani has cared about equality since the beginning and his art has nothing to do with being sexist.

    Avatar of Imyou
    Comment by Imyou
    02:11 05/08/2013 # ! Neutral (0)

    4:34 - So you think the character shown at 2:57 is supposed to be just as titillating as the one at 0:36? THAT is stretching it...

    Comment by Anonymous
    03:12 05/08/2013 # ! Neutral (0)

    Imyou.

    If you watch any Japanese porn, there are many do a scene of woman rubbing man's nipple, and the man seems to enjoy it.. maybe it one of Japan thing, who knows.

    So, no, its about the same in sexual content. It is an equality.

    Comment by Anonymous
    22:04 03/08/2013 # ! Neutral (0)

    That is the problem, good sir.

    They have a strong bias when approaching a different gender. A woman is objectifying, but when a guy, it considered not.

    Even it is the very same things.









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