Diminutive Diatribes: Hardware Laments and The Future of Old Games...

Guys, gonna be honest, I am just dead this weekend.  I've worked myself too hard, taken a huge exam on Saturday, and been going through a lot of stress and emotional whosits and whatsits.  So...sadly, no creator spotlight this week.  I did write up a little something for you all though, so enjoy.  Fingers crossed we get back to our regularly scheduled program next week.

Diminutive Diatribes: Hardware Laments and The Future of Old Games...

            It's fair to say that nostalgia is a big thing in video gaming.  The resurgence of the 16-bit and 8-bit pixel art style in video games, chiptunes, emulation, virtual console, everything points to the fact that we have an infatuation with games from our past.  And this can be for various reasons.  Sometimes it's purely rose tinted glasses, where a bad game felt good because we played it when we were younger and needed it as an outlet.  Sometimes it really was very polished, because with the limited memory of the 8 and 16-bit eras, you had to have a focused, polished game, because there were no patches and you wanted to build brand loyalty.  However, I've often asked the question, what happens to our old games as time goes on?

What happens to our old games when there is no one to play or love them?

            Now, since nostalgia is popular, software itself is not necessarily something to be afraid of losing.  Clone consoles of the NES or SNES are available, right now, to play original or reproduction copies of old games.  Software that was originally only built to run on DOS is being retooled by GOG so that even a Windows 7 machine can run Math Blaster or King's Quest.  We have an almost infinite number of roms for emulation software available, ostensibly, for free on the internet.  So, that part of old gaming will actually never die.  It will be around in some form or another for as long as our digital age lasts.  However, there are some things that...concern me.

They save as many games as they can, but even GOG can't do everything.

            Has anyone ever watched the Angry Video Game Nerd and seen him have to fiddle with the Atari 2600 or the Magnavox Odyssey or the Action Max?  Those games have hardware components that make them nearly impossible to play on a traditional LCD flat screen television.  The display is off and the games with them seldom work properly...you need an old CRT television, which is what the machines were originally designed to work on.  These games are, for all intents and purposes, doomed to fall prey to the march of progress, where sooner or later the components that are necessary for them to work will simply no longer exist.  CRTs will be phased out or replacement parts, like the cable box for the Odyssey, will no longer be made.  For me...that's kind of scary.  And not just because of old gaming either.

When the Angry Video Game Nerd reviewed Pong Consoles, the game was the machine...so if the machine was broken, you were flat out of luck.  That's what scares me about our modern games...

            In the modern era, hardware has become a big seller of games, not just on graphical prowess, but on the promise of a new experience.  The Wii, Playstation Move, and Microsoft's Kinect all act upon the idea of motion controls.  While we're in the present era, few people have given any thought to whether or not these games, good or bad, will ever be unplayable because we will be unable to find the component parts needed to make them work or properly emulate said component parts on another platform, like a PC.  However, this is a very real concern that people need to be aware of.

A huge misstep, in my opinion.

            With the axing of backwards compatibility in the Playstation 4 and Xbox One era of gaming, this leaves a number of games in limbo.  For example, many early games on the PS3 used the sixaxis motion controls of the proprietary Playstation controllers to create key features in their games, such as Ratchet and Clank Future's tornado weapon, which was controlled by tilting the controller, Lair's dragon flying which functioned in the same way, or a personal favorite of mine, Folklore, which used the tilting of the controller to rip souls out of enemies.  Tell me, what happens when the PS3 becomes an antique in say, 20 years, and all the sixaxis controllers are broken?  Folklore would be left in the dust bin, unplayable because we lack the proprietary software.

To pull out the soul, you must tilt it into the proper alignment with the sixaxis controller in Folklore.  What happens when there are no more sixaxis controllers?

            So, I want people to take a minute and think about all the hardware gimmicks being pushed down our throats.  We bemoan many of them but at the same time, if we have any games amongst those that we like, we could be out of luck when the hardware stops working.  Think about how difficult it is for an emulation program to run a rom.  It basically copies the hardware settings on a PC that existed for the said console and maps the controls to the keyboard or a USB controller.  Relatively simple.  However, how can you tell a PC to handle gyroscopic motion controls?  How can you tell a PC to recognize a slash or a swipe with the controller for Dragon Quest Swords?  How do you tell a PC to tilt this way or that in a game?  This is harder, because the only real way to simulate it, at present, is with hardware, either the proprietary hardware or a similar cloned version.  Even if we don't like some of the hardware tricks, like the 3DS's 3d...this may be the only generation which gets to experience them.  I'd say treasure the unique experiences and try to preserve them, because for lots of gaming, the future is hardware failure and abandonment, avoiding complete oblivion only through the graces of youtube and wikipedia.

Don't take it for granted.  When it's gone, it might never come back.

            I don't have an answer for this problem other than be aware and try to preserve so that if we ever need to make a clone console or whatever, we can, but I also don't want to end this on such a downer.  The idea that swathes of games could be lost to the future because they are tied to a special piece of hardware that no one makes anymore is terribly sad...however, some savy gamers are trying to find ways around it.

            Software is a versatile thing and many hackers and programmers try to work around issues that the hardware had.  This can be shown through the creation of clone consoles and the like, but also with certain special projects online.  The BS Legend of Zelda project is an excellent example of this.  The BS Legend of Zelda games were three titles, technically four but let's not get into that, released only in Japan for the Satellaview, an add-on to the Super Famicom.  The Satellaview was a great example of a hardware system that we couldn't carry into the future, because it relied on satellite broadcasts for the games to work.  Orchestral music, game data, and live voices would be transmitted via the satellites and arrive at your console.  However, when service for the Satellaview cancelled and the satellites stopped transmitting, many games on it were thought either lost to time or to the few savy collectors who made back ups on blank cartridges.  Some savy hackers, however, managed to find the code for the Legend of Zelda games on Satellaview and repair the missing code, putting in a soundtrack for the music and adding cues to make up for the voices.  It's now available, online, right here.  And BS Zelda wasn't the only one.  Other games, like the fantastic Radical Dreamers were also saved through the use of the internet.

On the left, we have the NES Zelda, on the right the BS Legend of Zelda from Satellaview.  So glad this was saved ^_^

            Hope isn't dead yet for old games that rely on hardware.  As we advance into the future, some hackers or programmers realize the value of certain control schemes and can create mods or whole programs to simulate them.  The Logitech USB controller, for example, has a special program which not only lets you customize controls for PC games, even ones without controllers support, but can also simulate mouse movement with the analogue sticks.  If that is possible, perhaps even motion control could one day be simulated in our USB controllers.  Perhaps...

A miracle worker.  I've even played point and click games on this...

            While the thought of Folklore vanishing forever makes me sad, hope isn't lost.  If enough people remember and like a game and there are those who like it enough to try and fix it for the future, like the BS Zelda crew, then even hardware failures might not be the death of certain games.  We can keep them alive.

            However, the future isn't written.  We don't know if any of these hypothetical hackers will make it so we can emulate motion controls or make clone consoles of the Wii or 360 years and years down the line...and even if they could, will they?  Will they care?  So, I say take pleasure in the new experiences offered by new hardware...cause they won't be here forever.  Remember them.  Treasure them.  And try to keep their legacy alive, because I don't want us, as gamers, to lose any part of our history.  It's all valuable, even the bad parts.

What he said.

            The future isn't hopeless.  It's waiting for us to create...so we should try and create one worth living in.  A future where hardware laments don't exist, and old games are just as new as the day they were released, 30-50 years previously.

Oversexualized Vs Objectified

 With the release of Dragon's Crown just a few short weeks away, I'd like to talk a little bit about something that happened in May.  You see, Jason Schrier of Kotaku fame recently did a smear job of Dragon's Crown and itscreator, George Kamitani. Kamitani and his company, Vanillaware, make some of the only games I will buy no questions asked anymore in this boring, over saturated, overblown game industry, because they are fun, often feature strong female characters, have interesting art styles, and prove that hand drawn sprites are still relevant in this day and age. So, why the smear job? Because some of his characters are sexually exaggerated...and this naturally descended into the typical flame war between journalist, developer, and fans of both.  We're so mature in this field of entertainment, aren't we?  However, while looking on with a mix of disgust and disappointment at the state of games media and even developers themselves, I read a few arguments from fans who were more than just well thought out.  They were somewhat transcendent. 

Kamitani's rebuttal to Schrier's criticism.  We're so mature here...from the moment I saw this picture, I began the count down to the Kamitani x Schrier flame war.

            "Oversexualized does not mean objectified," was the thesis I took away from the most eloquent of these arguments. There are tons of oversexualized women in gaming and while some of it may pander to the male demographic, these women only become less as characters if you fail to see them as characters to begin with. True, there are the token eye candy cheesecake shots, but most of these women have a personality, a past, and a drive, beyond the outlandish designs...if you're willing to look for it. And really, many people who cry foul about oversexualization should perhaps examine for themselves why they jumped onto that bandwagon to begin with. I don't deny being a man and being biased towards the outlandish designs of some women in gaming, but if a woman is an object, I tend to get frustrated...I would rather they be a well rounded character who contributes to the story, because that is kind of why I play games.

 

Outlandish, perhaps, but objectified?  Not if you know who this character is.  Especially not if you know who this character is.

           Following that same line of thought, I examined why certain women are dressed the way they are.  I found that those who are blatantly pandering, like the Oneechanbara girls who fight zombies in bikinis, are...well, rather stupid.  Their outfits make no sense and come off more as idiotic, rather than sexy.  Some of the pandering games at least gave their characters good reason to dress the way they did, thus sucking me more into the world.  Juliet Sterling, for example, in Lollipop Chainsaw was a high school cheerleader, so her short skirt and tank top, while very much showing off her body, made sense in the context of the world.  On top of that, Juliet is a strong female lead who is capable, unreliant on men for protection, has an emotional support system through her family, wit and intellect that is buried behind a valley girl personality, and some self loathing which makes her more relatable, as she has self-image issues.  These personality traits mesh well with her role in the game as a cheerleader/zombie slayer, creating a nice balance between cheesy, over the top, and somewhat relatable.  Her occasional lapses of understanding are still played for yucks and the camera loves to zoom in on her short skirt or her tight top, but she, on her own, has both a personality and context.  Even if the character herself is oversexualized, to an extreme degree might I add, her strong, distinct personality and the proper context for her behavior and clothes go a long way to combat the idea of objectification.  In the current video gaming environment, this seems like the status quo for strong female leads.  They're allowed to have some character, but there must always be sexual appeal and their clothes often need to show off their bodies.  While this is understandable to an extent...it is also very unfortunate, given how in the past video games have created strong female characters who didn't need to rely on sexuality to sell their games.

 

Juliet Sterling:  Oversexualized?  Most definitely.  Pandering?  Without a doubt.  But look at her clothes.  She's a cheerleader caught in a zombie outbreak on her way to school.  At least her outfit makes some kind of sense.  We aren't always so lucky.

            I shared some of these ideas with a non-gamer friend of mine who was markedly more critical of my approach, stating that oversexualization, even with a strong character, is still objectification to a degree, since game designers have control over how a character looks and acts.  While we did get a bit heated, we managed to stay civil and she broached the idea to me that one of the few times oversexualization is okay is when it is done not for the sake of pandering but for the beauty of the form.  When sexuality is just created for beauty's sake, for its own sake, then it is alright.  No cheesecake shots, no snide remarks or drooling idiots hounding a beautiful woman, just someone who is beautiful on their own and it does not have to become an issue with the story or the audience.  To her credit, I found this idea intriguing and after re-examining some of my own favorite female protagonists, I found that the ones I liked the most did in fact adhere to this kind of mentality, where they were beautiful, but not objectified or even used for male pandering.

 

Meet Ellen, from the game Folklore.  Ellen is very attractive.  Without showing a bit of skin.  She is beautiful for the sake of being beautiful, not for titillation or pandering.  Well done, Folklore.  Well done indeed.

            So, I decided I wanted to have a little chat with the gaming community on oversexualization.  When it is actually well done, when it is tolerable, and when it is deplorable.  For these three examples, ironically, I can use the three female leads of Dragon's Crown to tie it all together, because of their varied designs.  The elf fits the criteria for beautiful, well rounded, and contextual character, making her the strongest female lead and the one requiring the least pandering, while still being able to be attractive.  The amazon fits the well rounded and contextual character and while her design does pander a little to the male audience, it largely stands on its own since she has a unique and independent persona.  The sorceress sadly falls into a trap that was started in the Playstation 2 era where "jiggle physics" became a thing.  Her clothing makes a kind of contextual sense, but largely it seems out of place and only meant to show off her cleavage and legs.  Speaking of her cleavage, her breasts jiggle around willy nilly with no rhyme or reason and her personality seems ditzy, flirtatious, and reliant on men, even if it is for the sake of manipulating said men for personal gain.  She is the kind of character that needs to be avoided.  I hate bashing on her because Kamitani probably didn't create her with that in mind, but it speaks to an archetype that really needs to be laid to rest in gaming at large. 

            I want to add for the sake of completeness that this is a preliminary analysis from before the game launches to broach the idea of oversexualization vs objectification.  The characters are being examined based on gameplay footage, since the story has not been officially released, so their personalities, as seen through their in-game animations and dialogue, may change.  This is just based on what we know right now. 

 

Get ready kids, we're about to jump into examination and wild speculation on character design and personality.  Fun times.

            Anyway, with the background out of the way, let's start with the best first.  The elf fits the bill of being beautiful byhaving a slender, attractive body that is fitted into a ranger's uniform.  A green tunic and brown cloak for disappearing into the woods, a hood to keep the rain out of her eyes, thigh high boots for traversing through muck unimpeded, and all of this together without needing to show much skin for titillation.  Her pale face and well proportioned body speak of a kind of beautiful woman who is agile and capable, even if she cannot wield a gigantic sword like some of the male characters.  She has strong bow skills and the ability to use martial arts to defend herself.  The elf's in-game animations give her an air of seriousness, with a tender side as she appears to be friendlier to animals than the other characters.  The elf hits the perfect balance, in my opinion, of strong, attractive female characters that are beautiful for their own sakes, not for the audience's sake.  She is like Gwendolyn from Odin Sphere, Elly from Xenogears, or Lenneth Valkyrie from Valkyrie Profile.  Her clothes make sense in context with both the setting and her personality and her body type is pretty average.  Truth be told, she could have been given larger breasts as an attempt to titillate the audience, but if her overall design was the same, I.E. no cleavage, then she'd still be able to hold onto this beauty for the sake of beauty ideal.  This is what we want if we're going to have an oversexualized character.  One who is beautiful for their own sake, not for the sake of a male audience, who has a strong, independent personality, and one who dresses and acts with proper context based around their persona and the setting.

 

The elf has a slender, beautiful body, but her clothing makes sense and doesn't needlessly show off skin.  She is cute and attractive without having to flash breasts or butts to the male audience.  This is what we need more of.

            Next up is the amazon.  The amazon, in my opinion, fits into a precarious position between overtly pandering and beautiful in her own way.  From her animations, the amazon appears to be very much like a barbarian heroine from a Borris Vallejo painting.  She is muscular, comfortable with her body, and favors brute force over subtlety or protection.  The amazon has a fairly decent sized chest, complete with cleavage showing, and massive muscular thighs, which have earned her some criticism because she dresses in what amounts to a chainmail thong bikini.  This may sound like me, as a male, making excuses, but hear me out.  I honestly think this aesthetic works for the barbarian woman personality the amazon seems to have.  Barbarians are traditionally known for wearing little clothing, as they prefer freedom of movement over heavy armor, and only cover their weakest spots, like genitalia, feet, or their head on occasions.  In this context, the amazon is a mass of muscle, but still has weak points in her feet, for example, if she had to cross jagged ground, in the area of her genitalia due to the nerves and sensitivity, and the head, which controls the rest of the body.  Thus, it makes sense for her to cover these parts, while not covering her muscle.  And the clothing she wears, while very revealing, allow her to make full use of her legs, as she favors kicking enemies as well as using an axe.  She is confident enough in her own strength that she doesn't need the covering and would prefer the freedom of movement.  To me, this costume makes sense with her personality and the context of the game.  Is it pandering?  Well...yeah, unfortunately.  The amazon doesn't have a body thought of as traditionally beautiful but she does have some parts which could be singled out as sexy by others which overlook her as a whole

 

The thong will be a sticking point for a lot of people, but considering her aesthetic, I think the amazon works.  Is she pandering?  Yes, but at least there is more under the surface and her outfit makes sense in context.

            In this case, like with many women in games who have a strong personality and clothing that matches context but is still revealing, I want to say this.  A character is only objectified if you THINK of them as an object.  The amazon has a personality, a reason for dressing like she does, and even if she is somewhat pandering, it is easy enough to ignore it because she can be seen as beautiful in her own right.  The beauty of the human body at its peak physical perfection.  However, if all you see are the giant thighs and the cleavage, or the lack of clothes, you are turning her into an object.  She wasn't made as one, you are TURNING her into one.  This is true for a fair number of female protagonists in modern gaming.  Bayonetta, for example.  Her personality shows that she feels dismissive towards men and enjoys using their sexual thoughts against them, while using an outfit that is made of her hair which is equal parts weapon and armor.  Is she pandering?  Absolutely, there are plenty of cheesecake shots or moments where she herself is overtly sexual.  But for her personality and the world she exists in, her costume makes sense and her actions seem more like a middle finger towards the largely male audience oggling her.  So, she's only objectified for her looks if you refuse to see how she is subverting the norms of the jiggling bimbo heroine and choose to only see her AS a jiggling bimbo heroine.

 

Bayonetta and the amazon are where we are right now in the games industry in terms of regular female protagonists.  They can be strong, but they do have to pander the audience, with sexy poses, cheese cake shots, or a general lack of clothing.  They're still characters and are only objects if we reduce them to objects...but we can do better.  I know we can.

            Sadly,the worst example of female character design in Dragon's Crown comes from theSorceress.  Her clothes feature a dress that has a slit in the side to show off her long legs and her top is low cut, allowing her breasts to jiggle about like crazy.  She has a ridiculously thin waist and seems content to shove her legs and chest wherever she pleases.  Her attacks seem to focus on a mix of magic and titillation.  She has some impressive magic feats, such as ice and fire spells, true, but she also has spells like charming enemies, turning them to frogs, or turning them to stone, which reflect back on female ideas of titillation and temptation.  Her design seems to dip heavily from traditional witches and mythical temptresses.  This could be me looking too far into it, but this kind of design seems reliant on men for her success, as she counts on her sex appeal to a degree, and with clothing that really doesn't fit the context of the game world.  In Dragon's Crown, players enter all kinds of dungeons, from dank sewers to dragon's caves.  I'd think you'd want clothes that either protects your entire body, like the knight who is covered in armor, that allow freedom of mobility while protecting the essentials, like the amazon, or which makes sense based on your skillset, like the elf, whose costume seems built around keeping her mobile and able to snipe enemies with her arrows.  The sorceress's clothing seems more reminiscent of a bar waitress's clothes, with a witch's hat added in for good measure.  I'm not saying bar maiden's or bards or any other unorthodox type of person can't be an adventurer, but it seems oddly out of place amongst the other adventurers.  She seems like fan service for the sake of fan service.  And really, that is, in my opinion, the worst kind of female character in video games.  These are the characters who are objectified because they have no strong persona, their clothing and design in and of itself are meant to not fit into the world, but rather to catch the male eye, and they cannot stand on their own without a male audience.  I'd find it hard to believe with her jiggling breasts and overly sexual design that women would be able to enjoy the sorceress as much as men.  Which is a shame, because some of the ideas they had for her seemed interesting, like turning male monsters into toads, thus subverting some fairy tale and female tropes of storytelling.  However, the whole package with the sorceress seems to be a bit much.

 

Look at that shot.  The skull between the breasts.  That should say it all.  The sorceress might turn out to be fun and not nearly as sexist as she seems, but...just this image of a woman in gaming is discouraging.  Guys, we really need to stop doing this...

            This is what I hate.  I hate it when a character isn't given enough personality to work with, like Paula in Shadows of the Damned, and where what little they have either panders to the male audience or makes little sense.  I hate it when characters are dressed up like barbie dolls for no reason at all and without context, like in the DOA volleyball games.  Think about those games for a second.  Not only are these female characters regular enemies in fighting tournaments, so they wouldn't be hanging out together at a resort, but they also have jobs or personas which make them lounging on a beach in a bikini, posing as hard as they can to look sexy, really unlikely.  Christie is an assassin.  Sex appeal can be used in her work, but in her downtime too?  Lisa is a wrestler.  Maybe she wants to relax, but...with people she's smacked down with?  Ayane is a bloody ninja who is frequently in contact with and assisting the Hayabusa clan!  Why is she traipsing around in a bikini on an island that seems to be inhabited only by eye candy for the male audience?!  Perhaps worst of all though, I hate characters that have potential, but have that potential is squelched for the sake of fan service.  The character Tala in Darkwatch was a bit oversexualized, with her gothic look, black clothes, open cleavage, and cold, but flirtatious persona.  But she provided some nice character development for the main character, Jericho.  Jericho is a vampire and still coming to terms with his powers, so Tala acts as the devil on his right shoulder vs. an angel he had on his left in the form of a ghost.  Then the game thought, let's show them having sex, with Tala naked and straddling Jericho, who is still fully clothed.  ...Really?  Why was that necessary?  Yeah, she uses the moment to tempt Jericho to bite her and uses her new vampire powers to become the main boss later, but...there were dozens of ways to do that which didn't just degrade the character into bouncing breasts.  Talya had potential as a female villain because she was subtle and clever...I'd think she could've figured out a quicker, easier way than screwing Jericho to get bitten.

 

Darkwatch, DOA Volleyball, Oneechanbara...this is just pathetic.  Fan service women with no character whose only goal is to titillate.  THESE are the objectified women.  These are the ones I feel sorry for and the ones I am unable to play, because they're so vapid, pandering, and empty.

            So, there you have it.  Three examples of oversexualization in gaming through the lens of Dragon's Crown.  What I want you to take away from this though is that oversexualization does not automatically mean objectification.  In the first case, objectification is damn near impossible because the character is so well designed that she is beautiful, but in perfect balance between body, clothing, persona, and likability.  In the second case, objectification is possible because certain parts of the character's body and clothing put aspects of her on display, creating an imbalance, but her personality and the context of her design make it your choice.  You can choose to see her as an object or as the character she was meant to be.  The third case is the most depressing, as it blatantly panders to the male audience without really providing context in costume, character, or setting as to why she needs to be this way.  The character herself is not strong enough to carry the design and while the abilities she possesses are nice, they don't excuse or hide the fact that the design is too catered towards the male audience, rather than a gender neutral party, which most games should be.  A good game can create male leads that both men and women find either admirable or attractive or female leads which women feel empowered playing and which men can find beautiful, but without feeling the need to ogle.

            Let me close with this. Oversexualization of both men and women is a common thing in all kinds of media, from books, to movies, to games. And not all of it as unwanted as some might believe, as many people, men and women, enjoy the form, the outlandishness of the design, or the costuming without even getting sexuality involved.  They enjoy the beauty of the character for what it is.  Oversexualization is not a bad thing in and of itself...it's when you reduce the characters being oversexualized to objects that we have a problem.  Oversexualized doesn't have to mean anti-feminist, misogynistic, or even unhealthy.  It's when you reduce that character to an object that you give them this negative connotation.  So next time anyone wants to do that, think about the game, the context, or the character you're talking about.  Think about who they are, what they mean, why they're depicted that way and if there really is a reason to get upset.  Don't just point and go "SEXIST" as a knee jerk reaction. And likewise, don't pick up a game or get enamored with it because of sex appeal...games are there to be played. You want sex, you've got the internet.
 

Vallejo paintings are full of oversexualized women and men.  Does this make them objects?  Well...I say that's up to you.  I'm more interested in the wings and the alien world that the fact the woman's in a bikini.  To me, she isn't an object...I don't know if the same can be said about others.

             All in all, game developers should strive to make characters like the elf, but we shouldn't be as critical of the amazons or the Bayonettas out there.  They are pandering to increase sales, but their character, design, costume, and their overall likability coupled with the game's enjoyment factor often make this a matter of choice.  You can reduce them to objects if you only focus on certain aspects, but that is YOUR decision to make.  The character still has character.  Game developers should avoid making characters like the sorceress, or at the very least try and make her BETTER.  The sorceress had potential and with a little re-tooling, I think she could be just as strong as the amazon or even the elf.  Don't make a character only for eye candy's sake, though.  We all lose when that happens.

            Finally, let me say once again, this is just one person's opinion.  Take it or leave it, argue with it if you want, but at least think about what I've said and why I've said it.  The fact that we live in a world where A) Men think it's okay to make a pandering piece of eye candy as a main character in a game and B) Where the world is such that women are so jaded about the portrayal of all characters that they may call sexist as a knee jerk reaction makes me very, very sad.  Also, this is based on the impressions of Dragon's Crown from its promotional material.  I wanted to use this to kind of defend Kamitani to a degree, because I don't think he tried to make his characters eye candy.  I want you to see how he probably thought about their design and creation, through these three examples.  I think the sorceress design is flawed, but it at least had potential.  That's more than I can say for the DOA Volleyball series, which took established characters and turned them into dress up dolls.