Long time no see. As it turns out, yes, I am still alive; just been busy with other things. Anyway, it has come to my attention that Samus' apparent sexualization in the upcoming Smash Bros title is somewhat of a hot-button issue as of late, coupled with Hideo Kojima's recent comments on sexualization in his latest work with Metal Gear Solid V. As such, I thought I'd offer a somewhat brief commentary on the matter.
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| Screenshot of upcoming Nintendo eroge game. Rosalina DLC route TBA. |
Some fans jumping to Samus' defense have argued that her look is necessary to gain credibility with more mainstream gamers, but if sexualizing Samus' character is Nintendo's idea of gaining street
cred with the "mature" crowd then that's a pretty weak justification and
I don't agree with that. Nintendo doesn't need to waste their time with people who think that boobs and blood are marks of maturity in gaming, nor for that matter should they waste their time with people who think games need to be "mature" to be fun in the first place. I took issue with Kojima's character
sexualization in MGSV for similar reasons because his justifications
were pretty shallow and dubious. I view games as an artistic medium and
when devs resort to blatant pandering to a particular audience, or in
Kojima's case, making a shallow decision that has nothing to do with
actually enhancing or making the game experience better, that hurts the
medium more than anything. If games are to be taken seriously as a
legitimate artistic medium, you can't have the producer coming out and
making statements like, "I made this character sexy because I just want
to see girls cosplay as her." Really Kojima? That's pretty pathetic
coming from someone who's been known for creating much deeper plots in
video games.
That said, I'm not really opposed to
the idea of sexualizing a character by itself. If it's actually relevant
to making the game better somehow, all the more power to the dev. For
example, if the character is supposed to have a seductive-type
personality as part of the story, then it would make sense to make them
extra sexualized for that reason. In MGS1, Kojima was actually pretty
brilliant with his use of sexualization with Meryl, as he used her
"feminine" way of walking as a clue for the player to detect her apart
from the other soldier disguises at one point in the game.
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| Like I need to be told. |
Hell, I'll
even accept amping up the sexualization to a certain point if the only
reason is simply because you think it will make the character look
better. There's nothing wrong with trying to make your characters look
attractive for no other reason than to make the game's visuals more
attractive; provided that this doesn't conflict with the narrative (IE
if you have a female lead running around in a bathing suit for no
apparent reason when the characters aren't in an appropriate location
for bathing, that's not going to pass by me, or likewise if you have a
bunch of characters that are supposed to be coming from an impoverished
background in the story yet they all look super attractive and
well-groomed, that's definitely not cool).
With all
that out of the way, what do I actually think of Samus' latest
redesign? Not much really; because she really hasn't even changed that
much since Zero Mission in 2004 when the Zero Suit was first introduced,
which is why I find it strange that all these critics are suddenly
showing up late to the party to complain. She's changed even less from
Brawl to Wii U. I think her chest size may have grown a few millimeters
at most, but we're still far from Dead or Alive Extreme Beach Volleyball
here people. In fact in the 3DS version it doesn't look like her size
has changed at all. It's not like there's a mini-game specifically
designed for poking around Samus' breasts and watching them jiggle. As
far as Nintendo's sexualization goes, they were pretty conservative here
and they could have done a lot worse. My only real issue
with the new design is that they added yellow stripes and wrist cuffs
which just seem unnecessary and make the suit look a little aesthetically unbalanced. But overall, when I bought Metroid: Zero Mission during its month of release back in 2004, my immediate impression of the Zero Suit was that it is the most iconic design for Samus with her armor removed that I've seen thus far, and I'm pleased that they've pretty much kept that look for her since then, especially because there was no definitive look for her prior to this installment. It hasn't made her lose any of her badass appeal so far, and if anything, I take more issue with her narrative portrayal in Other M than whatever Nintendo has done with her visually, but that's a story for another time.
All in all, I just don't see anything of merit here to complain about. Move along.
