Is it shallow for me to think that featuring a bunch of busty, cutesy women in your game is a shallow grab at customers? Is it shallow for me to not want to play those games, even if people say the game is good?
Pic obviously related, but I've wondered the same thing with Shantae as well.
Fanservice and music is all Shantae has going for it.
The platforming is barebones and combat is dull.
> let's devote thought to titty pandering
no, fuck you mr. "i hate fun"
Literally nobody cares but you. If you're gonna play it, then do. If you're not, then don't.
Fighters always have t n a. SG is more guilty of meme pandering.
>implying skull girls is fun
You're just a faggot
...
>game features titty monsters
>scares away normies
This seems like the game for me what character is good for an aggresive player?
It is not shallow to think that fanservice is a "shallow grab at customers". But I would say it is shallow to award that so much power that you refuse to play a game.
Think about it. When you say something is shallow - literally the opposite of deep - it means that there is nothing behind it. That appearance is all there is.
So, the claim that fanservice is a "shallow grab at costumers" means that there is no point to the fanservice but to appeal to the basest instincts of sexual desire. It is nothing but a marketing tactic.
Equally, however, to refuse to play a game because of a marketing tactic, means that you do not care about the substance of the game itself. You do not go beyond the mere appearance. It is shallow just the same.
If you want to judge a game not shallowly, then you need to judge it on other grounds than how it is marketed, such as its gameplay (which can be good, independently of there being fanservice or not).
its not fun online if thats what you mean
Its not that bad of a fighting game though
Skull Girls is alright, but no one plays it.
He's not wrong. All 3 Shantae games are very mediocre platformers. Your time is better spent elsewhere.
>"y-you're a p-poopy head!'
Such a compelig argument. You are aware that the Shantae series is mostly just about the retarded fanservice right? If it were Mario or any other character nobody would give so much of a shit.
>xD le brown skin sexy gurl IS OK WHEN JAPAN DOES IT LOL
That's fair enough.
I guess if I had to provide a rebuttal, it would be that if a game has to rely on fanservice to sell, or at least give the impression that it has to, then why would I want to give it the chance anyway?
I that's the case then they failed miserably, because too many people share your view for skullgirls to be popular.
the one you just posted
Beowulf or Ms. Fortune
I think that for some games it's obviously a shallow grab, but in skullgirl's case the characters actually have really good character designs and unqiue gimmicks as well as an actually pretty interesting backstory and underlying lore, so I don't think it's the case with skullgirls
I don't see a issue if the game is honest about what it is and what it's aiming for.
SG is actually decent. But nobody plays anyway. So it's a moot point.
Not particularly OP since I do the same thing. Presumably different kinds of pandering work on you though. Any game that goes for anime or titty monster instantly loses points with me but Warhammer games I tend to enjoy more than I should simply because I like Warhammer cheese.
Doesn't mean I don't think less off people who like Skullgirls though. Because I do.
Aggressive play is pretty much the name of the game with Skullgirls.
Double. She also has easy combos, and is a gorilla. She's terrible when you're losing though.
Valentine. She also has easy command combos, but there's lots of depth to her.
Cerebella. Gorilla with easy combos. She's also a grappler. Kind of execution intensive, though.
Painwheel. She can super-armor through everything, making her fantastic at abare. Sadly, her combos are autistic.
Don't you have a Shantae thread to mindlessly dump images in since there is literally nothing to discuss since the recent game got delayed and the rest are completed in one sitting?
I wouldn't say it's shallow, because it's true whether the developer does it intentionally or not.
Any game that has fanservice on the surface always has the same resulting fanbase that tends to like it more for the eyecandy factor rather than earnestly enjoying the game for what it is. At least, for games over the past 10 years or so, although there are exceptions that go even further back.
This case is only perpetuated further when a majority of your animation and art staff are moderate-to-well-known porn artists, which is the case for Skullgirls.
I was honestly reluctant to even get into SG because that's what I expected out of the fanbase but I've luckily found some friends that don't care about that aspect of the game.
And to add one more level to your rebuttal, if a game doesn't need to rely on fanservice then why include it in the first place?
Have the game create its own appeal instead of doing the same thing any other japanese otaku-pandering game would do.
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Skullgirls' downfall were due to different reasons. It was a broken mess at launch with horrible balancing and being a combo heavy game when MikeZ promised a reset heavy game like Guilty Gear. Street Fighter players dont like to play team based combo heavy games, ArcSys players would rather play Blazblue and Mahvel players would like to play their own game.
It losing the charity drive vs Smash Melee was the final nail in the coffin. It didnt even have a chance to shine at Evo main event and that is a huge deal.
Rught now, Skullgirls is actually one of the more underrated fighters and has pretty good content. Almost everyone and their mother has SG due to numerous sales and free weekends, but never truly took off.
skull girls sucks ass so its right to think so
Many games use anime babes as a crutch to mask poor gameplay. It's not even so much that they're hiding that the game is shit, they just know their target audience only gives a fuck about anime titties.
Humans are biologically driven by sex.
Sex sells.
There is nothing wrong with this unless you also have a problem with products that appeal to the need for food and shelter.
Tits and ass are fine as long as there's some actual substance to the game. Skullgirls has actual substance. If you just have tits and ass then it's a lot cheaper and easier to just lurk /e/ or /h/ or whatever. This is what always confuses me about games like Dead or Alive Extreme 3, it's so much work (and money spent on DLC costumes) for some strip teasing.
it is shallow for you to think that way, at least for skullgirls
the root of all fighting games, the arcade, had always a tradition of making the machines appealing to the customer so they toss in one more coin, sexappeal was a major eyecatcher in that regard
I feel like this one answers OP's question pretty well.
/thread imo
>if a game doesn't need to rely on fanservice then why include it in the first place?
I don't know about other games, but at least in Skullgirl's case, they wanted to make an aesthetic that mixed body horror and sexy girls. Interestingly enough, the parts of the brain that produce a "horror" response are closely linked to the parts that produce an arousal response. This intersection of human psychology has been explored by artists like HR Geiger, and in video games like Silent Hill 2. You can see this in Skullgirls to some degree, Ms Fortune has exposed muscles, spouts blood when she dashes, Filia's head is 50% monster parasite, Eliza's brains and innards spill out when she gets hit, etc. This is brought down somewhat by characters that don't have that element at all, like Parasoul and Cerebella, but I'd say it does an okay job overall of capturing that effect.
>they wanted to make an aesthetic that mixed body horror and sexy girls
>Interestingly enough, the parts of the brain that produce a "horror" response are closely linked to the parts that produce an arousal response.
I've honestly never heard about this in that way before. It explains it pretty well.