Serenes Forest's Teehee Thread

[Saint Rubenio]

1 minute ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Lujei, when you see her from another angle ingame. -But then, a little sultriness suits her character as you'll see when you get to GG.

Wait what? What do you mean? She's a skull wraith.

...oh. I was looking at her wrong. I thought she was a skeleton wearing a hat and a dress. It's just a normal girl carrying a skull... Welp. I am dumb.

Even so, now that I'm getting a better look at her, her dress looks a lot better than, say, Amoretta's. And her body isn't terribly deformed for the sake of sexiness. And I love what they did with the colors on her.

Yeah, I'd still call her a good design. An attractive one, precisely because they didn't go off the rails with her proportions to make her assets more pronounced. At least, in this particular artwork.

[Sidereal Wraith]

6 hours ago, Shrimpy -Limited Edition- said:

Yes

Soulmates. Something as weak as blood won't stop them after reincarnating.

6 hours ago, Shrimpy -Limited Edition- said:

Even tho i ship AquRuby, this might be costly for me because i promised to commission something if it sets sail lmao

 

[Capt. Fargus]

6 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

No, instead it just punishes you when you look at the character designs. I know, I know, this again, but look, cut me some slack. It makes me really sad. The art is really good, but then they completely waste it on designs like this.

She looks so bad, her proportions are so wrong that she straight up looks like AI art. Why would they do this?

...And then all the men are boring. All of them. The women's a 30/70 split between "you look good actually" and "horribly deformed, hyper sexualized aberration", and the men are 5/10s across the board. Vanillaware follows Lightcosmo's "nobody cares what the men wear" philosophy to a T. What a waste.

I mean, Berwick's story beats aren't like most FE either. But yeah, the gameplay's its own beast.

She’s got mankillers. Gotta give her that. I’ve seen worse

”Captain, what are mankillers? 🤔”

That’s American trucker slang for “gams” 😎

[Armagon]

@Interdimensional Observer @Shrimpy -Limited Edition-

The comic that came with the Monarch edition about the card game.

53 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Yeah. You can't tell me the first and especially the last one aren't sexualized, like c'mon man. You just don't see them that way because you're used to this kind of thing, it's like this in basically all the games you play lol. The ones you share here most often, at the very least.

Dawg i can go to the beach right now and see way more skin. Actually, scratch that, not even the beach, just my college campus lol.

54 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

That one's filled to the brim too. It's not literally all of them, you could probably give me a good handful of non-sexualized designs from UO (I like Liza and Alcina a lot, actually), but there's so many. So many.

Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

See this kinda loops back around because like aside from the Witch class, i can't really think of any. Hell, some classes put on more clothes. The female wyvern rider has no pants, the female wyvern master does.

55 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

They are niche and having less weird art would probably help them have broader reach

Not at this point.

32 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Lujei, when you see her from another angle ingame

I read this as Luigi and was extremely confused.

[Saint Rubenio]

6 minutes ago, Armagon said:

@Interdimensional Observer @Shrimpy -Limited Edition-

The comic that came with the Monarch edition about the card game.

Leaving the negativity aside - that's real cute.

7 minutes ago, Armagon said:

I read this as Luigi and was extremely confused.

Luigi is well known for his sultry streak. How do you think he landed Daisy?

[Acacia Sgt]

Doing nothing?

[Codename Shrimp]

My reaction to this discussion: 🙄

Anyway

Spoiler

Get fucked lmao

This

This is how yellow walls of piss should be done...by not having em at all and the game rewarding the player and adapting instead if they can achieve everything

[Acacia Sgt]

Oh, we nearing the 7000th page.

[Armagon]

24 minutes ago, Shrimpy -Limited Edition- said:

Get fucked lmao

This

This is how yellow walls of piss should be done...by not having em at all and the game rewarding the player and adapting instead if they can achieve everything

"Omae wa mo......shinderu"

"Nani"

Edited March 14 by Armagon

[Venger_06]

25th birthday!

[Acacia Sgt]

Oh, really? Might as well!

[Eltosian Kadath]

2 hours ago, Armagon said:

who's actually sexualized here, genuinely speaking? And to be clear, there's a difference between finding a design attractive and finding a design "sexualized".

The three that jump out to me are Opalnaria, Amoretta, and Advocat, possibly even Chartreuse, but I would need to consult with a furry before really committing to that last one. I am tempted to give Opalnaria a pass because of how much older Hollywood has tried to skew what corsets even were, but once I noticed hers was filled with weird belts-

...hmmm... Have VanillaWare ever went on record that there character design is meant to be parodic?

 

2 hours ago, Armagon said:

 

Again, nothing really here.

Are you really trying to claim little miss wearing only half a skirt over there, with the stocking held up by an unsuspended garter to keep her thigh clear while appealing to the stocking fetishists isn't being sexualized? Heck the almost flesh colored leotard of the middle fairy is giving some weird vibes as well (why is it flesh colored?).

 

2 hours ago, Armagon said:

Where's the sex?

Although I will give you the last one there.

 

2 hours ago, Armagon said:

This is literally the Jason Schier criticism minus the pedophilia accusations lol. 

It looks like he hit the nail on the head for some of these

5 hours ago, Armagon said:

 

especially this one. In fact I would not only believe you if you told me it was intentionally being a parody of what teens claim are the sexiest proportion, but would have a fair bit more respect for the art style if that is what they were intending.

No really, has the art team ever talked about their character design being a parody?

 

2 hours ago, Armagon said:

 

You lack the whimsy Eltosian. Maybe putting the designs by themselves wasn't enough, i gotta put the whole package

This is more just pushing me closer towards an opinion akin to this one:

5 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Vanillaware has a good artstyle, severely dragged down by some of the worst character designs I've ever seen in videogames.

 

2 hours ago, Armagon said:

 

All of them fit well into the world in which they were designed too. Even the Dragon's Crown ones

...Of the four game you show as examples here (at least I am assume it is 4 different games), the 2nd and 4th game I would agree with you there, but I don't think the 1st and 3rd really do. Heck compare the two characters

2 hours ago, Armagon said:

 

in this image here, and the playable one feels particularly out of place.

 

[Codename Shrimp]

20 minutes ago, Newtype06 said:

25th birthday!

Yours?

Happy birthday if so!

(Because i don't think it's digimons today)

36 minutes ago, Armagon said:

"Omae wa mo......shinderu"

"Nani"

"So much red, let's turn it all blue"

Boss: imma warp

Me: no you won't xD

[Acacia Sgt]

22 minutes ago, Shrimpy -Limited Edition- said:

Yours?

Happy birthday if so!

(Because i don't think it's digimons today)

It was back in March 7. So a bit late.

That said, his birthday was in March 6.

Edited March 14 by Acacia Sgt

[Acacia Sgt]

Alright, got a tea party to attend, and finish Chapter 3.

[Interdimensional Observer]

1 hour ago, Shrimpy -Limited Edition- said:

My reaction to this discussion: 🙄

Again, I've been tempted to jump in. -But I haven't, because I'd bite back like a wounded beast, not very nice. Usually I wouldn't attempt to argue, and I still haven't because because I have restraint and better judgement/nature. But this topic being like the one place on the entire Internet where I flow freely like a river of vodka inebriated with itself, I'm inherently more tempted to defy the self-imposed taboo.

I'll just criticize myself instead, as I always do, for being so lacking of a real life to care enough (and being autistic) to even have such a strong reaction to Internet opinions on video games in the first place. And remind myself my that -perhaps excessive- attempts at humility, stem partly from seeing too much bile on the Internet as it presently stands, and not wishing to add to it.

...I'm just putting this on the record, I don't think I ever have before. As an act of admitting to an imperfection of mine.

 

2 hours ago, Armagon said:

@Interdimensional Observer @Shrimpy -Limited Edition-

The comic that came with the Monarch edition about the card game.

Card games can confuse me, but Alain's concluding smile is 😄.

Edited March 14 by Interdimensional Observer

[Armagon]

Masterful bait sir.

See, i thought they were gonna do a full FE4 and just have a damn near impossible rescue mission but they weave that into the narrative proper.

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

but I would need to consult with a furry before really committing to that last one.

The machinations of a furry's mind are best left undisturbed, my friend.

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

...hmmm... Have VanillaWare ever went on record that there character design is meant to be parodic?

Idk. GrimGrimiore at least was explicitly inspired by Atelier Marie and Harry Potter. Dragon's Crown was also exaggerated on purpose.

From Wikipedia:

"Vanillaware was born because Kamitani wanted to create original games, with the designs being influenced entirely by the team's tastes. He has strong views on both changing a project's direction halfway through and outsourcing to other companies who might not be as passionate as the main developers."

@Saint Rubenio @Shrimpy -Limited Edition- @Interdimensional Observer that bolded part is probably why PC ports don't exist for the company. Most likely it would be outsourced. If Vanillaware is to make a game for PC, only they would be the ones allowed to do it. At least so long as Kamitani is in charge. For the record, the only outsourcing they allow is in the music and sound design.

"In contrast to the standard staff proportions of video game developers, the majority of Vanillaware's staff are artists.The company originally focused on the entire team making one game, as their attempt at developing two games at once with Kumatanchi met with mixed results. However, by 2013, Kamitani made efforts to divide Vanillaware's staff of 24 into two teams, transitioning into a situation where the teams could work on two different projects at once. The design of Kamitani's games, along with the focus on side-scrolling action, was directly inspired by his work at Capcom, particularly titles such as Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom."

"As the industry is dominated by 3D graphics, Kamitani saw that 2D art was "stagnating", and he wanted Vanillaware to be at the cutting edge of 2D art in gaming".

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Are you really trying to claim little miss wearing only half a skirt over there, with the stocking held up by an unsuspended garter to keep her thigh clear while appealing to the stocking fetishists isn't being sexualized?

Please go to my college campus man, i'm begging you. Just walking through the gym district, i see more skin than in any of these designs.

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Heck the almost flesh colored leotard of the middle fairy is giving some weird vibes as well (why is it flesh colored?).

I think those are her legs.

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

It looks like he hit the nail on the head for some of these

Jason Schier's opinion was one of the many examples used for Western journalism's xenophobia towards Japanese works (especially since, again, he accused Kamitani of pedophilia), both in the past and even now. People will see a mildly revealing girl in a Japanese game and go "ugh, Japan" but Baldur's Gate 3, a game where you can get rawdogged by a bear and customize your penis size, oh that's 10s across the board.

For the record, there isn't a problem with either but it's a noticeable double standard. If Baldur's Gate 3 was exactly the same but Japanese instead of Belgian, you know that it would've been blasted to the deepest pits of hell.

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

In fact I would not only believe you if you told me it was intentionally being a parody of what teens claim are the sexiest proportion, but would have a fair bit more respect for the art style if that is what they were intending.

It's all exaggerated on purpose.

Is Dragon's Crown possibly Vanillaware's horniest game? Yeah. But there's equal horniness for men and women, Vanillaware doesn't discriminate.

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

in this image here, and the playable one feels particularly out of place.

How?

36 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

And remind myself my that -perhaps excessive- attempts at humility, stem partly from seeing too much bile on the Internet as it presently stands, and not wishing to add to it.

For the record, i'm not even mad, i'm just more confused than anything. Not liking the art is one thing but calling it hideous is wild to me man.

[Interdimensional Observer]

4 minutes ago, Armagon said:

The machinations of a furry's mind are best left undisturbed, my friend.

Not to mention, Chartreuse never for a single moment caught my attention as sexualized. In part because, he says early on, paraphrasing only lightly- "even with immortality, I have no time for love". Dude is so dedicated to his alchemic research and anti-eros that it's weird to even think of his design as having the slightest hint of attraction.

...Just wanted to get that off me. Hopefully it isn't laced with invective.

[Armagon]

Something really cool about Unicorn Overlord is that the changes in a character's appearance are kept. The official art obviously stays the same but the character portraits actually reflect the changes. This is especially noticeable if you use the mirror item to change appearance and growth rates. Give Alain pink hair and he'll have that pink hair in everything except the official art.

2 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Dude is so dedicated to his alchemic research and anti-eros that it's weird to even think of his design as having the slightest hint of attraction.

You underestimate the furries my friend.

[Acacia Sgt]

Hm? Thought Chapter 3 was going to actually finish. Guess it's after taking the airship then. Well, will do the last bits before departing... tomorrow.

[Armagon]

I think it's very funny how every single one of Vanillaware's SRPGs have a turbo function.

Edit: for the map functions i mean. Turbo during combat is standard these days.

Edited March 14 by Armagon

[Acacia Sgt]

Hmm... I think Chapter 9 is gonna end on the long side too. But not long enough to need to be split in two. Maybe I could shuffle a scene or two to Chapter 10, even if it could involve rewinding a little from where Chapter 9 ends, timeline wise. Hmm...

[BrightBow]

4 hours ago, Armagon said:

Jason Schier's opinion was one of the many examples used for Western journalism's xenophobia towards Japanese works (especially since, again, he accused Kamitani of pedophilia), both in the past and even now. People will see a mildly revealing girl in a Japanese game and go "ugh, Japan" but Baldur's Gate 3, a game where you can get rawdogged by a bear and customize your penis size, oh that's 10s across the board.

For the record, there isn't a problem with either but it's a noticeable double standard. If Baldur's Gate 3 was exactly the same but Japanese instead of Belgian, you know that it would've been blasted to the deepest pits of hell.

There is a double standard, but it's the entire opposite of what you are describing. Imagine any "Western" game getting away with shit like Fates' molestation mini-game or Awakening letting you impregnate this kid

...or letting one of your friends impregnate her so you can impregnate her daughter instead, as the case may be.

Edited March 14 by BrightBow

[Codename Shrimp]

6 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

It was back in March 7. So a bit late.

That said, his birthday was in March 6.

Ah

F

5 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Again, I've been tempted to jump in. -

Same

But eh

Don't feel like going in circles, again

5 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

ll just criticize myself instead,

Nah

Don't

Have fun instead and go watch/play something:D

5 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

have such a strong reaction to Internet opinions on video games in the first place

It's normal when it's about something you enjoy.

5 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

As an act of admitting to an imperfection of mine.

We're human

We can't be perfect 😉

5 hours ago, Armagon said:

Masterful bait sir.

See, i thought they were gonna do a full FE4 and just have a damn near impossible rescue mission but they weave that into the narrative proper.

Oh that

I got baited hard as well lmao

5 hours ago, Armagon said:

Vanillaware was born because Kamitani wanted to create original games, with the designs being influenced entirely by the team's tastes. He has strong views on both changing a project's direction halfway through and outsourcing to other companies who might not be as passionate as the main developers."

Based opinion tbh

Edited March 14 by Shrimpy -Limited Edition-

[Saint Rubenio]

6 hours ago, Armagon said:

For the record, i'm not even mad, i'm just more confused than anything. Not liking the art is one thing but calling it hideous is wild to me man.

I mean, I could say the same about you insulting the shit out of games you don't like all the time. You don't say "I don't like it", you say they're bad. And you don't see the thread as a whole start going "oh boy this again 🙄" when you dunk on Kaga for the 100th time or when you call the other guy Neil Cuckman - I guess because it's cool to diss those guys but not Vanillaware?

The artstyle is hideous to me - that's what it means to not like it. If it looked good to me, I'd like it. I'm not saying they have to change to appeal to me, they can do whatever they want. I'm just saying I don't like it. Personally. Objectively, yes, the art is competent, but I thought we didn't like talking in strictly objective terms around here.

And that's the last I'll say about that here, I think. Knowing everyone hates to talk about this, I probably shouldn't have bitten back with the designs when you started with Kaga. Sorry.

Edited March 14 by Saint Rubenio