11th December 2015, 6:10 AM
(This post was last modified: 11th December 2015, 6:36 AM by Dark Jaguar.)
The only thing I can say in Nintendo's defense is that Nintendo themselves didn't actually make either of those two games.
However, your hair splitting over it all is... a little unsettling. Yeah, no, I really don't care if they count as "prepubescent" (they certainly look that way to me) or skirt the edge of that definition (it really REALLY doesn't matter when we're talking about 13 year olds, and I don't really care about sparing feelings on that by using some other word), and frankly, saying "at least it isn't literally child pornography" isn't much of a defense either. Comparing it to video game violence isn't exactly fair either. In the real world, we don't have any problems with ninjas ripping out someone's spine, but we DO have a problem with child sex trafficking, so one isn't the other. Though, you could make that argument when it comes to military shooters, of which there are a dime a dozen.
As a side note, Nintendo themselves don't seem to fall for those gaming tropes so hard, they're perfectly content with their own set of tropes. It's taken years to get them to break away from their core characters even just a little. I've been wanting them to make Zelda games that star characters other than Link for a good long while. I'm not even asking for a character creator, just original leads for each game (which, as a happy side effect, means female leads in some new Zelda games). Mario has been dipping a toe into switching up lead characters, what with the Wario Land series, the Luigi's Mansion games, Super Princess Peach (sadly, just one game there, and some have noted thematic issues), the Yoshi's Island games, and the Donkey Kong Country series. However, they've basically stuck with JUST those characters. They won't put in a lead that doesn't have a long history as a secondary character. They aren't willing to take that risk on an unknown, and that's not a good thing. Pikmin is the one exception to this rule. Miyamoto has been perfectly content changing the lead or leads from one game to the next, and I love that. (I also love Brittany's design. Not just as a female lead, but her "look" steers clear from anything like traditional "good looking" female characters and she fits in with the rest of the cast much better than, say, Peach does with the rest of the Mushroom Kingdom, Mario included.)
I haven't been suggesting different leads for Metroid games though. For one, that series takes place over a very small slice of time, and the games themselves are pretty rarely released, the spat of Prime games being the one exception in it's history. For second, I was afraid that if they went the "different lead for every game" route, we might not see a female lead for years. That second fear seems pretty valid what with the new Metroid multiplayer game. To be fair, at least those soldiers look pretty ambiguous, and I do like that, but in exchange they've got no personality. Actually, the introduction of "Zero Suit Samus" is, in retrospect, one of the bigger mistakes in the series. I'm one of those people defending her being in a swimsuit looking outfit at the end of the older Metroid games as the only way to really get across the "this is a girl you've been playing as" message back in the 8-bit era. Nothing particularly scandalous there, she was just standing straight and looking at ya. By Fusion, though, the ending scenes were these fully drawn pictures of Samus with some odd focus, and Smash Bros has made that "zero suit" into a community-wide joke. Not that I'd say she needs to be removed, but that suit defies physics more than her jump boots and laser whip do, and something a bit closer to the design of a character like Chell from Portal would be more appropriate I think.
However, your hair splitting over it all is... a little unsettling. Yeah, no, I really don't care if they count as "prepubescent" (they certainly look that way to me) or skirt the edge of that definition (it really REALLY doesn't matter when we're talking about 13 year olds, and I don't really care about sparing feelings on that by using some other word), and frankly, saying "at least it isn't literally child pornography" isn't much of a defense either. Comparing it to video game violence isn't exactly fair either. In the real world, we don't have any problems with ninjas ripping out someone's spine, but we DO have a problem with child sex trafficking, so one isn't the other. Though, you could make that argument when it comes to military shooters, of which there are a dime a dozen.
As a side note, Nintendo themselves don't seem to fall for those gaming tropes so hard, they're perfectly content with their own set of tropes. It's taken years to get them to break away from their core characters even just a little. I've been wanting them to make Zelda games that star characters other than Link for a good long while. I'm not even asking for a character creator, just original leads for each game (which, as a happy side effect, means female leads in some new Zelda games). Mario has been dipping a toe into switching up lead characters, what with the Wario Land series, the Luigi's Mansion games, Super Princess Peach (sadly, just one game there, and some have noted thematic issues), the Yoshi's Island games, and the Donkey Kong Country series. However, they've basically stuck with JUST those characters. They won't put in a lead that doesn't have a long history as a secondary character. They aren't willing to take that risk on an unknown, and that's not a good thing. Pikmin is the one exception to this rule. Miyamoto has been perfectly content changing the lead or leads from one game to the next, and I love that. (I also love Brittany's design. Not just as a female lead, but her "look" steers clear from anything like traditional "good looking" female characters and she fits in with the rest of the cast much better than, say, Peach does with the rest of the Mushroom Kingdom, Mario included.)
I haven't been suggesting different leads for Metroid games though. For one, that series takes place over a very small slice of time, and the games themselves are pretty rarely released, the spat of Prime games being the one exception in it's history. For second, I was afraid that if they went the "different lead for every game" route, we might not see a female lead for years. That second fear seems pretty valid what with the new Metroid multiplayer game. To be fair, at least those soldiers look pretty ambiguous, and I do like that, but in exchange they've got no personality. Actually, the introduction of "Zero Suit Samus" is, in retrospect, one of the bigger mistakes in the series. I'm one of those people defending her being in a swimsuit looking outfit at the end of the older Metroid games as the only way to really get across the "this is a girl you've been playing as" message back in the 8-bit era. Nothing particularly scandalous there, she was just standing straight and looking at ya. By Fusion, though, the ending scenes were these fully drawn pictures of Samus with some odd focus, and Smash Bros has made that "zero suit" into a community-wide joke. Not that I'd say she needs to be removed, but that suit defies physics more than her jump boots and laser whip do, and something a bit closer to the design of a character like Chell from Portal would be more appropriate I think.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)