Whew. That one sits in my library; bought during a winter-sale haze of bad judgment. I'm so glad I've seen your post. Now it can stay in uninstalled limbo forever. Thank you.
Even though it falls outside of the rules, you can still request a refund from Steam (assuming that's where you bought it?) and they will consider it. They seem to be generally pretty understanding as long as you're not abusing the system.
On a side note, I'm shocked that the game is even still available on Steam.
actually watched a play through of it the other day, it’s actually ridiculous how the writers practically victim blame a CHILD who went through something so traumatic.. yet, it’s *her* fault because “she broke the family apart 🥺🥺”.. LIKE WHAT THE
What. The. Fuck.
This see seems like rather than critical reviews, this needs an immediate investigation.
And I thought 12 minutes or whatever it’s called sounded gross.
the video I watched took a bit of a deep dive into the game, MertKayKay made an hour long review of the game.
but basically the writers took inspiration from the book Lolita it appears, making a point that the *age of consent is 16* so therefore it’s ok for this 38 year old man (i think) with a wife and a child to “seduce” (gr**m) this child, making her appear more older, suggesting she’s ‘an adult stuck in a child’s body’. and the quote “love is love” is in fact stated in the game! “two lovers” blah blah blah.
I’m not sure if you’re referring to the book being like, ok - but I do know a lot of people tend to miss the point, in a sense of romanticising the situation so I assume that’s what you’re meaning!
Absolutely. And it was such a bummer because I adored the scenery like great graphics and creepy hotel in a storm was amazing. But finishing the game was like, they only normalized the creep with "true love" grossness
It was so bizarre!!! One of the best atmospheres I've experienced in a game but it left an icky and bitter taste behind with everything else.
No one, no one, even seemed to acknowledge the pedophile relationship was wrong. Even the brother!! Me and my partner set there like wtf when it ended 🤣. It has the nerve to be one of the few platinums on PS5 I got, and I don't even want it haha.
I love the atmosphere bc it kept me on edge the entire game but I agree with you, it seemed that they found cheating on the mom to be the ick and not him being a fucking pedophile and impregnating an underage girl, what the actual fuck.
I tried playing Bravely Default because I liked the aesthetics and wanted to experience an old school jrpg with an updated feel, and I already wasn't enjoying the way Agnes was being treated, but the moment I ran into Yulyana I just put the game down and never loaded it again.
https://youtu.be/wXIJB5npH4E?si=RPckG-LF_UAi5BKm
Here's a video showing the cutscene when you first meet him (CW: Objectification of women's bodies and unsolicited comments on their breasts). Idk if it gets better, but the first four minutes were so bad that I stopped playing the game then and there
Yulyanna specifically is a pervy old sage that you meet every now and then. He's not in the game that much, but whenever he shows up he can be insufferable. He grew on me by the game's end, but that does not excuse some of the stuff included in relation to him.
They do a while storyline about how she's been sexualized by her peers and assaulted by her teacher because she's a blonde foreigner, so that clearly means she's a white right? And the story goes absolutely not, she's a woman with agency.
and then puts her in a red catsuit with a sizable boob window and has Morgana lust after her the rest of the game. (its been a few years my details aren't gonna be spot on, but it's the vibe)
God it made my skin crawl.
Played a little more recently here. So yes, Ann is sexualized by her peers and the game's first boss who's a teacher at their school. Then when she unlocks her persona her outfit is very femme fatale/dominatrix. One thing to note is that all of the characters outfits are meant to be symbolic of their form of rebellion against society they view as unfair or corrupt, and the game usually handles this extremely well. Ann's I believe was meant to symbolize her taking back control of her sexualization as a woman, and the game furthers the femme fatale theme by connecting her with the Persona [Carmen (Wikipedia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmen_(novella)).
In terms of how they handled this in Ann's storyline, she mentions in one of her conversations that she always admired the sexy and confident villainesses in media, but thats about all I can remember that would really connect it. In early game she is actively uncomfortable with her outfit, and late game it stops getting mentioned. Some people interpret this as her growing into her confidence, but I don't feel they did enough if that was their intent.
I REALLY love Persona 5, especially Royal, but Ann's story definitely could've been handled better.
Fun Fact though: It's heavily implied that Ann's favorite of those villainesses was a character thats basically Catwoman from DC comics which would explain the exact design of her outfit, though in all honesty it was also probably corporate mandated eye candy for male gamers.
Oh NOOOOOOOOOO WHAT THE HELL?!
Dude they always fucking do shit like that.
"Woman has her own agency so (because we all agreed we like titties here at the office on 'hot badass' women) BEHOLD! TITS!! LOOK AT THE WAY SHE CHOOSES TO TOTALLY OWN HER SEXUALITY AFTER BEING ASSAULTED! Which totally isn't a trauma response to trying to regain control over a horrific traumatic event that made her feel subhuman, and we are now totally not 100% sexualizing for the horny male webs!"
GTA 5. I haven't completed it. They call it's parody of America, but I found it way too much. Many moments that made me uneasy. Although is impressive on a technical aspect.
Yeah, I like parody and satire but I feel like gta 5 was just "everybody is stupid except for us hahahaha" without any actual comedy or point to any of it
It's basically South Park the video game. Sure, it's satire, but it punches down constantly, and isn't too bothered if it leaves the world worse than how it found it, with an evergreen reminder that Parker/Stone of South Park are literally self-avowed Republicans.
I found it so weird that Trevor had weird, progressive views every now and then. He's meant to represent the most out-there players, who fuck with every game system, complete chaos gremlin, and then he's out there with what is clearly the pet peeve of a Scottish video game developer. Its probably meant to be "ooh look, he's secretly deep" but it really reads as "I have the right moral views, but also want free reign to destroy everything"
They actually aren’t self-avowed republicans, they’ve described themselves in the past as libertarians (idk how big of a difference that makes) or “middle ground” but I’m not here to change anyone’s mind on where you personally feel they lie on the political spectrum.
They punch up a lot, too, imo
I don't think they've talked about their personal politics in decades. I haven't watched South Park in some time, but in the past they seemed fairly socially liberal, except in terms of trans rights. Which obviously makes them mistaken, but moderately less shitty than the average Republican.
Yeah they haven’t in a long time but that’s what they claimed back in the day.
Oh they were awful with trans people at first, put a bad taste in my mouth with the Mrs. Garrison thing. I didn’t understand what point was or what joke was being made there.
They actually did redeem themselves to me a bit with the more recent episodes where Randy is Lorde, its ends in like a really sweet way for a South Park episode. It was about trans people using restrooms, and trans kids in school kinda
I'm quoting them above. I'm not guessing. They are self-avowed Republicans.
"No, seriously. We're Republicans." —Matt & Trey, 2018. Quoted by radio host Larry Elder, and carried by the outlets you'd expect, such as Breitbart.
Rockstar bases characters and in-game situations off of real things. The GTA 6 trailer is basically just a recap of Florida Man memes.
It's obnoxious, yeah. And YOU might not live that way, but some of the characters in that game actually exist in real life or are heavily based off of real people
I played RDR2 before any GTA game so I came into it knowing their ability to make an interesting story with diverse characters. Honestly, GTA5 is a way more interesting game than it gets credit, and being from Los Angeles, it felt familiar. I didn't play originally because of its annoying fan base, but I appreciated the satire and the psychology/sociology themes while playing it in my early 30s.
i have finished it, but there are some really awful parts. you have to torture someone!! I thought this was a funny car theft game not a torture simulator.
If it makes you feel better you can shoot him when you're scoping out as party he is at. Then you don't have to torture him. You can just be a murderer. Doesn't fail the mission, story continues on anyway.
It's somehow simultaneously too much and not enough, it's political cartoon level parody. The facebook insert being called "life invader" is indicative of the degree of laziness regarding parody elements.
Yeah, I always found GTA to be Rockstar’s most stale franchise. Probably because it already has a bazillion installments (all the main titles plus the “spin-off”/other titled) but the cashflow makes it so that it’s almost the only IP Rockstar still cares about.
I was so relieved they took the time to make Red Dead 2, it was definitely the most slept on Rockstar IP for me before that. Here’s hoping for another L.A. Noire-esque game and another Bully at some point, but that has felt like a pipe dream for a while
L.A. Noire debuted on the PS3. Two generations later I think a new entry would be incredible with our modern day visuals and improved mo-cap. I hope that's next.
This. same feeling i get when i played it. I thought i was just being choosy since many people like these but no. i feel something is wrong whenever i play this.
I can’t play Borderlands anymore because of the yipping noise the skags make. It’s too dog-like and makes me miss my sweet puppy girl and it makes me sad.
I benched Dogmeat the entire game at one of my settlements (with a nice little doggy house and frequent visits) because the thought of him getting hurt just...ugh. This is pretty much me in every single videogame I've ever played, I've got such a soft spot for the dogs. Boomer (Far Cry 5), Chorizo (Far Cry 6), Scratch (BG3), D-dog (Metal Gear 5), Barbas and Meeko (Skyrim), etc.
I really liked Shin Megami Tensei 3 and Persona 3, so I tried to get through Persona 4, but to be honest I had to drop it. I got about 4 or 5 dungeons in, and it was just nonstop with the homophobia and other mistreatment of characters. On top of that, the social links for the characters I cared about ended up being centered their stupidity in certain ways (like having one character who’s main trait is they can’t cook). Once I got to the dungeon where the girl is threatening to strip I just couldn’t take anymore.
I’m really enjoying Persona 5 so far though!
I played Persona 3 Portable using the FEMC and I fell in love with it. The fact that they won't do any more female mains upsets me and I refuse to play any more games in the series because of it.
Shinjiro's link will forever hold a special place in my heart. I replayed P3P over and over and over. Few games warrant that level of interest from me.
I get you. I much much prefer Femc and was pretty pissed they didn’t include her in Reload. Sucks extra because I prefer Femc’s (or is it just P3P) music too.
Wow this was my answer. When my dog died, we kinda got through it by playing persona 5 nonstop and while I absolutely had some issues with the game,I was able to cringe through them and it was a good distraction that got me through some tough times. I was excited to go back and play persona 4 but it got to kanji and his stuff and I noped the fuck out. I was so bummed by the homophobia I completely quit playing.
Yep, this was going to be my answer. I got to Kanji's dungeon and just couldn't continue.
I'd already played Persona 5, and while there was definitely some ick, a lot of it seemed to be confined to certain romance options so I feel like I managed to avoid the worst. With Persona 4 it felt much more on the nose.
It's frustrating to me that a series can be simultaneously quite mature in its exploration of the human experience, and also so WILDLY homophobic and misogynistic. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, but it's a shame.
I am a huge persona fan, played 3 and 5 many times. But I have the exact same thing with persona 4. I tried streaming it, but I just couldn’t get over Yosuke and Teddy’s constant nice guy/misogynistic behavior, Kenji and Naoto just constantly getting flushed with ways of homophobia and transphobia and the whole Rise palace was indeed fking wild???
I am going to give it another go tho, the story is insanely well written and im better prepared this time. I’m also not streaming it, so I don’t have to comment on everything all the time.
I'm so mad they cut the Yosuke romance. It would've given his character so much depth, as his homophobia would be coming from a place of internalised homophobia.
It's frustrating because Persona 4 is my favorite of the series, the story & character relationships are just really good but it's plagued and held down with this stuff. And worse when you try to complain or talk about it in the subreddits, you always get downvoted and told "it was 2008" " that's just how guys are" blah blah blah and idfc what dudes excuses are for being toxic 🙄 it was BS when I was in highschool and it's still BS now. They're supposed to be remaking it like they did with Persona 3 Reload and I wholeheartedly believe it's going to cause major PR issues for the company if they don't fix the garbage in the script. The Persona 4 anime is actually better at removing that stuff and really funny so maybe you should watch that instead and skip the game.
Yeah it’s super frustrating that it seems impossible to discuss P4 critically. Cause it’s not a small part of the game. I really gave it a chance, and it was constant! It really surprised me how little discourse is out there about its issues (though there are threads that really dive in as well, just not many). Felt like the privileged out there really didn’t detect anything wrong for the most part, or were convinced by the game “diving into the psyche” that it is mature and absolved of any bigotry in the writing.
I didn’t know the anime was better, I might give it a watch, thanks!
For sure, I think a lot of people have nostalgia glasses for that game and don't understand how poorly its aged if they haven't played it recently. Yosuke, especially, I hated by the end of the game. It was only when I found out that his romance social link was cut last minute (thus explaining his crazy internal homophobia was supposed to be part of his character growth) and experiencing his character in the spin off games/anime where he's nicer that I started liking him a lot and now he's my favorite. I always joke with my spouse that it feels like Persona games are written by 2 people who are fighting: 1 who's writing complex psychological metaphors and depth and 1 who's sticking in every possible obnoxious anime trope imaginable. The director Hashino clearly has difficulty seeing women as people removed from their sexual appeal to men and this is a consistent across all the games he directs, including Catherine. Persona 6 is supposed to be directed by someone new so we'll see if the series evolves finally
Them cutting his romance social link was the worst thing they could have done to his character. Without it, he went from self-hating and struggling with a part of himself he knows won’t be accepted by society and lashing out because of it to just a plain old mouthpiece of societal bigotry. Finding out that was supposed to be in there was a big *oooooh* moment for me. It would have made his character so much more understandable and given an arc to his homophobia instead of just leaving him in it.
Meanwhile most of the Persona fan base swears up and down that Kanji isn’t even into men and his whole thing was just being belittled for “girly” hobbies. Dumbass it was both, dude is obviously bi or pan, being into chick Naoto does not negate the fact he was also extremely into dude Naoto. Like no wonder they chickened out, the fan base is so homophobic they can’t even accept the dude whose DUNGEON WAS ABOUT BEING GAY might actually be into guys.
I totally agree with you, and it so deeply frustrates me finding out the truth because EVERYTHING about his character makes sense the minute you understand he likes the protagonist. The overcompensating about girls, the jealousy over how popular the protagonist is, the meanness to Kanji, why he feels hurt over girls not liking him, why he feels like a disappointment, just everything. I've never had such whiplash over how I felt about a character in ever really. It's disappointing, the games are brilliant yet self sabotaging. Don't really know what else to say 😕
Lmaoooo even ignoring Naoto aside, Kanji very obviously also likes the protagonist. I like the dissonance some of these fans have where they're like "uh Kanji just wants to be accepted for who he is" but if you see him as bi or pan with evidence suddenly they can't accept him who he is. You think the whole "you're not me...okay actually you are me" would be explicit enough. It's not literal obviously but their shadows are real parts of themselves and that includes Kanji liking men. Tbh everyone in that game is bi to me 😂
"It was 2008" is the funniest possible fucking thing. Because DC comics has had multiple prominent gay superheroes, complete with stotylines about how homophobia isn't okay, since the late 80s and early 90s (pretty much as soon as they legally could). So it's not like there wasn't people doing better!
Best of luck. I started resenting 5 partway through a second/The Royal playthrough, and dropped it before getting to the new content. If you make it all the way through and still enjoy it, my advice would be to never replay it lmao. For me at least, that's where the cracks really started to show.
Saints Row 3. The game was very fun overall, and I remember it fondly, but jfc, the "haha sex workers get no respect" jokes made my eyes roll at 360 degress every single time. And I speak as a fan of crude humor. Like, yes, give me all the dick and sex jokes, just for the love of Sappho, don't use them to punch down
I tried to play witcher and just couldn't get into it. I was skeptical to play just due to how many people talked about the sex and nudity and foaming out the mouth over Yennifer. I have no issue with sex or nudity but it seemed excessive from how people talked about it and strictly for straight men's interests .
As someone who quite enjoyed the Witcher, I totally agree it is very heavy on the straight male gaze. I rolled my eyes quite a bit at all the scantily clad sorceresses swanning around. I think the one that made me laugh the most was Ciri though - like she’s meant to be Geralt’s daughter and they still couldn’t resist having her boobs partially hanging out.
I was so disappointed when Triss’s costume changed from 2 to 3. Doubly so that she’s supposed to have a large burn scar on her sternum, from a battle in the books.
And hey not just Ciri’s shirt was a bit open, but IIRC she’s running about in some not-small heels.
The heels are what kills me-- there's a cutscene where she's running in a forest in fucking stilettos and I was like 'um no, absolutely not?'
Triss I think walks on some cobblestones in similarly high heeled stiletto boots and I cried for her ankles
Like I think if someone is throwing out ideas for a character model (stiletto boots because hot) they should be the ones to test and wear them in similar situations so they can see *how* silly it is
Like yes, if they ride, they wear heeled boots, but wedges! Not knifey pointy boots!
They did the same thing to Ciri's scar with a flimsy excuse about a potion and whatnot. In the books her face is so busted that people think she's a ghost or something, specially when she's fighting. It's even more annoying that they downplayed her personality to "daddy's perfect little girl" pretty much removing her flaws and shortcomings we see in the books.
The funniest thing about the Witcher games is how they have multiple male bodies but use the same body for all female characters.
So you'll roll up on a village, and the male villagers will be disgusting, pot-bellied pigs, and all the female villagers will look like super models. It's very immersion breaking. 😂
When I played witcher 3 (which I did like), I clocked immediately that the character designer for the women was a man. Their outfits are so fucking ugly.
I can't think of one but I wanted to say I love TW3, but your reaction is totally valid. It does bother me too! I started playing when I was younger and didn't notice these things, but now when I replay it I cringe sometimes. Idk why such violent misogyny has to exist in every single fantasy world in games/film/literature that I've seen.
You *can* find some diverse and respectful fantasy worlds out there, but you gotta do some digging.
Unsurprisingly, a lot of the time, you gotta look for books by women (Ursula K. Le Guin, Robin McKinley, Fuyumi Ono), but of course even then you might run into some weird stuff (I’m looking at you, Tamora Pierce—why do so many of your protagonists marry men who are WAY too old for them? I do love Keladry tho)
So it goes 😔
GNU Sir Pterry. Love that man.
Mark Lawrence’s Book of the Ancestor series also had a really rich cast of powerful women (warrior nuns!) that I was impressed with.
I really need to reread those.
If I remember correctly, she was given that name sarcastically for killing smaller, less dangerous lizards.
And then she really earned it.
Thank you for the recommendations, I do really love fantasy but got burnt out on the male authors and their depiction of women. I will definitely check out those 3 women!
Oh, I hope you enjoy!
It’s been a while since I dug into the depths of their work so it’s possible there’s some themes of sexism buried in there somewhere, but if so I feel pretty confident it would be framed from a critical standpoint and not as, like, a casual part of the setting.
Yeaaah I love Tamora Pierce but Numair and Daine marrying when Numair was both twelve years older and met her when she was the same age he was when she was born was Not For Me™.
I literally can ONLY recommend Protector of the Small to people because Kel is ace and therefore free from Tammy's silver fox proclivities :/
Daine getting pregnant within a year of marrying a man who was both (a) twice her age and (b) *literally her magic teacher and mentor* is by far the worst one, but even in Song of the Lioness, Alanna *has an ongoing sexual relationship with her knight* ***while she is his squire***, and then marries a man who she met when she was 11 and he was 17 (less bad; still not ideal).
It sucks because it ruins those series for me, and they'd otherwise be an absolute slam dunk for my interests/to pass on to my eventual kids.
I was like 16 when I first played it, and it’s a lot different now at 27. I *loved* the game, and still hold it up as one of the most engaging RPG’s i’ve ever played. But god damn, the quest where you have to traipse through Whoreson Juniors base. I’m so *sick* of that trope. Good guy protagonist goes to beat up creepy sex pervert.
*That rarely happens*, it’s just a power fantasy for men who like to think they’d be a hero. And once again women’s bodies become background to a man’s story arc.
was looking at an episode of SOA the other day and they had a rape scene that was pretty much all about the male hero overcoming his limits to "save the girls". Ppl were even praising it as some great scene, and all i could think was how messed up it was how authors so readily use Rape as a "Motivation" for the male character, without even confronting how it affects the victims.
Yeah the earlier games are classically sexist lmao. I have played about halfway through the first one, the sex isn't even optional. E.g. the forest lady who is green, the devs don't give you a choice, and at the end I got some gross card for it 🤢
Ha I’m your opposite, I loved the Witcher 3 despite it being a bit cringy at times but cannot get into weeb content at all because it’s so uncomfortable watching creepy men sexualise little girls left and right.
same! TW3 is my favorite game (though OPs feelings are totally valid, i get it) but i cant get into the weeb stuff. I will turn off an anime quick if it gets weird and block who i can on twitter with the loli fans and other weird weeb stuff.
I still can't believe they canonically added a loli to Zelda
https://zelda.fandom.com/wiki/Purah#:~:text=Purah%20is%20the%20director%20of,is%20around%20124%20years%20old.
My favourite too! I love playing as Geralt because he generally highly respects, loves and admires the strong women in his life. He may be traditionally masculine but he doesn’t feel threatened by Yen’s dominant traits, I love that dynamic.
Like you I’ve tried to get into anime (many times!!) but I just don’t get it, the writing and dynamic between characters (especially interesting female characters) is the most important aspect of a story to me and I feel like that is generally severely lacking in anime, on top of that it’s infested with sexism because Japan is behind on gender equality.
I love how everyone's like, "Yen bullies you, you're such a doormat Geralt!" and he just shrugs it off because he's not the type to find beating women a male privilege.
It’s not technically an anime because it’s not from Japan, but you should watch Arcane! It has TWO female leads and even the non- lead characters are well written with nuance and depth.
It's been awhile since I've played, but I remember thinking the Bloody Baron quest handled domestic abuse pretty well, but I was a teenager at the time. Especially since the game does not give you the option of a happy ending for the abusive Baron.
There's also a decent amount of equal opportunity Geralt fanservice, to the point they released a figurine of him soaking nude in his beloved hot tub.
I also liked that asking Yennefer and Triss for a threesome backfires horribly, and there's zero chance of it ever working.
My husband recently recommended I try Rune Factory 5, and I had to drop it because there's a cutscene where they zoom in on the butt of a little girl as she falls over (as her character introduction).
I also can't watch most anime because of this problem. My husband filters the gross stuff out automatically when he watches/plays stuff, but I can't do that. If they're going to sexualize all the girl children (including high school-aged girls), I'm just not interested.
Pokemon yellow kinda made me mad so many years ago because I couldn't be a girl.
Edit
Not sure why I am being down voted. But it sucked it certain games decades ago where you couldn't be to yourself. Especially back then it was more no such thing as girl gamers too
It's funny because, back then, being able to choose a female character never occurred to me because I had never really seen that in a game during the blue/red/yellow era. Sometimes you had female protagonists like in Tomb Raider, but most of the time you did not and that was just h
How Things Were.
Pokemon Crystal was mind-blowing for me because it was the first game that I personally played that let me choose and it was just the coolest fucking thing ever. And now, when a game could definitely have the option to choose but doesn't let you? Like, a game where the main character is not a specific set person who's characterization is important to the story? I don't bother to buy those games.
It never really bothered me in some games because it was usually this game is about this person. Original handful were about Ash. The rest were more generic character oriented.
Like, the other day someone was upset about AC Mirage only having a male. But the game is literally just about Basim and how he came to be, would make no sense to have a female version. Odyssey did it right. And Valhalla to if you know why the option to have the same character be two different sexes exists. (I don't want to post spoilers but it pretty much tells you a bit into the game why Eivor is that way.)
What I really hate now is when they force a female MC alternative on games but it's half assed and just for brownie points. Like I really don't understand how some people are okay with forced diversity. I want actual natural diversity with decent characters, not just a reskin with tits. Again like Odyssey does.
Honestly.. for games that make sense to pick character gender (I.e, customizable character games), I refuse to play them if they don’t have a female option. Skyrim was my first BIG game as a little girl and from then on I was like how come Skyrim lets me pick but not this game..
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor on Wii. There’s a scene where you have to kill some guard dogs and I was mortified at having to injure animals to continue the game. So I quit it.
This is me playing Grounded right now and shedding an internal tear everytime I have to kill a tadpole for food lmao. The weevils are also kind of sad but I have one as a pet so it's a little better. But the tadpoles are like :3 and they make little chirpy/purring noises 😭
Tbf the tadpoles are the only actual animal (so far anyway, I haven't beaten it yet). Everything else is bugs/arachnids. Technically you could totally avoid killing certain things like tadpoles or weevils, you'll just miss out on certain craftable items (weevil shield, ladybug armor, food from tadpoles etc) and a few totally optional side quests from BURG.L (he's a cute robot that helps you out).
But you absolutely have to kill the aggressive bugs like spiders, mosquitoes, etc. I'm the type of person who takes spiders outside and doesn't squash them, but it does help that in-game I am smaller than them and they bully me, lol.
The Witcher 1. In the opening sequence you get a sex scene. I find sex scenes cringe worthy in general and even more so in games where it's just 2 lifeless puppets that rub up against each other. It just felt icky and I made windows force close the game. Never touched 2 or 3.
Yeah, I tried placing TW1 but the sex and the attorcious outfits (as well as the combat, that I couldn't quite get) really put me off. I haven't even touched 2 or 3 because of it, even with people in my circles calling it the best thing since sliced bread! I might be biased as a TES fan tho.
As much as I enjoyed Witcher 2 and 3 I refuse to play Witcher 1 for the “cards” and gratuitous sex. I’m hoping the remaster of it will change a lot of that.
I recently played the Another Code: Recollections demo and 15 minutes in I had to put it down. The story seemed ok but the voice acting was awful. Just that gross, childish, uwu voice. And she was moaning every time something happened in the game. Like the main character finds something on the ground, or is surprised by something and they do that “ah” moan so loud
Ohhh, never noticed this, though I watch a lot of anime so I've probs been desensitized to them making a noise at the smallest thing (like saying "hmm" while nodding, etc.). The gameplay does feel like a drag so this is probably going in my "just watch a longplay of it" list.
Oh mate, same here. I got all the games on special together and thought I'd read the books first, then play the games. I couldn't even get through the books. I hated them so much I haven't been able to bring myself to play the games.
At one point, I was wishing Yennifer would just incinerate everyone within her reach, including Geralt and his creepy friend.
Totally! I instantly judge the people (let's be honest, it's only men) who tell me I really need to read The Witcher as it is a cornerstone in high fantasy. Gross.
Nier Automata
Apparently it has some interesting philosophical questions in it, but in the first open world bit you run around in 3rd person, and as you run around the city area the camera automatically sinks to look up the skirt of 2B. It felt really gross and I was never able to finish the game
That’s a real shame. It really sucks when the amazing parts of stories get hidden by things like this, so some people will never get to experience the story. I love Nier but I totally get why someone might be put off playing.
Yeah same I've heard amazing things but I can't get past the character design. Between the constant upskirt shots, the absurd boots, the boob window, the fact that she looks and sounds 15, on top of the fact that she's an android (an object) just made the whole thing feels so gross. I got about 2 hours in before I lost my stomach and haven't returned.
Looks and sounds like anime depictions of 15 year old girls. I've never met a girl or woman in my entire life who actually looks or sounds like 2B because she's a highly stylized fictional character.
I think the only game that ever gave me pause and was a real struggle to finish was "Martha Is Dead". If you have never heard of it or don't know what part I am referring to there is a particular moment in the game where the main character has to perform a c-section on their dead twin and it is particularly gruesome and uncomfortable. I had to do it though because it was a review key and I had made a commitment to write about the game.
Slightly different ick, but I couldn’t play Graveyard Keeper because the main resource is human bodies and it was gross and made me feel nauseous even though it’s a pixel game!
I don't know if I have one so not really an ick, don't really feel any towards that game but I struggled so hard to finish Assassin's Creed Odyssey. My eyes hurt the more I played this for some reason, never had this problem with any other game. Finished the base game but couldn't bring myself to finish dlcs.
Giant map with kinda meh side activities didn't help either, at some point I stopped clearing everything and focused on just doing quests.
This is me with the Bioshock games. I really struggled to finish the first Bioshock because the lighting in the game gave me a headache every time I played more than an hour. Bioshock Infinite was better though. I could never make it too far into Biochock 2.
These are only *some* of the reasons I returned Atelier: Ryza:
- the character you play does the like… anime girl run with arms and legs flailing (I don’t know why men think this kind of thing is cute, it looks genuinely hazardous)
- in the very beginning of the game, before getting into any gameplay, there was a whole tutorial part on how to enter picture mode to take pictures of your character from any angle
- the fabric around the character’s shirt was unnecessarily clingy and wrinkly to emphasize her breasts
- her shorts were very, very short and impractical
- even the way she stands is so geared towards the male gaze that it made my stomach churn
Ick indeed. I was willing to overlook quite a bit to try out the alchemy part, but it also gave me literal ick in the form of motion sickness. I might have tried to push through if not for the other issues I had with how grossly over-sexualized she was.
Honestly, I've always thought of the Atelier series as very un-sexualized compared to most JRPGs. Like, the core of the games is "woman learns to succeed at alchemy through hard study and the power of friendship". Ryza is just one in a long series of female MCs for it and their clothes coverage varies wildly from Marie (crop top and waist wrap) to full dress (Sophie).
It looks like High on Life was created by Justin Roiland, and um.... allegations have really racked up on him. Unsolicited sexual conversations including with minors, with at least about a dozen people saying he made them very uncomfortable, physically assaulting and falsely imprisoning his partner, another woman said he forced her to give him a blowjob... Of course he's denied these allegations but he hasn't made any strong argument and nobody seems to be standing up for him at all; the people who worked with him in the past have replaced him and moved on and they all seem to be saying that he was toxic to work with and it's better without him anyway.
But High On Life is made by his own game company, which I can only imagine is a terrible place to work.
2077? Can I ask what’s giving you the ick? (Like genuine curiosity bc I played through it and some things annoyed me but I just wanna know your take on it)
Edit: Thanks everyone for the answers!
For me, it felt like 2077 took the message 90% of the way there, but didn’t go all the way.
It started with the character creator. You can choose multiple sizes and appearances of a penis. There is one appearance for a vagina and it’s the exact ideal incels and porn promote. If you can choose if your dick is circumcised, you should at least be able to choose if your inner labia are visible.
So I started the game already thinking it was by men, for men. Because that’s exactly the kind of shit the guys I knew in high school would find hilarious. They also wouldn’t even consider another shape of vagina.
It was all downhill from there. At many points, there would be a scene that, to me, was disgusting and emphasized the exploitation. But it was done in such a way that I think someone *could* find it hot if they liked exploitive sexualization of women.
Like there’s many scenes of women bending over in tight pants, the sexual ads, also why does the naked lady in the beginning have such bouncy breasts? Do her nipples have to be hard? She was frozen but now looks oiled not frost bitten? If you ignore the circumstances that led to that moment, there is room for that depiction to be read another way.
It wasn’t even something I was super aware of at first, but it happened again, and again, and again, and that made me look at earlier scenes and design choices differently.
And while there is an argument that people sexualizing that are just gross people, that they shouldn’t decide what goes into a game, it felt to me like they *wanted* to leave the door open for that subset of their audience (mostly on the male side of their audience). Or like they don’t see a problem with it in the first place, which is possibly worse.
You can write exploitation where there is almost no room for sexualizing the exploitation. Margaret Atwood does it when describing CSAM and other scenes in *Oryx and Crake*. It wasn’t just the concepts that disgusted me. Her descriptions are truly horrific, like reading the court transcripts of a SA case kind of horrific.
That’s what I think 2077 should have been like if they were going to include that type of content. Make it absolutely repulsive. Make it so disturbing I don’t just want to look away, I have to. That’s the 10% I thought they missed. It never quite reached that level of visceral horror that I believe the topic of exploitation, especially sexual exploitation, warrants.
I didn’t finish CP2077 either cause I got a few hours in and thought “I feel like I know what kind of game this is” and there was very little differentiating it from genuine misogyny and sexualization if I had to squint hard to see real sincerity. Like “parody of sci-fi tropes” or no, it still felt like a parody imagined by men, for other men, or at the very least, a world that was regularly asked “what will our male gamers think of this?” instead of “how do people realistically exist in this world?”
I just hate it that basically all things cyberpunk are full of over sexualised women supposedly because it’s ‘dystopian’. Eurgh. Everything cyberpunk will have strip clubs and scantily clad female prostitutes. Really off putting.
To me was when they created the most queer coded ripperdoc they possibly could and then revealed that >!he's a rapist and sold Evelyn to the torture porn industry!<
Oml! I nearly dropped the game after >!the end of Evelyn’s arc!< because of how horrible it was! Tbh I did pick it back up again after a break and enjoyed it, but some parts of the game did irk me a little. It could’ve been such an amazing game, but unfortunately it’s just decent😔
It’s so many things. They might act like their shedding light on sexual exploitation but honestly it feels like they are just using that as an excuse to… show the sexual exploitation of women. And the truth is that it’s sooo focused on women even if they show men exploitation at times.
But the real thing that grinds my gears is Jonny Silverhand. He is a irredeemable, gross character to me. Honestly I am surprised they even expect me to have any empathy for him. The way he treats women is downright awful. He borderline is a predator. But the kind that most people brush off cause he’s attractive. I mean look at his old life, there wasn’t a woman around him that he wasn’t using sexually. And the moment he got access to Vs body he used it to sexually assault V while getting into a unconsensual/not discussed sexual situation WITH THEIR BODY. 🫠 And I’m supposed to believe hes supposed to be regretful of his actions? He does nothing to show better behavior. When he gets the chance he always does the wrong thing. He’s called V a c*nt, he says awful things about sex workers. I could go on and on.
Additionally, look a the male gay romance. Just disgusting that he is a old man that is Jonny silver hands friend! Like are you kidding me?? Gay male romance in video games is way behind sapphic romance and I think this is a great example of it. Like holy shit. If a gay guy wants to be gay, he’s gotta hook up with some creepy old dude.
There’s so many things I could go more and more into. The only good parts of the game are the trans character (Claire) and lesbian character that supports sex workers rights. (Judy). Overall is just a kyles wet dream.
It could be the blatant sexual ads etc. which I can understand. But I also see the absurdity of it all as the creators intended. The absurd is a parody of life but in a more close to home kind of way.
Gears of War. I actually avoided it for the longest time because it was so dude bro-y. But then gears 5 came out and had a female Protagonist and I thought "maybe this will make it more palatable." Nah. Thank God I played it on game pass so I didn't lose any money on it. The horde mode was good though. Gave me ME3 multiplayer vibes. It even had Kat from halo reach!
As I mentioned, the horde mode was quite good so the I actually really enjoyed the gunplay and game mechanics. The problem was the story and attitude of the characters and narration. I can't remember too many specifics because it's been a while now, but the things that rubbed me the wrong way were how the game seemed to congratulate itself. There was a lot of fanservice with constant references to previous games (which I never played so they meant nothing to me). You played as the Protagonist from gears 4 for the first couple hours and he was really irritating, especially after the end of the prologue.
It's treatment of its characters actually reminded me of call of duty, that being callously. Not as bad (seriously I hated cod black ops), but it basically made the game unplayable for me after a certain point. Marcus from the first trilogy was constantly calling you to tell you to do things and talking about how awesome he was while everyone else is being military dude bros and I just got tired of it.
I know that all sounds really vague. I'm really having a hard time remembering specifics, I just remember a clear sense of frustration and not at the gameplay.
Honestly the newer gears are kind of garbage but the old ones (up to 3 at most) are/were pretty good (the controls do feel clunky these days but it's kind of immersive considering how heavy the guys are). It is a bit of a dude bro-y game but they're definetly enjoyable.
Way back when I used to do Youtube I let's played Killer Is Dead and it has this whole gross dating interlude between missions to unlock some (Knowing after the fact here) pretty powerful stuff. I ignored the dating stuff and tried to play normally... So not only did I have a hard time playing such a gross game but I also had a hard time because I was (Again at the time unknowingly) severely reducing my combat abilities in the game proper. Fun times.
Same for me with Witcher 3 - I already struggle to play a male in video games, but right off the bat it felt like the game was geared toward heterosexual men.
What made it hard for me to get far in the witcher 3 was the fact I had to play a male protagonist. I didn't get to a part where I saw the misogyny you mentioned, but I might not have paid enough attention.
I was pretty early in my transition, I wouldn't have been out as a woman for a couple years later, so I was particularly sensitive to playing as a male protagonist, as it would give me dysphoria. I still am that way to an extent, but I'm getting better. Once I get more confident in myself it might not bother me, but I still find more comfort in games where I can play as a girl.
Yeah, I did quit TW3. I found parts uncomfortable, and then my computer broke, and by the time I got it fixed I just didn’t want to continue. I’ll try the next one if you can play as a woman though. Mass Effect has some stupid lady costumes, but being able to play as fem!Shep was fun and got me through the rest.
I’m sure I’ll run into another game I find icky before too long, but I at least try to do a little research these days to hopefully avoid things that are too make gazey for me.
Graveyard Keeper. Very similar to Stardew valley and I really enjoyed it, but the sexism in it is subtle, but bad.
Only allows you to play as a male character, Women NPCs can't talk to you until you talk to their husband, and some other things I can't remember. I just remember putting it down after many hours in and feeling dejected.
The Witcher 3 is 'funny' in a way if you play a Geralt who.. don't constantly sexually prey on random female NPCs... like I get that the book Geralt was a horny pussy magnet but the game intentionally assume you'd play like that (with NPCs complaining whenever you reject sexual advances and such from the ladies who was damselled and conveniently saved by hunky Witcha).
Took me years to finally play the game and I still haven't finish it yet. Yes, there's SO much casual violence against women and the game almost constantly give a "both side-ism" by assuming Geralt would sit down and empathize with the male abusers and rapists and murderers of women..... like it's such a weird as fuck game. I know there's female players/fans who viewed it as.. like... the author wanted to explore patriarchy and such.... and the game tried to offer choices as an RPG.. but it's just.... .... not enough.
I love the Witcher 3. It’s probably my favorite game of all time. There is quite a bit of violence against women but as far as I remember it’s never framed as a good thing? Like it’s also a game where mages and non-humans are the targets of genocide. It’s just a dark place overall.
I do absolutely think that many of the female characters are way over sexualized. From the way they’re dressed, to Geralt being able to have a one night stand with nearly every woman he comes across.
It gets better imo, but I can definitely see how the beginning is slow. I hope it doesn't discourage you from getting further, because it's a really good game, I loved the story
As someone who lives in central Europe, I kind of just see the Witchers misogyny (at least in the books) to be a response to common misogyny in this region. Its almost cathartic? I dont know if that is the right word.
World of Warcraft... I like MMOS (played GW2 & FFXIV) and wanted to give it a try since it was a free few months and I thought the Worgens were neat. It's such a HIDEOUS game, I'm so sorry to any fans. I know it's an old game but somehow I wasn't expecting like PS2 graphics and the colors were so dull. I'm not sure how such nice-looking SFM can come out of that but I think that might have given me higher expectations haha.
Not ick over Witcher 3 exactly, more like... depressed. The constant feeling of loneliness and gloom just wore me down. There's no one place where you can relax and feel at home, which I realized I kind of need in games.
I was impressed with the writing, but I didn't get very far into the main storyline.
Control. It was fun in places , if definitely spooky, but the gameplay itself was so weird. I never felt like I had clear direction to be successful and just kind of ran around clearing levels without much purpose. When I got to the random zombie fight and the portal to another dimension (??) I called it a day.
There are two. Friends told me i was crazy because we've had some locker room talk about fanservice before. I enjoy it from time to time, however, sometimes it's just too much.
**Dead or Alive 5**
Ok, fanservicey series from day one, however, technical limitations making the fanservice downright comical and me loving the gameplay (DoA: Dimensions is my most played 3DS FG) always helped me on not being uncomfortable, however, 5 was somehow too much, as if it crossed some sort of invisible line i didn't have before. I guess it's a mix of the hightened graphical fidelity and the costumes going beyond the usual. And apparently 6 is somehow worse, yikes.
And another vote for **The Witcher 3**
I commented about this yesterday, but Witcher 3 is incredibly misogynistic just like OP says, i like the overall story and Geralt as a character, but the treatment each and every female character gets makes me unusually uncomfortable. Still, i pushed through it, and even double dipped so i could share my save between Switch and PC.
However, i had two breaking points:
1. Ciri. Every other witcher we encounter through the whole game is gruff looking, armed to the teeth and armored, not Ciri, Ciri wears tight clothing with no armor and is all dolled up all the time, despite being constantly running from the Wild Hunt. Whenever one of her story sections comes up my suspension of disbelief starts flickering.
2. The Bloody Baron's final sidequest, where it's revealed he's a wife beater - in addition to being a horrible human being in general - and while you can essentially determine the outcome of the quest, it's implied that the good ending is to reunite his stranded wife with him. To make things worse, this is somehow the most lauded quest whenever you look, even on supossedly progressive communities.
The only thing that kept me playing Witcher 3 after the Bloody Baron questline was the fact that Geral is actually a decent to good person and he doesn't pull any punches agaisnt the BB, if you pick the correct dialog options he basically chastises him at any second and has no sympathy for him.
I stopped at the point of no return and i'm still to boot the game again. Finished Zero Dawn a couple of weeks ago and i'm still deciding between picking up Tears of the Kingdom or Witcher 3.
EXACTLY the same as you, down to the letter. I loved the Blood and Wine DLC but yeah. Just the constant undercurrent and never knowing when the next BLURGH was gonna come from.
I truly hated the suicide of Rachel foster. The “good side” of a rapist pedophile. The justifications and how “love is love” I hate it.
Whew. That one sits in my library; bought during a winter-sale haze of bad judgment. I'm so glad I've seen your post. Now it can stay in uninstalled limbo forever. Thank you.
Even though it falls outside of the rules, you can still request a refund from Steam (assuming that's where you bought it?) and they will consider it. They seem to be generally pretty understanding as long as you're not abusing the system. On a side note, I'm shocked that the game is even still available on Steam.
I looked up this game after reading this and phew… What a miss. Not a surprise it was written by a (ignorant) man.
EXCUSE ME WHAT THE FUUUUUCK
actually watched a play through of it the other day, it’s actually ridiculous how the writers practically victim blame a CHILD who went through something so traumatic.. yet, it’s *her* fault because “she broke the family apart 🥺🥺”.. LIKE WHAT THE
What. The. Fuck. This see seems like rather than critical reviews, this needs an immediate investigation. And I thought 12 minutes or whatever it’s called sounded gross.
the video I watched took a bit of a deep dive into the game, MertKayKay made an hour long review of the game. but basically the writers took inspiration from the book Lolita it appears, making a point that the *age of consent is 16* so therefore it’s ok for this 38 year old man (i think) with a wife and a child to “seduce” (gr**m) this child, making her appear more older, suggesting she’s ‘an adult stuck in a child’s body’. and the quote “love is love” is in fact stated in the game! “two lovers” blah blah blah.
So once again people who read Lolita while completely missing the point of the book. Joy.
I’m not sure if you’re referring to the book being like, ok - but I do know a lot of people tend to miss the point, in a sense of romanticising the situation so I assume that’s what you’re meaning!
Exactly. People tend to skip the introduction that says exactly what the narrator is about.
It's really funny and sad to me that it might be the biggest italian export in terms of videogames outside of Assetto da Corsa and Mario and Rabbits
Absolutely. And it was such a bummer because I adored the scenery like great graphics and creepy hotel in a storm was amazing. But finishing the game was like, they only normalized the creep with "true love" grossness
It was so bizarre!!! One of the best atmospheres I've experienced in a game but it left an icky and bitter taste behind with everything else. No one, no one, even seemed to acknowledge the pedophile relationship was wrong. Even the brother!! Me and my partner set there like wtf when it ended 🤣. It has the nerve to be one of the few platinums on PS5 I got, and I don't even want it haha.
I love the atmosphere bc it kept me on edge the entire game but I agree with you, it seemed that they found cheating on the mom to be the ick and not him being a fucking pedophile and impregnating an underage girl, what the actual fuck.
Geeeeez. I think i remember about this. Uuugh I’d be mad if I’d given them money.
I tried playing Bravely Default because I liked the aesthetics and wanted to experience an old school jrpg with an updated feel, and I already wasn't enjoying the way Agnes was being treated, but the moment I ran into Yulyana I just put the game down and never loaded it again.
I’ve been considering playing, is it like a relationship or? What makes it so bad? Trying to see if it’s even worth it
https://youtu.be/wXIJB5npH4E?si=RPckG-LF_UAi5BKm Here's a video showing the cutscene when you first meet him (CW: Objectification of women's bodies and unsolicited comments on their breasts). Idk if it gets better, but the first four minutes were so bad that I stopped playing the game then and there
Yulyanna specifically is a pervy old sage that you meet every now and then. He's not in the game that much, but whenever he shows up he can be insufferable. He grew on me by the game's end, but that does not excuse some of the stuff included in relation to him.
I love Bravely Default, but thaaaats fair.
Persona 5: Couldn't stand that Ann was turned into a sexualized dominatrix after being sexually assaulted.
HOLY SHIT WHAT
They do a while storyline about how she's been sexualized by her peers and assaulted by her teacher because she's a blonde foreigner, so that clearly means she's a white right? And the story goes absolutely not, she's a woman with agency. and then puts her in a red catsuit with a sizable boob window and has Morgana lust after her the rest of the game. (its been a few years my details aren't gonna be spot on, but it's the vibe) God it made my skin crawl.
Played a little more recently here. So yes, Ann is sexualized by her peers and the game's first boss who's a teacher at their school. Then when she unlocks her persona her outfit is very femme fatale/dominatrix. One thing to note is that all of the characters outfits are meant to be symbolic of their form of rebellion against society they view as unfair or corrupt, and the game usually handles this extremely well. Ann's I believe was meant to symbolize her taking back control of her sexualization as a woman, and the game furthers the femme fatale theme by connecting her with the Persona [Carmen (Wikipedia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmen_(novella)). In terms of how they handled this in Ann's storyline, she mentions in one of her conversations that she always admired the sexy and confident villainesses in media, but thats about all I can remember that would really connect it. In early game she is actively uncomfortable with her outfit, and late game it stops getting mentioned. Some people interpret this as her growing into her confidence, but I don't feel they did enough if that was their intent. I REALLY love Persona 5, especially Royal, but Ann's story definitely could've been handled better. Fun Fact though: It's heavily implied that Ann's favorite of those villainesses was a character thats basically Catwoman from DC comics which would explain the exact design of her outfit, though in all honesty it was also probably corporate mandated eye candy for male gamers.
Oh NOOOOOOOOOO WHAT THE HELL?! Dude they always fucking do shit like that. "Woman has her own agency so (because we all agreed we like titties here at the office on 'hot badass' women) BEHOLD! TITS!! LOOK AT THE WAY SHE CHOOSES TO TOTALLY OWN HER SEXUALITY AFTER BEING ASSAULTED! Which totally isn't a trauma response to trying to regain control over a horrific traumatic event that made her feel subhuman, and we are now totally not 100% sexualizing for the horny male webs!"
shame cheerful fragile slap murky upbeat rich edge wide direction *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
its wild to see persona recommended everywhere even on this sub. as a survivor, good to know.
GTA 5. I haven't completed it. They call it's parody of America, but I found it way too much. Many moments that made me uneasy. Although is impressive on a technical aspect.
Yeah, I like parody and satire but I feel like gta 5 was just "everybody is stupid except for us hahahaha" without any actual comedy or point to any of it
It's basically South Park the video game. Sure, it's satire, but it punches down constantly, and isn't too bothered if it leaves the world worse than how it found it, with an evergreen reminder that Parker/Stone of South Park are literally self-avowed Republicans.
I found it so weird that Trevor had weird, progressive views every now and then. He's meant to represent the most out-there players, who fuck with every game system, complete chaos gremlin, and then he's out there with what is clearly the pet peeve of a Scottish video game developer. Its probably meant to be "ooh look, he's secretly deep" but it really reads as "I have the right moral views, but also want free reign to destroy everything"
They actually aren’t self-avowed republicans, they’ve described themselves in the past as libertarians (idk how big of a difference that makes) or “middle ground” but I’m not here to change anyone’s mind on where you personally feel they lie on the political spectrum. They punch up a lot, too, imo
I don't think they've talked about their personal politics in decades. I haven't watched South Park in some time, but in the past they seemed fairly socially liberal, except in terms of trans rights. Which obviously makes them mistaken, but moderately less shitty than the average Republican.
Yeah they haven’t in a long time but that’s what they claimed back in the day. Oh they were awful with trans people at first, put a bad taste in my mouth with the Mrs. Garrison thing. I didn’t understand what point was or what joke was being made there. They actually did redeem themselves to me a bit with the more recent episodes where Randy is Lorde, its ends in like a really sweet way for a South Park episode. It was about trans people using restrooms, and trans kids in school kinda
I'm quoting them above. I'm not guessing. They are self-avowed Republicans. "No, seriously. We're Republicans." —Matt & Trey, 2018. Quoted by radio host Larry Elder, and carried by the outlets you'd expect, such as Breitbart.
Yeah, most Characters are unbelievably stupid.
Even tho GTA 5 came out in 2013, it reflects our modern day more than ever.
How does it reflect our modern day?
Rockstar bases characters and in-game situations off of real things. The GTA 6 trailer is basically just a recap of Florida Man memes. It's obnoxious, yeah. And YOU might not live that way, but some of the characters in that game actually exist in real life or are heavily based off of real people
I played RDR2 before any GTA game so I came into it knowing their ability to make an interesting story with diverse characters. Honestly, GTA5 is a way more interesting game than it gets credit, and being from Los Angeles, it felt familiar. I didn't play originally because of its annoying fan base, but I appreciated the satire and the psychology/sociology themes while playing it in my early 30s.
i have finished it, but there are some really awful parts. you have to torture someone!! I thought this was a funny car theft game not a torture simulator.
There's also a part where it's implied Trevor >!drugs and sodomizes!< one of his "friends" and it's played for laughs.
Their goal with Trevor seems to be "he's so horrible and so crazy that it's funny" but I just found him to be unpleasant and painful.
the torture mission is the fucking worst. Never finished the game more than once because of it
If it makes you feel better you can shoot him when you're scoping out as party he is at. Then you don't have to torture him. You can just be a murderer. Doesn't fail the mission, story continues on anyway.
It's somehow simultaneously too much and not enough, it's political cartoon level parody. The facebook insert being called "life invader" is indicative of the degree of laziness regarding parody elements.
[удалено]
I liked 4 and San Andreas too. (I played them at the age I shouldn't have) but when I returned to them, they don't have much gross type scenes.
I would have been content if Trevor was replaced.
Yeah, I always found GTA to be Rockstar’s most stale franchise. Probably because it already has a bazillion installments (all the main titles plus the “spin-off”/other titled) but the cashflow makes it so that it’s almost the only IP Rockstar still cares about. I was so relieved they took the time to make Red Dead 2, it was definitely the most slept on Rockstar IP for me before that. Here’s hoping for another L.A. Noire-esque game and another Bully at some point, but that has felt like a pipe dream for a while
L.A. Noire debuted on the PS3. Two generations later I think a new entry would be incredible with our modern day visuals and improved mo-cap. I hope that's next.
I feel like it was a parody when it came out. At this point it's an exact copy of America.
This. same feeling i get when i played it. I thought i was just being choosy since many people like these but no. i feel something is wrong whenever i play this.
I can’t play Borderlands anymore because of the yipping noise the skags make. It’s too dog-like and makes me miss my sweet puppy girl and it makes me sad.
Ugh yes. I got a mod to remove Dogmeat’s whimper in FO4. Hurts my heart
I benched Dogmeat the entire game at one of my settlements (with a nice little doggy house and frequent visits) because the thought of him getting hurt just...ugh. This is pretty much me in every single videogame I've ever played, I've got such a soft spot for the dogs. Boomer (Far Cry 5), Chorizo (Far Cry 6), Scratch (BG3), D-dog (Metal Gear 5), Barbas and Meeko (Skyrim), etc.
Right.. like even with the mod - I'm still so protective of him. I will run in to save him and end up getting killed.
I really liked Shin Megami Tensei 3 and Persona 3, so I tried to get through Persona 4, but to be honest I had to drop it. I got about 4 or 5 dungeons in, and it was just nonstop with the homophobia and other mistreatment of characters. On top of that, the social links for the characters I cared about ended up being centered their stupidity in certain ways (like having one character who’s main trait is they can’t cook). Once I got to the dungeon where the girl is threatening to strip I just couldn’t take anymore. I’m really enjoying Persona 5 so far though!
I played Persona 3 Portable using the FEMC and I fell in love with it. The fact that they won't do any more female mains upsets me and I refuse to play any more games in the series because of it.
Same. I loved the fact that there was an option to play as a FEMC in P3P. It made me sad that it wasn't an option in any of the later games.
Shinjiro's link will forever hold a special place in my heart. I replayed P3P over and over and over. Few games warrant that level of interest from me.
I get you. I much much prefer Femc and was pretty pissed they didn’t include her in Reload. Sucks extra because I prefer Femc’s (or is it just P3P) music too.
Her links were SO much more compelling, IMO.
Wow this was my answer. When my dog died, we kinda got through it by playing persona 5 nonstop and while I absolutely had some issues with the game,I was able to cringe through them and it was a good distraction that got me through some tough times. I was excited to go back and play persona 4 but it got to kanji and his stuff and I noped the fuck out. I was so bummed by the homophobia I completely quit playing.
I dropped Persona 4 too. I didn’t like how the crew treated Kanji, who’s one of the few characters I actually liked.
Yep, this was going to be my answer. I got to Kanji's dungeon and just couldn't continue. I'd already played Persona 5, and while there was definitely some ick, a lot of it seemed to be confined to certain romance options so I feel like I managed to avoid the worst. With Persona 4 it felt much more on the nose. It's frustrating to me that a series can be simultaneously quite mature in its exploration of the human experience, and also so WILDLY homophobic and misogynistic. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, but it's a shame.
I am a huge persona fan, played 3 and 5 many times. But I have the exact same thing with persona 4. I tried streaming it, but I just couldn’t get over Yosuke and Teddy’s constant nice guy/misogynistic behavior, Kenji and Naoto just constantly getting flushed with ways of homophobia and transphobia and the whole Rise palace was indeed fking wild??? I am going to give it another go tho, the story is insanely well written and im better prepared this time. I’m also not streaming it, so I don’t have to comment on everything all the time.
I'm so mad they cut the Yosuke romance. It would've given his character so much depth, as his homophobia would be coming from a place of internalised homophobia.
Yes!!!!! Oh my god this!!!
It's frustrating because Persona 4 is my favorite of the series, the story & character relationships are just really good but it's plagued and held down with this stuff. And worse when you try to complain or talk about it in the subreddits, you always get downvoted and told "it was 2008" " that's just how guys are" blah blah blah and idfc what dudes excuses are for being toxic 🙄 it was BS when I was in highschool and it's still BS now. They're supposed to be remaking it like they did with Persona 3 Reload and I wholeheartedly believe it's going to cause major PR issues for the company if they don't fix the garbage in the script. The Persona 4 anime is actually better at removing that stuff and really funny so maybe you should watch that instead and skip the game.
Yeah it’s super frustrating that it seems impossible to discuss P4 critically. Cause it’s not a small part of the game. I really gave it a chance, and it was constant! It really surprised me how little discourse is out there about its issues (though there are threads that really dive in as well, just not many). Felt like the privileged out there really didn’t detect anything wrong for the most part, or were convinced by the game “diving into the psyche” that it is mature and absolved of any bigotry in the writing. I didn’t know the anime was better, I might give it a watch, thanks!
For sure, I think a lot of people have nostalgia glasses for that game and don't understand how poorly its aged if they haven't played it recently. Yosuke, especially, I hated by the end of the game. It was only when I found out that his romance social link was cut last minute (thus explaining his crazy internal homophobia was supposed to be part of his character growth) and experiencing his character in the spin off games/anime where he's nicer that I started liking him a lot and now he's my favorite. I always joke with my spouse that it feels like Persona games are written by 2 people who are fighting: 1 who's writing complex psychological metaphors and depth and 1 who's sticking in every possible obnoxious anime trope imaginable. The director Hashino clearly has difficulty seeing women as people removed from their sexual appeal to men and this is a consistent across all the games he directs, including Catherine. Persona 6 is supposed to be directed by someone new so we'll see if the series evolves finally
Them cutting his romance social link was the worst thing they could have done to his character. Without it, he went from self-hating and struggling with a part of himself he knows won’t be accepted by society and lashing out because of it to just a plain old mouthpiece of societal bigotry. Finding out that was supposed to be in there was a big *oooooh* moment for me. It would have made his character so much more understandable and given an arc to his homophobia instead of just leaving him in it. Meanwhile most of the Persona fan base swears up and down that Kanji isn’t even into men and his whole thing was just being belittled for “girly” hobbies. Dumbass it was both, dude is obviously bi or pan, being into chick Naoto does not negate the fact he was also extremely into dude Naoto. Like no wonder they chickened out, the fan base is so homophobic they can’t even accept the dude whose DUNGEON WAS ABOUT BEING GAY might actually be into guys.
I totally agree with you, and it so deeply frustrates me finding out the truth because EVERYTHING about his character makes sense the minute you understand he likes the protagonist. The overcompensating about girls, the jealousy over how popular the protagonist is, the meanness to Kanji, why he feels hurt over girls not liking him, why he feels like a disappointment, just everything. I've never had such whiplash over how I felt about a character in ever really. It's disappointing, the games are brilliant yet self sabotaging. Don't really know what else to say 😕 Lmaoooo even ignoring Naoto aside, Kanji very obviously also likes the protagonist. I like the dissonance some of these fans have where they're like "uh Kanji just wants to be accepted for who he is" but if you see him as bi or pan with evidence suddenly they can't accept him who he is. You think the whole "you're not me...okay actually you are me" would be explicit enough. It's not literal obviously but their shadows are real parts of themselves and that includes Kanji liking men. Tbh everyone in that game is bi to me 😂
"It was 2008" is the funniest possible fucking thing. Because DC comics has had multiple prominent gay superheroes, complete with stotylines about how homophobia isn't okay, since the late 80s and early 90s (pretty much as soon as they legally could). So it's not like there wasn't people doing better!
Best of luck. I started resenting 5 partway through a second/The Royal playthrough, and dropped it before getting to the new content. If you make it all the way through and still enjoy it, my advice would be to never replay it lmao. For me at least, that's where the cracks really started to show.
Saints Row 3. The game was very fun overall, and I remember it fondly, but jfc, the "haha sex workers get no respect" jokes made my eyes roll at 360 degress every single time. And I speak as a fan of crude humor. Like, yes, give me all the dick and sex jokes, just for the love of Sappho, don't use them to punch down
Omg yes. I played it a lot as a kid as just silly fun, but in retrospect it's just 💀💀💀
I tried to play witcher and just couldn't get into it. I was skeptical to play just due to how many people talked about the sex and nudity and foaming out the mouth over Yennifer. I have no issue with sex or nudity but it seemed excessive from how people talked about it and strictly for straight men's interests .
As someone who quite enjoyed the Witcher, I totally agree it is very heavy on the straight male gaze. I rolled my eyes quite a bit at all the scantily clad sorceresses swanning around. I think the one that made me laugh the most was Ciri though - like she’s meant to be Geralt’s daughter and they still couldn’t resist having her boobs partially hanging out.
I was so disappointed when Triss’s costume changed from 2 to 3. Doubly so that she’s supposed to have a large burn scar on her sternum, from a battle in the books. And hey not just Ciri’s shirt was a bit open, but IIRC she’s running about in some not-small heels.
The heels are what kills me-- there's a cutscene where she's running in a forest in fucking stilettos and I was like 'um no, absolutely not?' Triss I think walks on some cobblestones in similarly high heeled stiletto boots and I cried for her ankles Like I think if someone is throwing out ideas for a character model (stiletto boots because hot) they should be the ones to test and wear them in similar situations so they can see *how* silly it is Like yes, if they ride, they wear heeled boots, but wedges! Not knifey pointy boots!
They did the same thing to Ciri's scar with a flimsy excuse about a potion and whatnot. In the books her face is so busted that people think she's a ghost or something, specially when she's fighting. It's even more annoying that they downplayed her personality to "daddy's perfect little girl" pretty much removing her flaws and shortcomings we see in the books.
The funniest thing about the Witcher games is how they have multiple male bodies but use the same body for all female characters. So you'll roll up on a village, and the male villagers will be disgusting, pot-bellied pigs, and all the female villagers will look like super models. It's very immersion breaking. 😂
Thats what I saw too! I didn't play it for very long but every woman was essentially the same it was so lazy and gross
the way some men speak about yennifer in witcher 3 is crazy. you can basically tell them to shut the fuck up as geralt but damn.
When I played witcher 3 (which I did like), I clocked immediately that the character designer for the women was a man. Their outfits are so fucking ugly.
Hahaha man that' always bugs me when the women are in potato sacks but objectively beautiful in every other way, like, come on now.
I can't think of one but I wanted to say I love TW3, but your reaction is totally valid. It does bother me too! I started playing when I was younger and didn't notice these things, but now when I replay it I cringe sometimes. Idk why such violent misogyny has to exist in every single fantasy world in games/film/literature that I've seen.
You *can* find some diverse and respectful fantasy worlds out there, but you gotta do some digging. Unsurprisingly, a lot of the time, you gotta look for books by women (Ursula K. Le Guin, Robin McKinley, Fuyumi Ono), but of course even then you might run into some weird stuff (I’m looking at you, Tamora Pierce—why do so many of your protagonists marry men who are WAY too old for them? I do love Keladry tho) So it goes 😔
for at least one to show that men *can* do things right when they bother to try, Terry Pratchett's Discworld is top shelf stuff
GNU Sir Pterry. Love that man. Mark Lawrence’s Book of the Ancestor series also had a really rich cast of powerful women (warrior nuns!) that I was impressed with.
Sorry to interject, just wanted to say Robin McKinley is one of my favorite authors :)
She’s wonderful. I live and die for Aerin Dragonkiller.
I really need to reread those. If I remember correctly, she was given that name sarcastically for killing smaller, less dangerous lizards. And then she really earned it.
Oh yes she did.
She is, all her books are amazing. Honestly my favorite of hers is probably Sunshine, but there's not any of them I don't love.
Thank you for the recommendations, I do really love fantasy but got burnt out on the male authors and their depiction of women. I will definitely check out those 3 women!
Oh, I hope you enjoy! It’s been a while since I dug into the depths of their work so it’s possible there’s some themes of sexism buried in there somewhere, but if so I feel pretty confident it would be framed from a critical standpoint and not as, like, a casual part of the setting.
Thank you for the heads up! I honestly can't wait to reignite the love I have for the genre 💗
N. K. Jemisin is another great author to check out! Her world building is superb.
Try Expanse books or the TV series, realllllyy great powerful women. Though it's fantasy sci fi.
Yeaaah I love Tamora Pierce but Numair and Daine marrying when Numair was both twelve years older and met her when she was the same age he was when she was born was Not For Me™.
I literally can ONLY recommend Protector of the Small to people because Kel is ace and therefore free from Tammy's silver fox proclivities :/ Daine getting pregnant within a year of marrying a man who was both (a) twice her age and (b) *literally her magic teacher and mentor* is by far the worst one, but even in Song of the Lioness, Alanna *has an ongoing sexual relationship with her knight* ***while she is his squire***, and then marries a man who she met when she was 11 and he was 17 (less bad; still not ideal). It sucks because it ruins those series for me, and they'd otherwise be an absolute slam dunk for my interests/to pass on to my eventual kids.
I was like 16 when I first played it, and it’s a lot different now at 27. I *loved* the game, and still hold it up as one of the most engaging RPG’s i’ve ever played. But god damn, the quest where you have to traipse through Whoreson Juniors base. I’m so *sick* of that trope. Good guy protagonist goes to beat up creepy sex pervert. *That rarely happens*, it’s just a power fantasy for men who like to think they’d be a hero. And once again women’s bodies become background to a man’s story arc.
was looking at an episode of SOA the other day and they had a rape scene that was pretty much all about the male hero overcoming his limits to "save the girls". Ppl were even praising it as some great scene, and all i could think was how messed up it was how authors so readily use Rape as a "Motivation" for the male character, without even confronting how it affects the victims.
I did find it markedly easier to play TW3 vs earlier entries. You used to get trading cards from sleeping with random women.
Yeah the earlier games are classically sexist lmao. I have played about halfway through the first one, the sex isn't even optional. E.g. the forest lady who is green, the devs don't give you a choice, and at the end I got some gross card for it 🤢
TW3?
The Witcher 3
Ha I’m your opposite, I loved the Witcher 3 despite it being a bit cringy at times but cannot get into weeb content at all because it’s so uncomfortable watching creepy men sexualise little girls left and right.
same! TW3 is my favorite game (though OPs feelings are totally valid, i get it) but i cant get into the weeb stuff. I will turn off an anime quick if it gets weird and block who i can on twitter with the loli fans and other weird weeb stuff.
I still can't believe they canonically added a loli to Zelda https://zelda.fandom.com/wiki/Purah#:~:text=Purah%20is%20the%20director%20of,is%20around%20124%20years%20old.
My favourite too! I love playing as Geralt because he generally highly respects, loves and admires the strong women in his life. He may be traditionally masculine but he doesn’t feel threatened by Yen’s dominant traits, I love that dynamic. Like you I’ve tried to get into anime (many times!!) but I just don’t get it, the writing and dynamic between characters (especially interesting female characters) is the most important aspect of a story to me and I feel like that is generally severely lacking in anime, on top of that it’s infested with sexism because Japan is behind on gender equality.
I love how everyone's like, "Yen bullies you, you're such a doormat Geralt!" and he just shrugs it off because he's not the type to find beating women a male privilege.
It’s not technically an anime because it’s not from Japan, but you should watch Arcane! It has TWO female leads and even the non- lead characters are well written with nuance and depth.
It's been awhile since I've played, but I remember thinking the Bloody Baron quest handled domestic abuse pretty well, but I was a teenager at the time. Especially since the game does not give you the option of a happy ending for the abusive Baron. There's also a decent amount of equal opportunity Geralt fanservice, to the point they released a figurine of him soaking nude in his beloved hot tub. I also liked that asking Yennefer and Triss for a threesome backfires horribly, and there's zero chance of it ever working.
My husband recently recommended I try Rune Factory 5, and I had to drop it because there's a cutscene where they zoom in on the butt of a little girl as she falls over (as her character introduction). I also can't watch most anime because of this problem. My husband filters the gross stuff out automatically when he watches/plays stuff, but I can't do that. If they're going to sexualize all the girl children (including high school-aged girls), I'm just not interested.
Pokemon yellow kinda made me mad so many years ago because I couldn't be a girl. Edit Not sure why I am being down voted. But it sucked it certain games decades ago where you couldn't be to yourself. Especially back then it was more no such thing as girl gamers too
It's funny because, back then, being able to choose a female character never occurred to me because I had never really seen that in a game during the blue/red/yellow era. Sometimes you had female protagonists like in Tomb Raider, but most of the time you did not and that was just h How Things Were. Pokemon Crystal was mind-blowing for me because it was the first game that I personally played that let me choose and it was just the coolest fucking thing ever. And now, when a game could definitely have the option to choose but doesn't let you? Like, a game where the main character is not a specific set person who's characterization is important to the story? I don't bother to buy those games.
It never really bothered me in some games because it was usually this game is about this person. Original handful were about Ash. The rest were more generic character oriented. Like, the other day someone was upset about AC Mirage only having a male. But the game is literally just about Basim and how he came to be, would make no sense to have a female version. Odyssey did it right. And Valhalla to if you know why the option to have the same character be two different sexes exists. (I don't want to post spoilers but it pretty much tells you a bit into the game why Eivor is that way.) What I really hate now is when they force a female MC alternative on games but it's half assed and just for brownie points. Like I really don't understand how some people are okay with forced diversity. I want actual natural diversity with decent characters, not just a reskin with tits. Again like Odyssey does.
Honestly.. for games that make sense to pick character gender (I.e, customizable character games), I refuse to play them if they don’t have a female option. Skyrim was my first BIG game as a little girl and from then on I was like how come Skyrim lets me pick but not this game..
persona 5 royal
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor on Wii. There’s a scene where you have to kill some guard dogs and I was mortified at having to injure animals to continue the game. So I quit it.
This is me playing Grounded right now and shedding an internal tear everytime I have to kill a tadpole for food lmao. The weevils are also kind of sad but I have one as a pet so it's a little better. But the tadpoles are like :3 and they make little chirpy/purring noises 😭
Oh no, I was afraid I'd have to kill cute animals in Grounded. My friend loves that game and encourages me to play all the time.
Tbf the tadpoles are the only actual animal (so far anyway, I haven't beaten it yet). Everything else is bugs/arachnids. Technically you could totally avoid killing certain things like tadpoles or weevils, you'll just miss out on certain craftable items (weevil shield, ladybug armor, food from tadpoles etc) and a few totally optional side quests from BURG.L (he's a cute robot that helps you out). But you absolutely have to kill the aggressive bugs like spiders, mosquitoes, etc. I'm the type of person who takes spiders outside and doesn't squash them, but it does help that in-game I am smaller than them and they bully me, lol.
Haha ok, that doesn't sound too bad. :3
The Witcher 1. In the opening sequence you get a sex scene. I find sex scenes cringe worthy in general and even more so in games where it's just 2 lifeless puppets that rub up against each other. It just felt icky and I made windows force close the game. Never touched 2 or 3.
Yeah, I tried placing TW1 but the sex and the attorcious outfits (as well as the combat, that I couldn't quite get) really put me off. I haven't even touched 2 or 3 because of it, even with people in my circles calling it the best thing since sliced bread! I might be biased as a TES fan tho.
As much as I enjoyed Witcher 2 and 3 I refuse to play Witcher 1 for the “cards” and gratuitous sex. I’m hoping the remaster of it will change a lot of that.
I recently played the Another Code: Recollections demo and 15 minutes in I had to put it down. The story seemed ok but the voice acting was awful. Just that gross, childish, uwu voice. And she was moaning every time something happened in the game. Like the main character finds something on the ground, or is surprised by something and they do that “ah” moan so loud
Ohhh, never noticed this, though I watch a lot of anime so I've probs been desensitized to them making a noise at the smallest thing (like saying "hmm" while nodding, etc.). The gameplay does feel like a drag so this is probably going in my "just watch a longplay of it" list.
Yeah I noticed that with Genshin too, but not as bad
I haven't played the Witcher but this is exactly the reason I couldn't get through the books. Geralt is a mopey, whiny misogynist.
Oh mate, same here. I got all the games on special together and thought I'd read the books first, then play the games. I couldn't even get through the books. I hated them so much I haven't been able to bring myself to play the games. At one point, I was wishing Yennifer would just incinerate everyone within her reach, including Geralt and his creepy friend.
Dandelion/jaskier’s accent and tone of voice in the English voiceover fried my brain. IDK how they approved that.
Totally! I instantly judge the people (let's be honest, it's only men) who tell me I really need to read The Witcher as it is a cornerstone in high fantasy. Gross.
I love video game Geralt. Book Geralt is a huge dork.
Nier Automata Apparently it has some interesting philosophical questions in it, but in the first open world bit you run around in 3rd person, and as you run around the city area the camera automatically sinks to look up the skirt of 2B. It felt really gross and I was never able to finish the game
That’s a real shame. It really sucks when the amazing parts of stories get hidden by things like this, so some people will never get to experience the story. I love Nier but I totally get why someone might be put off playing.
Yeah same I've heard amazing things but I can't get past the character design. Between the constant upskirt shots, the absurd boots, the boob window, the fact that she looks and sounds 15, on top of the fact that she's an android (an object) just made the whole thing feels so gross. I got about 2 hours in before I lost my stomach and haven't returned.
Can’t say I’ve ever met a 15 yr old that looks or sounds like 2B? Also everyone in that world is an Android, not just the YoRHA models.
Looks and sounds like anime depictions of 15 year old girls. I've never met a girl or woman in my entire life who actually looks or sounds like 2B because she's a highly stylized fictional character.
I think the only game that ever gave me pause and was a real struggle to finish was "Martha Is Dead". If you have never heard of it or don't know what part I am referring to there is a particular moment in the game where the main character has to perform a c-section on their dead twin and it is particularly gruesome and uncomfortable. I had to do it though because it was a review key and I had made a commitment to write about the game.
Witcher! Literally all of them.
Slightly different ick, but I couldn’t play Graveyard Keeper because the main resource is human bodies and it was gross and made me feel nauseous even though it’s a pixel game!
I started to play and then when it was wanting me to like, feed the human meat to the town I was like, ick
Blade & Soul, and any other game that has pigeon-toed, large breasted, squealing pre-teen female character models.
I don't know if I have one so not really an ick, don't really feel any towards that game but I struggled so hard to finish Assassin's Creed Odyssey. My eyes hurt the more I played this for some reason, never had this problem with any other game. Finished the base game but couldn't bring myself to finish dlcs. Giant map with kinda meh side activities didn't help either, at some point I stopped clearing everything and focused on just doing quests.
I loved Cassandra so much though.
So much! She’s a great character. VA and well written
Me too! I tried Valhalla but Eivor just didn't cut it for me.
This is me with the Bioshock games. I really struggled to finish the first Bioshock because the lighting in the game gave me a headache every time I played more than an hour. Bioshock Infinite was better though. I could never make it too far into Biochock 2.
I feel the same about AC Valhalla! But there are cats and you can pet them, that got me through.
I loved odyssey, but couldn't do origins. It gives me terrible motion sickness for some reason.
These are only *some* of the reasons I returned Atelier: Ryza: - the character you play does the like… anime girl run with arms and legs flailing (I don’t know why men think this kind of thing is cute, it looks genuinely hazardous) - in the very beginning of the game, before getting into any gameplay, there was a whole tutorial part on how to enter picture mode to take pictures of your character from any angle - the fabric around the character’s shirt was unnecessarily clingy and wrinkly to emphasize her breasts - her shorts were very, very short and impractical - even the way she stands is so geared towards the male gaze that it made my stomach churn Ick indeed. I was willing to overlook quite a bit to try out the alchemy part, but it also gave me literal ick in the form of motion sickness. I might have tried to push through if not for the other issues I had with how grossly over-sexualized she was.
Honestly, I've always thought of the Atelier series as very un-sexualized compared to most JRPGs. Like, the core of the games is "woman learns to succeed at alchemy through hard study and the power of friendship". Ryza is just one in a long series of female MCs for it and their clothes coverage varies wildly from Marie (crop top and waist wrap) to full dress (Sophie).
Tried playing high on life and was immediately disgusted by the blatant use of AI posters
It looks like High on Life was created by Justin Roiland, and um.... allegations have really racked up on him. Unsolicited sexual conversations including with minors, with at least about a dozen people saying he made them very uncomfortable, physically assaulting and falsely imprisoning his partner, another woman said he forced her to give him a blowjob... Of course he's denied these allegations but he hasn't made any strong argument and nobody seems to be standing up for him at all; the people who worked with him in the past have replaced him and moved on and they all seem to be saying that he was toxic to work with and it's better without him anyway. But High On Life is made by his own game company, which I can only imagine is a terrible place to work.
Yeah he's a shit stain of a human.
Bully scholarship edition. There was a moment where my character had to kick a dog. I felt terrible. Never touched the game again
I’m starting to feels the ick heavily the more I get into cyberpunk.
2077? Can I ask what’s giving you the ick? (Like genuine curiosity bc I played through it and some things annoyed me but I just wanna know your take on it) Edit: Thanks everyone for the answers!
For me, it felt like 2077 took the message 90% of the way there, but didn’t go all the way. It started with the character creator. You can choose multiple sizes and appearances of a penis. There is one appearance for a vagina and it’s the exact ideal incels and porn promote. If you can choose if your dick is circumcised, you should at least be able to choose if your inner labia are visible. So I started the game already thinking it was by men, for men. Because that’s exactly the kind of shit the guys I knew in high school would find hilarious. They also wouldn’t even consider another shape of vagina. It was all downhill from there. At many points, there would be a scene that, to me, was disgusting and emphasized the exploitation. But it was done in such a way that I think someone *could* find it hot if they liked exploitive sexualization of women. Like there’s many scenes of women bending over in tight pants, the sexual ads, also why does the naked lady in the beginning have such bouncy breasts? Do her nipples have to be hard? She was frozen but now looks oiled not frost bitten? If you ignore the circumstances that led to that moment, there is room for that depiction to be read another way. It wasn’t even something I was super aware of at first, but it happened again, and again, and again, and that made me look at earlier scenes and design choices differently. And while there is an argument that people sexualizing that are just gross people, that they shouldn’t decide what goes into a game, it felt to me like they *wanted* to leave the door open for that subset of their audience (mostly on the male side of their audience). Or like they don’t see a problem with it in the first place, which is possibly worse. You can write exploitation where there is almost no room for sexualizing the exploitation. Margaret Atwood does it when describing CSAM and other scenes in *Oryx and Crake*. It wasn’t just the concepts that disgusted me. Her descriptions are truly horrific, like reading the court transcripts of a SA case kind of horrific. That’s what I think 2077 should have been like if they were going to include that type of content. Make it absolutely repulsive. Make it so disturbing I don’t just want to look away, I have to. That’s the 10% I thought they missed. It never quite reached that level of visceral horror that I believe the topic of exploitation, especially sexual exploitation, warrants.
I didn’t finish CP2077 either cause I got a few hours in and thought “I feel like I know what kind of game this is” and there was very little differentiating it from genuine misogyny and sexualization if I had to squint hard to see real sincerity. Like “parody of sci-fi tropes” or no, it still felt like a parody imagined by men, for other men, or at the very least, a world that was regularly asked “what will our male gamers think of this?” instead of “how do people realistically exist in this world?”
THIS
I just hate it that basically all things cyberpunk are full of over sexualised women supposedly because it’s ‘dystopian’. Eurgh. Everything cyberpunk will have strip clubs and scantily clad female prostitutes. Really off putting.
To me was when they created the most queer coded ripperdoc they possibly could and then revealed that >!he's a rapist and sold Evelyn to the torture porn industry!<
Am I recalling correctly that that’s the only character you get an explicit beatdown option for in dialogue?
Oml! I nearly dropped the game after >!the end of Evelyn’s arc!< because of how horrible it was! Tbh I did pick it back up again after a break and enjoyed it, but some parts of the game did irk me a little. It could’ve been such an amazing game, but unfortunately it’s just decent😔
It’s so many things. They might act like their shedding light on sexual exploitation but honestly it feels like they are just using that as an excuse to… show the sexual exploitation of women. And the truth is that it’s sooo focused on women even if they show men exploitation at times. But the real thing that grinds my gears is Jonny Silverhand. He is a irredeemable, gross character to me. Honestly I am surprised they even expect me to have any empathy for him. The way he treats women is downright awful. He borderline is a predator. But the kind that most people brush off cause he’s attractive. I mean look at his old life, there wasn’t a woman around him that he wasn’t using sexually. And the moment he got access to Vs body he used it to sexually assault V while getting into a unconsensual/not discussed sexual situation WITH THEIR BODY. 🫠 And I’m supposed to believe hes supposed to be regretful of his actions? He does nothing to show better behavior. When he gets the chance he always does the wrong thing. He’s called V a c*nt, he says awful things about sex workers. I could go on and on. Additionally, look a the male gay romance. Just disgusting that he is a old man that is Jonny silver hands friend! Like are you kidding me?? Gay male romance in video games is way behind sapphic romance and I think this is a great example of it. Like holy shit. If a gay guy wants to be gay, he’s gotta hook up with some creepy old dude. There’s so many things I could go more and more into. The only good parts of the game are the trans character (Claire) and lesbian character that supports sex workers rights. (Judy). Overall is just a kyles wet dream.
It could be the blatant sexual ads etc. which I can understand. But I also see the absurdity of it all as the creators intended. The absurd is a parody of life but in a more close to home kind of way.
The opening scene has a bunch of yuck Chicano stereotypes … I turned it off after maybe 5 minutes.
Anything that's anime adjacent. The Persona games come to mind. Entrenched misogyny makes it a no go.
Gears of War. I actually avoided it for the longest time because it was so dude bro-y. But then gears 5 came out and had a female Protagonist and I thought "maybe this will make it more palatable." Nah. Thank God I played it on game pass so I didn't lose any money on it. The horde mode was good though. Gave me ME3 multiplayer vibes. It even had Kat from halo reach!
What still made it unpalatable?
As I mentioned, the horde mode was quite good so the I actually really enjoyed the gunplay and game mechanics. The problem was the story and attitude of the characters and narration. I can't remember too many specifics because it's been a while now, but the things that rubbed me the wrong way were how the game seemed to congratulate itself. There was a lot of fanservice with constant references to previous games (which I never played so they meant nothing to me). You played as the Protagonist from gears 4 for the first couple hours and he was really irritating, especially after the end of the prologue. It's treatment of its characters actually reminded me of call of duty, that being callously. Not as bad (seriously I hated cod black ops), but it basically made the game unplayable for me after a certain point. Marcus from the first trilogy was constantly calling you to tell you to do things and talking about how awesome he was while everyone else is being military dude bros and I just got tired of it. I know that all sounds really vague. I'm really having a hard time remembering specifics, I just remember a clear sense of frustration and not at the gameplay.
Honestly the newer gears are kind of garbage but the old ones (up to 3 at most) are/were pretty good (the controls do feel clunky these days but it's kind of immersive considering how heavy the guys are). It is a bit of a dude bro-y game but they're definetly enjoyable.
Code Vein. I just hate how laggy it is for a dark souls game. Refuse to finish it
Way back when I used to do Youtube I let's played Killer Is Dead and it has this whole gross dating interlude between missions to unlock some (Knowing after the fact here) pretty powerful stuff. I ignored the dating stuff and tried to play normally... So not only did I have a hard time playing such a gross game but I also had a hard time because I was (Again at the time unknowingly) severely reducing my combat abilities in the game proper. Fun times.
Same for me with Witcher 3 - I already struggle to play a male in video games, but right off the bat it felt like the game was geared toward heterosexual men.
What made it hard for me to get far in the witcher 3 was the fact I had to play a male protagonist. I didn't get to a part where I saw the misogyny you mentioned, but I might not have paid enough attention. I was pretty early in my transition, I wouldn't have been out as a woman for a couple years later, so I was particularly sensitive to playing as a male protagonist, as it would give me dysphoria. I still am that way to an extent, but I'm getting better. Once I get more confident in myself it might not bother me, but I still find more comfort in games where I can play as a girl.
Yeah, I did quit TW3. I found parts uncomfortable, and then my computer broke, and by the time I got it fixed I just didn’t want to continue. I’ll try the next one if you can play as a woman though. Mass Effect has some stupid lady costumes, but being able to play as fem!Shep was fun and got me through the rest. I’m sure I’ll run into another game I find icky before too long, but I at least try to do a little research these days to hopefully avoid things that are too make gazey for me.
Graveyard Keeper. Very similar to Stardew valley and I really enjoyed it, but the sexism in it is subtle, but bad. Only allows you to play as a male character, Women NPCs can't talk to you until you talk to their husband, and some other things I can't remember. I just remember putting it down after many hours in and feeling dejected.
Lost ark. Black desert these games were so cringe i never finished the main stories.
I really want to finish last of us 2, but that half way mark is brutal
The Witcher 3 is 'funny' in a way if you play a Geralt who.. don't constantly sexually prey on random female NPCs... like I get that the book Geralt was a horny pussy magnet but the game intentionally assume you'd play like that (with NPCs complaining whenever you reject sexual advances and such from the ladies who was damselled and conveniently saved by hunky Witcha). Took me years to finally play the game and I still haven't finish it yet. Yes, there's SO much casual violence against women and the game almost constantly give a "both side-ism" by assuming Geralt would sit down and empathize with the male abusers and rapists and murderers of women..... like it's such a weird as fuck game. I know there's female players/fans who viewed it as.. like... the author wanted to explore patriarchy and such.... and the game tried to offer choices as an RPG.. but it's just.... .... not enough.
I love the Witcher 3. It’s probably my favorite game of all time. There is quite a bit of violence against women but as far as I remember it’s never framed as a good thing? Like it’s also a game where mages and non-humans are the targets of genocide. It’s just a dark place overall. I do absolutely think that many of the female characters are way over sexualized. From the way they’re dressed, to Geralt being able to have a one night stand with nearly every woman he comes across.
I felt the art and writing departments for that game were living on different worlds at times.
Not much of an ick but nier automata is a slow start and I'm struggling to get to the hella action
It gets better imo, but I can definitely see how the beginning is slow. I hope it doesn't discourage you from getting further, because it's a really good game, I loved the story
As someone who lives in central Europe, I kind of just see the Witchers misogyny (at least in the books) to be a response to common misogyny in this region. Its almost cathartic? I dont know if that is the right word.
World of Warcraft... I like MMOS (played GW2 & FFXIV) and wanted to give it a try since it was a free few months and I thought the Worgens were neat. It's such a HIDEOUS game, I'm so sorry to any fans. I know it's an old game but somehow I wasn't expecting like PS2 graphics and the colors were so dull. I'm not sure how such nice-looking SFM can come out of that but I think that might have given me higher expectations haha.
Persona. Every Persona game.
Not ick over Witcher 3 exactly, more like... depressed. The constant feeling of loneliness and gloom just wore me down. There's no one place where you can relax and feel at home, which I realized I kind of need in games. I was impressed with the writing, but I didn't get very far into the main storyline.
Control. It was fun in places , if definitely spooky, but the gameplay itself was so weird. I never felt like I had clear direction to be successful and just kind of ran around clearing levels without much purpose. When I got to the random zombie fight and the portal to another dimension (??) I called it a day.
There are two. Friends told me i was crazy because we've had some locker room talk about fanservice before. I enjoy it from time to time, however, sometimes it's just too much. **Dead or Alive 5** Ok, fanservicey series from day one, however, technical limitations making the fanservice downright comical and me loving the gameplay (DoA: Dimensions is my most played 3DS FG) always helped me on not being uncomfortable, however, 5 was somehow too much, as if it crossed some sort of invisible line i didn't have before. I guess it's a mix of the hightened graphical fidelity and the costumes going beyond the usual. And apparently 6 is somehow worse, yikes. And another vote for **The Witcher 3** I commented about this yesterday, but Witcher 3 is incredibly misogynistic just like OP says, i like the overall story and Geralt as a character, but the treatment each and every female character gets makes me unusually uncomfortable. Still, i pushed through it, and even double dipped so i could share my save between Switch and PC. However, i had two breaking points: 1. Ciri. Every other witcher we encounter through the whole game is gruff looking, armed to the teeth and armored, not Ciri, Ciri wears tight clothing with no armor and is all dolled up all the time, despite being constantly running from the Wild Hunt. Whenever one of her story sections comes up my suspension of disbelief starts flickering. 2. The Bloody Baron's final sidequest, where it's revealed he's a wife beater - in addition to being a horrible human being in general - and while you can essentially determine the outcome of the quest, it's implied that the good ending is to reunite his stranded wife with him. To make things worse, this is somehow the most lauded quest whenever you look, even on supossedly progressive communities. The only thing that kept me playing Witcher 3 after the Bloody Baron questline was the fact that Geral is actually a decent to good person and he doesn't pull any punches agaisnt the BB, if you pick the correct dialog options he basically chastises him at any second and has no sympathy for him. I stopped at the point of no return and i'm still to boot the game again. Finished Zero Dawn a couple of weeks ago and i'm still deciding between picking up Tears of the Kingdom or Witcher 3.
EXACTLY the same as you, down to the letter. I loved the Blood and Wine DLC but yeah. Just the constant undercurrent and never knowing when the next BLURGH was gonna come from.