Games We Love but Wish We Could Love Playing
12 hours 13 mins ago
North American video game magazine, Play Magazine, has an extremely eye-catching cover for its issue featuring Marvelous' upcoming Wii game, Muramasa: The Demon Blade. Surprisingly, this risque artwork hasn't been run on any of the Japanese publications.
Muramasa: The Demon Blade is coming to North America soon. Real soon. Naturally, magazines are highlighting Marvelous’ gorgeous looking game, but the way it’s being advertised in North America is quite different than Japan.
The image on the right is the first piece of concept art Vanillaware released in Japan. And the picture on the bottom is how Play Magazine is showcasing it in North America.
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Not indicative of the game at all.
Just extremely disappointed they would resort to this, as it has nothing to do with Muramasa itself, based on what I played at E3 -- unless she throws off her clothes at the end of the game and is literally assaulted by tentacles (DOUBTFUL). I find it rather insulting to the game and developers itself (IMHO) because this game is damn fun, and the art is beautiful on its own, without this crap. It reminds me of the anime-fied Faith image, except this one was commissioned; that pissed me off exceptionally.
It's a well done cover, to be sure, but it's SO UNNECESSARY. Oh, and I wasn't directing the previous comment at Play Mag specifically or anything, Akira, just the fact that this promotional artwork was done at all.
Play Magazine never suggested anything to Kamitani other than that they wanted cover art for their magazine. They gave no details and left it entirely up to him.
1. Well, if it's by the boss, they wouldn't be insulted, but I never said they really would be -- it's just my feelings on the matter. Something about it doesn't sit right with me. It's not that I can't tolerate sex appeal in advertising (it's everywhere anyway), and if this was for a game like, say, Bayonetta, I'd shrug it off. But Muramasa is a very beautiful game on its own, and I feel it is quite a shame that people (even Kamatani himself) would do this sort of artwork for it.
It sort of goes back to the Mirror's Edge image edit that annoyed the hell outta me. In that case, the devs themselves specifically made Faith less sexually driven so the focus was not on her femininity. And then there was the controversy where the Korean gamer thought to make her more "Eastern" but giving her bigger eyes, breasts, and just less intimidating. What really bothers me is that they would strip an otherwise strong female figure of her strength by simply altering how she is portrayed. Faith was still punching out a cop, but the curve of her brows and her younger appearance (plus protruding nipples) made her seem more like a victim than the dominant figure.
I get the same feeling from this cover; she holds a sword, she is one of two protagonists (guarantee you the male hero would not be drawn in this way), and she could chop that thing up so fast, but instead the artist portrays her in a vulnerable position. I won't delve too deeply into the male gaze topic, so that's my beef. I mean, it's a cool image but IMO it feels wrong for this particular game.
2. Like I said, I wasn't directing it at Play Magazine.
Excuse the essay.
It comes with being a feminist gamer and all. XD
Yes, I said nipple twice...oh, make that three times...
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