01-14-2014, 02:31 PM
(This post was last modified: 01-14-2014, 02:54 PM by LemmingofGlory.)
It seems to me that Japanese video games are not afraid of mocking their audience while simultaneously providing them entertainment (see "No More Heroes"). In this respect, I feel that we should address the possibility that Dragon's Crown is in fact parodying our fantasy game expectations in much the same way that FIT is a parody of communists that we've continually mistaken for the real thing. We may have just been Poe's Lawing (extended form) at Japanese lolling.
The Amazon and Sorceress are simply grotesque. The Sorceress (http://dragons-crown.wikia.com/wiki/Sorceress) cradles a skull on her boobs while supporting her broken back with a staff lodged firmly between her buttcheeks. Everyone I've ever seen discuss her splash image has been shocked at how it utterly fails to be erotic, and that may be precisely the point. Her character model may manage to come across as erotic to people who do not understand scoliosis and slipped discs, but I can't get over the fact that she's constantly swaying on her heels like a spinning top trying to keep balanced.
The Amazon's (http://dragons-crown.wikia.com/wiki/Amazon) lower and upper halves are so incongruous they may well be from two different people entirely, her musculature may include muscles that don't actually exist, and it appears that gloves and boots are the only clothing in her kingdom that actually fit her proportions so she is doomed to wander about in a state of undress. She may be an ostrich in a human suit. Like the Sorceress, she appears to represent a distortion of our expectations that fantasy girls shall be sexy.
The Elf's thighs (http://dragons-crown.wikia.com/wiki/Elf) do not appear to belong to her, and I believe her legs actually attach mid-back instead of at her pelvis, which appears to have been surgically removed from her character model. This reminds me of a common internet phenomenon wherein amateur male artists that attempt to draw boobs attach the boobs at the neck instead of to the chest. I get the impression from Hammer's posts that the Dragon's Crown artist knows enough human anatomy to understand where to attach body parts, so I must assume his choices are entirely intentional, right down to making the Elf's head too small for her body.
The Fighter (http://dragons-crown.wikia.com/wiki/Fighter) features the reverse disproportions of the Amazon; his body narrows so much as one traces his form from head to foot that you discover he wears shoes that come in only baby sizes (although adult shoes in baby sizes are just called "Rob Liefeld Signature Sizes"). The Wizard and Fighter (http://dragons-crown.wikia.com/wiki/Wizard) are both pretty boys who could easily star in yaoi together if their hands were just slightly bigger. Both seem unable to grow facial hair, defying the bearded and scruffy looks of wizards and fighters in most media. Neither of them invoke "cool" or "rugged" in my mind, which is the expectation from male fantasy characters.
The only male we see in any state of undress is the elderly, unexpectedly muscular Dwarf who also appears to take oil baths with his buds (http://dragons-crown.wikia.com/wiki/Dwar...mitani.jpg), perhaps for the sheer fan disservice of it all. Again, our expectations are defied.
In any event, this looks like a game I shall play because it looks like it has a sense of humor about itself. And if it doesn't, I'll be laughing at it anyway.
P.S. http://psdo.tumblr.com/post/49951742582
The Amazon and Sorceress are simply grotesque. The Sorceress (http://dragons-crown.wikia.com/wiki/Sorceress) cradles a skull on her boobs while supporting her broken back with a staff lodged firmly between her buttcheeks. Everyone I've ever seen discuss her splash image has been shocked at how it utterly fails to be erotic, and that may be precisely the point. Her character model may manage to come across as erotic to people who do not understand scoliosis and slipped discs, but I can't get over the fact that she's constantly swaying on her heels like a spinning top trying to keep balanced.
The Amazon's (http://dragons-crown.wikia.com/wiki/Amazon) lower and upper halves are so incongruous they may well be from two different people entirely, her musculature may include muscles that don't actually exist, and it appears that gloves and boots are the only clothing in her kingdom that actually fit her proportions so she is doomed to wander about in a state of undress. She may be an ostrich in a human suit. Like the Sorceress, she appears to represent a distortion of our expectations that fantasy girls shall be sexy.
The Elf's thighs (http://dragons-crown.wikia.com/wiki/Elf) do not appear to belong to her, and I believe her legs actually attach mid-back instead of at her pelvis, which appears to have been surgically removed from her character model. This reminds me of a common internet phenomenon wherein amateur male artists that attempt to draw boobs attach the boobs at the neck instead of to the chest. I get the impression from Hammer's posts that the Dragon's Crown artist knows enough human anatomy to understand where to attach body parts, so I must assume his choices are entirely intentional, right down to making the Elf's head too small for her body.
The Fighter (http://dragons-crown.wikia.com/wiki/Fighter) features the reverse disproportions of the Amazon; his body narrows so much as one traces his form from head to foot that you discover he wears shoes that come in only baby sizes (although adult shoes in baby sizes are just called "Rob Liefeld Signature Sizes"). The Wizard and Fighter (http://dragons-crown.wikia.com/wiki/Wizard) are both pretty boys who could easily star in yaoi together if their hands were just slightly bigger. Both seem unable to grow facial hair, defying the bearded and scruffy looks of wizards and fighters in most media. Neither of them invoke "cool" or "rugged" in my mind, which is the expectation from male fantasy characters.
The only male we see in any state of undress is the elderly, unexpectedly muscular Dwarf who also appears to take oil baths with his buds (http://dragons-crown.wikia.com/wiki/Dwar...mitani.jpg), perhaps for the sheer fan disservice of it all. Again, our expectations are defied.
In any event, this looks like a game I shall play because it looks like it has a sense of humor about itself. And if it doesn't, I'll be laughing at it anyway.
P.S. http://psdo.tumblr.com/post/49951742582