I don't, please don't freak out, I'm just being silly!

First of all, seriously, why are you doing this Monolithsoft.



Just, what. WHAT?! Seriously boobs do not work that way. Neither do spines. Oh sure, you can say she is a blade, and thus isn't "human" in the game lore, but uuuggghhhh, why are the blade women's bodies in this game weird sexualized male fantasies? Oh right, because they literally ARE sexualized male fantasies, because when a driver touches a core crystal the blade is created based on the driver that touches it. FINE game. Your lore is literally saying that these highly sexualized beings were created for and are dependent on another person. You have made sex slaves. Great job.

Especially when you literally force the player to create them. Just walking through town, and go, oh our numbers are really low, you should use this core crystal I had in my pocket to make new sentient life, and everyone, including the blade standing right there, doesn't question this. What the fudge? So you can just create life whenever you want, life that is dependent on you mind, just on the fly, for a weird (and optional) mechanic? And you are creating this generic person who has no personality and the player is inevitably going to ignore, especially since they were force to make them.

And yea, forced, as part of a forced tutorial. Just walking through town, wanting to save a character I really like? Oh no, we have to stop that, we have this mechanic to show you! This has happened a dozen times now, and I'm so sick of it! In Xenoblade 1, it had pop ups sure, but it integrated its tutorials with quests. You still had control as you went through the thing it wanted to introduce you to. Sure they could gate you in to require you to do it sometimes, but you still had control. It didn't interrupt you and force you to do this thing before you could move on. Not only is this less intrusive, but it also just better because the player is controlling the actions and thus will remember more about the process. By forcing you to do it when you want to be doing something else, the player is not going to remember it. Not to mention being forced to do something is not going to make them enjoy it when they first try it, thus they are less likely to want to engage in that mechanic in the future. Just, ugh, this is terrible design Monolithsoft. Breath of the Wild (which you contributed to!) got this right, using the same technique you used in Xenoblade 1, what happened!

And finally the characterizations. Nia is great, she stands up for herself and feels like a genuine person! Pyra is... well, she has yet to disagree with anyone, but she also saved Rex's life and is directing the main quest, and they are hinting that she has her own agenda that she isn't revealing. I'm hopeful here! There's a lot of potential. But...

With the whole driver/blade relationship there are SO many moral questions about the Rex/Pyra. Like, Pyra saved Rex's life and gave him the Aegis, only when he'd agree to join her mission. Ok, this is good. But immediately afterwards, the villain was like "This boy has seized the power of the Aegis!" Uuuggghhh. And then this happened.



Come ooooonnn! I'm glad she seems to have her own secret agenda (which she may not! she may very well have just fallen in love with rex at first sight or some nonsense, but, optimism), but they are two people who just met eachother. Sure they helped eachother through a scary situation, sure they are now allies trying to save the world, but they certainly bonded pretty friggin fast! Relationships are messy! It takes time and awkwardness to sort out boundaries! Fine, so Pyra "read his heart" or something, but that is hella awkward on its own! And even if Pyra knows everything Rex knows, that doesn't establish the mutual trust that is a relationship. Well, I just hope that the hidden agenda angle is what they are going for with her. That she is being extra nice to him and a bit passive because there are critical things she's not telling him. Because so far, they became way too friendly way too fast.

Alright, that's everything. I'm an optimist, so I'm really hopeful that they'll reveal really complicated and interested character dynamics later on. The Rex and Pyra relationship could still be fantastic! But there are already so many things wrong with this game. I'm really hoping that Xenoblade 1 wasn't an accidental masterpiece. I guess we'll see!

In response to the rant: first of all, I will not at all try to defend that particular instance of character design you showed at the top of that post. I didn't even know that character existed, but that's actually fucking hilarious that they put that in the game.

However, in response to the Blade/Driver relationship, I think you're overreacting. Most importantly, you've neglected to mention that there are both male and non-human Blades prominently featured, so they can't really be considered sex slaves unless you want to get really weird. I also don't think the relationship is like that in the first place; the Blades provide the power to the Driver, so you can't really say they are slaves in the first place; it is clear that they willingly lend their powers to their Driver out of a sense of friendship. At least this is the case for the player characters; there are villains that are shown to treats their Blades as objects, but that's because they're villains. They're supposed to act like that. So the game is discouraging exactly that mentality.

Well obviously not every relationship would be this way. But if a pervert or predator became a driver (as it would take to create the highly sexualized beings that are oh so common), it would be a sex slave situation, with a person who has zero life experience or understanding to know what's going on, and no ability to get leave or get help (at least not that I've seen shown anyway). There is also the chance of the blade becoming a predator or pervert too, and not what the perv wanted, but considering the visual design that the game is going with... yea that isn't what's happening here.

Also you didn't comment on most of my rant.

If you're saying that the possibility exists for this to happen, then yes, of course, but that can be said for almost anything. I don't disagree that it's possible to happen. If it were a different game, I could even see it being a character arc for a Blade with a horrible master and it's your goal to get them away or something. But what I'm saying is that to me your statement sounded like claiming that the game is attempting to perpetuate some sort of stance on women, and I don't think that's the case at all, which is why I replied.

As for your other comments, I can see why a lot of people don't like the frequent tutorials, but I honestly didn't mind them myself. They were quick, and honestly they were helpful since this game introduces a lot of new mechanics. I agree that it could have been integrated better, but they were honestly so short that I didn't even really register it as a problem. Part of the reason I only responded to a specific part of your rant was because I didn't have strong feelings toward the other parts. Yes, it could have been done better for sure--I just never minded myself.

-

They are very clearly making a stance here. Not only about this world, but about the developers themselves. With its camera angles, posing, and impossibly exaggerated character design, female blades are highly sexualized. The representation of female blades is awful.