Their relationship with Nozomi is a fucking trainwreck. For those who haven't played the game, you can actually establish a relationship with her it's just that he GB crew have basically ignored that aspect.
@baggykins: I agree that it is not something I focus on when I play games, but maybe that's because It's never really been a problem for me either? As a Caucasian male there literally an abundance of characters in gaming meant to be relatable to me and it is therefore not something I even notice anymore. Racial identity plays a very small part of my life. Black people however, are constantly being underreprecented in gaming and other types of media and it is therefore a much more visible aspect of their experience than ours I would think. I think it's hard to have a discussion or even forming a coherrent argument or standpoint on the matter as a Caucasian, because it is so foreign to me and as much as I try to do this, it will always in some fashion feel like a case study where you are on the outside looking in.
But can you only relate to people who look like you? Can you not relate to Spyro or Garrus or whoever for that sake? - if not then the issue may not be with the characters but rather with you.
Stories are great because we see people overcome things, defeat the odds and whatever, see them grow as a person. I can only see emphasizing on skin colour changing what they are and not who they are.
That said, I would love more diversity of culture in my video games and I can see it slowly approaching, stuff like CD Projekt is a great step for game development in Poland and I can't wait for it to spread.
Maybe I just see things differently with my euro-eyes, I can't rightly know
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