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@acharlie1377: Its been a long time since I've played the game so no, I can't provide a specific example, but I'm absolutely certain it happens. Regardless, however, any singular moment, even the romance subplot, is important enough to count.

And go look at blades again, it is not as simple as that. There are tall, short, wider, thinner, buffer, and frailer aspects of blade appearance that vary. And I get that you think its presenting that message but you're literally arguing the same thing as you think they are by saying the appearance is the issue (as you did with comparing Lara to Mythra, as you are by reducing them to breast size and outfit choice). I've said before, and I will say repeatedly, the sexism is not how they're dressed or presented it is how characters react to the sexualization and normalize that that is the problem. You arguing that the appearance aspect of it is literally saying that there is a correct way for women to appear. That is just as problematic.

@acharlie1377: You're misconstruing several issues on the beauty standards argument and as a whole moving the goal posts of your point. It would be the case to say that it is creating unrealistic beauty standards if all the characters looked similar, but they do not. It represents several different body types. This would be a fair argument to levy at Senran Kagura, which exclusively features busty ladies, but XBC2 definitely not. Furthermore, beauty standards and sexualization are not necessarily linked as you are describing. You are still describing a situation that says to girls, "You need to cover up or men might enjoy it/take advantage of it." And again, you're still approaching this from a hetero perspective in saying that it is for straight men. You're trying to use blanket arguments to argue against something more complicated than you're approaching it with.

As far as what you are saying about Pyra/Mythra you are very wrong. The game relies on their sentience and agency to move forward. Both of them make decisions and perform actions on their own throughout the game. Furthermore, Rex's relationship with Pyra/Mythra is important to the game so discounting that entirely is disingenuous. One of the points of the game on blades isn't that they are just weapons, that they do have sentience and agency and this is illustrated through the relationship between Rex and Pyra/Mythra. It is a counterpoint to the Jin/Malos "Humans must serve blades" argument; it is an argument that blades and humans can co-exist, love one another, and be equals with each other. So describing that as the only loss is not only false, it is removing an important part of the narrative.

@acharlie1377: When you start arguing personality you are going beyond objectification, but are delving into more meaningful versions of sexism, which are just as present in Western games which is exactly my point. I agree with those aspects as you bring them up. If you refer to my first post in this thread (on page 2) I bring up that there are sexist elements to the game, but those same elements, behavioral elements, are just as present in Western games and media so pretending its just a JRPG thing is silly. However, your entire argument up until now has been that the only value of women in XBC2 is their appearance, which is not true.

Sexualizing characters is not problematic because it doesn't say anything on its own. All it says is you are uncomfortable with female sexuality and the female body. This is only viewed as harmful to you because you feel uncomfortable by it, which is part of the problem. It is one of the things that comes up with real world rape a lot that women who wear revealing clothes (or any clothes that somebody finds attractive) is "asking for it" which is just as much telling women to be afraid of, or ashamed, of their own sexuality and body. That is why it is problematic to condemn something for having scantily clad characters, because it goes the other direction of oppressing women. Objectification is not a myth in the same way male gaze is, but Pyra, Mythra, or any female character in the game does not exhibit this because they play vital roles to the story. If you were to remove any female character the story would be lessened and would change dramatically. In this regard you are misusing the term objectification, that is to say that the only value that these women play in the game is as scene dressing.

Also the article I linked was in regard to male gaze not the rest of it. I pointed that out when I linked it. The point of male gaze as a concept delegitimize points of view on sexuality that are not hetero in nature by assuming that only men find it pleasing or that all men find it pleasing, which is not the case in any sense. It is a very heteronormative way to view the world that is provably false. However, Bayonetta does engage in feminine behavior as you described. I mean, the opening scene of Bayonetta 2 is her shopping.

@acharlie1377: Your mistake is in thinking sexism is about appearance. It does not. Furthermore, the game does not reduce Mythra to being about her appearance, she has a personality and characteristics. You are reducing her to her appearance for the sake of your argument. You are using Mythra as part of your argument for objectification and her appearance, but completely ignoring that characterization is part of what creates the Pyra persona of her because she is ashamed of her actions and personality. It is a central component to her story, done well or not. Furthermore, there are characters like Morag who are strong women in the game who are not generally portrayed in a sexually charged way. The objectification in the game comes from using the term blade as treatment of living beings and is another component of the game (that I feel is under explored). However, there are male and female blades with varying degrees of sexualization. You are also asking people to hate how Mythra looks, male or female, because you find it overly sexual.

On male gaze, I would refer to Maddy Myer's intro in an article on Bayonetta a few years ago Femme Doms in Videogames: Bayonetta Doesn’t Care If She’s Not Your Kink in which Myers argues that male gaze is a myth.

@df: Basically what I was trying to get at in my post: that anything that is sexist about the game is no different from what you would find in any Western media. One of the problems with attacking things for having characters who wear revealing clothing or having a sexual point of view is you're telling girls and women to be ashamed of their sexuality. This in itself is a sexist point of view because it by its nature gives preference to one form of sexuality over the other.

A lot of the ways JRPGs are sexist are the same ways that Western video games are sexist. Like, it is strange to point out that the designs for blades in XBC2 are revealing or provocative, but a lot of the time this is missing more problematic elements of video game design that are damaging to women. I think it is totally okay to avoid playing games that make you feel uncomfortable, but treating the problem itself being sexuality is missing the point. The problem is when depictions of women reinforce harmful stereotypes, expectations, or otherwise disempower women. For instance, XBC2 actually does do this, not through the way women look, but by deriding the more dominant personality in Pyra/Mythra. It creates a sense that having a dominant, confident personality such as that Mythra had is a bad thing.

I like Alex Effect more than Mass Alex.

This is absolutely amazing. So many good moments captured in this poster.

i drank a -lot- for about two weeks to the point where I got drunk, but I also didn't drink for a very long time before that. I'm also back on, "Probably not going to drink again for a while."

This is a lot of interesting thoughts on the game. Personally I didn't find the telling nature of the game to be all that flawed since its a game that kind of bills itself on that kind of storytelling style, but I can see why it can bother some people. Also, the stories and conversations you have with the patrons are generally interesting to me, so in the moment it wasn't too much of a bother. In that regard, it felt like it was fulfilling the fantasy of being a bartender by allowing you to listen to the stories of the patrons. Maybe this isn't a good fantasy to fulfill, which is possible, or there is a more interesting way to fulfill it, but it worked really hard on me.