Revisiting Princess Peach

On August of 2013, I wrote a blog entry on Princess Peach, where I made the argument that she isn't so much an object for Mario to rescue as much as she is a fairly realistic depiction of a brave woman in a hostage situation. A link here: http://vidgameanalysis.blogspot.com/2013/08/princess-peach-versus-feminism-is.html. However, when I shared that blog with a Facebook group I've long since abandoned, I was accused of being sexist, idiotic, and cherry picking. In hindsight, I should have really known better than to share a blog entry with a Facebook group that had become little more than an echo chamber for Third Wave feminism, atheism, and champagne socialism, but hindsight is 20/20. However, a mod from that group said something that had stuck in me ever since: "I didn't find much argument." And I asked myself, did I really make an argument? Since then, I've taken many moments to read and re-read my entry, and I said to myself "I can do better." And that's what today's blog is all about: a second analysis of Princess Peach and her role in the Mario games.

A Quick Word: Plans for the Summer

So all through May I've been dealing with final exams, projects, and other things, and for that reason I've not been updating as often as I'd like. But I want you all to know, there are plans for the months of June and July.

In June, as I'll be attending summer classes, I won't be updating nearly as often as I'd like, so expect two or three blogs. One of those, however, will be a retread to an earlier blog I wrote 2 years ago, in regards to Princess Peach and feminism. I want to take a second look into who Peach is, her role in the Nintendo universe, and explore if she really is as lacking in agency as her critics claim.

In July, a month where I'll have more free time, I intend to make a countdown of the top 11 video game villains. What you'll see is 11 blogs, each dedicated to exploring what makes a particular villain tic, and just what earns them the spot I give them. This 11 blog series will be a collection of analyses and opinion pieces, so please don't take it as gospel. As always, you are welcome to disagree with me.

Another blog entry I hope to make either in June or August is a short piece in regards to feminist critique in gaming. If I make it, you'll most likely see it published on August.

Art that Offends: Kill the Fa---t

Author's Note: The title of the video game to be discussed in this blog entry has been censored by my own choice. I did it because I want at least the titles of my blog entries to be Safe for Work.

If you've been paying attention to games media lately, you may have heard of a game seemingly designed to offend. This game, a first person shooter in the style of old arcade games like Boot Hill, is called Kill the Faggot. (I'd like to take this moment to apologize to my LGBT readers who have just read that word.) The title of the game may be offensive to sexual minorities, including homosexuals and bisexuals. However, the existence of the game raises a few powerful questions: what does it mean to be offended, and does being offended have any meaning?

A Word on Paid Mods

So let's imagine a hypothetical scenario: You have a woman, aged 30 or so, and she spent five years of her life writing a book. She did tons of research for the book, poured resource after resource to make sure the book was finished and published. And when she published it, it became a huge hit: number 1 New York Times Best Seller, Oprah Book Club Sticker, a movie deal with Paramount Pictures, the works! Then some 15 year old kid reads the book, saw the movie, and went to her own computer and started typing down a fanfic. Twenty chapters long, it's a sort of sequel to the woman's book, where the main character's daughter leads her own adventure. The girl thinks about publishing it on a website, but then opts for another idea: get it published as a book, and sell it. Now, here's the question: should she be allowed to do that? The answer to that question should be the same as to the question of whether mods should be paid for or not.

Remembering Time Stalkers

Way back in the year 2000, during the waning years of Sega as a video game giant, their last console, the Dreamcast, was hungry for RPG's. To be sure, the console was not without some fantastic titles (Skies of Arcadia, Grandia 2), but some were...forgettable. One of these RPG's that have been forgotten by most gamers is Time Stalkers. But was Time Stalkers a truly bad experience? Was it simply a mediocre game that was rightly overshadowed by the titans of its genre? Or, was it an overlooked classic?

10,000 Visitors Special- A Few Quick Words of Thanks

When I started this blog, I never expected to receive 10 thousand page views. But today, lo and behold, there it was: I had received 10 thousand views! I'm still shocked!

I just want to say, thank you. Thank you for lending me a voice, thank you for listening. Thank you for taking the time to read what I've written, and thank you for taking a little bit of your time to read my blog. It means the world to me.

And so you know, don't be shy about writing your point of view on whatever entry you see. If you think I got something wrong, tell me and I'll fix it. If you think I'm wrong, tell me why. And if you liked what you read, feel free to say so! My comments section is open!

So once again, thank you all. Just knowing people do, in fact, read my blog inspires and motivates me to be the best I can be.

Final Fantasy Mobius- The Costume Change

When Final Fantasy 15 announced the first female Cid of the game, many gamers, especially feminists, were ecstatic. Then they saw the character's outfit, and they threw a hissy fit. When the main character for Final Fantasy Mobius- a mobile phone game that no one outside Japan might get because Square Enix hates making money, it seems- was revealed, people threw a hissy fit. And then Square Enix caved and changed the character's armor design, citing the previous armor as "too sexy".

Photo taken from http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-04-07-square-enix-tones-down-its-too-sexy-male-star-of-mobius-final-fantasy

This change of design, of course, is prone to open up a can of worms, because many people will start to question WHY Square Enix would change one instance of negative feedback while ignoring another. I speak, of course, of the female Cid of Final Fantasy 15, Cidney (or Cindy). Basically, Cidney is depicted as a female mechanic (people LOVED this idea) who has an open yellow jacket that shows off her bra and breasts (feminists hated this). Now the people who hated Cidney's design will have some ground for complaint.

I had written my thoughts on sexy character designs on this entry, so if you want a refresher, click this link: http://vidgameanalysis.blogspot.com/2013/11/character-design-and-characters.html. For those with no patience to read long entries: how you react to a character's design is on you, and you shouldn't force an artist to censor him/herself just because you don't like getting turned on by a sexy design. You are free to not play a game if you don't like how the characters are designed.

I'm a straight guy, and I'll admit playing as a pretty boy in leather who shows off way too much skin isn't my cup of tea. But not for that would I demand that a company change the character's design, because guess what? A lot of people, especially women and gay men, would have LOVED this design.

That's something that ticks me off, too: this was supposed to be fanservice for people whose tastes fall onto the male. Like it or not, a lot of women and gays LIKE pretty boys in leather. Why do you think Dante from DmC is so popular? 

And what, men can't be sexualized? It's OK to have girls in bikinis bouncing their boobs every other game, but let a man show off a well toned six pack and suddenly it's boy burqa time? Let there be games that sexualize men, for Pete's sake, so the people who like men can have some eye candy! We make plenty of that for the people who like women, make some for the people who like men!

We can not, should not reject our sexuality. It SHOULD be OK for gaming to have games with sexy women, just as it should be OK for games to have sexy men. It should be OK for us to find a character to be sexy, and it should be OK for a game designer to design a character to be sexy. Being a sexy vixen does not make a woman any less of a deep character (e.g Tifa from FF7, Bayonetta, Lara Croft), so being a sexy fox shouldn't make a man any less of a deep character either.

If you de-sexualize a male character due to consumer demand, then special interest groups WILL question why the female characters remain sexualize, and they'll be right to do so. Let men AND women be sexy, there's ought be no shame in it!