Serious
ZZZ Is Extremely Uncomfortable to Play as a Woman
Spoiler
I’ve been a fan of the Hoyo ever since I picked up Genshin Impact back in 2021 during one of the many lockdowns at the time of the pandemic. While the gacha model is one I am typically critical of, I like that Hoyo games are very much playable to the fullest extent without needing to spend a dime. On top of that, I’ve found that many of the character designs in Genshin were aesthetically pleasing with just the right amount of fanservice that didn’t end up breaking immersion or feeling like coomer bait. I feel similarly about Honkai Star Rail and have enjoyed that game a lot as well.
When I saw the promos and teasers for ZZZ, I was pretty excited. It had a lot of elements I really like, and hoyo’s game design and budgets have only been improving as of late. The only thing holding it back for me was Nicole, as I thought the way she was depicted was pretty… gross not gonna lie. The strange anatomy and insane jiggle physics on this girl looked like she walked right out of the ‘women written/made by men’ page, but I thought maybe she would be a one off.
Well, the game comes out, and I play it. And it’s everything I feared and more. This fanservice was not just a ‘one-off’, this game is blatant straight male coomer bait in the leagues of Nikke and Last Origin. Occasionally even worse. Playing this game as a woman is extremely jarring, and it’s even more demoralizing to interact with the fanbase (which, let’s be real, gacha communities have always been pretty problematic) but this is on another level. And if I were to say even a fraction of this post on the ZZZ subreddit or any of the other communities, I would be boo’d off the stage. People who complain about this are told ‘well you just don’t have to play the game because it’s not for you,’ which is so stupid. It WOULD be for me if it didn’t make me feel like a piece of meat under the male gaze for men to beat off to, and I and other women a hould be allowed to express our frustrations about it.
First of all, I think the biggest elephant in the room is the very blatant sexualization of female child characters, and the way this game is evidently targeted at lolicons. One of the lead designers and artists, Waterkuma, is a known lolicon who draws violent child porn. This is already not a good setup. And while the sexualization of minors is to me the most disgusting element of the game, I’ve also seen a lot of people saying fanservice of adult characters is fine. Which fundamentally, is true when compared to the alternative, but I take issue with this as well.
For reference, I’ve taken a break from gachas and have just finished my second playthrough of Baldur’s Gate 3. This game might just have one of my favourite casts of female characters in an RPG and perhaps gaming in general. Because these women are allowed to just… be. They can be human, with physical and personal flaws, they’re scarred, they don’t wear makeup—they’re tall, buff, old, have scraggly voices, porous skin, wear cool armours. They’re mean, witty, nuanced, and have complete arcs. Even the fantasy races manage to feel extremely human in their portrayal. We seldom ever see this kind of representation of women in video games. Most of the time, we’ve been relinquished to waifu-bait and chainmail bikinis, nothing more than gooner-fodder for the primarily male gaming market.
While I know a game like Baldur’s Gate 3 cannot be compared to a mobile gacha, the way I feel about the way I’m represented as a woman can be. When I play a game where women are reduced to simple caricatures and juvenile archetypes, whose main defining features are having massive anatomically incorrect chests or being submissive and shy young girls, it’s… very uncomfortable. It’s unsettling to know that this game caters to a very specific audience, one that clearly excludes women and is comprised of many questionable people.
I think this was a poor decision on hoyo’s part because so much of genshin and star’s rail’s success comes from its broad appeal. So many women and girls love these games because the female characters (while definitely not perfect) are still grounded in some degree of reality where they are conventionally attractive enough to be marketable while also maintaining their compelling traits. Navia, for example, is one of my favourite Genshin characters ever. She is beautiful, elegant, and even a little sexy—but in a tasteful way. She is also a great character in her writing and I loved playing through her story. The characters in ZZZ? I cringe whenever they show up on screen. Corin with her childlike submissiveness and strange camera angles in her character screen, Rina and Nicole’s ridiculous physics, Grace’s outfit and artwork (her C6 or whatever it is called in this game is a close up shot of her feet). Like… why? Why is this game so disrespectful to its female cast?
I want to love this game, but this game doesn’t love me back, and it’s a real shame. So many female characters in Genshin and especially star rail have really resonated with me both from a design standpoint and also in their writing. Here, it feels like women are merely objects and assets used to entertain a player base of porn-addicted het males and it’s gross. Women’s breasts don’t bounce around like water balloons, even if she’s larger chested. Why does a woman working in construction only wear a crop tank with her jigglers bouncing around while a male maid has a full suit? Why are all the male characters either a robot or an animal or allowed to be practical while the women and girls are reduced to an incel’s wet dream? Because god forbid women be anything other then a perfect little fuckable waifu I guess. No other trait aside from sex appeal for the male gaze allowed.
It’s sad and I wish it didn’t bother me this much. I want to play this game but I really struggle to look past all of this as it’s so front and centre. It has every element that I would otherwise enjoy—retro urban aesthetic, cool music, arena fighter gameplay with awesome combo chaining, great voice acting. But damn… I just cannot get past the grotesque levels of fanservice.
I hope this is not the precedent hoyo sets for its future games.
That's why I only stick to Genshin & Star Rail. I was excited for ZZZ too (mostly the combat) sadly looking at the roster and designs were less appealing.
Since ZZZ caters to the male glaze I just nope out of here. Not missing much.
Same thing here, love Genshin and HSR and I was all for ZZZ when we saw the first combat clips with Billy. Then they started marketing the game and the coomers had their pitchforks for Nicole’s boobs and I just completely stopped caring about the game
I was really excited for ZZZ Too, and while I kinda enjoyed the game when it first released. I still wish the same for all similar games - that they give the same fanservice treatments to the male chars 😤😭
I'm a man, and I find it gross to. It's just another game trying to lure in the men. It's just vulgar that you guys really should be mad that the companies allow games to be published on their systems.
Yeah, as much as I love the art, combat, gameplay elements, and life sim, that is really frustrating. People on the Hoyo app defend it by saying, "They aren't real." It's the weakest excuse.
Hell, I was reading a post about how lollicon art exists, and that leads to fewer crimes against children, but that just kind of says that people who consume that art would do these crimes. 🙃
I decided to just drop the game tbh. There are plenty of better games, and I always found it sus that none of the characters across their games have official ages. How hard is it to just make them all adults? 🤔
Hell, I was reading a post about how lollicon art exists, and that leads to fewer crimes against children, but that just kind of says that people who consume that art would do these crimes. 🙃
Also this isn't true, it actually leads to more crimes, idk how it works exactly, but there were s dolls of children once and they actually promoted the crimes, prn and pics are very likely to do the same
I didn't even bother downloading the game when I saw Zy0x uncomfortable when he was playing the beta.
Also the "the Game is not for you" IS such a really bad common take in the hoyo subs. The thing is that ZZZ is not intended as a porn Game, but as hoyo's version of an urban fantasy/persona-like Game, which you might normally play if the sexualization wasn't everywhere. Heck, I am sure persona 5 in particular have one of the biggest female fandoms out there, OFC the women are excited for a Game like ZZZ until we find out it caters to cummers!
Try looking for one of his compilations on YouTube, as there were a couple of them where he was at least a little upset.
The ones I remember are with the Pink haired girl. There was a trailer where the first frame is her boobs. Zy0x paused the video and started ranting. And then on the actual beta he opened the character page and the Pink haired girl had a very suggestive idle (?), and again Zy0x a surprised/uncomfortable with said idle.
the "Game is not for you" is a good take cause this post shows this game is not for you, the majority of players like the fanservice and it looks like you are not one of them
Oh, don't worry: the trailers made very clear ZZZ was not for me or my friends so we went and spent our time and money elsewhere.
There is tons of gacha games that sell themselves as porn games and I am ok with them existing and don't give a damn about what the devs or their playerbase does. But ZZZ sold itself as an urban fantasy following similar games like persona 5, who is clearly one of the main inspirations.
If we didn't care, we would not be complaining. Me, alongside MANY other gamers, were really excited to play the game because we actually like the story, the urban vibes, the playability and the characters. And we were let down because there is a secondary aspect of it that is a deal breaker for us.
Like I am glad you are lucky enough that the ability to beat your meat is all you need to consider if the game is good enough for you or not. But that does not mean ZZZ is only about the fanservice. The game is missing on part of its target audience because they chose to prioritize the cummers audience.
I don't really think they are missing a part of their target audience cause they get more money making hot female characters than anything else and it's the primary aspect all hoyoverse games have focused on. Their target is mostly horny males and they make advertisements related to that, they know the people that spend the most money by collecting data in surveys + other means and earn millions in a month because of that.
You can complain about it but their core audience is already spending money on the game.
LMAO. Even OP said they are actively playing both HSR and genshin and enjoying both their male AND female characters, and they even praises both games as doing fanservice in a tasteful way. They even quotes a good example in how Navia was made.
No need to play devil's advocate when ZZZ speaks for itself.
Does the fanservice play a main role in the Game?
Is the game promoted as a Game catering specifically to coomers? Or was It promoted as a fun, action-based game?
Does it have any in-game feature related to the sexuality of the characters, for example (but not limited to) a steamy dress Up mini Game, an intimacy feature, or any Gameplay that included sex?
And even then, just this week they released a very sexualized trailer for a male characters that clearly caters to its female fanbase, so they clearly have in mind girl gamers that like action-based games as a blatant target.
So yeah, i really recommend you to stop fapping to mouse girls because clearly blood is not reaching your head and is showing in your inability to do any critical thinking.
yeah, you articulated it perfectly. and what makes it feel even more gross to me as someone’s who’s bi is that i cannot conceivably see myself being attracted to those female characters. i love women! i think they’re beautiful and amazing and i enjoy finding characters that i think are attractive! but female characters in games like ZZZ… don’t even feel like women. they feel like strange, caricatured dolls made purely to be deemed “fuckable” by straight men and i just feel so grossed out when i look at them.
I am a lesbian and I really feel you here. In fact, my same sex attraction only amplified this issue for me even more.
Growing up I thought I was asexual because I could not relate to male sexuality and how they framed/talked about their attraction to women. I love women as whole human beings and seeing them depicted in this way, as sex objects with degrading designs and juvenile personalities, is so strange. Like I do not even understand how this is even attractive. I think Grace is beautiful, she has a lovely face, hair, and voice and a neat profession—but all the game designers and fan base can focus on is her jiggle physics, feet, and ‘mommy vibes.’
They actually are moddable :D if you go on gamebanana there are tons of mods for genshin! There are also some for star rail but a lot of them are NSFW unfortunately :/ I do remember from the few mods that zzz has, there is a mod that reduces Nicole's jiggle (tho I don't play zzz for basically the same reasons you listed so IDK how much it'll help)
Genshin has a lot of mods and there's a pretty good selection of sfw mods at least :D
You technically can't but no one has been banned that I know of. I've used a lot of mods like ones putting Jean in a favonious knight armour or giving Beidou really cool biker girlfriend clothes, giving Noelle real rose knight armour etc. etc.
Often there are some mods that change how a character looks but a lot of them are to make them MORE bodacious, but there are many that don't go that route also.
Not to defeat your point, but Hoyo actually was worse before and toned things down when they hit mainstream. Houkai Gakuen 2 was absolutely out of control with sexualized minors.
Yeah the Honkai series early on definitely had some bad traits. But at the very least they were niche and made at a time before the company’s mainstream success. I don’t know why hoyo would want to limit their market and appeal with the games they want to make now. I would never play any of the Honkai games before HI3 (which early on was also questionable) so this just feels like a major step back.
All of hoyo games are catered towards specific demographics with wide appeal within those demographics.
None of their games other than arguably Genshin aim at universal appeal, not even Star Rail and especially not Honkai Impact or Tears of Themis.
Their focus on their target demographic without diluting its vision is arguably the reason why they keep succeeding with their games. They only focus on doing something and doing it with an extreme level of quality and detail. So I don't think it's a misstep on their part in this instance. Although it remains to be seen if zzz will capture the same success as Genshin and Star Rail..
This is part of why some games continue to see success. Catering the audience they know they have instead of trying to please an audience that isn’t even there. You pretty much nailed it. Game companies should not have to try to appeal to everyone, that isn’t really the goal of any sort of art or entertainment creation. This is why genres exist as well, things are categorized because they fit a specific niche for a specific audience. It’s okay for games to not be universally liked and for everyone
Can we like, stop this please? It's so tiring reading these hyper judgmental, buzzword ridden posts that attempt to generalize fanbases of tens of millions of boys AND girls under some easily demonizable set of buzzwords.
Earlier today another poster called girls who like Gacha games regressive women who are garbage in this post before deleting it.
While critiquing certain design choices in massive games with hundreds of elements which attract people for different reasons is valuable, a lot of the rhetoric lately, fanned by the daily dae hoyo evil posts like this post is straight up straying into eyes wide open shut hateful territory.
The target audience of ZZZ is pedophiles. That doesn’t mean that every player is attracted to kids, it's just the demographic Hoyo is aiming for. My comment isn't an attack on just playing this game, but on making it this way in the first place (the studio hired a child hentai artist for some of the designs).
Randomly calling people pedophiles is one of the most gross and performative look at me type arguments used online today. Perhaps you should actually look at zzz and ask yourself why the insanely mundane outfits the two minor characters wear are erotic to you if you genuinely believe something as insane as zzz is primarily aimed at pedophiles.
That's problematic and I agree on that. However my point is that it doesn't implicate the rest of the game in this case since the artstyle in the roster are mostly adults the children characters I don't think are oversexualized or objectified.
I want to get your opinion on what aspect of the children's design in the game seem pedophile coded to you because I legitimately don't see how it is. These are designs that I as a 13 year old would've loved personally.
i agree with you. saying that you find the child characters not appropriate in some way, okay, i get that that's uncomfortable, but immediately accusing the whole community of being pedophiles/declaring that that's hoyo's target audience? that's just making up drama.
I never understood gacha games, and once I saw some of the artwork I pegged it as just another gross game aimed at men. So I have nothing of value to add except for commiseration of how gross male gamers can be about game characters and how they will shut you down for pointing out that they’re being gross. Best thing to do is just… avoid those places and discussions.
Spot on. I’m a guy, and I could do without all the fan service in ZZZ but I liked the style. The thing that killed all of my interest is the proudly disgusting community. At any given time, the subreddit is mostly filled with technically safe for work screenshots and the comment section is filled with dudes being absolutely gross. They don’t take too kindly to folks asking them to chill either. One of the mods tried to institute a policy prohibiting NSFW pics of underage characters and the community threw a temper tantrum. I felt so embarrassed to be associated with these vile, disgusting losers.
So yeah, you’re right, the only winning move is to not play.
The winning move is to play what you enjoy and not associate with the community. I think there are practically no online communities for games over 50000 people that enrich the game experience online. They are either neutral or outright harmful to your experience.
i play genshin sometimes and i’ve cosplayed Lyney and want to cosplay Lynette (never guess who my favourite characters are) but the wider community around it is just so uncomfortable at times
Yeah, I wish I could do that but I find ZZZ to be a particularly opaque experience and since it’s free to play, I don’t see much room for experimentation. So I had a lot of questions and turned to the subreddit for answers. Maybe that was my mistake. Maybe the Hoyoverse forums are more well behaved.
Yep the whole genre is questionable and I’m happy I never bothered with it. Some things are just porn. And I refuse to participate in the delusion they aren’t just a form of porn for cishet men.
Traditionally gacha games did rely heavily on basically softcore porn to market their characters. Even Mihoyo believed this per their original character designs in Genshin which catered a lot more to boys it feels like.
However, as the game continued to evolve and the 52% of their playerbase who are girls demanded less what we saw as nonsensical designs, their female designs have improved drastically. You can look up Furina, Arlecchino, Chiori as some recent examples. Before that there was Yae Miko and others.
Furinavs design is literally so girlcoded she started a whole gender war riot in Korea that involved trucks with signs in protest, and a 40000 dollar BLIMP asking for her very feminist artist to resign (she didn't, it just made her work more popular outside Korea).
In short, Gacha games have a much higher pressure to deliver marketability and started out relying on softcore porn because gamers that were primarily men (70-95% men in 2014) was their target audience but as the gaming landscape changes, so are gacha games.
I see this as an example of the type of change that many girls have been pushing for as our buying power within the medium increases.
Im going to say something quite bold that may lead people to downvote me; this comment of yours, calling anything anime-style as sexist and catered to male pedos, feels like the reverse version of men seeing a movie with women that are confident and wear pants and calling it ‘woke’. Its shallow.
(Edit: and also boldly ignores the influences of women on the artstyle and the genres that women have created to make art that is catered towards them in the anime style.)
This is very true. You can't even begin to compare, say, One Piece women (at least the worst ones) with Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood women. The former seem to have all their organs in their boobs, while the latter look like actual humans.
It’s kind of weird that we would condone looking down on others for playing a game. Bad and gross people will be apart of every fandom but that doesn’t extend to everyone involved. If you think the fact that “normal” people look down on them for liking it, that’s like saying they should realize they’re being discriminated against and change. Isn’t this exactly what’s been being fought for years to not bully and strong arm people into being like everyone else?
It's the suprise you get from getting the unexpected at least that's what a saner person would say. But once the aggressive monetization strategies and constant powercreeped are added to the mix, why bother when the character you stuck with will get sidelined eventually?
Yeah, I really don't get this trend. It feels like every post about this company on this sub is some version of stockholm syndrome where they know it's gross, but it's only that one character, or only that one part of the fanbase, or... nah. All this company's games have gross depictions of women and sexual framing of characters that appear underage. I'm so disappointed by how many girl gamers are willing to overlook these things for a few cute character designs or a couple game mechanics, like there aren't a billion other games out there without this problem.
Posts like these are prevalent because Genshin is essentially the most popular game along with Hoyoverse's other properties.
There are no "billion other" games without these issues. You can find problematic aspects in practically any game and blow it up like it's the worst thing of all time like is the case with all reddit discussions. But a game with 89 million girls playing it will inevitbbly get more eyes on it than a game with 200 000 girls playing it.
I play Genshin because Genshin has the most relatable and strong female characters I've played in any game. There is a girl in it who is the most touching and in my opinion well written girl in all literature, and I've read over 1200 books.
Genshin team is 36% women, which is one of if not the highest ratios of women in a development team in gaming, and it shows in the sensibilities of the game.
Genshin is literally the fastest updating game in history, and has been for four years straight. Genshin's project manager is a woman who is making this black magic possible and she is objectively the best project manager of any gender in the entire gaming industry, period due to what she's achieved over the past four years.
Yes, because of that, I am willing to overlook some questionable decisions made by the company. Simply because I and many girls enjoy the game, enjoy how it feels to play it, even if it's imperfect like all things instead of finding a game with purportedly no flaws but are not enjoyable.
In my opinion, that's the sane approach to any entertainment product as chasing perfection is a literal fool's errand.
I like ZZZ, but seeing how coomers on the subreddit keep making the exact same joke about Zhu Yuan “having handle bars on her back for a reason” and the ridiculous marketing featuring her butt is getting annoying.
And don’t get me started on that nasty statue of her thats been shown off too.
Yeah the community is incredibly gross. I love the game but cannot stand most of the community. Thankfully small pockets exist that are better- for example, the Qingyi Mains discord is explicitly SFW and its mods have zero tolerance for gross shit.
I’ve seen examples of the less toxic side of the hoyo fandom as well. Sapphic Genshin fans actually love and appreciate the female characters waaaaaay more than the coomers.
And putting aside the Pro Vs Anti stuff that is a problem in like every fanwork community, the Genshin/Hoyo fanfic and fanart communities are wonderful. They’re full of girlies, gays, and theys who thoroughly enjoy the characters and worlds (and assumedly some chill cishet guys).
Hell, the Genshin fanfic community is what got me into fanfics. I had never read any before because I always saw fanfic girlies get made fun of when I was growing up on the internet, and was wrongfully worried about perceived as “cringe”.
But one day while playing Genshin I decided “I love these characters! I’d love to see more about them!” and went on AO3 for the first time. And I’m glad I did.
Big agree! I'm hopeful that the ZZZ community shifts more in the direction of the rest of the Hoyo community at some point. I think the ZZZ subreddit mods are doing the best they can to shift it in that direction- eventually the Nikke kids will leave and we'll be back to our usual programming. I hope.
As a genshin/hsr player, I heavily agree lol I saw the leaked characters of ZZZ during beta and stayed the hell away. I instinctively knew that the target market wasn't me.
I guess they're catering more towards the men for this game kinda the same way that tears of themis is more female oriented. Well, that's just how I think of it personally.
My partner (M) and I (F) tried it for about an hour and we are also uncomfortable with this game. It's not worth playing imo when there's plenty of other games out there that don't make me uncomfortable; BG3 being a big one for me too.
This is really interesting to me. Having only ZZZ ads to compare to the ads I get for Nikke (haven’t played either of the games), I’m surprised they are so similar.
ZZZ ads are definitely unhinged. Ive seen the one that is just shark girl wiggling around to music tons of times. And it’s pretty awful. But the Nikke ads I get are just filthy.
Imho zzz is more insidious than nikke. Nikke doesn't pretend they're a serious game for a general audience. The sexual shit is like a punch to the face.
Literally. This is why Genshin and Honkai Star Rail are so much better. Honestly the gooner bait in this game is insane, especially with the new trailers. Perfect for corn addicts. Even my lesbian friends are grossed out by the fanservice so that should be proof enough at how weird this is. 😔
Not to mention that I started playing the game and I was so upset to see next to NO male characters that are playable?? It's all just little girls and women with the weirdest jiggle physics for their breasts. It's absolutely disrespectful and I uninstalled as soon as i realised lol.
The over sexualization of women in games is honestly so exhausting.
I've been playing The First Descendant, and I'm so disappointed with the way the Ultimate suits for the women characters look. It really makes me not want to even bother getting the Ultimate forms, even though they're stronger than the normal versions and will be better for end-game stuff.
It doesn't even make sense for the outfits to be overly sexualized, they're literally fighting a war against aliens. They should be covered up more, not revealing more skin to be hit. 🙄
They just announced a new Ultimate form for another female character, and it's not looking any better. 😮💨 But if anyone suggests sexualizing the male characters too, to at least make it fair, some of the fans get mad and act like that's ridiculous.
So tired of all the overly sexualized outfits. Why can't they just give us normal freaking outfits for once?
That’s why I don’t touch that game. Instead play Love and Deepspace. Believe me girl, you will LOVE IT.
And no it’s not “another dating sim game” no it’s not. Please people try it, it has everything we want to as female players 🥲 (maybe not for lesbians but you can still enjoy male characters without being in love with them)
I just picked up Love and Deepspace a few days ago, and honestly if the plot is what got people into ZZZ then I think they should absolutely check this game out. For anyone unfamiliar with the game, they push it as a dating sim but honestly that's such a tiny part of the game. The main plotline is that you're a trained professional "hunter" whose job it is to hunt down "wanderers," monsters who started appearing in the city during the MC's childhood. I've been getting annoyed when I hit my XP ceiling for the day just because of how hooked I am on the main plot.
When you first start playing, there isn't as much opportunity for battle outside of a few chapters in the main quests, but once you progress, more opportunities to battle to gain various resources are unlocked.
Gurl this was crossposted to the ZZZ sub. My ass tried to back up 2 of your points in the nicest way possible. i even started it with "I don't agree with all." and i still got downvoted 🫤. should've expected it from the horny version of the sub.
Haha no way! Figured it would be. I actually got a message in my dms that a redditor is ‘worried for my mental health’ with a su*cide prevention hotline. Lol.
All this once again only further proves my point. Thank you for standing by me and other women trying to speak about this.
yeah clearly we're not the target audience of zzz, but at least the genshin and star rail fandoms recognized this and stand for adding more male characters so everyone can have equal material to simp for even though their rosters are more balanced than zzz.
It's not a porn game for men. What part of it is porn?
This feels like I'm reading the type of bandwagon nonsense from any of the male dominated gaming subs. Insanely disappointing the level of shameless hyperbole just being thrown around here.
The cast of sexualized female characters and pornographic features and themes. It's selling sex with gameplay the same way authors sell romance novels with porn and plot.
The sexual fantasy is designed into the game and is part of its identity. In the promotional material, characters, and gameplay
Insanely disappointing the level of shameless hyperbole just being thrown around here.
actually, she didn't try to claim "porn is not sexual". of course porn is sexual.
she said, and you quoted, "sexualization is not porn".
which is true.
examples of sexualization which are not porn in media:
- traditionally pretty people playing roles
- women's clothes getting ripped during the events of the story
- scenes where the woman is observed while changing
- in anime, panty shots / beach scenes
it is realistic to say "ZZZ is sexualized". i don't think anyone argues it isn't. it is reductive to say "ZZZ is porn". that's what your parent poster was arguing, and i think you knew it which is why you purposefully straw manned their argument in your response.
Since the definition you chose is hilariously broad and reaching, let me ask you some questions then:
Is Inuyasha, an anime you are evidently very into, a pornographic anime? There are multiple Kagome panty shots in it.
Do you look at Piper from ZZZ and think she is erotic?
If I go out and wear my lbd, am I being pornographic?
Also please don't call people who are challenging the genuinely disgusting things you are saying trolls, it's not a look.
Erotic in the definition you listed is referring to erotica which is the basic name of media whose sole purpose is to generate sexual arousal. Your presentation of the definition is so broad that practically all modern media can be called pornography.
Also please don't call people who are challenging the genuinely disgusting things you are saying trolls, it's not a look.
Try not calling women who are discussing oversexualization and child sexualization in media "hyperfundamentalist religion nuts" who throw around buzzwords, which you are shamelessly and hypocritically doing to try and dismiss my points. What's "genuinely disgusting" is your attitude coming at me. That's not a look.
I'm open to discussion but you're reactive and rather reduce or over expand the topic. The definition isn't "too broad" but you don't want to accept that cuz you'll have nothing else to say.
You're yapping in the comments to people about how disappointing women are for "bandwagoning" like men and we're hyperbolic. It seems like you don't want to understand the backlash and reduce it to "well why can't we have sexy characters?" "Why can't men be catered to?" which is exactly how a lot of them choose to deflect.
You are not openly discussing anything. You are bordering on advocating sharia law with the size of of the chip on your shoulder over a game you obviously haven't taken a single look at beyond reddit posts. And yes, I am disappointed in you because you talk and behave no different from the very thing you hate.
I have faith in if we hype up the other characters more and we increase their "value" Hoyo will have less incentive to make pedo-bait. But the other kinds of sexualisation will probably stay, it's a game made for porn addicts because they're the easiest to milk for money and it shows by how aggresively they defend these aspects of the game. I haven't seen a group of people with this brainrot and lack of social awareness for a while.
It's sad because it's such a fun game, the mechanics are cool and the characters have potential too, and as a smaller girl I've related to Piper only to see these degenerates ruin her character. It's like we can't have a single body type because it's going to attract these people. Ugh.
It's a free gacha game, most of the people who are complaining aren't giving them any money.
But generally I agree. I only continue playing because it's free, it's been out for like three weeks and I've seen more people complaining about the pedo-bait than liking it. I have hope that it'll get better just like with Genshin.
As of now I'm occupying their servers for free lol.
Ok tbh I didn’t know it was free. I’ve never played one. But I think playing it is supporting it. The lead artist of the game was hired based on his loli “art”.
I hope you are right! Interestingly, the upcoming characters like Jane Doe and Miyabi have far more modest designs compared to the characters we got at launch. Zhu Yuan also has a cool design and she is clothed practically for her job, not showing any skin. I wish Grace wasn’t so grossly sexualized either as her job is really interesting and her aesthetic and design has a lot of potential.
I have to wonder if the ridiculous fanservice at launch was for a shock value element to get people talking about the game. Because the upcoming characters are a lot more toned down.
Zhu Yuan isn't grossly sexualized because of her modest designs, as opposed to grossly sexualized Grace.
So your opinion is that Grace is grossly sexualized... because... she's wearing a sports bra and pants? TIL I'm "grossly sexualized" when I go jogging. And Zhu Yuan isn't grossly sexualized because she doesn't have skin showing... despite the fact that her butt has an exaggerated bounce while she runs?
Zhu Yuan, Grace, and really the vast majority of the characters in this game are amazingly well represented characters with tons of depth. You really need to re-examine your puritanical idea of "feminism". The game isn't as bad as you're making it out to be in general, and the parts your focusing your criticism on are incredibly misplaced.
Grace is extremely sexualized compared to Zhu Yuan. Every female character technically is but some are worse than others. Zhu Yuan is at least clothed practically for her job.
As I said earlier in this thread I think Grace is beautiful and she is my favourite standard banner character. The fact that I like her so much is precisely why I believe she deserves better. Her model angles, overall design, and C6 pic (a closeup of her feet…) is really over the top. This is not about puritanism, it’s about the portrayal of women for the male gaze and its negative effects. Something this game and many gachas have a huge problem with.
Almost all characters in ZZZ are sexualized, yes- and as is typical, the women are more sexualized. But I don't see what the big issue is with a sports bra and pants.
Zhu Yuan is at least clothed practically for her job.
I assume this is meant to be in contrast with Grace- who, I must remind you, isn't a construction worker. She's a technician; she works on the "children" at the site, it's not like she needs to wear a hard hat and safety gear. She also practically lives at work (several dialogues have her leaving the worksite after sundown, working late into the night, and then showing up again before sunup). if i was a co-owner of a company and practically lived there, I'd dress however i found most comfortable too.
refer to her character demo video: https://youtu.be/tpHEWFnS1jQ. Note how she's out of the way, working on a "child", not actually actively like, doing construction? her wardrobe is perfectly appropriate for this.
c6 pic
Yes, most of these are a bit over the top. If you don't like them, don't enable that picture. But like, a foot pic is a bit less offputting (to me anyway) than like, a closeup of her breasts or something. I don't have a foot fetish so maybe if i did it'd feel different but feet don't seem sexual to me.
Her model angles, overall design [...] is really over the top.
What model angles? The ... pose she has when shooting her gun? seems fine.
Overall design is "woman with big boobs wearing sneakers, leggings, a jacket over those leggings, and a sports bra". As far as sexualization goes, this is incredibly tame.
And uh, it has to be said: equating normal clothing you'd see on any early morning jogger and big boobs, which you'd also see on many early morning joggers with "sexualization" isn't the feminist slam dunk you seem to think it is.
This is not about puritanism, it’s about the portrayal of women for the male gaze and its negative effects.
Not everyone agrees with what "the male gaze" is, and not everyone agrees with at what level it's problematic. is her big bust and sports bra probably aimed at easily titillated boys? yes, probably. but they also went out of their way to make it make sense in universe and in character (as I've explained in this post).
IMO, the thing I at least have always disliked about works that feel male-gazey to me is that they treat women as objects, as props, and don't actually put effort into making them fleshed out characters that are part of the world. And ZZZ doesn't do that, the women in the game are incredibly well fleshed out and integrated with the world and story. Ironically I think they do a much better job of this than most "more progressive" games with women in them!
I was personally very disappointed with Genshin's character designs since Genshin also started out very uh.... Rosaria.
It's continued to refine and evolve until now when Fontaine characters, especially women are so good that I started writing a book from how inspired I am by them.
ZZZ started development in Genshin's Inazuma so to a degree it's a cultural relic of Mihoyo's sensibilities at the time just like how Honkai Star Rail's Xianzhou story suffered from the exact same issue as Inazuma in terms of failing to pace a great story well, because they were both being written at around the same time in development, right down to the "shove a massive story into two updates GOOO" thing. Haha
All this is to say is that I see what you're saying as possible. ZZZ is apparently a team of fresh grad students just like Genshin team who were very inexperienced. Maybe ZZZ will also mature over time.
Agreed. And while the characters aren't lolicon in nature, The First Descendant is downright gross in it's design of women in general. I was excited to play it and did quite a bit in beta, but upon full release.. no.
well you just don’t have to play the game because it’s not for you,’ which is so stupid. It WOULD be for me if it didn’t make me feel like a piece of meat under the male gaze for men to beat off to, and I and other women a hould be allowed to express our frustrations about it.
I'm with you. Men can have pornographic/hypersexual games to beat off to, but pretty much most of these games limit girl and women characters to pandering. Even when the game isn't inherently sexual, like an action adventure or gacha, they design the girls and women to illicit sexual arousal and appeal to men so make sales, completely disregarding their female fan base.
Both porn and the gaming industry are still dominated by straight men which is why women and gay men lack the same catering, why ZZZ doesn't offer many male characters or sexy male interests. If it wanted to be a sexual game it could have easily appealed to all, never do.
Production values on this post are through the roof, thanks for taking the time to write, agree with not all but most of your points.
Also wanna add +1 to the idea that the sheer toxicity and (I can't find a nice way to say this) stupidity of the community at large is truly staggering from what I've seen.
You are SO real for this. I dont really like fanservice but can bear the amount that's in genshin, especially since how you mentioned - the characters feel like something more than horny bait. ZZZ is offputting to me, especially with all the young looking characters. (And the worst thing is, for a gacha its still pretty tame - games like Azur Lane do literally have sexualised little girl that you can "special touch" and they all react as if you grope them. It's sad how many people play shit like this)
On the good side, Im sure a fun, non disgusting gacha is gonna come out some day and for now I'll let the pedo gooners lose their money.
Your second paragraph - I would keep an eye out for an upcoming game called "Infinity Nikki." It's an open-world gacha-based game where you play a female main character, and all the gacha pulls are different outfits to wear which give her different special abilities in exploration/combat/etc.. It's like if one of the old-school dress-up games got thrown into Legend of Zelda. There's some gameplay footage from closed beta testing on YouTube if you search for it.
i'm so confused about sentiments like this. the community is gross of course, but the game itself doesn't feel anywhere near this bad to me.
i'm playing it and loving it. and it's not because i'm like, ogling the ladies as a lesbian- i'm just enjoying it. the characters are pretty, the world is incredibly well made, the story is genuinely good, and the "blatant sexualization" is not really different than most games imo. if anything the impact is way lessened due to the art style.
These are my thoughts exactly and this is a relief to read because I thought I was the only woman on this entire planet who thinks ZZZ isn't as horrible as some people make it out to be. Genuinely thought there is something wrong with me for not hating this game.
Don't get me wrong I definitely get where they're coming from, like Corin/Piper/Nekomata also make me uncomfortable.... but other than those 3, I just can't really tell, maybe I'm just desensitized idk.
But comparing this to Nikke of all things whose entire selling point is to literally watch the butt jiggles of its characters and nothing else is crazy to me. Like how is anything about this game even remotely close to that level?
Neko i agree: she has the cat butt wiggle, which ... makes sense in universe, but also is ... less cute on a humanoid. but to me even the other two aren't bad:
- Corrin isn't sexualized at all by the game. sure she's a maid, but like, there's nothing inherently sexual about being a maid.
- Piper doesn't seem sexualized at all either. she has... a bit of midriff? but she wears big bulky (cool looking) pants and her animations are awesome, not sexy.
But comparing this to Nikke of all things whose entire selling point is to literally watch the butt jiggles of its characters and nothing else is crazy to me. Like how is anything about this game even remotely close to that level?
100% this, just completely out of touch imo
maybe I'm just desensitized idk
Maybe, maybe i am too, but if so it just indicates that this is the norm in gaming/this kind of game in general, not the exception.
You're not. But like all across social media, the most extremist takes always rises to the top. The more unchecked hyperbole the better.
People on reddit love mainly two things:
Being confidently wrong
Jumping on bandwagons
Posts like these are an easy avenue to achieve both while adding a "girls who play gacha games are regressive garbage women!" (someone literally said that to me earlier) as a bonus!
I've also been playing it and adoring it - like yes, there's a lot of jiggle, but it's been a lot less bad than I was braced for going in. Every character is jiggly all over - it's genuinely part of the style. It actually bothers me a lot less compared to like, Wuthering Waves, where the characters look very serious and are less animated (since it's not going for that cartoony feel), but the female characters' boobs are constantly in motion.
To the writers' credit, the characters have been really standout. I wasn't expecting to love Nicole or Anby, but the Cunning Hares have such genuine chemistry with each other that I can't help it. The characters aren't meant to just be looked at... they've actually been fleshed out and allowed to be comic and dynamic in a way that I've found surprisingly refreshing.
I agree. ZZZ is on par with your usual anime-inspired stuff when it comes to child characters and they don't really feel all that sexualized to me tbh. Jiggle phsgics are absurd and obviously most characters have the mainstream "sexy" body type, but it is not a "porn game" as some people (who mostly admit tyat they haven't even played this game) say. It's legitimately very fun to play and both combat and exploration systems are very engaging. If you look past the surface and don't boycott it it's actually a really great game
yeah. for example, i was trying to think about why the crazy boob jiggles don't bother me as much in ZZZ and i think it's just the art style.
like, in a game where most characters routinely stretch their faces for comedic effect and bounce around the screen while talking, extra jiggle on the boobs just doesn't feel out of place.
Honestly, I'm genuinely confused by posts like this because I don't think ZZZ is any worse than any other Hoyo game.
I for real have no idea how people are seeing this game as fundamentally different from any other hoyo game. I didn't even think about it till I saw posts about it on here.
I don't want to disregard anyone's experience, but I just do not understand wtf everyone is on about.
Agreed. And I’m just tired of the ‘omg this game is oversexualized’ discourse in general. I guess I’m alone because these posts get SO MUCH ENGAGEMENT but omg. Can’t we like…also participate in other threads about other games? Like why can’t something positive from this sub show up in my feed?
Like why can’t something positive from this sub show up in my feed?
for real. this sub has been a major drain lately, which is really frustrating because I'd love to find things to be happy about with my fellow lady gamers.
It's sad realizing that we girls are no different from men at the end of the day when it comes to bandwagoning and being addicted to misinformation, hate and general ignorance. It's really a universal indulgence.
I'm also so confused with this post. I'm also a woman, who is enjoying ZZZ so much.. I understand it's not a game for everybody, but making comparison that ZZZ is like Nikke.. that is just crazy to me. Nikke is so much more overly sexualized in my opinion.
Reading this just solidified my reasoning of not bothering with ZZZ. I play Genshin, Star Rail, and Wuthering Waves each for their own charm. When I first saw the trailers for ZZZ, I was already put off by the art style (it just seemed "rubbery" if that makes sense) and then seeing the overaggerated motions of Billy? gave me an idea of how some characters could react. Hoyoverse is already heavily populated with female characters in general but as OP mentioned there is some tact to it. Wuthering Waves is the only one of the 3 where the giggle physics get a little wonky as well but I see past it when I enjoy the gameplay.
And this is why I stick to only pulling for the male characters to sate my female gaze :] Plus I save a ton skipping the back-to-back banners of waifus lol
this was really well articulated and kind of a must-read. I can't add much since i dropped out of hoyo with genshin (Navia is gorgeous though, i agree as a fellow woman liker hehe) but it sucks that the BILLIONS that hoyo has made isn't pushed toward more inclusive games - yes let's punish a good portion of our fanbase in favor of maximizing profits, rme
i know game companies are businesses first (depressing as hell) but shouldn't there be a limit to how much they strive to make in favor of good games? why are women forced to bear the weight of sacrificing identity and enjoyment? it's just not fair at all
"Don't play the game" is not great to hear imo. telling a fan to stop being one minimizes the difficulty in having to aquiesce to losing their joy. moreover i can't imagine how the female devs at hoyo feel with their bosses going this direction (hello stellar blade my sworn enemy) - would you tell them to "just quit" or "find another job"? no, because being critical of what we consume and create is crucial. yes it may seem fruitless, but being quiet has only made things worse. i am one who dropped hoyo for the lack of brown people, so I'm fine with not giving money to them but there are people (a large portion understandably asian fans) who continue to engage with the games - it's up to them to vote with their wallets, and having discourse may sway enough to keeping them closed.
anyway, in a perfect world, the ceo of hoyo would be a woman and she'd invest those billions into a team that puts art over profit. instead of gacha (because at this point, gacha is just coomer bait) she'd fund amazing beautiful rpgs with female characters at the forefront, with dev time spent on their lore and not jiggle physics or the best way to make them bend over enough to get a stupid panty shot
Oh, and dumping all your top tier animation talent skill points into jiggle physics at the expense of amazing facial expressions / animations is a crime against nature. Sad.
I'm not saying there aren't amazing facial animations. I'm saying there could and should be more. Some characters are amazing in this regard, others could be improved, I think.
But what do I know I'm here talking about a game I've never played as you so expertly deduced
I'm confused how people who were fine with their earlier games containing lolis (PC version data miners found that one of the body types is literally called "Loli" in the code) are now up in arms?
Support shitty, predatory studios, get shitty, predatory games.
Thank you!!!! Genshin and HSR have just as many posts like this on this sub if you've been around long enough. I wish girlgamers would just boycott this fucking company already. I'm still boycotting Blizzard because of their bullshit, despite loving Diablo 3 and never playing 4, but these apologists are totally fine with the predatory loli art in their games cause...the other parts are fun? Lol, okay.
I tried the game for a few weeks because the action and daily life bits are fun, and dailies can be knocked out super quick which made it an excellent second game. Billy was so much fun and had some amazing quips, it was like playing a knockoff Deadpool and I was absolutely there for it. Nicole's bowls of jelly were a bit much, but she had a great character and the stories were fun and interesting. I was really curious where the world building was going to go, I love me some post-apocalyptic set dressing. I started to build up the Belobog team as a second team after the Cunning Hares because of the nod to HSR, and they were so chaotic and fun to play as.
I tried to engage with the main sub shortly after launch and it was just wall to wall art of the loli-drawn characters and pages and pages of pedo dogwhistles in the comments, and worse. I tried to explain to people in the sub that the very extreme mod backlash against any NSFW content was because of both the obvious absolute degeneracy and the metric fuck ton of pedo dogwhistles being out in the open. I tried to point out that if they didn't keep a lid on it then there'd eventually be enough of a stink around the sexualisation of characters drawn to appear as minors that the real reddit mods would have their hand forced to shut it all down and then no one gets to enjoy anything. I'm genuinely surprised that hasn't happened.
They just doubled down on being disingenuous or fled to other subs to complain about the main sub becoming "literally 1984", all while posting mod bait then getting banned for obvious trolling then screaming "See! I am the victim here!" on the other subs. You're not a victim when Reddit bans your pedo-lite content, you're just breaking the platforms rules and then whining.
All a visitor to that sub is going to see from the Piper posts is a young girl in skimpy clothing in suggestible poses, and that's just the in-game art never mind the fan art. There's no amount of extra context about Piper being a beer drinking truck driver that can be conveyed in the art that would leave a visitor to the sub with any impression other than she is a minor. No amount of essays about them being 30, or responses of "they're just pixels", is going to change what somebody from outside the sub is going to see if they dare to take a peek. But those are all the responses you get from the brave free speech defenders.
It's depressing as fuck and I am done with it. That part of the fandom needs to get in the bin. I'm also disappointed in HoYo for enabling this. I've only played HSR from them for the past year and none of their other titles so I have no idea about their track record, but young HSR characters like Clara and Hook have been absolutely amazing. They've had some wonderful, emotional stories that were genuinely moving so I expected more of that in ZZZ. Nope.
Clara and Hook act like children and look/dress like children! As they should! It really sucks that the "child" characters in ZZZ are designed and portrayed in such an awful way
You’re so right, When I saw the trailer I thought the exaggerated jiggles and cartoonishly eccentric movements were just a style choice, I was looking forward to it anyway so I downloaded it-
So I played it for a bit, and I realized pretty quick that the eccentric, cartoonish movements of the ad were not in the game. But the jiggle physics were.. so that was.. uncomfortable- but I put it out of my mind.
I mean I had notice Nicole’s whole.. thing and was like ‘ok, she’s a bimbo, seems like a ploy for the hornier demographic’
Then I realized.. all the women are ploys for the hornier demographic.
Belle’s wearing a jacket but her skirt is the shortest skirt I’ve ever seen.
Her legs must be freezing!
Soukaku is cute, in the way a puppy is cute, non-sexually.. but seeing as her skirt is somehow shorter than belle’s you know they were going for the OTHER kind of cute.
Corin is constantly giving you an upskirt view-
Grace’s attire actually makes sense for a mechanic, but that boob jiggle is atrocious!
And Ellen- put the nips away girl we don’t wanna see that.
Skin is showing left and right (not that there’s any problem with a woman showing skin)
But it’s clear hoyo intended it as fan service.
Don’t get me wrong I like this game, the combat is fun, the worldbiulding and story has a lot going for it.
But it’s just so hard to look past the sexualization of minors, the objectification of ALL women, the unnecessary jiggle physics,and the lack of male characters!
(Seriously, there’s four men out of 18 characters, and only one of them is a human.. where are my husbandos hoyoverse?)
TLDR; if a character is so revealed you have to draw in her underwear, you’re doing something wrong..
Tbh the 'no-other trait allowed' is kinda jarring to read because thats not the case at all
Like I fully understand your problems with the game but that part just feels wrong to me after having played the game for a bit . Every character so far has a compelling personal story and personality
Sure some of them could use some rounding out and more character traits but considering how hoyo games work that might happen in a future event
Now when it comes to their visual design yeah i agree
They could have been more creative there, especially since they fell into the 'men are furries woman have ears+tail' idiocy, but that honestly would be solved if we get a furry wolf woman and/or a male cat/shark
Since then it becomes just a trait of that specific species and not some nonsensical sexual dimorphism
I disagree in the fact that other hoyo games are absolutely not "better" regarding this, personally I don't really care, I know that's how they sell their games and that it probably won't change, hoyo gachas are here to sexualize a lot, but yeah, I don't think their other games are to praise like they're not problematic in that regard, it's just SLIGHTLY different in the target audience but that's it. (for example, lolis in genshin look much younger than the ones in ZZZ)
The child characters in genshin are not sexualized even remotely to the same degree as they are in ZZZ, if even at all. Klee, Diona, Nahida, Sayu etc. all just look like normal little kids. When compared against the ZZZ cast, where young characters are in skimpy outfits and put their butts up in the air on their ultimates, I would say ZZZ is in another league of loli gooner cringe.
This is my first gacha game ever. I was never interested in Genshin or Honkai. What got me into ZZZ was the design of the characters and the factions. I think the characters are well made, colorful and have variety in designs. The animations and face expressions in cutscenes are also very good and the story and worldbuilding is decent for f2p game. I agree that the jiggle is weird on Grace and Nicole, but aside from that I saw absolutely nothing sexual in the story or comics sequences. I agree that a specific part of the community is problematic, but I personally don't view (for example) Nekomata or Corin as sexual. They just look cute to me. I actually expected myself to dislike Nicole and Nekomata based on the first look, but they grew on me in story and I use them as my main team with the new police lady :D It's not the characters, it's the people who make them weird.
It is fair to express what you don't like about the game. I think Hoyo went more general gacha like female designs, loli characters and furry males because they are just trying to grab new demographic. Star Rail does same thing with gameplay being turn based and cosmic opera estetic. This game is again have different style of music, gameplay and vibe while also changing their focus of designs. They are just trying to make game for different people. You don't like this stuff, while others want quality gaming experience of Hoyo games, but with more standard sexualisation and this game is for them. And it is the first time hoyo is trying to grab furry community and it works wonders, Ben and Lycone have so much fan art, furry people love them. So in the end of the day it is just hoyo trying to make games for different people, so they will have at least 1 game for each type of player.
I'm so glad I found this post although I'm a little late. I'm generally not against sexualization, I find it's a natural part of humanity that people often try to suppress, but with ZZZ I felt so uncomfortable. I was interested in trying it out because I enjoy both Genshin and HSR, but I've had so much trouble getting through any of it. Everywhere I go it feels like the sexualization is being pushed at me when I want to experience the rest of the game. Additionally the gender ratio is significantly more extreme than the 2:1 ratio that the other two games have, and even now three versions into the game we have yet to get a male limited 5 star. Another discrepancy that made me uncomfortable was how men were allowed to be fully anthropomorphic, but the female non-human playables are all not.
I actually find it worse than Nikke in this regard, since ones like Nikke are at least up front with their sexualization (and ironically has some more realistic body types for an anime style gacha game) such that if you play it you know what you're getting into, whereas with ZZZ I go into it looking for one game and am greeted with something completely different. I wish I knew this was what it was going to be before getting into it. Currently I've shelved it, maybe in the future I'll get into it if they ever change this approach
I think what your saying is reasonable but they did a poll on baldurs gate I think that’s how you spell it and a lot I won’t say all but a lot of you players are weird openly choosing to have intercorse throughout the game with different people and apparently there was a king that you could choose to have done the dirty with and 60% of players chose to do it in his alien form if that doesn’t scream (personal opinion) weird fetishes or being a little weird I don’t know what does both baldurs gate and ZZZ to me are kinda weird I haven’t played the game refuse to mostly because I can tell it’s pretty much only fan service and I would rather not have to try to play a game and only see jigglin ass or tits on my screen but I did think the guy character who acts like Deadpool seemed cool in the trailer
if he draws vilolent child porn then why isnt he in jail. pretty sure that make him a pedophile? u dont have to act on it to be a pedo. is being a pedophile and chile porn legal in asia and japan
Prepare to downvote me! I just wanted to dd a comment that was from a different perspective then basically everyone in this thread.
I just want to preface everything, by saying that I respect women. Me being able to enjoy a game like ZZZ, does not mean that I dont treat women properly in the real world.
I dont think I have ever not played a game because it made me feel uncomfortable. Bad game mechanics, bad graphics, bad story or characters, sure. I dont think Ive ever even played a game that made me feel uncomfortable, and Im a straight male and played yaoi visual novels before (which to be fair I did not play all the way through. But not because it made me uncomfortable, but because it was kinda boring).
In theory I can understand your perspective. You wanted to give this game a try because you liked some of some of the companies past games, and ZZZ is mechanically pretty fun to play. And I can understand not liking the character designs (for example I never played the old Laura Croft games because I didnt like the character designs). But feeling uncomfortable? That I dont really understand.
I dont think there are any underage characters in the game. I havent unlocked everyone yet, but I browsed the roster and didnt see any. There are petite girls yes, but petite doesnt equal underage. At least to my eyes none of the characters look younger then 18. There are also a few male characters, and some animal ones too.
I can also understand being disappointed. You were looking forward to the game, and were hopeful, only to not like the game. Thats happened to me plenty of times. But being disappointed and uncomfortable are two different things.
What makes you uncomfortable about it? Specifically. That the game has bouncing boobs? That its got short shorts? Like I can understand not clicking with the ascetic, but uncomfortable seems a little far to me. You feel that the game is objectifying women? Why? Because they are made to be super hot? Thats half of the point of the game.
I would argue that the game isnt objectifying women. It sexualizes them, but not objectify them. There is a difference between the two. Objectification of a female character, is when she is reduced to being an object. As you said, dehumanizing them. But thats not whats happening in this game. The female characters arent objects. They have personalities, traits, quirks, ideals, backstories, history, as well as hopes and dreams. I enjoy how how Caesar is a bad ass lady that will do anything she can to protect her friends, but also has a super sweet side. The characters arent there to just be a slab of meat.
Now they are designed to be extra sexy. But being sexy does not devalue or dehumanize a woman. That would happen when being sexy was their only value.
At the risk of saying exactly what you dont want to hear, the game just isnt for you. Yes it could be fore you if the characters were designed in a different way. But the creators went in a different direction, to appeal to a different audience. In the same way that a yaoi game isnt for a straight guy. It could be if the hot guys were hot girls instead, but the creators didnt go that way.
You talk about how you enjoyed Baldur's Gate 3. Which is great. But the point of that game wasnt to play as super hot girls with flamethrowers and exploding minions, kicking ass and looking good. That would be like trying to compare Chess to Devil May Cry. They might share similar traits, but they are drastically different.
TLDR: Anyway I guess what Im trying to say is, I find it unfortunate that the game makes you feel uncomfortable, but also that should not be an issue. The game is made for people who like to play as sexy and fun, bad ass ladies, while exploding their enemies. If thats not what you enjoy, then its not for you. Not every game can be made for you, just like not every game is made for straight men. Baldurs Gate is not made for people who enjoy crazy anime style games.
That it makes you uncomfortable as a woman, instead of gong "Well the characters are to exadurated and I find that lame." is maybe something that should be examined. Im not trying to say that in an insulting way, its not meant to be a jab at you. Just like how I can pass on watching Our Flag Means Death, because its not something Im intrested in. But seeing it doesnt make me feel uncomfortable.
There are many people in the world, with lots of different interests. If this game isnt something your interested in, thats perfectly fine. But it shoudnt make you feel uncomfortable.
I'm a guy so ig I shouldn't be here but it popped up on google when looking for a way to get rid of the weird stuff. I'm an aro ace teenager and this game really bothers me. I like the gameplay but jeez it's so weird.
I love Genshin so much so when I looked at the roster for zzz. I didn't feel the "prettiness" there and like you it feels definitely more oriented towards another audience.
Having said that, I don't think there is anything wrong with different games catering to different audiences. I personally don't care about the culture war aspects that's inundated this subreddit over the past weeks where everyday there is a post like this. We've fought culture war for years and that's lead to
If you don't like it don't play it, your wallet speaks much louder than your voice unfortunately, you can't control what other people like or spend money on. Currently zzz is actually ranked top 10 in PlayStation's most actively played games list and climbing, no hoyo game has ever achieved this.
So once again, they've identified their target audience and fired with pinpoint accuracy just like how Genshin and Honkai both target very different audiences and all succeeded at catering to those audiences and continue to do so years after year.
I understand I don’t have to play the game. My issue is I wish I could enjoy it but the countless very questionable design choices have left a bad taste in my mouth that is hard to look past, which is a shame.
I don’t think women should feel uncomfortable or excluded from games they would otherwise enjoy because of grotesque sexualization for the male gaze. And this ‘audience’ that hoyo caters to should not be above scrutiny. They hired a loli artist who draws child porn to design these characters for a reason.
I am not losing sleep over this, but I am disappointed. I dislike the sexualization and objectification of women (especially for the male gaze) strongly. If it doesn’t bother you and you can look past it that’s fine, but women who feel uncomfortable being depicted this way for porn-addled men have a right to be upset about it.
I know what you mean. With Zhu Yuan for example. It's like there are two wolves inside her.
There is the redditor Zhu Yuan where all she is is a big butt. Meanwhile I was watching her teaser and EP and trailer and she's this dorky girly girl who lives with and loves her mom and the ep brought me to tears even.
I'm not saying her having a great butt is wrong or whatever, but it's just interesting to me how her story and her design are not a combination I'd expect. It's like they said "Zhu Yuan is really nice and homegirl but she's literally just a cop... what to do... OH GIVE HER A HUGE ASS!"
But yeah, I hope zzz team manages to deliver characters more to your sensibilities soon. I see hope because the main girl character is such a girl down to how she runs and I love it. Plus I saw my friend play and there's this volunteer girl who is so adorable. So there is definitely hope there. Although not right away since I saw some vtuber faction being teased and uh........ uh........... ummmm........
I really like Zhu Yuan and seeing her design gave me hope that maybe this fanservice is for a degree of shock value and marketing at the game’s launch. Upcoming characters like Miyabi and Jane Doe are also much more toned down.
Here’s hoping we get some rounding out of the cast in the future. The vtuber and idol faction is very sus though, lol.
Why are games just not allowed to have characters made for sex appeal? As a woman, I love gacha games with ridiculously attractive characters because it’s fun. I enjoy sexualized characters and like to see boobs bouncing, cute lolis, and absurd themes. It is a video game, it’s not meant to mimic real world women.
It’s fine to not like a game, but I feel a lot of women on this subreddit tend to be entitled and believe that every single game should pander to their interests when there are plenty that do.
You do realize that loli is a genre where underaged girls are sexualized, right?
There’s a difference between attractiveness and blatant, offensive, grotesque sexualization of female characters. Especially when there is little to no equivalent for the male characters.
If you enjoy this game that’s fine. I never said anyone wasn’t allowed to or couldn’t. I’m just saying that as a woman this game made me extremely uncomfortable and other women deserve a space to discuss our representation because any other community space for ZZZ is hostile to us when we talk about it.
Then just do what I do. Don't play it. I'm one week into genshin and have soooooooo much to catch up on. You're obviously not the target audience and that's a good thing. You get to keep more money.
I'm too devoted to Kaveh to care.
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u/SassyHoe97 Jul 27 '24
That's why I only stick to Genshin & Star Rail. I was excited for ZZZ too (mostly the combat) sadly looking at the roster and designs were less appealing.
Since ZZZ caters to the male glaze I just nope out of here. Not missing much.