And no, if we want things to change, it's not having one out of a hundred games maybe have a reasonable portrayal of a woman in it as a rousing success. There's absolutely no reason why a "silly hack-and-slash" is immune from criticisms of arguably sexist tropes. It would, however, be nice to see more acknowledgement of the unhealthy portrayals of men as well, and also that in a perfect world having artistic liberties such as that wouldn't be an issue. However, when a chainmail bikini is a trope unto itself, you may have a problem.
I hold no position on this game in-particular, but the backlash to someone taking a potshot at a figure with stereotypically ridiculous proportions is silly in its own right.
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Tell me to get back to rewriting this site so it's not horrible on mobile
I completely changed my mind on the whole Dragon's Crown controversy. There --IS-- such a thing as an offensive image when it comes to fantasy video games:
I hope Jason Schreier accepts my most humblest apologies!
The more things change, the more they stay the same!
^ That dude is wearing even less clothes than that chick. That's just wrong. 
Yodariquo said:Maybe it wasn't the most tactful way to put it, but I see a woman fighting giant lizard monsters in a bikini top and thong. Sorry if I'm skeptical of the artistic merits over the marketing of sex.
And no, if we want things to change, it's not having one out of a hundred games maybe have a reasonable portrayal of a woman in it as a rousing success. There's absolutely no reason why a "silly hack-and-slash" is immune from criticisms of arguably sexist tropes. It would, however, be nice to see more acknowledgement of the unhealthy portrayals of men as well, and also that in a perfect world having artistic liberties such as that wouldn't be an issue. However, when a chainmail bikini is a trope unto itself, you may have a problem.
I hold no position on this game in-particular, but the backlash to someone taking a potshot at a figure with stereotypically ridiculous proportions is silly in its own right.
Ahhh, an awesome new Yoda post. Been too long.
Just begun these boob wars have...
Some angry woman from GearBox: "I want to see more women getting interested in games and game development, but stuff like this only serves to further cement the idea that you're stepping into a male hobby rather than something that is more inclusive," she wrote on The Escapist's forums.
"Also, this is the first time I've seen that character and holy shit, ahahahahahaha. That's actually something that made its way into a basically finished video game, fucking lol! Some juvenile delinquent kid in my 5th grade class used to draw girls that looked like that (only without the creepy blank, featureless samefaces and wizard hats), and I think he was actually better at it. I also think he's in jail now. This is amazing."
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...also, this:
**Moxxi, from GEARBOX' Borderlands 1 & 2**
"cement the idea that you're stepping into a male hobby rather than something that is more inclusive"
Why doesn't anyone ever elaborate on this statement beyond, "but breasts"? I've read literally one article that does which went on to say, "and dicks". Better than nothing, though.
I find nothing appealing about Dragon's Crown art style, except the smooth animation. Why are all these arseholes emasculating me? 
I feel like this hobby must not be for males.
Why are so many people anti- boob? Devil worshipping commies.
For me (obviously) it's hardly about the boobies. It's more for the integrity of an artist's work versus pressure by the people around him to make it more "socially acceptable." On one side you have George Kamitani and his arguably beautiful artwork and animation, on the other you have people who just HAVE TO take a stand against something (Schreier). This week it's about women working in the video-game industry. You have a whole bunch of people on either side of the argument fighting for and against the boobs when IN REALITY they should be going after the few individuals who treat women poorly IN THE INDUSTRY.
**In my eyes it's kinda like banning guns because you have some vicious killers out there. Instead of doing anything to protect children or treat the mentally ill, just ban the guns...! It doesn't work that way.**
I am afraid that this will make any video-game artist resist the temptation to create ANYTHING from now on that may be "inappropriate." This leads to less creativity and (in my eyes), less sprite work in particular. (Of which Kamitani and VanillaWare are one of the last few remaining bastions.)
This industry is inundated with bald, male space-marines and polygon shooters at the moment, with a dire NEED for more variety, sprite-work, and originality. Everyone screams for more diversity, but when a game comes out that does try to do something different, it's either attacked for being inappropriate or ignored for the latest shooter featuring a bald, male space-marine. For guys like Kamitani or anyone in a small development studio, it's a lose-lose situation.
Case in point: Everyone trashes Call of Duty when it comes out, but watch how many stories are going to be popping up in the next few days about Ghosts. Respawn will be getting a lot of attention soon too.
The libertine in me agrees with Leo. Regardless of whether I find the particular art or animation to my taste I believe that so long as no one is being hurt or taken advantage of, people should be able to express their style and their imagination. If it strikes a chord with an audience then that's swell, if it falls flat then that's also fine. Let the people and the market decide. Screw cencorship
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Listen to Wu-Tang and watch Kung-Fu
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Watching the latest Dragon’s Crown trailer I was delighted by the density of historical and pop cultural references they managed to sprinkle into every shot. Dragon’s Crown is the latest game from Vanillaware, best known for Odin Sphere and Oboro Muramasa. Vanillaware is staffed by many ex-Capcom employees who worked on some of the best arcade games from back in the day, including Capcom’s Dungeons and Dragons: Tower of Doom and Shadow Over Mystara (my favorite beat-em-up next to Capcom’s Aliens vs Predator). Dragon’s Crown is very much a spiritual successor to these games, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the vast array of influences at work in this title. Here’s the trailer.
Now let’s go through shot by shot …
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Walt Disney Presents … The trailer opens up with a glowing fairy flying by the Atlus logo. This is an homage to the iconic Disney introduction where Tinkerbell flies by and sprinkles pixie dust on the Disney logo. This is the first of many Disney tributes to follow.
I believe this animation was originally made for Disney’s first regular TV series, Disneyland which premiered in 1954 (predating the unveiling of the theme park of the same name which opened in 1955).
Disney has been using new variations on this animation ever since.
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The Landscapes of Pieter Bruegel
Next up the Vanillaware Logo is overlaid on top of a backdrop that recalls the landscapes of Flemish Renaissance painter, Pieter Bruegel. The castle reminded me of Bruegel’s famous depictions of the Tower of Babel, which have provided inspiration to countless artists through the years. It’s not a direct analog to Bruegel’s Babel, however there is another castle at the very end of the trailer that is.
A similar spiraling tower also appears in Capcom’s Dungeons and Dragons: Shadow Over Mystara, a game which George Kamitani, director of Dragon’s Crown worked on.
While The Tower of Babel is very epic in scope, much of Bruegel’s work was very warm and focused on the mundane aspects of peasant life which was very unusual for a European painter of his time. This tendency was carried on by his eldest son who also became an accomplished painter. The work of the Bruegels provide a great launch pad for any artist aspiring to depict a medieval village. Much of Vanillaware’s background art is reminiscent of the paintings of the Bruegels.
Vanillaware art is always full of subtle authentic details
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Greek Statuary
As the trailer continues the viewer is shown a dark corridor lined with Greek style statues of women. One of the figures recalls the statue of a wounded Amazon at The Met in New York.
The trailer continues with panning shots of more statues with strong Greek features.
Greek and Roman statues tend to have very strong nose bridges that go straight into the forehead
The shots of the crumbling corridor full of Greek style statues implies that parts of the game will involve exploring the ruins of even older civilizations. Intriguing!
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Renaissance Portraits of the Rich and Famous
The trailer continues with a shot of a wealthy couple opulently dressed in Renaissance style garb. Each of them are brandishing a blue diamond, which could be an indication of royalty. The woman is holding a book, indicating a high level of education and refinement for the period. They look to be inside a castle overlooking a beautiful city. I am guessing that they will be your patrons on an important quest.
A good picture is worth a thousand words. There isn’t a single arbitrary design decision in this whole image; everything is in place to convey the emotional state, personality, culture, social status and worldliness of the subjects.
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Medieval Knights and Longswords
Next up is one of my favorite images from the trailer, a ghostly knight brandishing a scroll.
Note: The Bottom Right photo belongs to Holly Hayes. Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sacred_destinations/2076001419/sizes/o/in/photostream/
He has been run through with a longsword wrapped in parchment with the message: HONESTA MORS TURPI VITA POTIOR. Translated from Latin, this means: An Honorable Death Is Better Than A Vile Life. His cape pin has a spade insignia (the strongest suite) and his helmet has a crown, both indicating royalty. As with almost everything in Dragon’s Crown, the ghostly knight’s proportions are hyper stylized, but the execution and details are very authentic. The style of longsword depicted here was first developed in England in the 1300s and primarily used by knights during the early days of the 100 Years War. By the 1500s it had fallen out of use on the battlefield, but continued to be popular as a weapon of sport and knightly duels. Perhaps this is the spirit of a great knight or even a king felled during a time of war.
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Angels, Pomegranates and The Sacred Heart of Jesus
The supernatural imagery continues with a putto (a babyish angel or Cupid often mistakenly referred to as a “cherub” in modern times) holding a heart descending upon a desiccated corpse laid upon an altar draped in a funerary shroud.
The supine figure strongly recalls the beautiful Rococo sculpture The Veiled Christ by Giuseppe Sanmartino after a design by Antonio Corradini (who was initially commissioned for the piece but did not live to see its completion). This is one of the great works of western art and depicts the lifeless body of Jesus detailed with incredible sensitivity. The angel is holding a heart, perhaps recalling the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a Catholic devotion that originated in the middle ages. My friend and scholar Melvin originally mistook the heart for a pomegranate, a Christian symbol of resurrection. There are many classical paintings of The Christ Child holding pomegranates, symbolizing his future resurrection and the promise of eternal life. I’m willing to bet that this imagery is not lost on the folks at Vanillaware and this image will somehow tie into how you resurrect your characters in Dragon’s Crown should they die.
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Franciscan Friars
Continuing with the Christian imagery, the next character introduced is a man who is dressed very similarly to a Franciscan Friar, an order of monks founded in the 13th century. He looks to be holding a bible and has a statue of a figure that strongly resembles the Virgin Mary tied around his neck.
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The Crusades
The Christian references continue with the next character, a hulking knight dressed like a medieval Christian Crusader. His chest is emblazoned with a lion in the “rampant” pose, the most aggressive posture of the traditional European heraldry signs. I wonder if he was based off of the knight at the end of Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade? Their faces are very similar.
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Conan The Barbarian
If you love Fantasy books and movies, then this next character needs no introduction. This mountain of a man is the spitting image of Arnold Schwarzenegger in his breakout role as Conan The Barbarian!
Trivia: the original script for the film Conan The Barbarian had Conan fighting mutant animal human hybrids, not unlike the classic pig-faced orcs lying defeated in the background of this image.
Conan the Barbarian put Arnold on the map and kicked off the Sword and Sorcery craze of the 80s leaving an incredibly deep impression on the young medium of videogames. The first Conan film is legitimately great. Penned and directed by John Milius (who also wrote the “all time great” film Apocalypse Now), it is one of the most iconic films out there–one of my absolute favorites. It was based on a series of short stories by Robert E Howard. The books are awesome and I enthusiastically recommend them to any fan of Fantasy or Literature (with a capital L!) in general. They may surprise you. Conan is one of the smartest characters I’ve ever encountered in fiction.
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Frazetta Style Sorceress
You can’t have Swords and Sorcery without a buxom sorceress! This next character looks very much like a classic Frank Frazetta vixen.
She is dressed very similarly to Princess Teegra from the 1983 film, Fire and Ice, a collaboration between Frank Frazetta and Ralph Bakshi, a luminary of alternative American animation. Her pose and demeanor are much more fierce though, and recall Frazetta’s paintings of femme fatale sorceresses.
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Mickey Mouse!
This is flat out one of my favorite homages in anything I’ve ever seen. This enthusiastic little fellow is a tribute to Mickey Mouse from the Sorcerer’s Apprentice segment of Disney’s Fantasia.
They’re both wearing the same iconic, pointy wizard’s cap and the warmly lit stairwell in the back is an especially nice touch.
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Nike of Samothrace
Next we’re treated to another great icon of Western Art, The Nike of Samothrace (also called “The Winged Victory).
It’s speculated that this statue was originally made to commemorate a great naval victory.
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The Films of Ray Harryhausen
The trailer continues with a collage of monsters straight out of the films of Ray Harryhausen, a titan in the world of special effects. As a child, Harryhausen saw King Kong (1933) and instantly fell in love with the “model animation” techniques used to bring its fantastic creatures to life. From that point on, Harryhausen dedicated his life to creating stop motion films that brought creatures and worlds only that only previously existed in imagination into the material world of film.
Harryhausen was very inspired by the burgeoning field of Science Fiction literature and was actually a close lifelong friend of another cultural titan, Ray Bradbury. Try to imagine a time when the terms “Visual Effects,” “Stop Motion” and “Sci-Fi” where not part of the vernacular. The work of Ray Harryhausen was crucial in bringing those concepts to a wide audience. From the 1940s through the 1990s Ray Harryhausen was responsible for some of the most fantastic and iconic creatures ever to grace a silver screen. These monsters left an indelible mark on film and surely inspired generations of game artists and developers as well. Mr Harryhausen, Vanillaware salutes you!
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Skeleton Warriors
First up is that most humble of videogame foes, the killer skeleton. It’s absolutely ubiquitous today, but in 1958 when The 7th Voyage of Sinbad hit theaters in the US it was a totally novel concept.
Sinbad would go on to become a sleeper hit (it’s score by famous Hitchcock collaborator, Bernard Herman, is considered one of the best in film history and also undoubtedly influenced many early videogame sound tracks), but the skeleton warrior would make a huge splash several years later when it reappeared (and multiplied!) in Jason and the Argonauts (1963), one of Harryhausen’s more critically and commercially successful films and his personal favorite of the bunch.
The scene where Jason fights the group of skeletons, with its intricate, near seamless interaction of live action and animation elements, is considered a defining moment in the history of VFX.
(this clip does not contain the original audio track, but it sure is cool)
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Talos, the Bronze Giant
The next Harryhausen creature to appear is Talos, a giant animated bronze statue that also appears in Jason and the Argonauts.
In Greek mythology, Talos was a giant man made out of bronze who was created by Zeus to protect Europa, the first Queen of Crete (and his lover who he had stolen away while disguised as a white bull). Europe takes its name after her.
Harryhausen’s version of Talos was inspired by classical depictions of the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World.
Engraving by Marten van Heemskerck (1498-1574)
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Medussa
Medussa is another iconic monster that Ray Harryhausen helped to define in the global consciousness with his 1981 film Clash of the Titans.
In Greek mythology, Medussa was a Gorgon, a monstrous female creature often depicted with sharp fangs and snakes for hair who could turn men to stone with her fierce gaze.
The earliest depictions of gorgons show them as women with scary faces, often adorning temples in order to protect them from harm.
In AD 8, the Roman poet Ovid completed the epic, The Metamorphosis, which introduced the idea that Medusa had once been an incredibly beautiful maiden before being cursed and transformed into a horrible monster. However artists had already been depicting Medusa with a classically beautiful face as early as the 4th or 5th Century BC.
The Medusa Rondanini. This is a roman copy of a Greek statue dating from either the 4th of 5th century that is considered to be the oldest known "beautiful gorgoneion."
By the Renaissance onward this became the new norm for Medusa.
Ray Harryhausen returned Medusa to her roots depicting her as grotesque monster. As far as I know, it was Ray Harryhausen who first designed her with the lower body of a snake and other heightened reptilian features such as scaly skin and a rattler. Vanillaware plays off of this convention and even adds a striped pattern to her scales similar to that of a timber rattlesnake, though they’ve chosen to maintain the attractive face preferred by most classical painters.
The monsters called out in this trailer represent just a small fraction of Ray Harryhausen’s oeuvre. Ray Harryhausen is one of the most important fantasy artists of the last century and his visual legacy lives on in countless films and videogames. To learn more about Ray Harryhausen please visit his official website here:
http://www.rayharryhausen.com/index.php
That’s all for today, but there’s still much to cover in this trailer. Keep your eyes peeled on for more updates from Art-Eater on Facebook and Twitter as we look deeper into the world of Dragon’s Crown. Thanks for reading!
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It's quite amazing that the Disney frames pretty much stand up to some of the great painting and statues they've shown. Dragon's Crown certainly doesn't, but you wouldn't expect composite parts of a greater visual experience to. That's why it's so amazing that Disney does.
What I find amazing is I cannot understand in the least how or why you dislike VanillaWare and Street Fighter IV art as much as you do. I think they are some of the best in the 2D biz... I completely respect your opinion, though...
phantom_leo said:What I find amazing is I cannot understand in the least how or why you dislike VanillaWare and Street Fighter IV art as much as you do. I think they are some of the best in the 2D biz... I completely respect your opinion, though...
Well you may not understand it because it's not the case. VanillaWare make some of the best art in video games, 2D or otherwise, and Street Fighter IV works brilliantly as animation. What I don't like is extremely ridiculous, heavy metal and comic book-like character designs. Never have, and never will. I hate Darksiders' art style for the same reason, and from what I've seen of it in motion it's not well enough animated for me to like it as animation, either. It's just personal preference, and Street Fighter and Dragon's Crown both fit into what I don't like perfectly. But like I've said before, in motion I can look passed it because of how God damn well they're both animated; but as stills all I get is the hideous character designs.
And the Disney comment wasn't meant to criticise VanillaWare, but point out just how awesome those Disney stills are from way back when. Like I said, animation isn't meant to stand up to great art, because each frame is a single section of a greater whole.
AND I'm currently playing Odin's Sphere, and the funniest thing about it is the feminist theme that is currently running through it. Also, it's one of the best looking games I've ever played. Happy now?
DJ-Lafleur said:Not going to lie, those last two posts got me more interested in the game more than that massive rack on the witch ever did.
Mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha! My master plan is working!
...reel them in with boobies, school them with History! Soon they will be eating out of my very own hands!
On blackface:
- Some women do have large breasts.
- No white people have black faces.
In other news:
If a game were to have a man with a large penis, wearing a speedo, I would find that just as funny as a female character with large breasts wearing a bikini. I would find it mildly humorous, others may find it mildly stimulating. Some would find offense at both. It's not a political statement, it is a creative one, and as with all creative statements people will have various responses and opinions surrounding it. None of which has anything to do with the creator of that art.
I PLUS YOU ONE-MILLION TIMES!!
phantom_leo said:I PLUS YOU ONE-MILLION TIMES!!
I have 12,900 posts here, so get to work
In Defense of Boobies!
Just a snippet: "The creators of Dragon’s Crown do not owe us effective female characters, nor are their elaborate cartoonish fantasies something that could be considered morally unsound. It’s a simple stylistic choice, and though the game fails to provide the positive-gender portrayals the industry needs, looking for such things in your silly arcade hack-and-slash is honestly absurd."