EDIT: Fixed, with non-spelling/grammar additions underlined.
And Indrah's bolded statement sums up my feelings for it. If you want to display that kind of stuff don't hide behind it as "fanservice" - make the obvious smut you want to and be done with it. It's much appreciated to know that Game A will have it and Game B will not. (Or, whatever media type).
Indrah and mlogan, From personal experience I actually disagree with the
"Just make a dayum hentai and get it out of your bloody system" line, although I agree that there are many times when it is well-founded. This is just because I think a number of fanservice shows would suffer if they were an all-out hentai. The same for games too. Even some with hentai origins, weird as that may sound. Taking the Nanoha franchise for example (sorry mlogan for bringing up another anime), I think it'd loose it's main attractions (great story pacing, overall plots and combat) if it had to shoe in or even focus on graphic sex.
A counter example would be something like Infinite Stratos. Let me tell you Dragnfly LOVES mecha musume. LOVES them. So much so that I've played horrible game just because they had those types of characters. But IS was so pointless I had to stop before s1 ended. So I don't give fanservice an automatic pass either.
But really, I wasn't talking about RM games that were constantly throwing fanservice at you. It's not that I didn't see a non-hentai boobiefest, it's that I didn't see anything at all. I think that there are different levels of fanservice, as many others have said. And on a 0-5 scale (0 being none and 5 being how-is-this-not-called-porn?) I'd put my target at a 2 or 3. But I was seeing constant 0.
I've been rather hesitant to post in this topic because I lacked the confidence in how I might express my thoughts.<snip>
I will take Lulu from Final Fantasy X as an example, as I'm replaying that game right now. In my opinion, her character design is ridiculous. Why is she dressed in such a way? Why do voluptuous characters always have to expose ridiculous amounts of cleavage? However, what I appreciate and respect, is that despite her "in your face" costume design, there are NO jokes or character dialogue directed at her breasts. The worst offense the game commits is giving Lulu a ridiculous victory pose where she bends down to brush dirt off her dress
So bringing this back to RPG Maker... ultimately, you can provide however much fanservice YOU want to add. But know that it's not tolerated by everyone, and you have to be prepared for a smaller target audience (I think it's smaller? Who knows, maybe it's larger...). Hopefully, you can try to be more subtle with it, and show SOME restraint with the jokes. I, for one, will never ever ever include fanservice in a game I make, so long as I have the authority to veto it.
Harmill, congrats on voicing up. I have some very close friends with the same hesitations on forums and it's always good to see people bite the bullet and say what's on their mind. No cred lost for you. Instead, cred gained. I'm aware that any amount of fanservice will alter the player base. So will RTP vs custom, parallax vs tile, chiptune vs orchestral, anime-influenced art vs other and especially other graphic content/themes. I look at it as a huge pile of pluses and minuses that all amount to pretty much the same because there's so many variables and so many different levels to each thing that one can only use general judgment on if they'll get an overall bigger or larger player base.
I like your FFX example. Though I don't consider Lulu's cleavage to be the biggest offender with that dress LOL. It's just a ludicrous dress. But the dudes in that game strike me as the types to not gawk and thus there was no need to comment. The male characters likely all noticed off-camera and Wakka/Auron/Kamari(?) were all with Lulu for a long time so unless her dress actually fell off they'd have nothing to say. This leaves Tidus who also likely noticed but didn't need to comment. I don't think FF7 had any comments about Tifa's giant boobs either (an FF7 pro might be able to correct me). For anything I have against some of the FF games this is actually good writing. Fanservice isn't just about handling T&A responsibly, but with respect to the other characters' personalities too.
The hilarious thing is that the internet was up in arms about the 'silly design' of the main character in Mevius Final Fantasy.
Gender equality, much?
Hotfirelegend, thanks. I didn't even know about MFF. *googles* LOL. I'd say the outfit is pretty ridiculous. Not like a woman wearing the same thing wouldn't look ridiculous too but at least I'd have a higher chance of enjoying looking at it
My gender equality is "fanservice for all, acceptance for all." So if MFF's target audience likes looking at that guy, more power to them.
So here's a question, how much fanservice is too much? For me it depends on the narritive you're trying to present. For a scene to really be fanservice it s generallyly got to be light hearted, so in a story with a lot of drama stuffing a ton of fanservice in will take away from that.
Also while I'm on it, does anyone think that a character's personality, one of a seductress or a literal succubus for example, could get away with more fanservice on their part.
I can take pretty much any amount so long as it's balanced by other qualities. My Infinite Stratos example above is an example of a fail whereas, say, Highschool DxD (IMO has far more fanservice) managed to stay cool due to superior art, music, character designs and a decent story.
Or to take a game example, Ar Tonelico 1-2 vs. 3. I adored 1 and 2 (especially 2) but 3 lowered the quality on everything and jacked the fanservice up to 11. It's 3D models use a wonky head proportion and are animated badly so the 3D fanservice isn't well-done enough to offset the already-bad story/characters/combat. It's 2D fanart is impacted by, despite having far more girls to get fanservice CGs, their designs are mostly bad and the fanservice choices are poor. It's just lose lose lose with no gain.
I do think the personality or role has a lot to do with what a character wears, how they act and how the camera/scenes treat them. If they're a succubus who isn't sexy and putting up a flair then isn't she just bad at her job like a ninja covered in rhinestones? Unless of course the story had a reason for her not to be sexy, but that's of course beside the point of your question.
Thanks, everyone. Good input all around. And Nirwanda, awesome avatar. I loved that game.
