![ash kof 13 ash kof 13](http://images4.fanpop.com/image/photos/24100000/King-of-Fighters-XIII-the-king-of-fighters-24171081-1280-720.jpg)
Words fail me, so hopefully a picture will do. Under the paper-thin guise of reminesence (seriously, you’d want to reminesce over misogyny in your old games by adding new, similar misogyny to your new ones?), characters who’ve gained depth and meaning over the past two decades are reduced to delicious female objects for the ‘loving’ gaze of the fanboys. You would have hoped that during the 20 years since Art of Fighting, SNK might want to show how far their characters have progressed. Because heck, when’s a better time to oggle a woman’s titties than when you’ve literally beaten the clothes off of her, right? Angry, hurt, despairing, defiant, disbelieving What’s creepy is when this is used with female characters to make them sexy. Beaten foes are depicted in many ways in videogames. I can see why any company would want to bring back such memories for their fans. While blatantly wheeled out for the male gaze, they had precedent within the series, leading to many defending them as a callback to their early days as characters. If you beat either one with a special move, their tops get ripped off, exposing their breasts and underwear. Two of the strong, independant female characters (Yuri & King) had been given ‘special’ animations upon their defeat. I’d heard there was racism in XII, but I shared the hope that this (amid XII’s various other problems not a loved game by the community) would be fixed.
![ash kof 13 ash kof 13](https://www.giantbomb.com/a/uploads/scale_medium/7/70497/2901829-saiki.full.1272677.jpg)
So, I was eager to see XIII get a release date, and when it came out I quickly went out and bought it. I got into King of Fighters on the recommendation of a friend after having played Street Fighter on and off for years, and the more fleshed out characters (Street Fighter’s roster are cardboard cut-outs, participating in a plot you’d expect to find on the back of a cereal box) and deeper gameplay system drew me in. SNK have been lagging behind Capcom for a while now, and I have little love for the latter. But King of Fighters XIII? Yeah, it’s one of the worst I’ve ever seen.įirst off, I have really, really wanted to like this game. I’m not here to say fighting games are the worst, I think that’s a fairly pointless conversation. There are multiple examples in any genre. Women and minorities are treated like shit in the majority of mainstream games, regardless of genre. But to say it’s a problem in fighting game fans is missing the point it’s a problem in videogames in general. Looking at the most popular fighting games around right now (Street Fighter, Tekken, King of Fighters, Blazblue) it’s fairly easy to form an idea of how this would come about. There’s recently been a fair amount of controversy over sexism in the Fighting Game community. I highly recommend you Google it before you form a response.Īnyway. There’s a wealth of information out there on how bigotted representations in media affect people’s ideas and behavior. If you disagree with that statement, I’m not going to spend pages arguing the point.
![ash kof 13 ash kof 13](https://i1.sndcdn.com/artworks-000107537707-1vzm94-t500x500.jpg)
Which, fuck, may not seem that important on the surface, but the way that people are portrayed in media shapes the audience’s ideas and behavior. Is it the much-needed dealing-with-DLA post? Is it a protest update? So, I’m updating for the first time in ages.