GAMER LOUNGE 20XX (NO CASUALS!!)

[Kriven]

Since when were beat-em-ups considered niche titles? I can see that argument working with Dating Simulators and Visual Novels, but it feels more out of place in a beat-em-up. It's a genre that appeals to more people and doesn't have a history of oversexualized characters. Sure, there are some characters like Blaze from Streets of Rage 2 but she's a heck of a lot more classy than Ms. Balloon Tits from Dragon's Crown. It's OK to have sexualized characters in beat-em-ups but there's a point at which you cross the line and it's no longer normal.

And that's just the thing. I don't feel particularly offended or uncomfortable when I look at Witch, but I hate it when stuff like this becomes normalized. Instead of broadening a genre, it sends out the message that only a certain type of person should play these games.

There's a lot more that goes into a niche than just the specific genre... Ecchi is a niche aesthetic style. So here we're talking about a beat-em-up with an Ecchi aesthetic. You're making a mistake by breaking the experience down to just "Object A interacts with Object B in this way so it's this genre" and assuming that's the end of things.

The message that should be sent out is "a game with ecchi artwork is only for people who like ecchi artwork" not "this one game in this broad genre has ecchi artwork so I don't like the entire genre."

By that logic I guess Dynasty Warriors type of games are only for fans of mecha, right? That's the message Gundam Warriors is sending me.

Side-Edit: "ecchi" might not actually be the proper terminology here, but it's close enough to illustrate my point. Anybody more caught up on terms want to tell me what step lies between ecchi and hentai?