There's a lot of gameplay issues that people have already brought up so I am not going to bring it up again for the billionth time.
But something that I rarely see talked about is the complete lack of body diversity for the female characters...
Am I the only one who's really disappointed and tired of them all having the same bodies? I was reminded of this again with Sindel.
People went on about the costumes, and while I much prefer a lot of the MKX costumes ( Kitana especially, her MK11 is dogshit imo. Her MKX was perfect. ).
I don't hate the MK11 costumes.
I hated the virtue signaling surrounding it and the performative woke shit like the interview with Steve Beran for Polygon and Ed Boon's comments, like give me a fucking break.
And I am just getting incredibly tired of that narrative in the industry altogether.
But ignoring that, which is admitedly hard for me to do because I think that it's incredibly sexist crap from people trying to rephrase it to sound progressive.
What really does bother me tho is that despite all of this posturing, the female characters just look more like bikini models with average genetics.
But the male characters are super hyper masculine and look like they spend all day every day all roided up working out, eating and sleeping.
The female characters don't look like they belong in the same setting as the male characters, the male characters still look cartoonish and '' unrealistic '' for what they're doing and it makes the female characters look boring.
And they're too cowardly to go down either a more overtly feminine or masculine route with them, like they want to win these brownie points with their posturing, but at the same time they're too cowardly to make them look buff because they still want them to be conventionally attractive.
Even as someone who loves overtly feminine and lewd female characters it still bothers the shit out of me, because it feels so disingenous and fake.
Even in MK9 that everyone uses as '' the worst '' example the female characters actually had muscles and looked buff.
Sure the anatomy was wonky but it was for everyone, it kinda was just in general in all games back then really.
I just want to see more variety, it also does include the male characters too but it's a bigger problem with the female characters imo because they just don't look like they exist in the same stylized setting as the male characters.
And the male characters actually do have some variety at least.
People are so obsessed with '' realistic depictions of women '' that they forget or are so oblivious to the fact that the depictions of the men ain't '' realistic '' in the slightest to begin with. And it makes the women look like the odd ones out.
And the male characters ARE sexualized, like give me a damn break... Anyone who says that they aren't haven't been around women or gay/bi men much. Young Jax in particular is extremely hot and sexualized. And they all look like models, even freaking Kano has a perfect face, perfectly groomed and body.
I want to see big boobs, small boobs, skinny, muscular etc.
I wouldn't mind seeing some larger women too, I just want variety.
Instead they just all look like they're stuck with the base '' unedited T-pose 3D model '' or something if that makes sense.
It honestly has me a bit worried about Mileena if she's potentially going to be in the second Kombat Pack.
I worry that they're too afraid or not willing to keep her true to her design, or that she's not in the game at all because they're afraid or something...
Like when you have overtly feminine characters in a goofy setting you can kinda buy that they're standing face to face with overtly masculine guys, it's part of the fantasy. And they all look like they're on the same level of idealized and perfection.
But when the female characters are just nothing at all it sorta feels to me as if it's breaking the fourth wall, especially when you have the devs posturing about it and making a statement about it.
I think that maybe it isn't a big deal to most people because most people play male characters, and there's this very aggressive '' I don't care about anything other than muh gaemplay and I'll attack anyone who complains about anything having to do with NRS because I am a mindless fanboy hurr durr '' thing surrounding games but especially with NRS I feel.
But to me who exclusively play female characters it's incredibly disappointing and makes them feel so incredibly underwhelming and boring.
It's an issue in the industry as a whole tho, not just NRS games.
Female characters all look like they have the identical body and then the moment that a female characters has overtly feminine shapes they get accused of being designed by a '' horny teenager '' ( which is just the accuser being an immature asshat ), and when they're designed with more overtly masculine shapes people complain that they're too ugly and masculine.
I can sorta sympathize with devs a little bit, but seriously.
Grow the fuck up and stop being so cowardly, pick one.
And if you're not going to pick one then stop posturing about it and pretending like you're brave.
