First response: DAMN YOU TO HELL* HIROYUKI KOBAYASHI. THAT IS NOT COOL DAMMIT. WTF NO. DMC4 JUST SUCKS AND SAYING IT IS FOR WOMEN JUST MAKES YOU AN INCOMPETENT PRODUCER AND A MISOGYNIST, YOU DONKEY'S RECTUM.
*Disclaimer: Hell and associated entities may not appear in your copy of DMC4. The Savior is not Hell nor should it be construed as any example, replacement, elaboration upon, or extension of Hell. Please see Dante's Inferno, GOW, DMC1, DMC2, DMC3, Wayne Barlowe, etc. for valid representations of Hell in the context of their respective fictional worlds.
Second response: DAMN YOU KOBAYASHI!!111! Ahem...now, for a more reasoned and thought out response. I hardly even know where to start.
First of all, in terms of business this makes no sense. Seriously, how much of the market base is constituted by female gamers? How many women don't play DMC only because it doesn't have a pretty(er) boy effeminate protagonist? How would alienating established fans for the sake of fickle women gamers help the series or company at all, especially considering that DMC4 was multiplatform and the 360 isn't even doing that well in Japan? Seriously, this makes as much sense as making Nero 3 gerbils in a human suit to appeal to the gerbil fanbase out there. WTF Kobayashi.
He has effectively removed the things that made DMC so unique so that it could appeal to people who were never going to be interested in the first place. Hell? It might scare the women. Extra costumes? They might confuse the women, I guess. Vergil? It might...I don't know, confuse them more? Realistic violence and scary demons? Again, scary for women. The problem is that the story of DMC4 was not deepened nor were the characters made any more relatable to appeal to the type og girl gamers who appreciate the emotional aspects of games such as RPGs. Sure, Nero cries a little, but I think generally the gamer is supposed to cry, not the character they are playing.
It is like you have a type of hotcake that everyone loves which is selling so well they even went and developed an idiom for it. And then you think, "hmm, how can I get people that hate eating cake to want to eat this hotcake?" and your solution is to take out the sugar, and flour, and hotness, but still keep it shaped like a cake but an upside down one. WTF Kobayashi.
Secondly, Kobayashi is obviously out of touch with women and has a severely underdeveloped Anima archetype. He said that he wanted to take away things girls don't like, like violence and disgusting graphics (must have missed Mitis Forest, ba-zing!) or events (I'm not even going to comment on dice and moving those whirling blade things). Hmm, last time I checked, this wasn't the 1950s when we had to shield women's fragile and inferior minds from things that aren't sugar and spice and everything nice.
Women are not dainty porcelain figurines made from treacle and lace, and to assume that girl gamers find violence or disgusting things insufferable supposes that they are somehow inferior from male gamers, who can handle those things. It is extremely offensive. The fact that girl gamers lack a penis does not mean they all want to play My Little Pony meets Barbie's Playhouse, and to think so is pure, unadulterated sexism. Girls play DMC, presumably for the same reason guys do: because they want a taste of Stylish Hardcore Gothic Action with a dose of badassery and demonic imagery.
Furthermore, unless mine eyes have deceived me all these years, fangirls are quite taken with the existing "macho" figures of Dante and Vergil, hence all the yaoi fanfics. I never saw any requests for more effeminate or androgynous protagonists, nor did I see any fangirls lamenting the disgusting sight of Vergil's chiseled abs and supermodel-like icy scowl, neither did I hear any complaints from them when they unlocked Dante's shirtless costume. This may be a stereotype on my part, but women generally find men with larger muscles more attractive (cf. Dan Southworth) than more effeminate versions of them, and given the hyperbolic nature of games, this would seem to apply even more so to games. Really, Kobayashi is skirting a paradox here: he claims to be making DMC4, ostensibly a stylish action game (by definition, full of things that women dislike according to him), appealing to women, by taking out things that make it a DMC game in the first place (violence, disgusting things, Hell, Vergil) for fear that it will put them off. What you end up with is a game that is too DMC for women who aren't already fans to be interested in, and a game that isn't DMC enough to appease the angry fans after such a dickhead move.
Thirdly, DMC4 is more offensive to women than any DMC game so far. Now, I recognize that DMC isn't known for its focus on the female element, and it is all macho, with the guns and sharp phallic symbols, but at least the previous games had the courtesy to ignore what they couldn't portray correctly. Like, for instance, I am a guy, so I recognize that I can't really write for a female character very well and I generally don't pretend that my attempts will be true to life at all.
If the previous DMC games ignored the feminine, then DMC4 basically sexually assaults in the workplace, slaps it around when it gets drunk, has sex with it for like 3 minutes then rolls over and asks for a sandwich, gets it a frying pan for Christmas because it knows how much it likes to cook and clean, and buys lingerie for its own birthday for the feminine to wear while cooking and cleaning. I guess you could say DMC4 rapes the feminine, but, as Kobayashi has been careful to assure, not in a violent or disgusting manner.
Oh DMC4, how dost thou offend women? Let me count the ways.
1. Kyrie. A stereotypical damsel in distress who has no admirable personal characteristics, and properly, does not speak out of turn or hardly at all, except in a trembling, small voice in accordance with her role subservient to all other men in the Order, who she also provides entertainment for. She is devout and submissive, and she is used only as bait for the main character to rescue, a mannequin made for the sole purpose of allowing the protagonist to understand his own destiny and resolve his own emotional issues. She even dies and is apparently remade specifically for this purpose. She also cooks and stuff for Nero, in the novel.
Message: Women should not speak unless spoken to, their place is in the kitchen and they get in trouble if they leave it, and women cannot do anything without the help of men, and women are perfectly acceptable objects to use as bargaining chips in the very important affairs of men and their institutions.
Also: Kyrie is saved by an effeminate man-child rather than a macho man, thus implying that women are weaker than even the softest, sissiest of men.
2. Whoria--I mean, Gloria. Do I really need to say anything here? An extremely inappropriately clothed tanned women with large (unnecessarily bouncy) breasts and very impractical places for storing weapons, and apparently a dislike for any kind of undergarments. She infiltrates and quickly rises through the ranks of the Order (I wonder how...hint: you an see it inside the Savior statue), a religious institution, for the purposes of destroying it. This is in contrast to the men who presumably worked hard to achieve their positions. Her clothes are extremely impractical, and even painful for actual women to wear, especially during combat situations and in frigid temperatures. This Whoria instantly changes into Trish in the game, with no comment or apparent surprise from males in the game.
Message: Women are either virgins or they are whores who use their sexuality to unfairly trick men into promoting them to positions they shouldn't ever have, and women's sexuality is evil, and women are nothing more than sex dolls with no personality or feelings; you've seen one whore, you've seen them all.
3. Lady. A previously respectable, strong women who dressed slightly more conservatively and practically given her occupation is given a boob job, a makeover, an outfit that is totally impractical and unnecessarily slutty, and an unhealthy fixation on money. Basically, Lady went form the most respectable and sympathetic and serious female character in the series, to a gold digging lazy slut. Her new outfit shows tons of cleavage and gives no support for combat situations, and has shorts that are so short that there is nowhere to store ammo and guns. She is apparently allergic to work now, doing absolutely nothing in DMC4, and cares only about money where she used to be serious and thoughtful and concerned with eradicating demons. She used to be troubled and conflicted, scarred by her past, but apparently, she got some laser resurfacing of those pesky scars about he same time as the boob job and Gucci shades.
She is seen, along with Trish, lounging around Dante's shop, flaunting her cleavage and backing Dante up in Charlie's Angels style.
Message: Women only really care about money and will suck your wallet dry for everything you have while you continue to do all the work, there is nothing in a woman's past that a boob job and some Gucci can't fix, it is more important for women you work with to be eye candy than to actually be productive and helpful, even complex women are really just shallow and materialistic.
4. Echidna. The only female boss, a she-viper, literally the mother of all monsters, and a grumpy bitch that whines and grates about things, and literally devours men. She is constantly concerned with only reproduction and really has no depth beyond that. Slap her around enough and she stops bothering you.
Message: Women are annoying bitches who only care about "devouring" men for their seed to reproduce with. Slap women around enough and they will stop bothering you.
5. Savior and the rest of the game. The game is based on the Order which is about as male dominated as it gets. They might as well just call it the Order of the Penis. Yamato penetrates so many things in this game that it should make heterosexual men uncomfortable (Kobayashi says: WOMEN LOVE IT!!!). Lucifer acquisition scene shows Dante is a male chauvinist pig. There is a giant vagina (Kobayashi says:EEWW GROSS) inside of the Savior (penetrated by Yamato) which traps Nero and which he has to escape from. Oh yeah, and total disregard for the feminine principle in general (Eva is not even mentioned)
Fourthly,
Kobayashi said:
HK:With the characters we tested in Devil May Cry 4 the responses were very good. There wasn’t anyone saying ‘oh we wish you had this type of character’ and nobody said ‘oh we really wish you didn’t have this kind of character’. We were able to take the response from Devil May Cry 4 to fine tune the characters for this game.
Is he serious? He doesn't answer the question, and then says that there was no negative feedback at all for characters in DMC4? WHAT THE **** IS GOING ON? IS THIS THE TWILIGHT ZONE?
Koba said:
A lot of the same staff that made Devil May Cry 4 are making this game, as well. We have all of the experience of making an action game and know how to create really good characters.
I think I missed the part where they made a really good character? Did he make Arkham? Dante? Vergil? Lady? No, then STFU Kobayashi.
Fifthly: Kobayashi, you suck. You are a grossly inept and incompetent worker in the game industry whose involvement in projects inevitably and necessarily leads only to their debasement and devolution, and to top it off, you are clueless about this effect to the point that you praise yourself for supposed developments, which are really on the result of the rest of the team pulling enough weight to balance out your deathblow to the game for long enough for it to tread water before taking the entire ship down with it. And even then, you don't have the integrity or character to go down with the ship that you sabotaged and refuse to admit to any shortcomings on your part, to the detriment of the gaming community worldwide. Do not work on DMC5. Do not work on any game that is not already a colossal failure lest you make it a colossal failure.
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I would say that Kobayashi was doing this just to get some, but since this wouldn't attract any women, I don't think so. I think Kobayashi is possibly just into more effeminate guys personally, and he couldn't really get into the twins, so he made Nero. I don't know. I am at a loss for words. I am dumbfounded that this man could make DMC4 such a pile of slop, congratulate himself for it, and then say it was all part of his plan to do something which is the opposite of what actually happened. I did not know that he could do so much damage to one series in such a short time.
If the above has not been explicit enough, it is apparent that Kobayashi is extremely dense, grossly incompetent in his judgment as a producer, and is on top of that an egotistical misogynist. Someone needs to shove a DB right up his ass (but not in a violent or disgusting manner).
But I guess that is your name for him.
