That's weird. Image looks fine to me in the post *and* your quote of my post.
Here's a link.
Uh, is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Huge Text Incoming, not to you specifically.
I just think that outfit is neat and would work better for her than the shrink-wrapped dress she has by default, because the "long white ankle-length dress on a pure maiden with a ponytail" is generic (see: Luna). I get that the generic look is what they
intended with Kyrie having no flaws and that she needs to read as "utterly likable, the heroes love her and the villains hate her" type of Mary Sue (even though it's stupid and actually contradictory, see below), but I expect better design. It still boggles me that her default dress allows her to run quickly to protect a child or run to Credo's aid in the beginning, but she's still a Damsel In Distress during the credits and requires Nero to save her from lesser demons in the whole runtime, because
self-preservation is too much to ask for. That's stupid.
Her character is completely interchangeable with the other non-combatant maidens of the series: Kalina Ann is a "loving wife", "sweet girl, pure and innocent" (this was said toward Lady, but she's "just like [her] mother" so it counts), and a mere sacrifice and acceptable casualty for a man to become "a legend" (see also: that Priestess that Sparda sacrificed 2000 years ago who has no name or personality because she doesn't matter); Eva pretty much exists to die for her children and the nature of her sacrifice was downgraded in every game that mentioned her. No appealing personality traits are present as of 5 that would justify Sparda hooking up with Eva and it's debatable whether she has any "fire" of her own when she spends a good minute in DMC5 entrusting an 8 year old boy to be a "man". Even Lois Lane has "intrepid reporter" going for her to explain why Superman/Clark likes her so much.
Really. Kyrie, Kalina, and Eva could switch places in any of the games they've been in and nothing changes because they're just there for the other characters to love them and fight because of them, dead or alive. That's it. Eva is so Ultra Kind and Generically Good that popular conversation is on whether Sparda gained humanity because of her. Kalina is so Ultra Kind and Generically Good that killing her is proof that Arkham is Evil. Kyrie's so Ultra Kind and Generically Good that even Credo's fate was determined as whatever wouldn't change Kyrie's personality too much in ways that inconvenience Nero, because this Goddess-type, Ultra Good character developing any type of negativity towards the protagonist for understandable reasons? Can't have that. She's Ultra Good and Forgiving no matter how bad other people are to her, except for if Credo were a villain. She wouldn't forgive Nero for killing a villainous Credo, but forgives him for letting Credo die, which have equal net outcomes (Dead Credo). Nero's been hung up about his death for a decade now and Kyrie's totally fine with it and shows no resentment. Somehow that makes
all the sense.
In terms of design, none of the women in 4 have outfits that would sensibly read as combat-ready, primarily because of tight spandex + leather pants, cleavage exposure + no bra, no pants / booty shorts + no panties (in Gloria's case) when their fighting demons requires they be highly mobile, perform gymnastics movements and flip around in the air without any wardrobe malfunctions, while the dudes have non-tight pants like normal people. And no one wears armor, not even Lady, even though she should be a normal human and was explicitly described as "born of weak flesh and blood", not being special, and thus would need protective wear but instead leaves her skin exposed, but it doesn't matter since the sex appeal of the character clearly overrides the function, at risk of contradicting the character as stated: If not a demon hunter, Lady is
supposed to be a "mature business woman" to explain why she's not as prominent, but instead is dressed to go clubbing (the dance type, or the endangering baby seals type? You decide!) and not like a professional. The booty shorts and no bra makes her "assets" pop, and they put her and that outfit into combat situations anyway. Even with her DMC3 outfit being there for "moe" reasons, I can at least come up with the good facets of it in that she
looks like she's dressed in a "Catholic Schoolgirl" outfit but the skirt is literally ammo, a.k.a. "Looks can be deceiving", "Don't underestimate her, she's not a little girl". And then the story for 3 did her dirty. And then in 4 she's a gold digger. And then in 5 she's nude fanservice and part of the Protect Vergil Squad just because Itsuno didn't like her putting down her dad like the rabid psychopath he was.
But I mean. Not just Lady got shafted. Gloria is supposed to be a high-ranking member of the Order but her debut is her straddling a demon, dropkicking a demon so the camera zooms in on her labia, she has a walk cycle resorting to awkward posture solely to exploit jiggle physics, and she sheathes her weapon along her thigh to make Nero avert his eyes. Her next introduction to Dante shows her going into camera view ass-first. Then this turns out to be a disguise for Trish, which is pointless as Sanctus immediately identifies Trish as Gloria even when she's not disguised. Compared to the guys of the Order who come off as important in their fields and fully covered, where Nero deviates from the usual Order design because he's a punk, Gloria looks like a typical exotic harlot who cheats her way into power since that's pretty much her plot. In a game meant to "appeal to women gamers". And then Trish also becomes nude fanservice in 5 and magics her clothes back on, meaning her nudity was pointless and there's no reason she should have been nude at all.
My dislike for what this series has turned into is totally low-key, you guys, I swear.
Anyway, Kyrie in the first image is still wearing an outfit that covers her from head to toe as her default outfit does but does it in different ways, gives her more mobility instead of being shrink-wrapped around her body, shows she's from the Order, still maintains a predominantly white palette, and overall just looks really nice.
DMC4 was otherwise a game where the extent of how an NPC woman looks and why they're there is
"she's not necessary, but we added her anyway because she's sexy", and the Rusalkas were reused Kyrie nude models for the sole purpose of being erotic and mimicking titillating lesbian imagery but have no effect on either male character the imagery is used, on which
also renders them less than pointless.
I'm just saying. Kyrie's default dress is awful. F That Dress. Does it even have a zipper? I hate it. If any woman in this series is allowed to have designs that contradict their character or show off their Peaches and Kitty, Kyrie can wear something slightly more combat ready, because her default dress sucks.
Which means Kyrie was designed to be similar to Orihime to start with. Unmemorable, overly forgiving to those who hurt her, generally no flaws, well-endowed, "basically a goddess" but also powerless for some reason, there for Nero (Ichigo) to protect and be his Morality Pet, otherwise he'd be an asshole. According to the team behind these designs and characterizations, men are incapable of empathy and humanity on their own, and they need women to carry their humanity around for them and provide some STR boosts like they're a Dark Souls character.
Take it from Bingo himself:
Bingo: She was created almost as a goddess, so her lack of flaws means that she’s not very memorable. [laughs] She’s the type to comfort and forgive someone even if they do bad things. That’s about the extent of her relationship with Nero. “DMC 4” begins with him liking her, so it only made sense to make her utterly likable. As a cookie-cutter, admirable big sister-type, she wasn’t hard to write into the scenario. She’s basically the perfect Virgin Mary, so her design wasn’t difficult either. She had to be reasonably tall, sensual, and with huge breasts. That was all a matter of course. Her backstory, though, makes you feel sorry for her.
Bingo:
When I told the team that the nature of Nero and Kyrie’s love was that line, they finally got it. Nero protects the city because he loves Kyrie so much. I really wanted to create a Hollywood blockbuster kind of experience with “DMC 4”, and somehow, so did the rest of the team. [...] We wanted to make “DMC 4” neat, clean, and straightforward; your basic “damsel in distress” story.
Because it's somehow not contradictory to base a man's humanity on how he interacts with women who have to be "almost godlike" and "perfect Virgin Mary", when by default anyone being godlike excludes them from being human since being human requires
actual flaws.
There was also a bit where Bingo described Nero as "without Kyrie, he'd basically be like Vergil" but describes a carelessness/apathy that's essentially
Dante's character arc in 3 with no hint of irony. DMC3's whole plot is
Dante is careless to others' plight until he meets Lady, who teaches him of what's important. That's it. That's his plot. He even says so in his own words. So pretty much every dude in this game has no internal moral code, somehow, possibly up to and including Sparda himself. I don't get it. It shouldn't be wrong for these women to be flawed but still loveable anyway and just as multifaceted as the dudes they admit are Two-dimensional Jackasses without them.
.... Did I mention I hate Kyrie's default dress?
:laugh: