Yes that's why I said need to be careful, but I guess one or two character in a game should be OK. Giving the option would mean also to redo all the CG with those characters, so not sure

I think biscuit raises a good point, and the image thesleepykitten posted drives it home. What we need is greater diversity in character builds and heights, even facial shapes, but not ugly romance interests. I'm reminded of how Elenor was supposed to be small and significantly shorter than both Loren and Karen. And yet you'd never guess that from the visual of her sprite standing along side Loren and Karen's. Heck, in the CG scene Elenor looked slightly taller than Loren.

True, will try to keep more attention in future. I think that artists when they learn to draw use some "reference images" (not sure how to call them) so that they have a fixed model for male/females.

When doing Loren 2 scenes for example artist had drawn Chambara with a different face, same shape as Elenor, probably because that's how he usually draws female. Same thing for Loren. Those were easy to spot (thanks also to Aleema double checking) but other things like height/weight etc are harder, but will try to be more careful on the next games.

What we need is greater diversity in character builds and heights, even facial shapes, but not ugly romance interests.

Oh definitely. There are many attractive/adorable people of all shapes and sizes.



I guess when the unnamed otome game gets a sketch of its characters, I can always post it and see if people would be interested. Since all four of them will have a different body type. If not, then they can be redesigned to be more bishonen (i.e. the picture I showed earlier.)

I'm late to the party I know... And *SPOILERS* warning too!





But playing through the games, I've noticed everyone looks like a supermodel too. All the guys are blandly pretty - I couldn't tell the ones in 'Love & Order' apart, though I was happy romancing the girl, Dorothy.



Also, it makes it too easy to spot the 'bad guys'.



I mean, in Helieen I, there's poor old Burt, who is fat and ugly and turns out to be a rapist, and gets shanked by Lora. I think it would have been more interesting if one of the good-looking guys turned out to be the one who tries to molest her and gets stabbed.



Likewise, it would have felt better if one of the pretty boys in 'Love & Order' turned out to be the criminal... instead of the ugly boss who is horrible to you.



How about a romance interest who is plain but a really nice person? Someone like Marco or Bellamy maybe? It's a shame in 'Planet Stronghold' we lost Bellamy, to be replaced by yet another bland pretty boy when we already have Shatz in that role?



And finally, for the GxG romances, I wouldn't mind a few options for girls who didn't look like straight women. Someone like Marian Hawke or Aveline Vallen in 'Dragon Age' or Mila in 'Dead or Alive', Sherry Birkin or Rebecca Chambers in 'Resident Evil'. Short hair, sporty, tomboyish?



Just throwing some ideas out there.

I mean, in Helieen I, there's poor old Burt, who is fat and ugly and turns out to be a rapist, and gets shanked by Lora. I think it would have been more interesting if one of the good-looking guys turned out to be the one who tries to molest her and gets stabbed.

Elias isn't that ugly and he turned out to be a bastard (at least in the 1st game)

It's a shame in 'Planet Stronghold' we lost Bellamy, to be replaced by yet another bland pretty boy when we already have Shatz in that role?

Believe me, Milo won't be just "a pretty boy". I agree on what said in this thread but is also the personality that matters, and Milo won't be a standard pretty guy who behaves well

And finally, for the GxG romances, I wouldn't mind a few options for girls who didn't look like straight women. Someone like Marian Hawke or Aveline Vallen in 'Dragon Age' or Mila in 'Dead or Alive', Sherry Birkin or Rebecca Chambers in 'Resident Evil'. Short hair, sporty, tomboyish?

Yes I know what you mean, with Juliet I tried to have something like that, indeed her face while pretty is more masculine, but yes there's room for improvement!

Thanks for that, sounds like you're always trying to improve things, Jack!



I'm sure I'll love the games whatever you do!

When it comes to look, slender girls with big eyes and boobs become boring. Same with guys who have wide shoulders, well-developed muscles and full hair. The last WW game I bought was Spirited Heart, where some of the female characters had wide hips. Especially Reid, the dancer, and femme fatale.



When it comes to character: Here even more.

Show Spoiler

Spirited Heart: I hated how every girl which acted interesting at first was super-good at the core.

My favorite WW-RPG is Planet Stronghold, where

Show Spoiler

the sniper is a drunk, and the commander comes across as so full of himself that I hate him.

Despite this... better: because of this I enjoy the game - especially finding answers in dialogues which tick them off. It is kind of sad I cannot get the mad enough to leave, but hey, even so...

Haha, yeah I hated Shatz too. Never used him.



I actually liked Phillip though!

A bit OT, I fear...



The name "Shatz" is one thing which put me off, right at the first meeting.



You see, Schatz is a german word. (Never mind the c, the german "sch" and english "sh" are the same sound.) Schatz may mean either treasure (in the sense of chest full of gold) or sweetheart (also used to others when talking about your partner - "My Schatz did ..."). So there is this one guy, being the commanding officer but looks like a pretty-boy, with the name of sweetheart and says something along the lines of "I came especially for you". In real life I might look for a good spot to place my boot, but the game did not let me kick him. So I enjoyed myself by finding the answers which annoyed him most.



BTT: Note that I wrote "enjoyed". As I wrote before, I could let my dark side out a bit with him and Philip. Which is a fun I could not have if all characters were likeable.



Oh, and while I am at ranting: In Loren I did not have the fun of being able to annoy the party members. I cound talk to them in the camp, or ignore them, and that was the end of it. They were drawn a bit too much to conform with stereotypes as well.

Yes that's something we're going to try improving in future RPGs: in Roger Steel for example I know that will be HARD to keep the party together (so very different from previous games). And in general we want to avoid that everyone is MC friends if he/she behaves badly or makes the wrong choices/says the wrong things.

Oh, Lisa had a nickname for Mr Shatz, but it's not one I could repeat here I kept wishing there was a suicide mission I could send him on!



And I found it easy to annoy the Loren characters... the ones I disliked like Mesphit and Rei, anyway. Rei was putting the moves on Elenor and she cut him short with a cold 'Shut up. I'm not interested in anything you say.' He visibly deflated and sulked for the rest of the game



And I kept annoying Mesphit until Loren eventually gutted him like a pig. A beautiful moment.

You're really bastard players, poor fictional characters!!

Hopefully Aleema will find a way to make Shatz more likeable. I know his romance CG with Lisa is one of the cutest of the game so I hope he'll become more popular, and less... shatz

I'd rather a have a strong reaction, love or hate, for a character, than just feel 'meh'.



If I fall in love with a character, or want to kill him, then the writer has done a good job!



If I just couldn't care less, as with Alistair in Dragon Age, then that's not so much fun.

You're really bastard players, poor fictional characters!!

Many thanks for the compliment

And I kept annoying Mesphit until Loren eventually gutted him like a pig. A beautiful moment.

It is not like I did like Mesphit that much, but he did not trigger any hate-buttons for me either. He was just well ... standard-fare, the tormented character, running into his doom due to ambitions and bad decisions, seen it in many variations. Which brings me to

I'd rather a have a strong reaction, love or hate, for a character, than just feel 'meh'.

yes, very much agreed.



And I found the first dragon age "meh" too. I could not care less who invaded the world and who died because of it. Morigan or what her name was kept me going til maybe the middle of the game, but otherwise... just meh.