King of Fighters Makes Me Hate Myself

Hey! There’s a new King of Fighters game out! It’s only available in arcades at the moment, and the console release hasn’t even been announced, but I know that when it finally becomes available, I’m almost certain to buy it! And this makes me pretty annoyed at myself.

Fighting game ‘The King of Fighters XIII’ is the latest in the pure dead old series of mostly-excellent games from SNK Playmore, and it looks a lot like it’ll play well, with a varied and interesting cast with uncluttered movelists and smoooth animation. It’s just a shame about the rampant misogyny, eh?

PART 1: DEPRESSING BOLLOCKS

“No Mai, No Buy” was the ludicrous slogan puked out of the fingertips of countless King of Fighters (or ‘KoF’) fans on messageboards around the time of the release of KoF XII, in reference to the lack of the character Mai Shiranui in the game. Ninjutsu-practicing Mai is a fun and effective character to play as, with useful and consistent moves, but her popularity mainly stems from the fact she has (you guessed it) large, over-animated breasts.

SNK Playmore, always being barely one step ahead of going bankrupt, seemed to throw their hands in the air and say “FINE, we’ll give you what you want!” and so included her in the latest KoF instalment. Good news for slimy bastards everywhere, the game designers decided to make her outfit even more revealing, and her breasts even more ludicrous and creepily-rendered. Have a look for yourself, likes, at the sprites for KoF94,KoFXI, and KoFXIII:

I know that the appallingly-named ‘jiggle physics’ are no recent or unique thing in videogames – I’m looking at you with morbid fascination, Dead or Alive series! -and Mai’s KoF 94 sprite is an early ‘pioneer’ of such a thing, but that is no excuse for them to still be an ongoing concern (and part of a trend I sadly can’t see vanishing while the main players of  games are perceived to be young males), much like another slice of cringe-inducing sexism in the latest KoF instalment…

PART 2: INSULTING BULLSHIT

King and Yuri (pictured above) are that rarity in video games – female characters with strong personalities and actual clothing that covers their bodies, and not just in a seedy painted-on sort of way! Not exactly progressive, but certainly the least we should expect, right? Sadly, both characters have a dark past in looks-okay-plays-like-shite fighting game series Art of Fighting…

Quite apart from Yuri’s sadly-usual beginnings as a generic damsel-in-distress, King’s original appearance in 1992′s Art of Fighting saw her appearing as a bouncer passing as male at a club owned by a crime boss. When defeated, her clothes rip off, revealing her to be >gasp< a woman. Take a look at this image:

Don’t worry, confused male readers! She’s got a reassuringly feminine pink bra!

Sigh.

Anyway, while it could be argued that this at least had a storyline component, this ‘feature’ continued into 1994′s Art of Fighting 2, where Yuri was now a playable character. When you defeat any opponent with a special or super move (or whatever the terminology is in Art of Fighting), their outfit tears, exposing underwear/muscles/scars etc. To the designers’ near-credit, this also happened to the male characters (though obviously it’s not the same thing). This was also carried over to the appearance of the Art of Fighting characters in the first two King of Fighters games (though I think maybe Ryo was the only male this applied to as well?).

Thankfully, this unfortunate relic of the early-90s vanished from the games in the ones that followed, and King and Yuri grew into characters that could perhaps be described as ’rounded’ and ‘interesting’ (or as much as fighting game characters ever are, anyway).

Pathetically, with King of fighters XIII, the clothes-ripping has returned, and this time it only happens to King and Yuri. Also problematic is the way that Yuri is now portrayed in an infantilising ‘Moé’ style (which Wikipedia describes as being “used within anime fandom as an interjection referring to a character the speaker considers to be a moekko (a blossoming or “budding” girl)”), and the fact her alternate colour schemes involve her leggings getting increasingly shorter/turning into thigh-highs. Here’s a  screenshot of Yuri being defeated, her clothes tearing off (it’s not as clear as it could be, but should get the idea across) -

Oh glorious! Strong female character shamed and humiliated for no reason other than the male gaze! I get that it’s a nod to the ‘classic’ games of the early 90s, but it’s really not a ‘tradition’ that should have been revived. I don’t really want games I enjoy playing to feature things that’ll embarass me and make me feel like a creep, you know? I understand SNK Playmore feel the need to cater to the most base aspects of gaming culture, as they need to make a successful product to survive, but this shit is regressive and downright insulting. Here’s another image, this time of King being knocked out, clothing torn etc. -

Not nice or necessary, is it? And wait, just WHAT the FUCK is going on in that background?

I’m afraid you’ll find out in the next blog post, snappily titled ‘Why King of Fighters Makes Me Hate Myself EX: Racist Horror‘!

Bet you cannae wait.