#zettel #gaming sourced from: [[Xenoblade Chronicles]] # On Fanservice and Clothing Options for Armor in Xenoblade Chronicles I really enjoy the fact that you can have your characters's models reflect the armor they're wearing. Ever since playing [[Dragon Quest IX - Sentinels of the Starry Skies]] and seeing that these kinds of things were possible, I appreciated the design aesthetics my choice of armor brought to the game. In general, it makes me feel like I have some agency over the world as I play. But MAN some of these outfits are just really unrealistic for the sake of fanservice. When I got Melia for the first time and changed some of her equipment, I hadn't manually changed her permanent appearance on the bottom half of the menu. So I was jumpscared by the fact that when I put some Makna (jungle styled) Armor on Melia, this girl who for all intents and purposes seemed like a pretty conservative and proper girl, her model changed to be wearing a skimpier, jungle-styled outfit with midriff and an exposed back .I'm not trying to be a prude here, if people want to play with Melia in this outfit, then who am I to stop them. But to me, it was just really unrealistic and a little over the top. The same goes for Sharla. While a larger bust does not equate to hypersexualization of a character, almost all of Sharla's outfits I've found as of Chapter 7 either emphasize her cleavage, midriff, and or legs (sometimes all three!) in some capacity. Again, there is nothing wrong with this, and in-universe, if Sharla were to be wearing this for herself, then that's fine. Her default clothes do expose her midriff, which I have no qualms with whatsoever (in fact, I got used to this outift design pretty quickly). But to me, it seems rather unrealistic to have armor with cleavage so deep it exposes her navel like she has in the "Legin Style". And honestly, I really do like her outfit that's more Colony 6 based, which is more covered, I think it suits her design just as well. Again, these are just my personal preferences and they make little to no impact on my choice of playstyle. Reyn also has this "issue" to some extent as well. Dude's obviously ripped and a lot of his outfit design also show off how ripped he is. I am not really physically attracted to Reyn in any capacity, and I'm sure those who are will choose what he wears and how he wears it, but even then, I still think I like him in a default outfit to some degree. I have less to say about Reyn because I haven't thought about it. I supppose this might be my own cultural upbringing considerations as well. If you've put in the work to get that shredded, who am I to tell you not to dress how you want (or in general in any capacity for anyone). I think that's why I APPRECIATE the fact that you can manually override the appearance customization choices if you so desire. This is one of those moments where you can tell that the developers had some forethought to consider, "what if someone's mother walked in and saw them running around with a party full of half-naked anime characters?". It's these little affordances given to the player in how they want to experience their game even on a cosmetic level that make me appreciate this game and its UX design that much more. I know [[Xenoblade Chronicles 2]] is worse with this, but I haven't reached that game yet. In time, of course. ## Related Thoughts: -