@super600 said:
@Desmonic said:
@super600: In the context of the game and its inspirations, it still wouldnt have worked. They would feel like token characters which is honestly pointless IMO. Its as valid as saying more non-asian people should have roles/be present in the Yakuza series just because. Context, even in fiction, is always needed.
The issue doesnt seem to be with the score (I just found that out through you) but more with a poor argument filled with clickbait.
I don't know a lot about the witcher series, but depending on the time period of the witcher 3 it's possible to add other races to the game that were present during the time period the game took place in while still not getting out of the context of the game and the books it was inspired from, but I don't think it matters much. I do take issue with that one statement Adrian said in his piece where he mentioned that reviews like that Polygon review are poisonous to the gaming industry.I thought that statement was hyperbolic. I don't think this review has any effect on the gaming industry. Some of the controversial stuff mentioned in the review may turn a small amount of potential witcher 3 buyers away, but it won't have any effect on the actual gaming industry.He didn't need to write that in that article.
The time period itself, if translated into our own, seems to be up to the 1400's..maybe 1500's (mind you that the games have some more modern weapons and devices thrown into the mix as part of the fantasy).
In any case, people of different colour in Northern/Central Europe were not a common thing until recently (and by recently I mean the past 2 centuries at best). Those countries were never invaded by the Moors like most of Southern Europe and repealed the Mongols and it's traces somewhat successfully (as in, they didn't leave massive influences on those lands like the Roman Empire did for example).
That's what most people seem to miss. Yes, in Southern Europe people of different colour (not necessarily black, mostly brown) were somewhat common depending on which country you were (Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece and a few more). They were not however representative populations and were true minorities. In Portugal the majority of the descendants of the Moorish invasions ended up mixing with the local population and after a century or two their most prominent feature - the brown skin- had vanished. Despite all that, like I said in another post, when the explorers made contact with many African tribes they were still "shocked" by their black colour.
Northern/Central Europe? At best you had some decent populations of Jewish people. And the ones residing over Europe (which had been there for some time by the 1400's-1500's) were white. So they weren't treated as people of different colour but as people of different religion (which in those days wasn't all that much better, unless you had economical power, which they did). You also had nomadic people like the Romaji, but as far as I'm aware they didn't venture much into to the North.
So in the actual real world inspiration for the series, little to no people of colour makes sense. If the series was based on Southern Europe this criticism would be completely valid. The "but it's fantasy!" argument would make sense if the series wasn't so grounded in our own reality (the morality, the religious/political/economical issues, the allegories depicting racism and bigotry, etc). For example, Dragon Age manages to pull it off because it rarely feels as anything in it fits our own reality (granted I'm just starting Inquisition).
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As for the rest of the post, I honestly don't care. As I've said I refuse to give Polygon any clicks (and mostly because of issues like these). If they want to be on the frontline of these discussions (which I think are a healthy thing if done correctly) they need to first learn how to discuss. Hyperbole is not an argument. Sensationalism is not an argument. Presenting issues without any facts behind them is not an argument. Having a one sided view on X topic with no "fair" chance of rebuttal is not a discussion. It's blatant clickbait which I refuse to support.
Sorry for the long post btw :P
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