Sorry man, I’m old school. I already write novels with my posts and novel quoting is like insult to injury at page 60+ in a thread.
As for the other stuff. Its not that I don’t get your point. Its not that I don’t appreciate your point. I follow fighters religiously (see my site) and I agree fighters need good characters of varying sexes, nationalities, fighting styles to advance culturally and entice new players. But I don’t believe just adding chicks is the answer to the problem, any more than I think we need more blacks, mexicans, or even asians just because.
(actually, I’m goint to just spoiler this part, because it totally derails the discussion)
[details=Spoiler]Adding a thugged out dirty south rapper to SF5 is not going to make it any more endearing to me, not is has stupid moves or a dumb voice or a retarded plot. I can see it now;
You say women make you more comfortable, but you don’t play DoA. If they added a couple big boobed ninjas to SF4 would that be better for you? Or would they have to be actual good characters? This is the point.
This could have been the new female cast member in SF4;
http://www.fenixware.net/fab/images/trivia/173.jpg
This was an early Abel design. And a little french girl slinging people around in the streets because she’s been toyed with by an evil syndicate would have been toyed with. It’s an archtype you don’t often see in female fighters (striking grappler), she’s certainly unlike the other females in the SF cast, it ties in with Bison’s creepy obsession with little girls way better than his sudden change to naked ying yang tummied muscle men (a plot they did somewhat go back to with Juri), and it bridges the gap really nicely for SF3 Makoto players looking for a “tough girl” to play. But instead, we got Abel, who is without a doubt the most boring character design Capcom has made to date.
Meanwhile, the new female character we got is this;
http://www.fenixware.net/fab/images/chars/game/cviper_stf-386.png
A cold hearted secret agent in a battle suit, who works for a non-descript organization with no apparent bosses or subordinates (T5: Raven). A single mother who loves her daughter and needs no man in her life (KoF2K: Vanessa), but isn’t above coming to work in skin tight business wear with her tits hanging out and she also has 30 feet of hot rod red hair curled up into a pompadour. She has no ties to the plot anywhere, and none of her backstory, or moves can be referenced anywhere at all. You give this exact plot and movelist to a guy, and nothing changes except there’s one less set of boobs. Actually, upon closer thought the single dedicated father is actually pretty rare in fighters, Male Viper could actually be a really great antithesis to Guile. In any event, Viper is the definition of a shitty character design (female or otherwise) because she is in no way relatable to her environment, a fact that is only exasserbated by Capcom repeatedly mashing her up with series mainstays like Chun Li and Cammy who have long since earned their stripes. Even stereotypical goofballs like Hakan and Fuerte play up SFs tradition of country + fighting style = character.
But hey, she’s female, right? Does Viper do anything for female gamers except give them inspiration for tiny little neck ties?[/details]
But regardless, as far as Zatanna goes. Your post actually hits my point on the head. Zatanna is one of those obnoxious (imo) DC characters who has one million powers. She pops up whenever the league needs a deus ex type of magic event that nobody else can make happen, or when someone needs a “mind wipe” to retcon some shitty plotline no ones enjoying (see: catwoman). None of them are clearly defined, none of them are sensibly restrained. Superman is a golden god, but you know what he can do. Punch, Fly, Ice Breath, Eye lasers, etc. Batman has gadgets, clearly defined gadgets that are instantly recognizable. Even the Joker can play off the fact that he actually can’t fight, flailing around like a goof and laughing when it works. (See: [media=youtube]JFQEvf8SaxQ[/media] , circa the 5 minute mark). If any one of them suddenly developed a Tae Kwan Do Flamingo stance so they could be Hwoarangs teammate in Tekken vs DC Universe, we’d think it was stupid, right?
But Zatanna just waves her wand and says words backwords and stuff comes out. You could make a compelling character out of that, yes, just look at Strange in MvC3. But think about who Strange is, and think about who Zatanna is. Strange is a defining character in the Marvel universe, related in some way to countless big players, with a huge legacy of well documented techniques to draw from (Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth ftw). Zatanna is an on again off again member of the league with some loose ties to to the Bat-verse, and daddy issues. Oh, also she has boobs and a top hat. You could have her play up the showgirl bit, high stepping and playing card tricks while she fires flowers from her wand and flings doves from her hat but that’d be as big a waste as Capcom giving Iron Man (the hottest marvel character right now) his bullshit MSH movelist instead of using any of his new material or not letting Thor do the number one thing he does in comics; THROW THE GODDAMNED HAMMER.
Fate, Spectre, Constantine and Starfire all have way clearer defined powers than Zatanna, and even Arion has a little sword to play with. Raven could do the Noob Saibot or Kenshi thing with her soul-self abilities. For me, it isn’t actually a question of male or female cast member. For the record, I think Powergirl would be a stupid play too cause she’s just superman with boobs. Same with Batgirl (Though I am all for any of the other Birds of Prey, even Oracle if they wanted to do some wierd Professor X chair thing).
In the end its all pointless fanwank anyway. There is absolutely no way this games cast can satisfy as this and every other debate on the subject has proven. Every character they’ve shown so far has looked pretty fuckin’ hot in motion, but you’ve still go droves saying No Static no buy or where’s Aquaman or this game needs a Red Lantern. And even if this is the start of series of games that fires on all cylinders and runs well into the next decade with annual updates, all they have to do is drop one fan favorite going forward (see: Rain, Megaman, Leon, Karin, Taki) and you’ll have legions of fans writing petitions and calling for Ed Boons head on a stick because he hates the fans and doesn’t understand video games.
If its a good game, people will play it and support it regardless of the sideline haters cooking up reason after reason for why its not working (not enough boobs, dumb story, bad dlc, crappy button scheme, etc) So its really not to their advantage to cater to us at all, just deliver a solid game. We’ll all find a character we like, Male, Female, Raccoon, Sentient Butterfly, or Bioluminescent Rock and go to town. Same as we have in every other fighting game since the non-descript Red Guy first karate kicked the non-decsript White Guy off that log in Karate Champ.
