Discussion Characters / SuperSmashBrosAssistTrophies

I feel like there was an ATT thread about this last year, but I couldn't find it or any post concerning Krystal, Smash Ultimate and/or Eagle70. Either way, I know this has been a problem on other Smash Ultimate pages before, almost certainly the main one.

I will start by saying that I don't intend to start an edit war, or re-add these tropes, or even think about them any longer than I have to.

The reason that I undid your edits was because I believe in completeness of information. I don't agree with removing any trope listing just because a person - even myself - deems it "creepy", especially when that info originates from Japan, which generally tends to be "creepy" to us Westerners when it comes to just about anything of a sexual nature. To set something like that alone as a precedent, we may as well stop reporting on things like Anime entirely: Japan can get very, very, weird.

Also, I don't know if you noticed, and I certainly don't blame you if you didn't, but that's not just a bunch of vaguely shaped polygons: someone put in the effort to shade in that patch of fur, so it can't have been an oversight on some un-textured portion of model. And no, that would not be abnormal for hidden content in a video game: https://cdii.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-nudality-fatality-scenes-in.html <- it's been done before more than once, and more explicitly. And no, I did not take those screenshots.

EDIT: some kind of formatting error is affecting this post. You'll have to remove apostrophes that spontaneously appear when you click on that link, or paste it directly to your task bar. There was an old E-rated platformer called "The Apprentice" that had hidden anime nudity.

ANOTHER EDIT: come to think of it, instead of just reverting your edits, I should have put all of that under Getting Crap Past the Radar, as it's definitely an example.

There is an important difference between "completeness of information" and "too much information". There is information that is relevant, and that should certainly be documented to its fullest. But going into too much detail about irrelevant information can be detrimental, and that is why natter is discouraged on TV Tropes. Think of it as a "need to know" basis. If someone asks you, "What did you do today?" and you feel the need to mention every single time you went to the bathroom... even if that is true, it will likely provoke a "Too much information!" response from your listener.

In this case, the article should focus on Krystal's role as an Assist Trophy. The stuff that is most relevant is regarding her in gameplay. Tropes regarding her physical appearance can be relevant too, but should not ideally be the main focus. In this case, we already have Fanservice Pack (describing how her appearance differs from her home series), Nubile Savage, and Stripperific on the page; it seems these three should be enough to get the point across that she is a scantly-clad tribal female character.

Is it true that she was intentionally modeled with a loincloth that averts Magical Skirt and that she has nothing worn underneath? Yeah, I suppose. But it is not a major aspect of the character that needs two whole dedicated tropes of its own, plus three additional gratuitous mentions. I know TV Tropes has gotten in trouble in the past for focusing too hard on subject matter that may be perceived as creepy or perverted, which is why we have the aforementioned "No Lewdness" rule to prevent this sort of troping.

You are also assuming that someone intentionally modeled Krystal's anatomy to be explicit... in the same game that deliberately blocked players from looking up Peach's dress (despite being able to do so in Melee and Brawl), stitched together Palutena's skirt, used specific artwork for Tharja's spirit (after her trophy was outright removed from For 3DS), outright altered the artwork for Mythra and Camilla's spirits, and excluded Mai Shiranui from the SNK DLC to keep the age rating. With all that in mind, of course I am going to be skeptical about this heavily-scrutinized E+10 rated game containing uncensored female anatomy for one specific character.

This is not a cheat code that is explicit in its intention, like in The Apprentice. This is players sticking the camera where it was not meant to go, seeing some polygons that were not meant to be seen with the naked eye in normal gameplay, and guessing that it might have been intended in a perverted manner. While I cannot verify it for myself, I quote Draco Kanji from their edit summary on the Star Fox Team characters page:

"No, they aren't. The texture files don't have any 'lady parts' easily visible anywhere. It's a trick of the lighting and and the position of the polygons. If you do this in different stages, it just looks like blank fur."

With that in mind, I find it far more likely that Krystal was designed with Barbie Doll Anatomy. The polygon argument is more akin to a similar example with Pikachu, where an unfortunate quirk in its design causes certain polygons to look inappropriate during certain animations. Even if it is textured does not mean it is explicit nudity; I bet Gardevoir is also fully textured underneath its dress and yet there is nothing explicit in there. And with good reason - while a small game like The Apprentice may be able to get away with it, a big-name Nintendo game like Smash could never allow it.

Getting Crap Past the Radar, it seems, is an often-misused trope that is currently in the Trope Repair Shop, so I would not advise using that trope either.

I can agree that the number of mentions in the article was excessive: I'd suggest reducing it to a single mention. It's not a major aspect of the character, but it is an aspect of her appearance as an Assist Trophy in this specific game (which is also why I didn't seek to add this information back to the main Star Fox character page: it's not relevant there).

"You are also assuming that someone intentionally modeled Krystal's anatomy to be explicit... in the same game that deliberately blocked players (...) With all that in mind, of course I am going to be skeptical about this heavily-scrutinized E+10 rated game containing uncensored female anatomy for one specific character. (...) And with good reason - while a small game like The Apprentice may be able to get away with it, a big-name Nintendo game like Smash could never allow it."

Let me start by saying that all sorts of games have gotten and still do get away with this sort of thing, big name or not:

https://www.nonfictiongaming.com/2017/04/10/final-fantasy-15-files-contain-nude-character-models-nsfw/ <- Teen rated game with nude, fully detailed character models hidden in it.

https://www.cracked.com/article_21462_6-bizarrely-sexual-easter-eggs-lurking-in-kids-video-games.html <- List of games with sexual easter eggs. The first being a character in Ratchet and Clank with massively inflatable breasts.

http://www.flyingomelette.com/oddities/nudesnes.html - Bunch of old Super Nintendo easter eggs. Nintendo has been hiding things like this in their games for decades. Smash Bros didn't even censor panty shots at all until CERO essentially forced them to.

Back to the topic: If Krystal was a regular, playable character, I could understand being incredulous... but Krystal is an Assist Trophy. She has a roughly 1 in 60 chance of appearing in the first place, and even then, only if a player uses an assist trophy item, so seeing her at all is like winning a minor lottery, let alone specifically noticing what's under her loincloth (Of course, perverts would try peeking the moment they saw her, but that's not your average gamer in the middle of playing a match. Or a typical person working for CERO or the ESRB).

As for the details, I'm not assuming anything; Draco Kanji is. It has nothing to do with different lighting effects, and it doesn't look "blank" in any of those random screenshots: there's a deliberately textured heart-shape placed directly above a textured "crease". The colors around the crease are given shading that would indicate shadows inside the crease. That says to me that this is a result of a deliberate attempt to bypass the censors: if it was just a mistaken polygon issue, I'd have never added the references back in the first place.

On a side note, there's an actual running joke among Japanese gamers regarding CERO censorship:

CERO誤魔化しテクニック ケモノは全裸でもセーフ

Roughly Google translated, "CERO deception technique: A beast is safe even if it is naked." The implication is that animal characters aren't censored as heavily as humans, so developers deliberately use furries to sneak in sexier content:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SR8zxNm5rDU <- Mia, from .Hack (which is rated T) is a cat person who always wears armor everywhere except her crotch, specifically. Another example is Belladonna's "True Form" in Trials of Mana https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EWrqskuWkAAkIKd?format=png&name=900x900 <- she has no naughty bits, but she was designed by a known furry artist who the developer deliberately hired, and is entirely nude except for fur. With that in mind, the idea of Krystal being used to slip something by the censors is hardly unlikely.