Call me confused.

I'm someone who appreciates concept art. Much more than in game 3-d character models. The Tekken and Soul Calibur concepts blow the animated characters out of the water. Usually I'm a sucker for that kind of stuff and anything with half talent I can appreciate.

I've run into a big of complexity and I'm not sure what or how to feel about Ayumi, the character from the upcoming South Peak published, Gaijin Entertainment developed, X-Blades. Please don't get the developer confused with Gaijin Works, which is former Working Designs President Victor Ireland's new company. Which I haven't heard a peep out of for some time.

So X-Blades follows a female treasure hunter who's recent discovery of a lost treasure map sends her into an adventure to accumulate artifacts and I'm assuming eventually save the world from destruction by some alien super force. From first glance I think the character designers made her exactly how she needed to be to get someone to take notice. Long blonde hair, piercing blue eyes, contradicting dark skin, large swords, and piece meal clothing. But taking a look again at Ayumi all my flaws with the stereotypical female heroine come completely into light.

Of course first is her clothing. The bikini top has been done a multitude of times before and disregarding all practicality, I think it just looks tacky and is a quick way of getting people to point out that you are a hoochie. But if that werent enough shes not wearing pants either. She's got some sort of chaps device and the bottoms for her bikini plain in sight. They're not even trying to tasteful at all. I think the female form is beautiful, but I also believe it is more attractive when you have to work to see it. Part of a woman's allure is the mysteriousness so having it all out there from the get go, makes things a little less interesting.

Her character is not exactly the most interesting either. She carried around "gun blades" which I don't know how anyone isn't calling in Square-Enix to comment on. Maybe the game is so insignificant that they don't really care to bother. Her name is Ayumi. I guess it's nice to see that they're not trying to stereotype a Japanese name into a completely asian looking character. It makes me wonder what the point is then. It feels like they tried to take a piece from everything that makes a video game girl attractive and then shoehorn them into a compliation girl. For example, guys think asians are hot, let's call her Ayumi. But to cater to the American crowd, let's make her blonde with blue eyes. Let's make her a bad ass and have her carry around these big weapons. What's a big weapon? Guns? Swords? No, no, no, how about guns with swords!!

You see my confusion now? Everything is based around the character. The story is laughable. The sidekick is a joke. There's no emphasis on level design or world creation. You've put this character as the focal point for this game and even she's kind of an abomination. Visit the official site to see what I mean. Just let is sit on the screen. I mean WTF?

Maybe I'm being a little harsh and expecting too much out of something that isn't supposed to be anything more than semi-fan service. I'm a pretty picky guy and quick to have opinions on things that I don't think are right. But part of us growing as people and a culture is to point out mistakes that we've made. Bring them to the light and understand why we made them and keep making them. We have an opportunity to have brilliant ideas and I'd like to see more of it.

Here's to a character done right,
David