2B is a combat android built to fight machine lifeforms. Moreover, she’s staunchly anti-emotion, a veil which only breaks slowly over the course of the game. She wears a miniskirt and a provocative thong. The resulting outfit just feels kind of brazen, as well as staunchly contrasting the scifi mood of the game. Satisfying, if you swing that way, but if you don’t, it just feels like a loud reminder: “This game was made by a basement manga author”. What’s worse, there ARE many character designs out there that would fit the theme of “Emotionless combat android who slowly admits to her emotions” but also have a sexy appearance. Horny kinda overrode fitting character designs. Oh yeah; and they build in a mechanic to strip her clothes.

XC2 builds half of its premise around an intrinsic “bond” between Pyrah and Rex. It’s often very physical, and Pyrah is kind of forced into it. In addition, there’s a pretty large number of scenes that are very factory-printed gooner anime moments: Trying to get the girls to wear maid outfits. An inventor making his own cute-girl android. A Hot Springs scene with zero creativity to it. On top of that, the core gameplay involves a gacha to draw other “blades”, many of whom fit right in with something like Goddess of Victory.

When I know what I’m getting, I’m totally okay with horny-driven designs. When someone is baited by other elements like a fun adventure, I can’t totally blame them for feeling they were trapped into scenes like those.

And, just to calm some statements: I do think a game can be based around sexy women without being misogynistic. It’s tricky, Bayonetta is definitely a great example though.