Very frustrated with the lack of female versions of The Hero

[Adol Christin]

I think that female Erdrick has been considered and was scrapped somewhere during the developement

Don't forget what the first leak said: Erdrick is the main, Luminary (Draque 11) is the alt, Anlucia (Draque 10) is an alt, and Erdrick and Femdrick have 3 colors.
It makes completly sense.

But somewhere, this thing changed. Perhaps Nintendo or Square came to Sakurai and asked to switch the lead character: "hey we're going to release Draque 11 on Switch, why not putting the Luminary in front instead of Erdrick who is a bit too old and not really well know worldwide ? Oh by the way, Draque still has a hard time in West and this DLC may not be as strong as it should be, so why not adding some nostalgia factor with Eight ? Draque 8 is the FF7 of Dragon Quest in west after all."

Deal. Eight was put in the game. Anlucia scrapped, and without Anlucia, no more "female model" to reuse for Femdrick, so they scraped her too and put Solo (Draque 4) instead. That's my guess, but it makes sense, the inclusion of Solo is also strange and fishy (why him and not 6 for instance ?).

 

[Kuon]

Echo Fighter Pass:
Dixie Kong
Heroine with (Sofia, Female Erdrick, Ann Lucia, Female Celestrian and recolors of each)
Impa
Octoling
Medusa

There, solves our female representation and gives us a lot of lower effort characters in a way that the rest of the fanbase can't complain about them because they're echoes. Also gives our last Rare/DK character and a female villain.

That would be a dream come true. But of course that wouldn't happen unless we got a second DLC pass, which I don't see likely.

There are women here, not just thirsty boys or whatever.

It's the number one factor on why I made this thread. Seeing that the DQ heroes didn't have female versions was something I knew would upset women players, and indirectly upset me as a result since I knew how much it would have meant to them.

Edit: furthermore, I don't like what you're insinuating that female alternate costume slots would only ever come from a place of thirst. It's a really gross thing to imply.

I agree. Even though I am a guy, it's not that I'm just 'thirsty' for girls. Yes, I love anime waifus, but it's not because of some lust for them. It's because I genuinely love their design and prefer it over male characters. It's not like we're just a bunch of thirsty kids trying to sexually fantasize over videogame girls

 

[NuzTheMonkey]

Doesn't seem to difficult to implement.

Perhaps, in a future update.

 

[Hunter Nightblood]

I think the issue lies in that the Heroes of VIII and XI are male only. It'd be kinda weird to have a pallate swap for only two of the skins.

 

[Arcadenik]

So the reason for this thread is not thirst but “won’t somebody please think of the women players?” Okay.

 

[Teeb147]

The thread can be for whoever would've wanted them in smash and feel upset that they missed the mark.

I dont even think i can vent about it much. I'm still in shock at it all. It's like such a big deal that we actually get dragon quest in smash, but then i dont get to use my female alt.. :/

 

[Mushroomguy12]

I think the issue lies in that the Heroes of VIII and XI are male only. It'd be kinda weird to have a pallate swap for only two of the skins.

Then use heroes from IX and X instead, where they do have female alts.

 

[Teeb147]

Then use heroes from IX and X instead, where they do have female alts.

I see absolutely nothing wrong with having only female alts for 3 and 4. Bowser jr. and pikachu and pichu had some that was for just 1 or 2 slots.
Anyway. I guess i'll take my break now.

 

[Dyllybirdy]

Yeah, was hoping to see some of the female characters too.

It's a bummer.

 

[Hunter Nightblood]

Then use heroes from IX and X instead, where they do have female alts.

As much as I like IX, the fact of the matter is that VIII and XI are widely considered the best in the DQ franchise to my knowledge.

That and XI is a rather recent title.

 

[Mushroomguy12]

I see absolutely nothing wrong with having only female alts for 3 and 4. Bowser jr. and pikachu and pichu had some that was for just 1 or 2 slots.
Anyway. I guess i'll take my break now.

Or they could have had Anlucia or other female original characters as the 7th and 8th alts. I think for Bowser Jr. it was prestablished canon of the Koopalings genders and for Pikachu and Pichu have very few gender differences since their Pokemon and not humans.

 

[Thewafflemaker2000]

I thought the main one was a girl

 

[Kuon]

So the reason for this thread is not thirst but “won’t somebody please think of the women players?” Okay.

View attachment 227502

Why are you here again?

 

[TheYungLink]

So the reason for this thread is not thirst but “won’t somebody please think of the women players?” Okay.

View attachment 227502

What the hell do you want me to do? Ask every woman viewing / contributing to this thread to raise their hand?

Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?

"Won't somebody PLEASE think of the man who can't envision women wanting to play as the female versions of characters that have different gender designs?"

If Robin was included in Smash, but only the male version, do women who would like to play as female Robin not even exist? Or would they all just be horny boys looking for a waifu to thirst over?

Furthermore, look at how many people are celebrating The Hero, thinking that they're good enough even without the female alts. Not every woman is comfortable speaking up about their displeasure, or heck not even every man, because it would be interrupting the celebrations in most ongoing discussion threads and they could be at risk of looking like they're "bringing the mood down" or making things uncomfortable. This thread was made to help give a voice to anyone expressing grievances over the lack of female alts, me included.

 

[Professor Pumpkaboo]

There are women here, not just thirsty boys or whatever.

But even me, a woman, doesn't care there arent any female alts so its pretty clear not all of us care much. well not specifically this thread but you get what Im saying. I just Like Hero for who he is, DQ representation.

now, lets get it known Im not saying "shame on yall for wanting a female alt"

 

[Kuon]

What the hell do you want me to do? Ask every woman viewing / contributing to this thread to raise their hand?

Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?

"Won't somebody PLEASE think of the man who can't envision women wanting to play as the female versions of characters that have different gender designs?"

If Robin was included in Smash, but only the male version, do women who would like to play as female Robin not even exist? Or would they all just be horny boys looking for a waifu to thirst over?

Furthermore, look at how many people are celebrating The Hero, thinking that they're good enough even without the female alts. Not every woman is comfortable speaking up about their displeasure, or heck not even every man, because it would be interrupting the celebrations in most ongoing discussion threads and they could be at risk of looking like they're "bringing the mood down" or making things uncomfortable. This thread was made to help give a voice to anyone expressing grievances over the lack of female alts, me included.

Couldn't have said it better myself. It seems like this guy thinks that female characters have no place in video games or something and that everyone should just accept every character given to them or something. As much as I love Dragon Quest, the only reason I wanted Dragon Quest in Smash was because I love the design of female Erdrick and thought that'd be the one way to get her. Is it uncommon to want to play as a female? Probably. But is it wrong? No. I don't know why he's even here, but it seems like all he's trying to do is act like girls have no place in gaming, and he's coming off as very egotistical

 

[Arcadenik]

Why are you here again?

Nipping this off the bud.

Sakurai: “Guess what?! Smash is getting Dragon Quest Heroes AND Banjo-Kazooie!”

Smash fans, Dragon Quest fans, Banjo-Kazooie fans: “HYPE!!!”

Complainers: “WhErE aRe ThE fEmAlE hErOeS? WoN’t SoMeBoDy PlEaSe ThInK oF tHe WoMeN pLaYeRs?”

My god. Seriously? You and the OP are trying to turn this into a goddamned feminist issue just because you didn’t get Erdrick with an uterus.

If this is where this thread is going then I’m out. I don’t need this negativity in my life. I’m not going to let you dampen my joy for Dragon Quest.

 

[Teeb147]

But even me, a woamn, doesn't care there arent any female alts so its pretty clear not all of us care much. I just Like Hero for who he is, DQ representation

Being able to play as one (for main hero) in almost half of the dragon quest games made the series special to me. There aren't that many rpgs that allow that, so it's a big shame if we cant play them in smash.

It's something simple that almost shoudlve been a given, and it's not there.

 

[Mushroomguy12]

Nipping this off the bud.

Sakurai: “Guess what?! Smash is getting Dragon Quest Heroes AND Banjo-Kazooie!”

Smash fans, Dragon Quest fans, Banjo-Kazooie fans: “HYPE!!!”

Complainers: “WhErE aRe ThE fEmAlE hErOeS? WoN’t SoMeBoDy PlEaSe ThInK oF tHe WoMeN pLaYeRs?”

My god. Seriously? You and the OP are trying to turn this into a goddamned feminist issue just because you didn’t get Erdrick with an uterus.

If this is where this thread is going then I’m out. I don’t need this negativity in my life. I’m not going to let you dampen my joy for Dragon Quest.

We're asking for female alts, not for the characters to be removed from the game. Seems like you're the one who's being oversensitive if a small bit of constructive criticism bothers you so much.

 

[TheYungLink]

But even me, a woman, doesn't care there arent any female alts so its pretty clear not all of us care much. well not specifically this thread but you get what Im saying. I just Like Hero for who he is, DQ representation

I never said "all women" would want it.

Nipping this off the bud.

Sakurai: “Guess what?! Smash is getting Dragon Quest Heroes AND Banjo-Kazooie!”

Smash fans, Dragon Quest fans, Banjo-Kazooie fans: “HYPE!!!”

Complainers: “WhErE aRe ThE fEmAlE hErOeS? WoN’t SoMeBoDy PlEaSe ThInK oF tHe WoMeN pLaYeRs?”

My god. Seriously? You and the OP are trying to turn this into a goddamned feminist issue just because you didn’t get Erdrick with an uterus.

If this is where this thread is going then I’m out. I don’t need this negativity in my life. I’m not going to let you dampen my joy for Dragon Quest.

This was never about you or your joy for the series. That's the whole darn point!

I don't think you're saying anything constructive anyway.

---

Man I don't want to get too worked up about this. I'm gonna call it here, others are free to use this thread to talk about this if they want. I don't want to dominate the discussion.

The women (not Pumpkaboo I suppose) who are upset should lead the conversation from now on. I only started this thread because I was real sad when the lack of a female DQ character for Teeb147 almost made her leave on hiatus right on the spot and wanted to make her feel less alone.

 

[Adol Christin]

Being able to play as one (for main hero) in almost half of the dragon quest games made the series special to me

Hey, don't go too fast, it's just 3 on 11 (Draque 3, 4 and 9, unless you add the MMORPG Draque 10).
It's an exception, not the rule.

I can understand that it would be better with at least a woman such as Femdrick or Anlucia, just as planned, but it seems that we can't have that much: I really think that it was this, or not having 8 in it, and it counted in the final cut.

 

[Kuon]

Nipping this off the bud.

Sakurai: “Guess what?! Smash is getting Dragon Quest Heroes AND Banjo-Kazooie!”

Smash fans, Dragon Quest fans, Banjo-Kazooie fans: “HYPE!!!”

Complainers: “WhErE aRe ThE fEmAlE hErOeS? WoN’t SoMeBoDy PlEaSe ThInK oF tHe WoMeN pLaYeRs?”

My god. Seriously? You and the OP are trying to turn this into a goddamned feminist issue just because you didn’t get Erdrick with an uterus.

If this is where this thread is going then I’m out. I don’t need this negativity in my life. I’m not going to let you dampen my joy for Dragon Quest.

Nobody is trying to dampen your joy of Dragon Quest. No one forced you to come to this thread. You chose to come of your own will. If you don't need this "negativity" as you call it, then don't respond to this thread. I don't expect you to understand why we want more female representation, but don't act like it's wrong for us to want that. Everyone has things they want in this game, and there is nothing wrong with what we want.

 

[Professor Pumpkaboo]

I never said "all women" would want it.

oop, then my bad lol, guess I read it wrong

 

[Teeb147]

I never said "all women" would want it.



This was never about you or your joy for the series. That's the whole darn point!

I don't think you're saying anything constructive anyway.

---

Man I don't want to get too worked up about this. I'm gonna call it here, others are free to use this thread to talk about this if they want. I don't want to dominate the discussion.

The women (not Pumpkaboo I suppose) who are upset should lead the conversation from now on. I only started this thread because I was real sad when the lack of a female DQ character for Teeb147 almost made her leave on hiatus right on the spot and wanted to make her feel less alone.

I'm not gonna leave, I just need to find a way to make sense of my feelings, and will probably be a bit less active for now, is all.

I kinda knew that some people might take it over sensitively, and I'm not thinking of posting about it much more, because there's not much i can do besides cry or something. It's in the hands of sakurai. Who made an amazing character, and missing a little something that meant a great deal to me, and some others. (unless there's something we dont know)

i think that's basically what it is.

 

[TriforceBun]

I get that not having a version of the character you may have played as in DQ can be a bit of a downer. But I just can't understand this mentality of thinking it's a large problem--enough to swear off the character entirely, even.

I really don't think most female players really care that much about looking like their character. In fact, I think implying that kind of...infantilizes them a bit? Female gamers I know seem to generally be fine playing either gender. Heck, look at my mains in my avatar. Granted, one's an American boy, but another is a female fitness instructor, the third is a super fighting robot and the last is a genocidal space dragon (not pictured). I love these characters because they're cool, funny, and/or have fun movesets. I'm a dude but I use the female Inkling and WFT while picking the male Robin and Villager. I don't understand why a character's sex matters at all in a game like Smash. And getting offended for other people is always kind of a strange road to go down and involves making a lot of assumptions.

Not trying to give anyone a hard time here, but it just seems like the good stuff of today vastly outweighs the lack of something as cosmetic as more alts.

 

[Strong Badam]

Hey y'all, if we can't keep this discussion civil then we aren't going to have it. Some folks were hoping for a female DQ rep and given we got 4 different male ones, it seems a reasonable thing to be disappointed about. Chill on the flamewars, there's plenty to talk about here: Which female reps do you think would be the best and for what reasons? Etc. etc.. There's multiple threads elsewhere in The Hero's character board to discuss the ones depicted in the trailer.

 

[Kuon]

I get that not having a version of the character you may have played as in DQ can be a bit of a downer. But I just can't understand this mentality of thinking it's a large problem--enough to swear off the character entirely, even.

I really don't think most female players really care that much about looking like their character. In fact, I think implying that kind of...infantilizes them a bit? Female gamers I know seem to generally be fine playing either gender. Heck, look at my mains in my avatar. Granted, one's an American boy, but another is a female fitness instructor, the third is a super fighting robot and the last is a genocidal space dragon (not pictured). I love these characters because they're cool, funny, and/or have fun movesets. I'm a dude but I use the female Inkling and WFT while picking the male Robin and Villager. I don't understand why a character's sex matters at all in a game like Smash. And getting offended for other people is always kind of a strange road to go down and involves making a lot of assumptions.

Not trying to give anyone a hard time here, but it just seems like the good stuff of today vastly outweighs the lack of something as cosmetic as more alts.

I can't really explain why, but I'll try. When I started watching anime years ago, it was all about anime girls. I didn't really watch any anime that focused on anime guys, and so because of this I really started to like anime girls. This then affected the games I played. I started playing more anime-style games like Fire Emblem and I was focused on the anime girls in these types of games. I know Smash isn't an anime game, but it has anime-like characters, and so I started playing as girls in Smash. So now we fast forward to today, and all I play in Smash is female characters, all because of my love and passion for anime girls in the anime that I watch. Does that make sense?

 

[Teeb147]

I get that not having a version of the character you may have played as in DQ can be a bit of a downer. But I just can't understand this mentality of thinking it's a large problem--enough to swear off the character entirely, even.

I really don't think most female players really care that much about looking like their character. In fact, I think implying that kind of...infantilizes them a bit? Female gamers I know seem to generally be fine playing either gender. Heck, look at my mains in my avatar. Granted, one's an American boy, but another is a female fitness instructor, the third is a super fighting robot and the last is a genocidal space dragon (not pictured). I love these characters because they're cool, funny, and/or have fun movesets. I'm a dude but I use the female Inkling and WFT while picking the male Robin and Villager. I don't understand why a character's sex matters at all in a game like Smash. And getting offended for other people is always kind of a strange road to go down and involves making a lot of assumptions.

Not trying to give anyone a hard time here, but it just seems like the good stuff of today vastly outweighs the lack of something as cosmetic as more alts.

I like to identify with the characters I play. In RPGs but also in smash. It makes a big difference to me whether i can play as a girl or not. Here we're talking about some characters who have a female alternative in their games, too. (like robin and corrin)
This thread wasn't supposed to be to debate or push a feminist point, In any case i wasnt planning on venting on the forum either, so I'll leave it at that for now.

laters for now.

 

[TriforceBun]

I can't really explain why, but I'll try. When I started watching anime years ago, it was all about anime girls. I didn't really watch any anime that focused on anime guys, and so because of this I really started to like anime girls. This then affected the games I played. I started playing more anime-style games like Fire Emblem and I was focused on the anime girls in these types of games. I know Smash isn't an anime game, but it has anime-like characters, and so I started playing as girls in Smash. So now we fast forward to today, and all I play in Smash is female characters, all because of my love and passion for anime girls in the anime that I watch. Does that make sense?

Fair enough. I think like Arcadenik I'm trying to bask in the joy of my most-wanted making it in and some of the negativity has gotten me down (mostly from Banjo fans, which is weird because I LOVE his inclusion too!). But regardless I've said my piece and won't press it further.

 

[Deleted member]

I'm definitely disappointed, but that's because I was expecting a female Erdrick and thought it would be cool for people like Teeb to have a female alt. Never realized we'd be getting four different heroes because everyone was just saying Erdrick or Luminary.

 

[Kuon]

I'm definitely disappointed, but that's because I was expecting a female Erdrick and thought it would be cool for people like Teeb to have a female alt. Never realized we'd be getting four different heroes because everyone was just saying Erdrick or Luminary.

Yeah I was kind of expecting Male Erdrick, Female Erdrick, the Luminary and maybe Eight... maybe. But definitely not Solo (if that's his name). Still, I'm happy we got Dragon Quest, but since I only play as females it doesn't really do me any good to have male-only characters. Female Erdrick was all I wanted. But I understand the game isn't made to cater to my wants and needs, and I get Sakurai was trying to please the vast majority of people. It just didn't really please me.

 

[Chiroz]

I will say, I am more inclined towards certain colors (gray, red), or certain archetypes (like sword and shield over bow/gun). I am more inclined towards spike hair over bowl cut. If a character was included that had a gray, sword and shield, spiked haired variant and we got the yellow bow/gun bowl cut variant of the same character I would probably be pretty disappointed, maybe to the point that I wouldn't be looking forward to playing the character anymore.

It's normal, stop making it seem like they shouldn't be complaining or it's some huge deal that they are. But also I think Smash has done pretty well trying to represent women, so I wouldn't bash on Smash for this. I am not claiming you guys are bashing Smash, just that Smash is pretty good about these kind of things.

 

[Kuon]

I will say, I am more inclined towards certain colors (gray, red), or certain archetypes (like sword and shield over bow/gun). I am more inclined towards spike hair over bowl cut. If a character was included that had a gray, sword and shield, spiked haired variant and we got the yellow bow/gun bowl cut variant of the same character I would probably be pretty disappointed, maybe to the point that I wouldn't be looking forward to playing the character anymore.

It's normal, stop making it seem like they shouldn't be complaining or it's some huge deal that they are. But also I think Smash has done pretty well trying to represent women, so I wouldn't bash on Smash for this. I am not claiming you guys are bashing Smash, just that Smash is pretty good about these kind of things.

Yeah, and I know that Sakurai is trying to please as many people as possible. But I was just really expecting female Erdrick, and was really surprised and confused that we didn't get her.

 

[Folt]

Yeah I was kind of expecting Male Erdrick, Female Erdrick, the Luminary and maybe Eight... maybe. But definitely not Solo (if that's his name). Still, I'm happy we got Dragon Quest, but since I only play as females it doesn't really do me any good to have male-only characters. Female Erdrick was all I wanted. But I understand the game isn't made to cater to my wants and needs, and I get Sakurai was trying to please the vast majority of people. It just didn't really please me.

I'm thinking they got Solo because he's the one that started the Zenithian Trilogy and is one of the more iconic Heroes in the franchise. (Also, design-wise, he's much better-looking than Hero nr. 6, and Hero nr. 5 does not have the right set of abilities to be part of the playable Hero alt group.)

As for the lack of female alts, well, Square Enix tend to use the males whenever the Heroes are promoted as a group... like in this game.

 

[Klimax]

If you can't play as someone of the opposite sex on a video game, you should ask yourself some questions
Yeah it would have been a cool detail but it didn't happen, probably because not all of them have female alt (at least the hero from DQ8)

If Robin, Corrin, Hero and Wii Fit Trainer only had female alt, I wouldn't have any problem with that (I even forgot that Male WFT was a thing). Because gender is a detail in these games. Metroid is the best example, no one cares about Samus' gender, she's not cool because she's a "woman doing badass things in a men's world", no she's cool because she's badass, nothing more.

The whole "muh female representation" is not valid, all of the Nintendo all stars female are in the game, the only one missing being Dixie Kong (real shame).

 

[Kuon]

If you can't play as someone of the opposite sex on a video game, you should ask yourself some questions
Yeah it would have been a cool detail but it didn't happen, probably because not all of them have female alt (at least the hero from DQ8)

If Robin, Corrin, Hero and Wii Fit Trainer only had female alt, I wouldn't have any problem with that (I even forgot that Male WFT was a thing). Because gender is a detail in these games. Metroid is the best example, no one cares about Samus' gender, she's not cool because she's a "woman doing badass things in a men's world", no she's cool because she's badass, nothing more.

The whole "muh female representation" is not valid, all of the Nintendo all stars female are in the game, the only one missing being Dixie Kong (real shame).

I think wanting female representation is perfectly valid

 

[Klimax]

You miss the point, I say that talking like the female representation was bad in Smash is not valid.
No problem in wanting more female alt, if that's so important to you

 

[MacSmitty]

Look, I get that people are disappointed in no female Dragon Quest characters, but people should not be talking about female representation as if Inkling, Isabelle, Daisy, and Dark Samus weren't in the base roster.

 

[Deleted member]

I respect anyone who was hoping to see female alts.

However, it does bring me down to supposedly see people dropping Hero because of it, mostly due to how rare it is to find DQ fans on the internet.

It's weird to explain.

 

[pupNapoleon]

So- I'm not female, and I am honestly surpsrised to read all of the responses here. I will chalk it up in part to male privilege.

But I am curious-- how much of an important role do the females actually play in these dragon quest games? I am working to be as nonbias as possible- but if the goal was to get as many heroes from different games in as possible, would it have made sense to have three guys and one gal? Or two and two?

I am working from a base probability that only four models could be created. This seems both pragmatic and likely with development time, to me. If we only had four models from four games (to maximize the variety of DQ games given), would it have made sense to have a female over the male (as far as how DQ works, as I don't know the games).

(Side note. If only Fire Emblem had been given this treatment. Maybe we would only have four FE characters).