/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.9030993]

why did they give everyone huge shoulder pads in 90s JRPGs?

[Anonymous No.9031000]

>>9030993
Because broad shoulders are power and even broader shoulder pads contribute to the optical effect

[Anonymous No.9031005]

>>9030993
Shoulderlets would never understand

[Anonymous No.9031016]

Ask the artist.

[Anonymous No.9031028]

>>9030993
bad taste

[Anonymous No.9031040]

>>9031016
>Why did you give every girl a bush?

[Anonymous No.9031042]

>>9031040
Japanese laws. No lie.

[Anonymous No.9031043]

I really have no idea. I can't even pull one out of my ass so I'll go with >>9031000
Probably something that comes out of the 80's and the age of big shoulder pads in real life
I'm not a fan of it in most fantasy settings but I'm starting to think it's pretty cool nowadays, mainly on mechs and shit

[Anonymous No.9031054]

For video games a lot of the design choices revolve around sprite limitations and being able to identify a character's limbs, body, and head. Without accounting for that the sprite will look like a colorful blob. Samus was probably given shoulder pads because her NES sprite looked like garbage with weird noodle arms.

[Anonymous No.9031073]

>>9030993
By they you mean Satoshi urushihara, zoomie

[Anonymous No.9031078]

>>9031054
It's something way beyond just video games but
>Samus was probably given shoulder pads because her NES sprite looked like garbage with weird noodle arms.
Samus' Varia suit first appeared on the Gameboy in Metroid II, and it was indeed because of hardware limitations. They couldn't show power ups and different suits through colors, so they gave her big round shoulders so you could be able to tell.

[Anonymous No.9031085]

Artists gave them a eastern asian baroque style.

[Anonymous No.9031117]

>>9031054
I think it's mostly a cultural degree-of-separation kind of thing.

When western artists used samurai armor and weaponry in comics, animation, concept art etc. it usually was depicted with lots of inaccuracies and stylized exaggerations when you compared it with the real thing: just one big sword with a square guard, crazy helmet shapes, random kimono-looking garments instead of armor etc. For example, the "Samurai" Kid Chameleon design had a vaguely eastern but all over the place appearance in the game and original cover, but the japanese artist who did the Mega Drive cover "fixed" it with a clumsy but comparatively more accurate drawing of a samurai armor in terms of look and structure.

For me the japanese PAULDRONS N FAULDS craze that you could see all over in western-style fantasy anime and jRPGs is the equivalent in the opposite direction. Stuff like in >>9030993 was mostly romanticized exaggerations of real western medieval armors mixed with asian sensibilities.

[Anonymous No.9031132]

>>9031073
did he start it? i thought it was maybe generally related to Obari style and stuff. i'm not really a weeb so i don't know who started this

[Anonymous No.9031170]

>>9031043
>upscale
No thanks senpai.

[Anonymous No.9031180]

This is what they took from you.

[Anonymous No.9031182]

>>9031040
There's nothing better than eating a shrubbed out pussy and having a loose pube get lodged in your throat

[Anonymous No.9031187]

> imagine not being a casual shoulder pad enjoyer
ホホホ

[Anonymous No.9031191]

>>9031180
I did a bit of digging in to this and it was because of focus groups mostly of girls that were shopping. Good thing in the game you can pick between classic art/music/graphics and the cellphone game's art/music/graphics per their own check box.

I keep modern music and graphics but classic art.

[Anonymous No.9031194]

because they're cool as fuck, that's why
balance them out with a cape and you have peak character design

[Anonymous No.9031196]

Allows for capes

[Anonymous No.9031208]

My guess is some anime did it, that anime became popular, then everyone copied that anime. It's like asking why laser swords are everywhere. The answer is because Star Wars.

[Anonymous No.9032059]

It's not just a Japanese thing. It was also popular in the west: see Warhammer 40k and World of Warcraft for infamous examples of "pauldronCore"

From an artistic / character design perspective it's pretty simple. As >>9031000 said, broadness of shoulders is associated in our brains with physical strength and generally being imposing/intimidating. Put giant pauldrons on a girl or a guys armor and suddenly their very silhouette looks much more commanding and tough.

[Anonymous No.9032068]

>>9032059
Oh yeah, I should also add it's probably also in some cases related to "Heroic Scale". IE Warhammer has these big dumb armor designs because you're playing with little painted minis on a table, and features need to be exaggerated so you can see them without the models being too fuckhuge. Same probably applies to sprites as >>9031054 said, though I imagine there were many artists who just liked the style for reasons stated previously and didn't need to do any heroic scale bullshit.

[Anonymous No.9032070]

>>9031005
not big enough

[Anonymous No.9032540]

Because wide shoulders provide a more imposing appearance. Same reason animals raise their hackles, to look larger. What's not to get here?

[Anonymous No.9032543]

looks cool

[Anonymous No.9033009]

>>9031040
It's called having taste

[Anonymous No.9033151]

>>9030993
It's a reflection of actual fashion of the 80s and early 90s. Look at jackets and suits from that period, they have padded shoulders. For females in the 80s there was a somewhat androgynous aesthetic, fitness craze was also a thing, so the idea was thin waist broad straight shoulders and padding helped with that.

[Anonymous No.9033218]

>>9030993
idk but I really like it
women would also wear blazers that would make them look like football players with those huge shoulders.

[Anonymous No.9033228]

>>9031180
this actually fits the "new bad, old good" for once.
everyone looks so generic in the new ones.

[Anonymous No.9033493]

>>9031054
>Samus was probably given shoulder pads because her NES sprite looked like garbage with weird noodle arms.
fwiw I think Samus was probably originally designed assuming male and then someone had the idea later on to take off the suit at the end and reveal a female.

In other news, I found the attached picture in my /vr/ directory.

[Anonymous No.9033510]

>>9031180
They didn't take it away, you can still choose the original character portraits

[Anonymous No.9033516]

>>9033493
does this count?

[Anonymous No.9033518]

>>9033228
>for once
It's commonly true. Nearly always true for remakes.

[Anonymous No.9033526]

>>9030993