I'd normally take that as good enough, but other games have their motherly females looking perfectly MILFish and showing cleavage, while the design for Rosa in this case covers all of her body and comes close to hiding her face. That they covered up so much of her body and have done absolutely nothing with her since the introduction and prologue portions of The After leads me to believe that fan reaction toward Rosa as a character told them "people don't like Rosa, so we should sweep her under the rug as much as we can without looking bad for it and focus on everyone else." That Rydia's plastered everywhere in The After, had hers as the first episode after the prerequisite intro episodes, and has a much more revealing outfit, all add to those notions I have because all of that for her makes it clear that they're building The After with catering to what they think the fans want.Originally Posted by Dr. Acula
This is why I had to say my views on Rydia earlier; I have nothing against her, but it's impossible to talk about my issues with how Rosa gets treated without mentioning Rydia, because the good treatment Rydia gets in comparison vividly highlights the issues I have. Where Rosa gets called slutty, Rydia gets called sexy. Where Rosa has her good events twisted into negatives, Rydia has her bad events twisted into positives. Where Rosa gets swept under the rug, Rydia gets put up on a pedestal. A complaint over people proclaiming Rydia to be the female lead of FF4 is argued against by saying she has more scenes and more development than Rosa in FF4... but then a complaint about Rydia getting so much attention in The After with Rosa nowhere to be found is argued against by saying Rydia didn't get much attention in FF4. There is an imbalance in the way each character gets treated for their roles in each game. Rydia gets excess, Rosa gets a deficit.
I don't want to finish this by giving the wrong impression, though. This past week has been kind to her. I've seen more people here and elsewhere acknowledging she has at least some good points (not necessarily appreciating or praising them, just knowing they're there), and some good, truly effortful art has been made of her recently that's on par with the quality I always see Rydia get (as opposed to the less-effortful art or half-done sketches I typically find for Rosa).
EDIT: I posted that before I saw NeoCracker's.
So dancer = slut? I can't say her outfit at all gives me the impression of a dancer, but even if it did, I fail to see how that would be grounds for thinking her clothing makes her look like someone who would have sex with random men. As for the one-piece swimsuit part, Rosa's wearing practically the same thing. In fact, she might be wearing a one-piece herself but with more underneath. This will make me sound understandably pervy, but if you check her upper torso, she has a red bra on underneath. The part people typically call "panties" on her could very well be (and probably is) a design shift in the leotard that her belt covers up. Would a woman really put on a bra beneath a top, but then suddenly decide panties alone is a good look for the lower half?
I know, I know, people don't think through first impressions at all so a fair bit of this is moot, but I also think that if they're getting that as the first impression of Rosa from one look at her, it only makes sense they should get that same response from Rydia. That they're interpreting practically the same thing or even LESS, just with different colors (and in The After, DEFINITELY much less and closer to the dancer wear you describe) as "sexy" when it's Rydia wearing it, leads me to believe most of "Rosa looks like a slut" is bias.
