[throwaway9524]

Agreed in general. Though the points on character design may be a bit too reductionist. Concord didn't really need characters with clear sex appeal. Or even characters people immediately want to be like. The original characters aren't that bad! At least judging from the concept art. They just suffer from extremely poor and downright unprofessional execution.

Take this redesign for example https://www.reddit.com/r/TopCharacterDesigns/comments/1fdz1m.... The results are pretty close to originals and do not pander to any specific demographic. But there are just enough interesting and unusual details in the new designs that make you want to learn more about those characters. That's what the released game is missing entirely.

My pet theory is this had to be nepotism in hiring. I struggle to find another explanation for how they botched the execution so badly that the characters can be legitimately seen as "designed to make people squirm". Which I don't believe could be any executive's intention.

[lupusreal]

Is any of the original concept art public? I've seen some images purporting to be that but if you track them down they're actually redesigns made after the game flopped to show how it could have been done better.

The first redesign you link to isn't really "my type" but even so I think that's a viable character with sex appeal. They ditched the ugly lipstick, redistributed her mass to give her wide hips, and swapped out her depressed "I just want to die" facial pose with a big smirk that's full of life. They changed the gross loser into somebody who looks fun and lively.