During the 16 bit / 8 bit era, we never had to hear all the complaints of Japanese games for the fact that "guys look like girls."

Sorry, it is one of the most annoying complaints I hear today.  People just can't realize it is part of the culture and enjoy the game for what it is.  I don't know if it is because people feel their masculinity is being compromised or what.  I guess I never felt threatened.

But who else is with me?

It is nothing of the sort. That completely ignores the fact that there are many, many, many art styles in the Japanese continuum (and the Japanese game continuum) where masculinity is expressed in a way that almost anyone can understand as being masculine. Everything from Fist of the North Star to Ninja Gaiden to the Legend of Zelda is perfectly capable of portraying masculine figures who adhere to more global images of masculinity.

There is nothing wrong with beeing off-put by games where the portrayal of masculinity is not conveyed visually. I have no problem with it myself, but begrudging this in other people isn't reasonable.

To be fair when Sakaguchi makes some heroes that generally don't look like women. In 16 bit days Cecil and Kain were knights in bad ass armor and today Kaim is an immortal with cool looking armor and a big ass sword.  

i like japanese style art more than the steroid problem art

The problem being that there *is* room for interpretation as far as Japanese portrayals of masculinity go. This: 

http://www.funnyjunk.com/funny_pictures/291224/major armstrong/

being one of them, but in the West and especially in Western gaming, the above is what you *have* to be as a man, unless you're specifically being portrayed as a nerd or gay, or some other less-than-ideal type of man.

Edit: fucking broken image links...

And you just managed to do the same thing for portrayals of masculinity in the West! You are killing me here. Communication of masculinity is not always done via the body. Ever seen anyone manlier than Atticus Finch? Or the hero of Dark Corners of the Earth? Cave Story?

There is an entire continuum of masculinity and acceptance of what qualifies as masculine on both sides of the ocean, is my point.

Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird, correct? I was discussing gaming specifically. The ability of other mediums worldwide to portray a wide variety of males as perfectly set in standards of manliness is not in dispute, but rather in mainstream Western gaming where the He-Man archetype is still dominant and any other portrayal leads to doubt or some sort of "condition" under which the characters are identified primarily before their masculinity. This also expands to Western gamers, who then lambast other visual portrayals of masculinity, which do not necessarily have to be any less manly

Mr Khan I swear to God if you make me start listing male western gaming heroes who aren't He-Men I am going to blow a gasket.

"Masculinity" need not be the primary identifier of a character if they are good as a character. Of course they're going to be either huge or sexually potent if their defining characteristic is masculinity, but that's true in Japan too.

16-bit Cecil >>>> Cecil from FFIV DS, for sure.

I agree with Khuutra that it's more of a stylistic choice rather than a cultural thing, though. There are tons of ubermasculine Japanese characters. Show me a Western character who is even half as manly as Kenshiro from Hokuto no Ken or Burns from Vanquish!

My lack of exposure to Western gaming doesn't help my case, though perhaps i'm using He-man too broadly. As i ponder, however, the only things that pop into my head are Gordon Freeman and Alan Wake (and both yet fall within the same general art style)