King is one of the most amazing characters in any fighting game. His throw game is unbelievable. Design-wise I always favoured Amour King though but more Tekken 2 Amour King than the one they have now.
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FGC people: How much does character design matter to you?
- Thread starter Seraphis Cain
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King is one of the most amazing characters in any fighting game. His throw game is unbelievable. Design-wise I always favoured Amour King though but more Tekken 2 Amour King than the one they have now.
i HeaR MusiC
Member
Doesn't matter at all to me. As long as the character is fun and balanced.
Character design is entirely the reason I bought Skullgirls, and kept giving it enough chances until I finally started to like it.
KOF13's design turned me off- I didn't like how they changed the appearance of most of the female chars (only ones they got right were Mai, Leona and Elisabeth)
SCV is another game where design really turned me off. SCI-III chars were for the most part great. SCIV-V chars were terrible designs both gameplay and aesthetics. Pyrrha, Algol, Xiba especially. Namco's char design peaked in the late 90s with Tekken 4, and has been declining ever since (though Asuka is good and has one of the sexiest voices ever, she's not Jun)
Interceptor
Banned
never mind.
ThoughtsOfSpeaking
Banned
That hasn't been true for a long time. All though they share a central theme this guy :-
Doesn't look much like a color swap of this guy :-
And they both definitely don't look like tthis guy much any more
Tizoc
Member
Character design is 50-50 to me. Take Bravo from Chaos Code for example-
He's a freakin' GRAPPLER CHEF, and his play style suits me.
Hakan is crazy looking and I've decided to main just him in USF4 mainly due to how combos are in that game.
Grant from Garou is a demonic karate batman who CHARGES AT YOU WITH HIS FACE!
In some games, however, I just pick characters based on their play style, like say Elena in 3S or SFxT, Claw in SF2 ST, Yashiro in KoF 02 (even though I only would ever main him in KoF 97) to name a few.
Well she's got DAT ASS.
That's pretty much how it Is really. It's the reason for Yun, Chun and Ken being used in just about every SF3 3S tourney.
He's a freakin' GRAPPLER CHEF, and his play style suits me.
Hakan is crazy looking and I've decided to main just him in USF4 mainly due to how combos are in that game.
Grant from Garou is a demonic karate batman who CHARGES AT YOU WITH HIS FACE!
In some games, however, I just pick characters based on their play style, like say Elena in 3S or SFxT, Claw in SF2 ST, Yashiro in KoF 02 (even though I only would ever main him in KoF 97) to name a few.
Well she's got DAT ASS.
That's pretty much how it Is really. It's the reason for Yun, Chun and Ken being used in just about every SF3 3S tourney.
Ultimadrago
Member
It's a deal maker/breaker for me without question.
It matters a lot. I still say Skullgirls would've made a lot more sales if their designs had been different and they had a different name.
Some will come in and say it doesn't matter, but they leave out the crucial to them part. And I believe them when they say it doesn't matter, that playstyle and movement matter more.
I'd say for the majority of people, though, the look matters. I believe that's why the original Killer Instinct took off (look and sound). As a fighter, it was (fun) garbage.
Some will come in and say it doesn't matter, but they leave out the crucial to them part. And I believe them when they say it doesn't matter, that playstyle and movement matter more.
I'd say for the majority of people, though, the look matters. I believe that's why the original Killer Instinct took off (look and sound). As a fighter, it was (fun) garbage.
IRAQcitizen
Banned
i can;t take women superhero serious!!
NO HOMO
just me i will never enjoy game with women being its main character
NO HOMO
just me i will never enjoy game with women being its main character
denshuu
Member
I do this same thing. Ended up with Vanessa in VF5 and Elena in 3S. And probably Elena again in USF4.
I grow to like the character's design after having played them long enough. I place priority on play style for the most part.
It would disappoint me if the best fighting game ever made had such a low budget that they could not afford artists. I would still play it though, yes.
:O
It would disappoint me if the best fighting game ever made had such a low budget that they could not afford artists. I would still play it though, yes.
:O
LeMaximilian
Alligator F*ck House
Pro players represent the smallest fraction of people who play fighting games. Character design and appeal is perhaps the most important aspect to any single fighting game.
The most popular fighters are the ones with easily identifiable, and popular mainstream character rosters. Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, Marvel etc. They're filled with characters relateable to popular franchises of the last 20 years. Games like SF3: 3rd Strike, while beloved by the hardcore community, the SF3 series NEVER found commercial success in arcades or on console because of its extremely weird roster compared to SF2/Alpha.
Other titles like Soul Calibur pull similar success with its roster of characters from the original Dreamcast game, plus occasional guest characters. I believe Soul Calibur IV sold nearly 3 million units, simply off the fact it had Star Wars guest characters. Also similar is one of Netherealms worst games, Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe, which sold a similar amount...simply because the roster was MK vs DC.
TLDR: Character's/design are the most important in fighting games.
If the characters were just flat greyscale models, probably not. I feel that fighting game characters have the greatest range of emotes than any style videogame character design. Taking away a characters personality would be like taking away the heart of what I like most about these games. Although, my big motivation in fighters is to do amazing/cool looking shit, so perhaps I'm biased.
You pretty much have to be able to at least tolerate bad design if you enjoy fighting games. They're filled with absolutely atrocious ideas and concepts. I guess the nice thing is that the you never know which shitpile you might just fall for, though. But in the meantime you better get used to anime nuns and school girls and El Fuerte and stuff.
Character design is a huge part of fighting games. It's what hooks people in, it's what gets them hyped and it's what gets them to put down money for the game. Of course the way a character plays is also extremely important and it's what keeps people playing the game.
No one is going to play your game if the entire cast looked like palette swaps of Rufus from SF4.
This is also why making new fighting game IPs is so difficult. A lot of Japanese fighting games that are started from scratch usually have to rely on standard anime tropes/archetypes to sell their games. Just look at all the popular fighters on the market right now:
SF4 (oldest fighting game series)
UMVC3 (has characters that pre-date even Street Fighter)
Tekken Tag Tournament 2 (long running 3D fighting game series)
SFxT
DOA5
Injustice (same as UMVC3)
Killer Instinct (about to arrive, same concept as the other fighters)
Smash Bros
KOFXIII
Persona 4
VF5
SC5
The most recent new fighting game IP was Skullgirls and it didn't gain enough traction to get an EVO spot. Before that it was BlazBlue which was filled to the brim with typical anime stereotypes.
No one is going to play your game if the entire cast looked like palette swaps of Rufus from SF4.
This is also why making new fighting game IPs is so difficult. A lot of Japanese fighting games that are started from scratch usually have to rely on standard anime tropes/archetypes to sell their games. Just look at all the popular fighters on the market right now:
SF4 (oldest fighting game series)
UMVC3 (has characters that pre-date even Street Fighter)
Tekken Tag Tournament 2 (long running 3D fighting game series)
SFxT
DOA5
Injustice (same as UMVC3)
Killer Instinct (about to arrive, same concept as the other fighters)
Smash Bros
KOFXIII
Persona 4
VF5
SC5
The most recent new fighting game IP was Skullgirls and it didn't gain enough traction to get an EVO spot. Before that it was BlazBlue which was filled to the brim with typical anime stereotypes.
It matters a lot to me. It's the main criteria for which I pick my character. I pick the character who I like the style and movement of most, and then get try to make them work for me. Sometimes this works out (Law/Tekken or Ayane/DoA) and sometimes it doesn't (Makoto/SSF4). If I can't make the character I like work in a game, then I'm likely to stop playing it after a while. Switching to a character I find unappealing in order to improve my win ratio isn't really an option for me. This is sometimes difficult as the characters I find appealing and those that fit my play style often don't overlap. I tend to be more effective with defensive play styles, but my character choices are usually geared towards offensive play.
Absolutely not. Regardless of how solid the mechanics are, or how varied the move-sets were, I doubt I'd be able to deal with this for more than a few days. If someone picks Mokujin, in my mind they're Mokujin, not whatever character he's emulating.
I'd argue that was because Sub-Zero/Scorpion's design was more appealing than the rest of the original Mortal Kombat cast. I know that was my opinion as a kid, before I even played it.
Yup, I was extremely unimpressed with how Vanessa was changed going from VF4 to VF5. That character died right there for me. I also didn't like the changes made to Jacky, so I moved over to playing as Sarah in VF5.
I have to agree here. I liked nearly every character introduced from Tekken 1 through 5 (including DR). I don't like a single addition in Tekken 6. It's not something that prevents me from playing it, but I think the character design took a huge nosedive in that iteration.
We already had a Bob though.
I almost feel they named the new guy Bob just to stop us referring to Hwoarang as Bob, lol.
Absolutely not. Regardless of how solid the mechanics are, or how varied the move-sets were, I doubt I'd be able to deal with this for more than a few days. If someone picks Mokujin, in my mind they're Mokujin, not whatever character he's emulating.
I'd argue that was because Sub-Zero/Scorpion's design was more appealing than the rest of the original Mortal Kombat cast. I know that was my opinion as a kid, before I even played it.
Yup, I was extremely unimpressed with how Vanessa was changed going from VF4 to VF5. That character died right there for me. I also didn't like the changes made to Jacky, so I moved over to playing as Sarah in VF5.
I have to agree here. I liked nearly every character introduced from Tekken 1 through 5 (including DR). I don't like a single addition in Tekken 6. It's not something that prevents me from playing it, but I think the character design took a huge nosedive in that iteration.
We already had a Bob though.
I almost feel they named the new guy Bob just to stop us referring to Hwoarang as Bob, lol.
sixteen-bit
Member
If i like the way a character plays, I can get around it. My main in Blazblue looks super dorky for example.
Hargenx
Member
This is just not on that level:
It's pretty poor. He looks like some random dude.
True.
Huh? What's wrong with that? She's a robot, she has robot "things" on her. It fits the character, and is "Japanese"-y.
^ this is a terrible post.
however I DO think it's strange when guys only play as girl characters in video games, and the " if I'm gonna be looking at someone's ass..." excuse seems unsatisfactory.
Oh junior members. I wonder how long these people wait to get approved, only to throw it all away.
COOL CHARACTER DESIGN ALERT:
I will autolock Rock Howard in any game he's in.
That hasn't been true for a long time. All though they share a central theme this guy :-
Doesn't look much like a color swap of this guy :-
And they both definitely don't look like tthis guy much any more
That's funny because when I play the new MK where they have tried to differentiate the ninjas somewhat I still always play the original palette swap outfits. So many of those early characters were just palette swaps: Mileena, Kitana, Jade, Ermac, Smoke, Reptile, Scropion etc but we still loved them. I guess we were just easily please back then.
I guess it depends on your idea of a character. If you see him/her as a representation of yourself in the game world, always choosing female characters sounds strange. If you see them as puppets under your control, detached from yourself, it's not so strange. You simply like the way the puppet looks, but you don't identify with him/her.
PepsimanVsJoe
Member
Aside from atrocities like toddler-faced Athena I always hate what they've done with a number of the male characters. Giving Ralf & Clark steroids was entirely DUMB.
Female characters tend to have more diverse/more appealing clothing options.
Hell in some cases the pursuit of fashion is the sole reason I continue to play some games. I'm not even sure what my motivation in PSO2 is anymore aside from making money to acquire attire.
jhmtehgamr20xx
Banned
Fighting games had better char design in the 90s. Truthfact. A 1Up poster named BigMex did a fantastic series exploring character designs in fighting games, they should still be up on the site hopefully. Best read on the subject I've read all my life.
I can give my own examples on this.
SFIV-The only design that works in a traditional sense is Abel. However it's not exaggerated enough to be a classic. Fuerte's design is too slapstick. Viper's is too much on the SNK tip (I do like SNK designs a lot tho). Hakan's is a disaster. Oni Akuma and Oni Ryu are too extravagant to be classical designs of mainline SF. Juri's a decent design but too slutty and not a well-coordinated color scheme to be compatible to the classics. Play-style wise Abel holds up best to the classics, Hakan/Viper the worst (Hakan's too slapstick doesn't have Dhalsim's humor, Viper is way too technical compared to any of the classic chars).
OTOH almost all the SFIII new char designs work excellently as additions to the classic SF template while still being fresh and timeless. The best new designs in those games were Dudley, Yun/Yang, Ibuki, Necro, Elena, and Q. Makoto gets an honorable mention.
TL;DR: SFIV has no true timeless iconic designs, that's why their new characters mostly suck.
Now for more extravagant fighting games, it's just a question of who's bolder. 90's had some of the most bold char designs in games like Star Gladiator, Waku Waku 7, Daraku Tensei, Cyberbots, Guilty Gear (motl), Fighting Vipers etc. The thematic range in the genre back then was just bigger, so there was a larger pool of experimental designs. Not all of them worked but many did. More recently you have games like Blazblue, Skullgirls, and any number of doujin fighters. Personally I don't care for the designs in BB; GG had much better character designs but I also liked it more thematically. SGs designs are not much special, they feel like they're conflicted btwn going all the way and holding back (make up your mind!). The doujin fighters have designs that play off modern-day anime tropes and otaku culture, which thankfully I'm not a part of, therefore the moe-esque designs there mean absolute shit to me.
Don't get me wrong there have been games post'90s that have awesome character design work (the Guilty Gear series, Tekken (aside from 6 I guess), etc.), but quantity-wise there's not nearly as much to go around as there was during the 90s.
**When I talk about char designs, I'm also factor the playability of the character into the equation**
I can give my own examples on this.
SFIV-The only design that works in a traditional sense is Abel. However it's not exaggerated enough to be a classic. Fuerte's design is too slapstick. Viper's is too much on the SNK tip (I do like SNK designs a lot tho). Hakan's is a disaster. Oni Akuma and Oni Ryu are too extravagant to be classical designs of mainline SF. Juri's a decent design but too slutty and not a well-coordinated color scheme to be compatible to the classics. Play-style wise Abel holds up best to the classics, Hakan/Viper the worst (Hakan's too slapstick doesn't have Dhalsim's humor, Viper is way too technical compared to any of the classic chars).
OTOH almost all the SFIII new char designs work excellently as additions to the classic SF template while still being fresh and timeless. The best new designs in those games were Dudley, Yun/Yang, Ibuki, Necro, Elena, and Q. Makoto gets an honorable mention.
TL;DR: SFIV has no true timeless iconic designs, that's why their new characters mostly suck.
Now for more extravagant fighting games, it's just a question of who's bolder. 90's had some of the most bold char designs in games like Star Gladiator, Waku Waku 7, Daraku Tensei, Cyberbots, Guilty Gear (motl), Fighting Vipers etc. The thematic range in the genre back then was just bigger, so there was a larger pool of experimental designs. Not all of them worked but many did. More recently you have games like Blazblue, Skullgirls, and any number of doujin fighters. Personally I don't care for the designs in BB; GG had much better character designs but I also liked it more thematically. SGs designs are not much special, they feel like they're conflicted btwn going all the way and holding back (make up your mind!). The doujin fighters have designs that play off modern-day anime tropes and otaku culture, which thankfully I'm not a part of, therefore the moe-esque designs there mean absolute shit to me.
Don't get me wrong there have been games post'90s that have awesome character design work (the Guilty Gear series, Tekken (aside from 6 I guess), etc.), but quantity-wise there's not nearly as much to go around as there was during the 90s.
**When I talk about char designs, I'm also factor the playability of the character into the equation**
Pro players aren't that big of a segment and some of them do pick characters based on appearance.
I don't/can't. I care enough about design to say if they look cool or dumb but not enough to not play a game or a character I don't like the appearance of or play a character/game that I like the look of that is awful to play or doesn't fit me.
I don't/can't. I care enough about design to say if they look cool or dumb but not enough to not play a game or a character I don't like the appearance of or play a character/game that I like the look of that is awful to play or doesn't fit me.
I only use girl characters in video games as well, especially in games that let me create characters because I love playing with characters I find sexually stimulating. Fighting games are no exception, hell its the precursor for this habit of mines. I remember being infatuated with Sakura hardcore when I first played Alpha 2 as a kid. I still main her actually.
But yeah, character designs in fighting game is a huge part of the fighting game experience for me.
Holy Order Sol
Member
Steroids Clark is best Clark.
The more I play a particular game the less I care though, I just get used to what I see.
The more I play a particular game the less I care though, I just get used to what I see.
Cyber Caesar
Member
Great thread OP. All great artists are aware of the seductive nature of human beauty and idealism. Great design exaggerates our cultural concepts of strength and seduction. I think we need to be more aware of cultural seduction, these Ideas about sex and power. Idealism is used to create images of cultural super humans. Ninja Scroll needs a fighting game.
I see what you did there...
I don't know if hater or what but Jin's design is one of the best in any fighting game.
This was Namco in their prime.
I do feel that character choice reflects a degree of self representation, whether or not the player is conscious of it. the argument could be made that I'm coming from the context of vf where the characters' identity is more ambiguous and consequently more suited to projection, but it's hard to notice some people will just never play a male character.
full disclosure, I played chun in sf4
DryEyeRelief
Member
So is everyone who touches a fighting game part of the FGC?
Cyber Caesar
Member
What if it was Skullgirls by Tecmo or "Skullwomen" by NetherRealm maybe? I think the art style is just as important as the character designs. If the content was more mature I might bite. I think the game is super creative and I like the horror theme, it's just the art style is the nail in the coffin for me.
Lambda Pie
Banned
yo, just pick top tier.
i do not comment in that thread much, if it all. But i do play a lot of fighting games.
But for me, a lot. There are people only touched in ssf4 because their alternates looked cool. And then never played them. Lookin at you vega. And then there are characters i played even more because their alternates were cool. Cody, bison, balrog, chun li.
On a non street fighter related note, it also helps in tekken since you can customize your character nowadays. And super hero fighters, usually are pretty good on that front. I feel indifferent about Arc sys fighters, aside from persona because that isn't them, there character designs tend to be ok.
I hate KOF designs.
But for me, a lot. There are people only touched in ssf4 because their alternates looked cool. And then never played them. Lookin at you vega. And then there are characters i played even more because their alternates were cool. Cody, bison, balrog, chun li.
On a non street fighter related note, it also helps in tekken since you can customize your character nowadays. And super hero fighters, usually are pretty good on that front. I feel indifferent about Arc sys fighters, aside from persona because that isn't them, there character designs tend to be ok.
I hate KOF designs.
So this is a graphics vs gameplay topic, essentially?
So the real question is, what fighters have you played that have lacking character design.
I'll say... Draglade for the Nintendo DS. These characters are pretty "stock" or "generic" looking. But this game is neat. Keep in mind that gameplay and playstyles are qualities of a character too.
So the real question is, what fighters have you played that have lacking character design.
I'll say... Draglade for the Nintendo DS. These characters are pretty "stock" or "generic" looking. But this game is neat. Keep in mind that gameplay and playstyles are qualities of a character too.