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Classic Games (Games) PlayStation (Games) Entertainment Games

What Defines Successful Game Characters? 42

Posted by simoniker from the making-lots-of-money dept.
Thanks to TotalGames.net for their feature discussing what makes a videogame character popular. They point out that "almost every character-led game will see a significant chunk of development time spent honing, adjusting and, in some cases, scrapping characters", and discuss Link's famous make-over for Zelda: The Wind Waker, saying "...the outcry that greeted this graphical overhaul underlines just how important game characters are to players." However, the piece concludes: "But for every ignored genius, there are hundreds of mediocre and downright irritating game icons lurking on the shelves", citing Ty the Tasmanian Tiger and the Poochy-like Bitmap Kid as examples of the bad in character design.
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What Defines Successful Game Characters? More

What Defines Successful Game Characters?

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  • You can take a potentially successful character (say Sonic) and if you stick it in a sub par game, it's going to suck.

    I think the success of the character is more a result of the quality of the game.
    • "You can take a potentially successful character (say Sonic) and if you stick it in a sub par game, it's going to suck."
      Too true. I mean, there haven't been any good Sonic games since Sonic Adventure in 1998 - that's living proof that sub-par games (Sonic Shuffle and onward) can't be helped by a great character.

  • It's the hair. (Score:5, Funny)

    by TheSHAD0W ( 258774 ) on Tuesday October 21, 2003 @10:31PM (#7277698) Homepage
    Spiky hair = big bucks!
  • "...the outcry that greeted this graphical overhaul underlines just how important game characters are to players."

    Is it just me, or did most of the outry about that game die down shortly after it was released? I guess everybody was surprised that the game still turned out quite good.

    • Re:Is it just me... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by MBCook ( 132727 ) <foobarsoft@foobarsoft.com> on Tuesday October 21, 2003 @10:58PM (#7277863) Homepage
      I have to say that I wasn't sure when the first screenshots came out, and my guess is that my reaction was the standard (though mine was probably milder).

      First I was not happy and against it. What did we know before the screenshots came out? We "knew" there would be a new Zelda game (isn't there always, and it was later confirmed), and we had the spaceworld video where Gannon fought Link that looked absolutly incredible. If the next zelda game looked like that, what Zelda fan wouldn't be happy?

      Then the screenshots come out. We go from this awesome looking realistic fight scene to screenshots of a cartoon. Now remember that cel-shading hadn't been done too well before then. Yes, Jet Set Radio looked cool (I own 'em both), but it didn't look "smooth", there were still "edges" to put it one way. Cel-shaded games didn't look that great then, especially compared to the space world video.

      So where is the complaining now? Well, for one thing we now know the gameplay and story and it wasn't turned into some little kiddy game for 5 year olds (as I had heard some speculation once, and the graphics would support a leap to that conclusion somewhat). It was a GREAT game, and the graphics were absolutly fantastic. Nintendo did the cel-shading thing perfectly. Link was expressive, the enviornments looked great, no complaints.

      So in a way, the complaints were just that the game wasn't what they had expected.

      • "So in a way, the complaints were just that the game wasn't what they had expected."

        Ya know, I think you might be right. Nintendo should have been smarter than to show the Link demo if they new a cel-based Zelda game was coming out...

        Oh well, at least they got free publicity. ;)
        • Ya know, I think you might be right. Nintendo should have been smarter than to show the Link demo if they new a cel-based Zelda game was coming out...

          They didn't decide on the cell shading until after showing the demo. They started making a game based on that art, but decided if they continued it would be exactly the same as Ocarina, but prettier. So they tried cell shading instead, which ended up being at least a little different, although not a huge change in gameplay.

    • Re:Is it just me... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by edwdig ( 47888 ) on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @01:47AM (#7278723)
      The outcry was mainly from people who thought Ocarina of Time was the first Zelda game. If you look at the whole Zelda series, Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask look out of place; Wind Waker fits right in. Zelda 3 in particular has a nice bright cartoonish look. Zelda 1 was clearly intended to look like a cartoon, but the NES couldn't stress that very well. Look at the Zelda 1 manual - it has an in game picture of every enemy, and also a hand drawn Wind Waker style artwork drawing of the enemy.

      The other reason for complaints was the graphic quality when they first revealed the cell shading was significantly lower than the final game.

      The original Spaceworld demo never really impressed me. When I watched it, it just didn't look like a game to me. I also like the 2D Zeldas much better than the 3D ones. Combine the two factors and I was actually rather glad when they showed the cell shaded game - it actually looked like a Zelda game to me. Too bad the game had a few fatal flaws in it; it really had the potential to be an excellent game. A Wind Waker: Master Quest would be excellent...
      • I'm curious, what do you think the fatal flaws are?

        For me, it's the goddamn overworld. Sailing the boat was fun for about 5 minutes. Yeah, you can warp with the Song of Gales. Yeah, the plot shows exactly why there's only islands. But it feels so tedious.

        Also, I think the next Zelda should be something more evolved. Hit the switch, get the item, fight the boss. Am I jaded, or have we been playing the same game for over a decade?
        • First fatal flaw is the difficulty. Most people die once while fighting the first boss, since you only have 3 hearts, and what looks like the obvious way to kill him doesn't work. But the later enemies don't do any more damage than the early ones, so once you get a few hearts you pretty much can't die.

          Second fatal flaw is the linearity. You're forced to do the levels in order, even though there is no reason for it. It looks like the game was designed to allow things to be done out of order, but then the PH

  • Successful Character == Successful Story (Score:5, Insightful)

    by daeley ( 126313 ) * on Tuesday October 21, 2003 @10:40PM (#7277760) Homepage
    You can't have a successful character without either a successful story or an aesthetic quality of some sort that overrides the lack of interest-holding narrative. Just like fictional characters.

  • A little misunderstood? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonvmous Coward ( 589068 ) on Tuesday October 21, 2003 @10:42PM (#7277769)
    "...the outcry that greeted this graphical overhaul underlines just how important game characters are to players."

    In that particular case, I don't think it was because Link's character had changed. Most of the outcry there was a knee-jerk reaction caused by people feeling mislead. First they were shown a video where Link looked startlingly realistic, then they were presented with a still of Link that looked like something out of South Park. Besides feeling mislead, it probably looked to people like Nintendo was cheapining out the franchise. They wanted to see Link taken into a more adult direction.

    I really don't feel that the outcry had to do with changing Link himself. If you think about it, it isn't much of a change at all from the previous games.

    Interesting note: Though this isn't a scientific observation, I did notice that the people complaining about the game were the ones who only saw a still of it. The ones that were saying 'wow' were the ones that saw the video.
    • Part of the problem was that Spaceworld video showing a much more realistic Link. Suddenly we get the cel-shaded cartoony game that looked less real than the previous games on the N64. Never mind that Wind Waker ended up being an excellent game, (long boat trips aside,) people just made up their minds based on the graphic style.
  • If a characters got attitude and humor, (s)he'll go far. Take Duke Nukem for instance. How often is he quoted? Best character ever...

    • Re:Attitude. (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I think you mean, "If a character steals attitude and humor from a B-movie actor, (s)he'll go far."

  • disposable characters (Score:3, Insightful)

    by TwistedGreen ( 80055 ) on Tuesday October 21, 2003 @11:03PM (#7277896)
    We all know that the best characters were the disposable one. Just think! Doom without monsters? Lemmings without... well, lemmings?
  • Most of the remarkable game characters of don't say a thing: Lara Croft, Gordon Freeman, Doom guy. The other ones didn't develop a personality until the gaming audience felt comfortable with them. Mario didn't have much of a personality until much later on and Sonic didn't seem like too much of a badass (because he is SOOOOO badass) when you actually played that game.
  • The ball from Pong, that guy was badass, he didnt take crap from no one... Did you see the way he was always beating on those lines whenever he could? sure he missed a few times but he always came back for more...

  • Focus Groups & Story (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DarkZero ( 516460 ) on Wednesday October 22, 2003 @01:21AM (#7278619)
    The use of focus groups is now widespread and developers are more than happy to use them. "We want I Ninja to be successful and the focus groups gave us a chance to try and find out what people liked and did not like," explains Wayne Binningham, lead artist on I Ninja. Midgley agrees: "Together with Microsoft we used focus groups when developing Kung Fu Chaos as we didn't want to end up creating characters that no-one wanted to play."

    I think this article lost most of its credibility with this section. One of the main complaints in several of the reviews for Kung Fu Chaos was that all of the characters were boring, generic characters that no one in the review staff wanted to play. The same complaints have been voiced for I Ninja, who looks like nothing more inspired or interesting than a generic cartoon ninja. Take an '80s action movie ninja, super-deform him, and there you go, you've got I Ninja. How they think that that is an inspired design or that it is somehow anywhere near as unique as a lightning fast blue hedgehog or an Italian plumber that fights evil mushrooms, turtles, and dinosaurs by stomping on them is beyond me.

    And I think that what makes a successful character is, quite simply, gameplay. Look at that list on the left there. Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Mario, Chun-Li, Sonic, Bomberman, Pikachu... just go through the whole damn thing and try to spot the popular character that was in a game that sucked. Or that was just mediocre. You won't find one, because not only were Pac-Man, Super Mario Bros., Donkey Kong, Street Fighter 2, Sonic the Hedgehog, and all of the others great games, but even the first Tomb Raider wasn't that bad.

    People will buy a game that does not suck. They will even buy games that don't suck, but have characters that definitely DO suck, like Ratchet & Clank and Jak & Daxter. They will even buy games that look "kiddie", regardless of what your ridiculous focus group says. If the original I Ninja was "too kiddie" for the focus groups, then what do you think they said about Wind Waker, one of the best selling platformers of the year?
  • I like characters that are so different you dont forget them. I mean take Ganondorf, you can never forget the chill that goes down your spine when he thrusts out his hand with the triforce and then that purple light... still gives me nightmares, and no navi to help:'( and Cloud! Way cool hair, awsome sword, awsome final limit, un-forgetable...
  • Any guesses to what game I'm currently playing?

    In any case, Viewtiful Joe, has some of the best new characters I've seen in a long time. Not too much of a story, but the game itself screams personality.

    It doesn't hurt that the game itself is the most kick-ass game to come out in a long time...

  • Midgley reckons the best clue as to whether a character has any chance of success is in its outline. "If you are able to identify the character from its silhouette you are probably onto a winner as it means they look distinctive," he says.

    Actually, that would be Matt Groening who said that. Give credit where credit is due Guy.
  • The success of a character revolves around depth. A story's depth and a character's depth. If the character is a wuss for no apparent reason, you're not gonna like him. If a storyline has no depth (read : the usual 'save the princess' storyline), people will probably pick the game up for the graphics, and maybe for the gameplay... in a rental period.

    If someone came up to you and offered you a game between these two descriptions, which would you chose?

    A) You're a spiky haired guy with little known about yo

    • I pick B,
      sega master system rocked, i remeber plaing alex the kid for 15 hours stright until the sega overheated ah the good old days.

      as for characters that no name kid in paperboy was still pretty cool, he had a nice bike

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