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Posted: 5/30/2005 8:19 PM
Post subject: What makes a video game character cool?
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nesrocks
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What aspect(s) of a videogame character make him(her) cool? The looks, admiration, a projection of unconscious desire to be like him? Or want him(her) in case of opposite sex? The character skills and weaknesses? Name characters you consider cool and characters you consider total failures / reasons
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Posted: 5/30/2005 8:25 PM
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Nach
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Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
The unusualness of a character is usally what makes them cool. Take Chrono Trigger, all the characters were cool because of how unusual they were. Well, Crono was cool, but that was more from his looks and abilities... But take Marle, meating some girl in a park who goes around with a concealed crossbow. Lucca, carries a gun ... in the year 1000. Etc... Take Protoman, very secretive character we don't know about, and he looks good too with sun glasses and bandana.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Posted: 5/30/2005 8:48 PM
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Cazlab
Joined: 7/5/2004
Posts: 551
Location: Karlstad, Sweden
Megaman, he looks pretty gay but he can get the powers of them he beat up :O That's why he rocks. And Raphael cuz he has red bandana and sai is the coolest weapon ^^ But more seriously, I think that u'll love the videogame character u grew up with and played alot as a child, nowadays I can't get stuck with new cool characters that easy :/
Posted: 5/30/2005 8:48 PM
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Ouzo
Former player
Joined: 8/15/2004
Posts: 422
Location: Minnesota
It usually has to do with how fun they are to play with. Looks has its advantages, but to me it's the gameplay.
Posted: 5/30/2005 9:03 PM
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Arc
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Joined: 3/8/2004
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NES TAS of 2021
I think that Krelian (Xenogears) is the king of coolness. So my first thought was that it's because of personality. But, there are many silent heroes such as Crono or McDohl who are cool. Secondly, I thought about fighting ability. Cool people are often strong, but not always, and there are some uncool strong people (Sheena in Suikoden 2.) I like my third idea. It is that cool people have their own clear agenda or plan that may or may not be related to the main plot of the game. Examples: Krelian (Xenogears), Sephiroth (FF7), Killey (Suikoden 2), Pesmerga (Suikoden), Magus (Chrono Trigger), and Delita (FFT). Of course, having an interesting look is a part of it too.
Posted: 5/31/2005 5:31 AM
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quietkane
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Joined: 3/29/2005
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Location: The boonies.
Sephiroth is incredibly overrated, but not nearly as overrated as Kefka. (Mein Gott, he's a gay clown! How can that be a good villain?!) Golbez is one of my favorite video game characters ever, and it largely has to do with his involvement in the plot and the fact that he has no knowledge of who he is whatsoever. (And neither does Cecil, but I'm not as fond of Cecil, largely because he's a whiny pansy.) But another cool thing about Golbez is that once he comes to his senses and realizes who he is/what he's done, he tries to make up for it. (And not by joining your party or sacrificing himself for you, either, he just tries to fix things.) I also like Vivi and Steiner from FFIX, because they both start off very naive and then learn and grow during the course of the game. So I guess what does it for me is a character's development during the game, and not just introducing you to the character but actually showing you how they change. Then again, I also like Link a lot, and he has no character development whatsoever. =P
If life were an RPG, I'd be an NPC.
Posted: 5/31/2005 5:59 AM
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Deviance
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Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 706
Whoever through identification with, provides the best distraction from one's own reality.
Posted: 5/31/2005 6:26 AM
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slash_star_dash
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Joined: 10/27/2004
Posts: 518
as far as liking characters, Harle from Chrono Cross i was always drawn to... ive never been afraid of clowns so she was more enchanting than anything... i always did prefer the ending where her and Lynx lived happily ever after... :) id go over the other points, but everything ive attempted has been extremely incoherent on playback. though i do think i both love and hate a powerful woman (Ultimecia for example) because of my upbringing.
Posted: 5/31/2005 8:49 PM
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Bag_of_Magic_Food
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Meggerman is good because he has a football helmet like Commander Keen
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Posted: 6/1/2005 4:24 AM
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OmnipotentEntity
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quietkane wrote:
Sephiroth is incredibly overrated, but not nearly as overrated as Kefka. (Mein Gott, he's a gay clown! How can that be a good villain?!)
Kefka is a good villian simply because he's insane. Evil insane. And on fire. But cold fire. Uwehehehehehe!!!!! That and he has a good theme song and the best lines ever. I'm not going to claim that I know what makes a good character. But I think originality has quite a bit to do with it. I never really liked Sephiroth, he always came off as whiney to me.
Build a man a fire, warm him for a day, Set a man on fire, warm him for the rest of his life.
Posted: 6/1/2005 4:47 PM
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feitclub
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Joined: 3/13/2004
Posts: 1118
Location: Kansai, JAPAN
What makes a video game character cool? Ask SNK. They made more badasses than anyone else-
  • Iori Yagami
  • Ryuji Yamazaki
  • Geese Howard
  • Rugal Bernstein
  • Terry Bogard
  • K'
  • etc...
Do Not Talk About Feitclub http://www.feitclub.com
Posted: 6/1/2005 10:33 PM
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quietkane
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Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.
OmnipotentEntity wrote:
quietkane wrote:
Sephiroth is incredibly overrated, but not nearly as overrated as Kefka. (Mein Gott, he's a gay clown! How can that be a good villain?!)
Kefka is a good villian simply because he's insane. Evil insane. And on fire. But cold fire. Uwehehehehehe!!!!! That and he has a good theme song and the best lines ever.
So was Kuja, if you think about it. Does that make Kuja incredibly awesome? Come to think of it, so're Sigma, Mithos, and every single villain in any Breath of Fire game. But nobody really thinks of them as cool villains, now do they? And I'll respectfully disagree with the "good theme song" bit, but I just outright disagree with the "best lines ever." I can't remember a single cool thing he said. In fact, all the dialogue right before the final battle is incredibly corny.
If life were an RPG, I'd be an NPC.
Posted: 6/2/2005 12:22 AM
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BoltR
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Joined: 8/12/2004
Posts: 651
Location: Alberta, Canada
feitclub wrote:
What makes a video game character cool? Ask SNK. They made more badasses than anyone else-
Bah, Sammy's characters are much cooler!
Posted: 6/2/2005 2:08 AM
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OmnipotentEntity
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*Omni hands quietkane a sarcasm detector, because his is broken.*
Build a man a fire, warm him for a day, Set a man on fire, warm him for the rest of his life.
Posted: 6/2/2005 10:44 PM
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bobxp
Joined: 2/15/2005
Posts: 246
Location: Torquay, England
Warning: majorly Sonic-directed post ahead. What makes a video game character cool IMO is what they do and what happens around them. For example in S3&K, Sonic is cool because he can do all manner of moves right after another. Knuckles is cool because whenever he comes on screen the awesome Knuckles music plays (duh) and he does his "chuckling" sprite. In SAdv3, the playable characters aren't really cool at all because not only are their sprites crappy looking, but also what they do tends to be directed by the level layout (eg. set of springs, grind rails etc) rather than the player. Gemel was cool however, playing roughly the same role as Knuckles did in S3&K.
Posted: 6/3/2005 4:12 AM
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quietkane
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Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.
OmnipotentEntity wrote:
*Omni hands quietkane a sarcasm detector, because his is broken.*
*blushes* Yeah, I'm gonna go crawl in that hole and die, now, thanks.
If life were an RPG, I'd be an NPC.
Posted: 6/3/2005 4:21 AM
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nesrocks
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actually, i didnt see he was being sarcastic either. why cant kefka be loved? he's crazy, crazy people must love him
aka Nesrocks http://www.youtube.com/user/UoBtExFODA https://nesrocks.com https://twitter.com/bitinkstudios
Posted: 6/3/2005 6:35 AM
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xebra
Joined: 5/3/2004
Posts: 1203
I think the music makes the man. Why was Star Wars such a crazy huge blockbuster 30 years ago? I blame the music. It's unfortunate George Lucas isn't as good at his job as John Williams is at his. God, Revenge of the Sith was terrible.
Posted: 6/3/2005 6:38 AM
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Unknown_User
Joined: 1/1/2022
Posts: 1716
Take Protoman, very secretive character we don't know about, and he looks good too with sun glasses and bandana.
i would think everyone thought people who were sun glasses were cool, atleast when you were little and played the games more =)
Posted: 6/3/2005 3:40 PM
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JXQ
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Joined: 5/6/2005
Posts: 3132
NES TAS of 2008 Speedy TAS of 2008 SNES TASer of 2007 TAS of 2007 SNES TAS of 2007 Funny TAS of 2007
For the actual character to be cool, it helps to be able to get into the story. Now I can thorougly enjoy a game with no story (or no plausible story, Blaster Master), but that doesn't mean I like the character. Although I have a blast playing Sonic, I don't think he's too cool. Although I do like Tails, but I always root for the underdog. Or Fox. Wow that was bad. Alucard is awesome because of his cool voice. (Like when Death takes his weapons at the beginning and he goes "WHAT?") And if someone's theme music is awesome, I tend to like them more as well. Zero's theme in X3, and Magus's theme are a couple examples. And I've always been a huge fan of Kitana from MK. Very mad that she wasn't in the newest one (Deception?). She has an awesome story, her weapons are cool, she kicks ass, and she is hot.
<Swordless> Go hug a tree, you vegetarian (I bet you really are one)
Posted: 6/3/2005 11:59 PM
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Bag_of_Magic_Food
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jxq2000 wrote:
(or no plausible story, Blaster Master)
Doesn't the Japanese version have a different story?
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Posted: 6/4/2005 11:19 AM
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Viewer
Joined: 6/4/2004
Posts: 284
(Okay, taken from Blaster Master Underground, it's the storyline for Meta Fight--the Japanese version. Near the center Ypsilon Milky Way lied the planet Sophia the 3rd, an advanced civilization used to prosper this planet. The time is the year 2052 of the space calendar. Goez, the dread emperor of the universe, led the the Inbem Dark Star Cluster on an invasion, putting an end to the peace at Sophia. The Nora Satellite of the Science Academy managed to get away from the imminent danger, and with their increased power, they complete the final weapon for Inbem's defeat, the all-purpose combat tank "Metal Attacker". The genius boy pilot, Kane Gardner, is the commander chosen to ride the Metal Attacker in order to lead fire in the battle agaisnt Inbem, and right now he has been cutted and dropped off (to the battlefield). "Your destiny is stop the demon from ruling us!" "He has conquered the entire outer space, he is the self-proclaimed god of this universe and it's my ambition to stand up against this person, to defeat this unknown entity!! He is the supreme ruler of our universe. He is Goez...!!" Super Planetary All-Purpose Tank Metal Attacker.
Posted: 6/4/2005 2:05 PM
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nesrocks
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WELL, thats the right storyline for blaster master, i dont know why they came up with that meaningless "plot" in US Bm....
aka Nesrocks http://www.youtube.com/user/UoBtExFODA https://nesrocks.com https://twitter.com/bitinkstudios
Posted: 6/4/2005 4:14 PM
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Viewer
Joined: 6/4/2004
Posts: 284
I don't know, audience recognition factor? I mean, who among us hasn't gone chasing after their pet frog, only to watch it mutate (by a convienently placed box) and fall down a hole? Honestly, who would want to play another game with a boring plot about space invaders when you have that?
Posted: 6/4/2005 4:18 PM
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nesrocks
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that happens everyday, but to find a tank inside the hole is what impressed me the most
aka Nesrocks http://www.youtube.com/user/UoBtExFODA https://nesrocks.com https://twitter.com/bitinkstudios
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