What do you look for in characters?

[Fynn]

Inspired by my disagreement with Formy about some Persona characters :p Well, not just Formy. Many people. I'm weird, I guess.

What are your expectations towards characters in games? Characters in general are a big factor in influencing people's enjoyment of the game, but this is especially true for RPGs (like FF), in which players invest many hours. So I was wondering what kind of characters the people of EoFF want in their games.

For me, I think that the more real the characters are, the better. And This is actually hard to come by, especially in JRPGs, where it's easy for writers to just fall back on clichés. I think part of the reason why I can't really get into the safe Attorney series - the characters are over-the-top stereotypes and though they may be fun to watch at first, it just made me exhausted.

My favorite character of all time is Junpei Iori, who isn't that popular a characters, while the casts of FFXII and Shin Megami Tensei IV - also not really liked by fans - are what I consider some of the greatest in video game history. I think we've just grown to expect explicit character development, and when the characters are more subtle with more left to the imagination, I feel that makes them seen more like real people. The characters of FFXII all struggled with freedom in their own unique ways, and their body language and voices helped build their personalities in a way more similar to how you meet real people - no one boisterously announced their goal like they do in most cases. Same with SMT IV - the main cast is a group of true companions who get mercilessly torn apart by their conflicting ideologies, and it's heartbreaking even if we don't know what kind of food Jonathan likes or that Walter has some weird habits he wants to keep from the world.

While Junpei isn't subtle, I love him because of how nuanced he is. Yeah, it may be frustrating that he gets angry with you for seemingly no reason, but really - that's how it is. You can't please everyone no matter how nice you are. Junpei isn't always nice, has a big inferiority complex, but is still a good person trying to do good things underneath that jokey exterior, often failing, as humans are prone to. You may prefer Yosuke to be your friend IRL, as he's always nice to you and helps you with everything, but I still think it's hard to be a Junpei as a character.

I'm rambling and half of you people probably don't even understand what aim on about :p Point is, I like characters that are more subdued and real, and leave more to the imagination. In that extent, I guess I want my characters to be more like characters from a novel.

[Ayen]

I don't have much in way of expectations for characters going into games. If a character is interesting, fun, pretty (I am that shallow), or doesn't have any traits that just annoy the smurf out of me I either like them or feel indifferent towards them. When I analyze characters for my reviews (albeit this is in the case of movies) I find myself noticing a lack of depth for a lot of them. There just isn't much to talk about with a lot of characters I've seen and they can be summed up in one paragraph. So, if a character happens to be complicated and someone you could write an essay about, I prefer it.

Basically, I like characters I didn't even know I would like until they're created.

[Vermachtnis]

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Serious answer: Since it's a game and I'm the one playing, I expect characters to be more open to interpretation. I love it when characters lean more towards blank slate than fully fleshed out and I can let my head cannon go wild.

I'm going to use the Heroes of Light from XIV as an example. The heroes of light, they help people, they made sport of slaying gods, yada yada yada. There's a lot of those. Now Rem, the Hero of Light in my game, somewhere along the line she picked up a cloudcukoolander personalty.

Don't get me wrong, I do like fully fleshed out characters. I just like them better as party members or NPCs. A fleshed out main character is good and everything, just that since it's a game and not a novel or whatever and we're interacting with world instead of just watching, a mutable lead is better. If I'm going to spend hours doing something it's because I actually want to and not because Hero Protagonist wants to.

[Mirage]

Humanity. Originality.

[Karifean]

Similarly to Fynn, I value it when the characters feel 'real'. This is one of the things I feel Ryukishi07 absolutely nailed in the When They Cry series; both entries have massive casts, but even as you go through crazy or supernatural events or even go as far removed from down-to-earth reality as conceivable; you never end up feeling like the characters aren't "real people" dealing with their own problems, and even if they do horrible things you just can't help but sympathize with them once you know what makes them act that way. It's fine even if the problems they deal with are of a supernatural nature.

So in a nutshell, it doesn't matter to me how good of a person the character is. It matters to me that their mindset and actions are understandable, even if I don't personally agree with them. Although with that being said I do like characters that just put a smile on my face with their beaming or delightful personalities from time to time too, I suppose.

This is actually one of the reasons I started getting into visual novels in the first place. Sure some characters may be clichéd but by the very structure of a charage you'll still get an insight into what makes them tick, and quite often you'll end up surprised by the depth you find. Key is pretty good at this. Most people remember them for making tearjerkers, I just love that they make characters I really care about; because even though they have typical "I can sum them up in one sentence" kind of characters at first, that's never all there is to them, and while they tend to be a lot more one-sidedly kindhearted and likeable than Ryu's characters that doesn't mean they can't be complex and interesting. Prime example being of course my favorite character ever, Kyousuke Natsume from Little Busters, who I loved from the moment he turned up and made every scene he was in amazing, but who also struggles with continuously being the kind of person he is.

I should probably also mention that I've never encountered a character I outright disliked, at worst I don't care about them.

[Mr. Carnelian]

For me, the most important thing about a character is that they interest me. I don't necessarily have to like them. I don't mind disliking the as long as they interest me. The worst kind of character is one who I feel absolutely indifferent towards.

That's not to say that they have to have an interesting personality: characters with dull personalities can interest me, if something interesting happens to them or they're involved in an interesting situation.

People have talked a bit about the importance of originality in characters. For me, characters don't have to be original. I'm not sure I've ever encountered a truly original character. Everything's based on something. Originality is neither here nor there: what's important is that a character interests me.

[Mirage]

Of course you can't have something that is 100% original every time. It's more about avoiding the most common combination of traits.

[Del Murder]

Humor and sarcasm. Usually these are grim worlds the characters exist in and it's refreshing to have some who make light of it.

[DMKA]

I like whiny characters with daddy issues.

[Colonel Angus]

I like whiny characters with daddy issues.
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