Huge rosters

[ChickenHeart]

(I hope i spelled that right)

I hate them! For instance Tekken 6 has over 40 playable characters...only about 7 were interesting and fun to play with. The problem with that many characters is their story is rushed, they're given next to no personaility either! I want a nice story, good moves and a much smaller roster. Maybe about 15 characters?

Do any of you guys agree?

[I Took the Red Pill]

I enjoy a game with a huge roster if there is enough diversity amongst the characters to actually justify the extras being there. King of Fighters '98, for example, has a nice load of characters and they all have a very unique style and I think it's fun to try out different characters and see what suits you. I don't play fighters that much in general though, so I haven't really encountered games where the cast of characters is unnecessarily crowded.

[DK]

I enjoy a game with a huge roster if there is enough diversity amongst the characters to actually justify the extras being there. King of Fighters '98, for example, has a nice load of characters and they all have a very unique style and I think it's fun to try out different characters and see what suits you.

yup, pretty much this. I also really couldn't give two s about story in fighting games, because it is a secondary feature to that genre. diversity of styles and quality gameplay is all that matters. afaic the more characters the better, the more different styles the more varied the experience which generally makes it more entertaining. Fighting the same 10 characters again over and over would get very boring very quickly, not to mention make it far easier to fall into spammy routines once you've worked out how to deal with the limited cast and their movesets.

[iced_saltine]

there's also fire emblem. radiant dawn had altogether 73 playable units when on average you took 11-13 units in battle. the game compensates by dividing into sections, and every character does have a fair bit of development...but some definitely get more screen time than others.

so long as the game does it correctly, i dun really have tremendous issues with excessively large rosters.

[black orb]

>>> 108 Stars of Destiny..

[blackmage_nuke]

>>> 108 Stars of Destiny..

"I want to help the cause"

Smurf you! All you want to do is set up a shop in my castle, if you really wanted to help me you'd sharpen my weapons and give me the items for free!

[Agent Proto]

A huge roster is perfectly fine with me in fighting games. In fact, the larger the roster, the likely I might enjoy the game. Story don't belong in fighting games, but it's probably necessary for those who want a story in their games, so they feel accomplished when they complete their character's story.

As for the other genres, I don't particularly care about the roster. Sometime it works to have a large roster, other times it doesn't. :P

[Psychotic]

The true way to play fighting games is to hit the Random button, so a huge roster makes my experience more enjoyable.

[Raistlin]

>>> 108 Stars of Destiny..

Exactly. Big rosters are great if they're done well.

[Clo]

I couldn't care less about the number of characters in a fighting game, as long as it's not below 8 or something.

Every other genre though... too many can be annoying, but I don't think it's ever as annoying as too little. I dislike playing a game of any random genre to have only 2 - 5 characters. I want my party to be capable of having a literal party.

[Levian]

There's a reason why Mortal Kombat 2 was much cooler than Mortal Kombat 1!

Chrono Cross prooooooobably could've had a few less characters, though.

[Slothy]

There's a reason why Mortal Kombat 2 was much cooler than Mortal Kombat 1!

More palette swapped ninja's?

I don't mind having large rosters in fighting games so long as they don't become too large and unwieldly and completely destroy the balance of the game. I've played a lot of fighters with big rosters, and sadly most didn't fare as well as Marvel vs. Capcom 2 was lucky enough to pull off. How that game managed to be as well balanced as it is is beyond me to be honest. Just thinking about the job that balancing all of those characters and team combination's must have been scares the crap out of me.

[Crop]

The Warriors - 350+

[Wolf Kanno]

I don't mind having large rosters in fighting games so long as they don't become too large and unwieldly and completely destroy the balance of the game. I've played a lot of fighters with big rosters, and sadly most didn't fare as well as Marvel vs. Capcom 2 was lucky enough to pull off. How that game managed to be as well balanced as it is is beyond me to be honest. Just thinking about the job that balancing all of those characters and team combination's must have been scares the crap out of me.

Did we play the same game?

MvC2 is anything but balanced, Cable alone can solo the final boss and the fact that Capcom did very little to nerf people like Magneto, Thanos, and Iron Man makes anything about this game balanced.

The game is also incredibly dumb downed from its predecessor, eliminating the medium attack button and making Assist ridiculously easy as well as a few being quite obnoxious (Jill! ). Not to mention Capcom went out of their way to make the game super easy to combo. A noob smashing random buttons can pull off a 10 hit combo that ends with a 30 hit super without any effort. This game has no finesse, about its only redeeming quality is its gigantic roster but its downplayed cause the cast is pretty unbalanced if not filled with the largest library of Shoto-characters in any Capcom fighter. I would say MvC2 is one of the most unbalanced Capcom fighters out there in my humble opinion.

[Slothy]

Did we play the same game?

MvC2 is anything but balanced, Cable alone can solo the final boss and the fact that Capcom did very little to nerf people like Magneto, Thanos, and Iron Man makes anything about this game balanced.

Nowhere in my post did I say it was a masterpiece of fighting game balance. Far from it actually. But considering a roster of 56 mostly different characters which can be combined into teams of 3 (making the number of possible gameplay combinations astronomically higher, and the number of individual team matchups even higher than that), MvC2 is the only game I've ever played with a roster even approaching that number that isn't unplayable. Ignoring for a moment how few competitive options there are for tournament play, almost anyone is reasonably viable to play as against the computer or in casual play against friends.

Again, the game is no balancing masterpiece, but it's nothing short of a miracle that it's as playable as it is.