Why are 3d fighters so generic and boring in looks and character designs?

Anyone else ever notice that? What do I mean? Here’s an example. Take Blazblue. That game has some weird ass shit. Granted I don’t like all the chars(I tend to not care for the Japanese fixation on lolis and goofy stereotypes like “rivals who have opposite powers and may be gay for each other” or “goofy buff man who has a heart of gold”, but I will give them credit for having unusual designs. Then you look at 3d fighters, and the casts of these tend to always be the same:

generic karate man
evil karate man
bruce lee
blonde assassin woman
chinese girl who is cute
old chinese man who is serious
tae kwon do guy who can’t stop moving
angry wrestler/grappler/masked wrestler

Then the boss is some weird shit that doesn’t even fit the game. Like Dural in VF, why the fuck do you fight a bitch made of metal? Why are the final bosses in Tekken games all demons? The game tries to go for realism even despite having the bears fight, but then at the end you’re always fighting some giant monster. Azazel looks like a goddamned Final Fantasy boss not a fighting game boss. Then it hit me. Azazel would prolly seem cooler if he were in a game with characters that actually fit.

Why do all these 3d fighters have the same generic characters? I admit Tekken tends to do it better since least they have cool outfits and stuff, but still. I mean Bloody Roar and Final Fantasy Dissidia are prolly the only 3d fighters that had really odd characters, including nonhuman stuff. You’d think we’d be getting all sorts of crazy fighting games from Japan, like I dunno, games with chars like some 6 armed demon god as a normal character. How come we never get shit like the Greater Fiends from NG or Credo Angelo as characters in fighters? They have no problems putting odd stuff in 2d fighters and rpgs, but never 3d fighters, unless it’s some bullshit boss that only has like 3 moves(fire lasers, fire bigger lasers, fly and fire more bigger lasers).

Also how come they never push the gfx or aesthetics of these 3d fighters? Again, Tekken is the best looking 3d fighter, but how come we don’t get any that look like the same quality of gfx as Final Fantasy 13? Or Guild Wars 2? You know, player models that don’t look like shiny plastic dolls, like in Dead or Alive(DOA char models suck, sorry) or Virtua Fighter? Not even just the gfx, but the aesthetics themselves. We never get cool fantasy shit like some fighting game with some Drizz’t looking elf dude stabbing people with swords like that dude form the Hellboy 2 movie, and people fighting in like some floating city or some crazy ass bladerunner esque city with glowing neon signs and shit everywhere. Instead it’s the same shit over and over, like dojo, rundown dojo, brand new dojo, dojo at night, dojo with fire in the bg, dojo at night with rain. I mean come the fuck on. Tekken 6’s best stages were that raining helipad, Azazel’s temple, that forest, the raining graveyard, the destroyed city, and that fountain, the rest were boring shit, like fighting in Mexico with chickens watching. How exciting.

Man fuck 3d fighters, they just do the same shit over and over again.

I’m compelled to agree with you. I’ll even go beyond just 3d fighters and say those concepts exist in most fighting games, especially the character stereotypes.

I can agree with the bit about BlazBlue as well. I’m being completely honest when I say that the reason I picked Tager initially is because I thought he looked the least annoying out of the bunch.

You don’t sound too informed to me. For one the first list you listed applies to stereotypes and cliches in fighting games period. You’re talking about Tekken trying to be realistic even though you have fighting animals, unrealistic fighting mechanics, androids, cyborgs, half demon people, and a story consisting pf ridiculous stuff. Also it doesn’t seem that you know the name of Tekken stages either. Have you even played these games consistently?

Cliches have an air of familiarity to them. That way people(random masses) can look at something and not be turned off to what’s “foreign” to them. That way companies can “do their own thing” without actually “doing their own thing”.

You have an unfinished parentheses that sticks out like a sore thumb. Think before you make mindless ranting threads.

Wait.

Well SF and Tekken came out at a time when those archetypes were new, and the later iterations of those games kept those characters in it for a sense of familiarity and the stable fanbase that comes with it. Take 3s for instance: Almost a totally new cast that was appealing and original (to me anyways). However it didn’t share the immediate success that SF4 enjoyed. Why? Familiarity. It sells.

Sounds like a dumb thread to me.

Another day on SRK.

Not too informed? How did we go form games like Killer Instinct, where we had:

a liquid ice alien
a raptorman
a guy made of fire
a skeleton
a werewolf
a demon with hooves and two heads
a gargoyle

Primal Rage. Bloody Roar. Notice these games strayed from the usual cliches. There were no “generic karate men” in these games, every char was some crazy over the top thing. I bring up realism in Tekken because despite a lot of the stuff like Jack, the Kangaroo, and the demon bosses, the characters are mostly supposed to be “realistic”, ie. no guys throwing fireballs, or turning into odd shit, no lizardmen or anything like that. Games like Killer Instinct had real crazy and off the wall casts, nowadays these fighters tend to just stick to the formula so to speak.

Does that mean Tekken or SF should change and suddenly have you playing as lizardmen and ice aliens? No. But you figure a game company would look back and see how people loved stuff like KI and maybe make a fighter with chars more in that vein. Odd, but not necessarily anime stuff. Not saying anime is bad, but I am willing to bet tons of people would prefer to play as an alien or some shit like that over a half naked flat chested loli. It’s funny because Soul Calibur has Lizardman and Nightmare, you’d think Namco would have seen people loved characters like that and would want more.

Tech Romancer: Of course you think it’s dumb, you’d rather just have every fighting game be the same thing over and over again, so long as it’s “competitive”. Then you can bitch and whine about how fighting games aren’t popular and are “dying” on SRK, and bitch about how “Capcom keeps catering to casuals”. People always come on here going “Omg why aren’t fighting games more popular”, maybe if they looked at all the other games with the crazy over the top shit in them, then saw that fighters now are mostly just humans doing martial arts but with juggling tossed in, you’d see why most just don’t give a damn about them. I can tell you right now, despite what the VF fanboys think, even if Sega shoved a VF machine in every arcade in America and advertised the fuck out of it, it still wouldn’t sell well here.

Customization of characters in VF, Tekken, and SC defeat your argument.

What argument?

You should have come in, posted “embarrassing” like usual because that’s what this thread is.

I didn’t realize you can make Sarah into a succubus that fights using her tail, Marduk into a demon lord with 6 arms in Tekken, and Greater Fiend Volf in SC. Although SC gave you more options thankfully, but VF and Tekken’s customizations are mostly just shit like extra hats and helmets or something. Wopw, now Lee looks like a SWAT soldier but fights exactly the same! How thrilling.

Come at me when Tekken and VF lets you play as stuff like this:
[media=youtube]M1W3i0_DvIs[/media]

and this:
[media=youtube]pZa1AXxyv8Y[/media]
[media=youtube]95TSB41Zlzg[/media]

Too bad 2d id just as generic.

Dude stop fucking trolling.

another dumb thread, from this dumb poster

Shut your bitch ass up.

Go bitch about how casuals are ruining your precious SF and MvC3, while the rest of us who aren’t losers go play REAL games that aren’t limited by the “hardcore community” whining about wanting shit to never change. Have fun when other games sell way more than any of your shit generic fighters, and you bitch about “fighting games are dead waaaaaaaaaaaaaah”

:coffee:

[media=youtube]BJkQlbP9UR4[/media]

:wgrin:

embarrassing.

:zzz:

Is the quirkiness of the characters’ appearances really that important

I said a succubus, not a white bitch with morrigan headwings.