Characters the Devs Liked a Little Too Much

[Indeterminacy]

Vincent Valentine. Need I elaborate?

 

[namewon'tfitin]

Ooooohhh a laser pistol that would perfectly fit the engineer.
Who should we give it to?
OH I KNOW THE FUCKIN SOLDIER IT'S NOT LIKE HE HAS THE MOST ITEMS IN THE GAME.

 

[Canadish]

Most Bioware games seem to have one developer favorite. You know, the one that gets placed on every poster, trailer, comic book and box art?

The OP named Morrigan and I'd agree with that. Though I'll add that Sten got the better of her once. And it was glorious.
I didn't follow the marketing for Mass Effect 1, but I know in the run up to the sequel they kept sticking Miranda, Jack and Thane in nearly EVERY trailer.
I'm not sure whether they thought they would draw people in with ass/boobs/sniper or whether they just really wanted everyone to like them so they could do a bunch of spin off comics.
It felt kinda obnoxious regardless.

And, for all that Dragon Age 2 did to butcher the franchise, I think that it was pretty good for not picking a favorite. If anyone, they kept trying to sell "Hawke" to us as the next Commander Shepard.

I can't really think of many other franchises that do this outside of their main protagonist...
Bioware always have a custom hero so they need to focus on one of the companions for "iconic" imagery.

 

[AlternatePFG]

Ooooohhh a laser pistol that would perfectly fit the engineer.
Who should we give it to?
OH I KNOW THE FUCKIN SOLDIER IT'S NOT LIKE HE HAS THE MOST ITEMS IN THE GAME.

This. Valve has pretty much been ignoring the pyro and the engineer.

 

[TheNibiro]

Stupid Raving Rabbids from the new Rayman games.
I do hope Rayman Origins will not continue their reign of terror.

 

[hermes]

Wesker. The guy has little to no personality other than "I am bad" and "I am mysterious"... Yet they make him to be behind everything that happens in the series and by Resident Evil 5 he was promoted to practical godhood.

 

[Anezay]

Liara T'soni in Mass Effect. She gets far too much preferrential treatment, getting her own comic, her own DLC, being the only one who can't die, getting a whole paragraph dedicated to how amazing she is in the PS3 opening comic thing... she just gets so much handed to her.

Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad if her fans weren't subsequently so pleased with themselves because of it. But whatever the case, she's become a character I already had disdain for but now I loathe.

I mean no offence to any people who like Liara, but that's just my opinion.

Seconded. Oh, god I hate her. Here's to hoping I can kill her is some incredibly gruesome way in ME3.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Kratos

I like the guy myself, but from the second game onwards Santa Monica Studios put all its effort into making him the uber-man among uber-men.

 

[Vrex360]

I really liked Liara, and I didn't get offended, everything you said really is true. I think the ME comic had to point out she was beautiful considering that unlike kaiden and ashley, she has blue skin and tentacles. And while you have to be her best friend at the very least in LotSB, which if your character wasn't could be a bit annoying, it makes logical sense she can't die. If Tali for example wasn't a companion choice in ME2, then the same complaint could be made for her, because she wasn't on the suicide mission. Other than that though, yeah, writers pet, but I'm cool with it.

Thanks for not being offended.

I admit probably part of my bitterness came from the fact that I am an Ashley fan to the core and we didn't really get a lot coming our way in Mass Effect 2. Fortunatley now that she's been seen to be returning in Mass Effect 3, it doesn't anger me quite as much as it used to that Liara gets preferrential treatment.

 

[Catie Caraco]

snip

I don't know, I seem to recall Allister getting the better of her a couple times. One time in particular with a backhanded comment on how she resembled her mother.

Hmm, I haven't seen that one. Wish I had, it might make me think more charitably of the character.

Yeah, he says something about how she has her mother's nose, or something. And Zevran totally punks her at one point, getting her to admit she think's she's awesome on a dare from the other companions, who then have to pay up. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPiVFrBYjy0&playnext=1&list=PL44F95993E92082FF

Found it. And the one Canadamus_Prime mentions. Go to 3:50 on this video to find that one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2-1OA27ktw

 

[Hylke Langhout]

I'm going to say Ezio from Assassin's Creed for this. Three games with the guy is getting to be excessive don't you think? I was hoping that the franchise would move on to the next time period with AC3. It's clear they are going to do that soon, but three games is just too much for this franchise. But that's my opinion.

 

[Cabisco]

I find myself agreeing with an idiotically large number of these, once a developer likes a particular character we will get showered with them none stop, sometimes it's a good thing but sometimes it's really not. It depends on the developer and how good they are at creating a new character.

 

[fragmaster09]

cake... oh, wait, they realised now that they hate it... but they still loved that 'character' before the 2nd Portal... and even then they had to make one FINAL reference to it

 

[Palademon]

Altair Ibn-La'Ahad

I was going to argue Ezio, since after two games I found him boring, and the symbol of stagnation in a series that has potential for way more characters. To me any character progression was over after AC2. Brotherhood only seems to exist because the devs couldn't be bothered to make the last battle take place when the pope is supposed to die.

I thought Altair's kinda of redemption story was a good way to make the player have to rise up the ranks to gain weapons. And he's only in one game then hinted in the others, so for me he doesn't out-stay his welcome. So adding him to Revelations actually sounds like some good variation to me.

But, Ezio is still a fan favourite. I'm not sure why. Yeah, he has more character, but I don't understand how he's so awesome.

EDIT:

I'm going to say Ezio from Assassin's Creed for this. Three games with the guy is getting to be excessive don't you think? I was hoping that the franchise would move on to the next time period with AC3. It's clear they are going to do that soon, but three games is just too much for this franchise. But that's my opinion.

Indeed.

 

[Alma Mare]

Reaver and Theresa in the Fable series.

 

[Swny Nerdgasm]

Wolverine. Not just in games, but in every damn thing. It's hard to think of any X-men thing without him.

Pretty much the same as this but substitute the word Deadpool for Wolverine, I really do hate that guy.

What do you mean you don't like Deadpool?!? He's the only comic book hero that can do this:

Spoiler: Warning, the awesomeness contained in this spoiler may cause you to poo a little

I didn't like him in the early 90's I don't like him now, to me he's just overrated and over exposed. But I don't need to worry, soon Marvel will find someone else to milk for a decade.

 

[Infernai]

I see the OP's Morrigan and raise him a Merril from Dragon age 2...hell, one of the people on the team outright ADMITTED it at one point on the forums if i remember correctly. Can't remember exactly where, but i remember it being news among the DA community some time back.

Raiden in MGS4. They changed him from a winey little ***** into a badass suicidal killing machine.

...And this is a bad thing how? The guy went from whining and bitching to fighting a squad of elite soldiers with just a sword in his teeth after losing both arms. If that's not a positive step forward, i don't know what is!

 

[LittleBlondeGoth]

Vincent Valentine. Need I elaborate?

Phooey, he didn't get enough love. Says the screaming Vincent fangirl.

He was barely in the original game, being optional character and not featured in any of the cutscenes. He got a little bit of screen time in AC, more than Cid or Yuffie say, but that film was Cloud-centric. He did get Dirge of Cerberus, I admit that. Though that was a combination of rabid fangirls like me clamouring for more about him and Square wanting to make a shooter. And if you're going to pick a gun-toting protagonist from the VII universe, we're basically talking Vincent or Barret. And I know which one I'd prefer to stare at for the duration.

I might be a little biased. Moving on.

I'm actually in agreement with the guy who mentioned Wolverine. I mean yeah, he's cool and all that. Don't get me wrong, I like the guy. But I never quite wrapped my head round why X-Men revolves around him so much, when there's all these other great characters to play with.

And again, whilst I don't dislike her, I don't get all the adoration for Liara, either. I'd rather have had more Kaiden. And yes, I totally realise that I'm probably the only person in the world who wanted that. It's OK. I've long since come to terms with this.

 

[Steampunk Viking]

Wolverine. Not just in games, but in every damn thing. It's hard to think of any X-men thing without him.

It's good to know someone else shares this opinion! Geeze he's in EVERYTHING to do with X-Men.

I'm going to throw a few out there, let's see how many of you agree:

1) Tingle from the Zelda series (Dammit, just DIE)
2) Every bloody character from Dragon Age Origin except maybe Morrigan (I disagree with post 1 here, she has quite alot of plot anchorage tied to her, plus she just doesn't care and that's why she never gets taken down a peg), Sten and Wynne.

I can underestand Leliana being in Kirkwall, but why did the entire bloody cast of Origins follow her? Seriously. The Dalish went there for no apparent reason, as did Zevran, Cullen, Alistair etc. etc. etc.

3) Mario. I love Mario, but can we just have him in platform games and Mario Kart? Cheers.

 

[xXGeckoXx]

Liara T'soni in Mass Effect. She gets far too much preferrential treatment, getting her own comic, her own DLC, being the only one who can't die, getting a whole paragraph dedicated to how amazing she is in the PS3 opening comic thing... she just gets so much handed to her.

Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad if her fans weren't subsequently so pleased with themselves because of it. But whatever the case, she's become a character I already had disdain for but now I loathe.

I mean no offence to any people who like Liara, but that's just my opinion.

Aww man Liara was one of the better characters. Good character and good in combat. A little nicey nicey but she seems to have the magic power to deal with confusing speech options so yeah.

Edit: Reading your other post I understand now.

Spoiler

Ashley died in mass effect 1 for me because I was with Liara so I wanted Kaidan for his better combat skills. If she had lived then maybe I would think differently