Game with the best character creation (aesthetic) options?

[GundamSentinel]

I'd say my favorite system is Dragon's Dogma's. It that allowed for a very wide range of characters, with very solid customization. The great thing is that it allowed you to completely customize your full body as well. Body height, weight, limb size, stance, you name it. And the best part: it actually had consequences for gameplay. Short and light characters could climb enemies better and maneuver faster than tall and heavy ones, but could carry less and and consumed more stamina.

Saints Row 2 by a landslide. SR3 wasn't a just step back, it was a step back that made you fall down some stairs.

I loved the SR2 system, but I had one problem with it: whatever I tried, my character never looked exactly the way I wanted. Most of the times: Oblivion level ugly. Yeah, the only thing SR3 improved were the graphics . But I really liked everything you could do with it, especially in terms of clothing. That was a very disappointing step back indeed.

 

[Someone Depressing]

Saint's Row 2.

So many options... *frothing at mouth*...like the exact positioning of where I want my hat that is on 3 other hats...

 

[Raine_sage]

I loved the character Creation on Dragon's dogma because it let you be aby kind of build you wanted. Boys could have girlish figures, woman could have broad shoulders and narrow waists. You could play as a dwarf with pointy elf ears. There was never a point where it said "Nope, since you have chosen this thing we will arbitrarily prevent you from picking this other option."

 

[Akytalusia]

geez... seems everyone's forgotten spore. now there's a character creation system that lets you make a unique character. not limited to humans like the previously mentioned games.

 

[flying_whimsy]

APB: Reloaded. Hands down.

Say what you want about the currently quality of the game at large, but the character creation is second to none.

I totally agree; even just playing for free the characters have a pretty hefty array of customization that goes off the deep end in options once you pay for it. I can't tell you how many times I've played other games and wished for that character editor.

Too bad it was stapled to a boring, pay to win generic shooter.

 

[Me55enger]

APB: Reloaded. Hands down.

Say what you want about the currently quality of the game at large, but the character creation is second to none.

Too bad it was stapled to a boring, pay to win generic shooter.

I would argue that point if I had the energy, willpower or blood-alcohol content. Because I disagree on all three points.

But yes, to reinforce my suggesiton, I know of many in the game who play for the customisation over the combat. WitchQueen Customs on Obeya server is an example. The guy is crunk and one of the most famous on there.

 

[Gabanuka]

geez... seems everyone's forgotten spore. now there's a character creation system that lets you make a unique character. not limited to humans like the previously mentioned games.

However no matter what you picked the creatures looked like arse.

I'm gonna say SR2 as well. I spent ages in the game making my dude look like the Joker, albeit a cockney Joker.

 

[Bostur]

The character creator in EvE Online is the most incredible one I've ever seen. Unfortunately the game doesn't make much use of the characters. People frequently use EvE characters as avatars on forums and social media.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo9L8d-5x20

 

[ChristopherT]

the Legend of Grimrock, while your characters appearance is really only their avatar, any 128x128 tga image can be used. So your characters could be Beefcake Warriors, Strong Women, A cat, A squirrel, a penis, your characters can be any picture you have available. Granted it doesn't change much in the game, because there's no character models, but still, aesthetically anything what so ever.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Have you never played Saints Row 2 then? Except in shininess, it blows SR3 out of the water.

Meh. Saints Row 2 did nothing for me. Saints Row 3 was fun, and Saints Row 4 was STUPIDLY entertaining.

I've never really understood the Saints Row 2 lobby. I guess I'm just not seeing the appeal.

The character creator in EvE Online is the most incredible one I've ever seen. Unfortunately the game doesn't make much use of the characters. People frequently use EvE characters as avatars on forums and social media.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo9L8d-5x20

Yeah, EVE is incredible, but I'm not sure it qualifies as a character creator as you never actually do anything with the "character" you create.

In terms of actual functional characters that translate into the game world, I think Aion still leads the MMO pack.

 

[DementedSheep]

EVE online has an excellent character creator I actually wish I could keep it without the game. Its useful for making different faces and then practicing drawing them from different angles.

Champions online. Unfortunately I found the game play boring. DCUO online is fun but sadly lacking in customization (and half of what's there looks like ass) which sucks for a make your own superhero mmo.

APB reloaded even with the free restrictions.

Those are the 3 that come to mind.

 

[Delock]

City of Heros/Villains had the best character customization options of any game I've played thus far.

City of Heroes/Villains had an awesome character creator until it went Free to Play. I spent so much time just creating random superheroes, playing for a little while, then deleting them and making another. There was just way to much choice for me to stick with one thing. I think only one of my character slots was taken up permanently and spent a lot of time in game. The rest other slots were just used for messing around in creation.

I don't know what happened with Free To Play, but that was a game that I adored the character creator on and was pleased to hear that someone salvaged that part at the very least (it's on google if you search, but I don't really want to invest the energy)

For those quoting Champions Online, this was the character creator it was built off of.

Villains had some particularly fun twists to it, such as the fact that your cape was earned by pulling it off a hero, which just helped add a bit more flair to the whole thing.

Otherwise, I would like to give a couple of honorable mentions:

SW:TOR, if you're a subscriber, can make some downright amazing toons, and the fact that you get different voice actors for each classes is just icing on the cake.

The first two Penny Arcade games let you make characters that looked exactly like Gabe had drawn them.

Fire Emblem Awakening gets a similar shout out for making your character twice, once in a 3D model and the second time in the 2D sprite that looks as though someone legitimately drew it just for you (it also changes your minimap guy too). Sure it naturally limits the looks you can make, but it really made me feel like my avatar was an actual character rather than the odd guy out that was clearly player made.

 

[aozgolo]

I think by far the best I've tried was Saint's Row 3, it's one of the few games I've seen that LETS you play a fat person and I think that's amazing, and I wish more games gave you options outside the "super fit bodybuilder" type of frame.

Have you never played Saints Row 2 then? Except in shininess, it blows SR3 out of the water.

I must admit I haven't played SR2 but from these comments it does seem superior. In my eyes I guess it just stands out because I didn't have SR2 to compare it to.

 

[DanielBrown]

I've yet been able to create a character that looks like me. You can usually be tall as fuck and have a somewhat muscular build, but hair never works(got hair down to my waist and I'm close to 2 meters tall), so I've been disappointed with all character creations I've come across. Whenever they actually let you have hair at least below the neck it tends to look silly as fuck.
I guess my vote would be for Saints Row 2 or 3 though. Lot of options for serious and comical characters. For SR2 I made a wigger who looked like Gary Oldman from True Romance and in SR3 I played as a muscular black metalhead(as in black metal music) with what I assume was a cockney accent.

Personal favorite is the night elves from WoW. At least they could get long, thick hair.

 

[Davey Woo]

I like the character creation in Guild Wars 2, especially for the non-human races. There's a decent variety of options. My only complaint is that you can't make ugly or old looking characters, especially females, all females in the game look mid-30's at the oldest, down to about 12 at the younger end. Another problem is that whilst you have the slider bars for individual features, such as nose width, height etc, I never really see that much difference in the characters.

Another character creator I liked was from Rainbow Six Vegas 2. Where you could customise your character and have him looking like a grunt from Gears of War in huge armour, but the downside was that all the armour had weight so it actually affected your movement in the game, it's about the only game I've seen where what you look like actually impacts your gameplay.

 

[Vykrel]

never played it, but Soulcalibur 5 has the best character creator of any game ive seen

 

[white_wolf]

Well without playing it I'm in love with EVE online's character creator system I've never seen one like it and I wish we could get such an engine on a console one day! But wishing aside....

Games I have played that allow me to make my character the way I want them would be Mass Effect this one had the most options of all 3 games I do miss all the little tweaks I could do to my character they removed many of these features for ME2 and ME3

Dragon's Dogma I really loved how I could mix and match the preset bodies, faces, and lovely hair styles to make a truly unique hero so I could have curly haired albino Asian with plum eyes if I truly wanted I literally spent hours just recombining characters.

Dark Souls another game I spent forever crafting my hero in then she starts the game a hallowman.

KOA: the Reckoning: limited options but nice ones none the least I turned the worst looking dark elf into a creature of beauty so there is enough here to play with.

 

[Caiphus]

I'm going to parrot a lot of the answers given in this thread but:

Eve Online. The character creation in this game is seriously good. Puzzlingly good, since you rarely see your avatar. But seriously. In games that allow custom avatars (like Legends of Grimrock, say) I just go and take screenshots of toons I make in the Eve character generator. It's that good.

Dragon's Dogma is pretty damn good too (as the poster above me says). You can make the standard hero, or the four-foot tall midget wrestler. There aren't enough games where you can have full character creation for party members, which is another bonus. And the fact that weight and height of your characters have gameplay effects is fairly novel.

Skyrim is good after you mod it up (like most things in Skyrim) with hairstyles, height adjustments, all that stuff.


I'm going to disagree with people on Mass Effect, at least with regard to the male character creation. It felt low-res a lot of the time compared to the default model. Also took a significant amount of effort to come away with something that didn't look alien. Shame that EA doesn't provide mod tools since this could have used some community love. I mean, it was fine. But could have been better.

 

[Seracen]

If we allow mods, I'd say it's a tossup between Oblivion and Dragon Age: Origins. Even without, they are fairly substantial.

The one I cared most about, however, was the Mass Effect series.