Poll: Best Character Customization in a Game

[AdeptaSororitas]

Hello fellow Escapists, your friendly neighborhood Sister of Battle here, on of my few posts thus far on the Gaming Section:

So I'll be honest here fellow Escapists, my favorite part of almost any game, and a key reason I prefer most WRPGs over JRPGs, is character customization, whether armor color in Halo 1 to the complete facial control in Fallout and Elder Scrolls to the bodily alteration in City of Heros, games get more personal the more you can tinker with. So I have to ask, what game out there do you prefer the character customization in (games like Second Life don't count, they're glorified chat rooms), either due to shear volume of options or the specific ones chosen. And if you find the amount normally available to be far to limited (like me) then add some options you'd like to see.

I personally can't choose because while I'm a fan of WRPGs, I don't typically have the disposable income required to buy a lot of them, so free games that have them are something I try and hunt like a blood hound, so more recommendations would be greatly treasured.

Forgot to say: I personally find most games lacking in the ability to change your physical body type, most bodies are either stick thin girls or hulking men. or just kinda blah men and women.

 

[Worgen]

probably the best customization Ive seen was in champions online, you can make almost any kind of hero you want

 

[King Toasty]

Case-by-case. Some games need it, others really don't. Some WRPGs, for example, are greatly improved by character creation; take any Bethesda game, for example. JRPGs, like the Final Fantasy series, almost never have character creation, but FF7 is one of the highest-rated games of all time.

So it depends on the developer and game.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

Gotta go with Oblivion myself, so many races/classes to pick from and you can mix and match the armour types, unlike in Fallout 3 - the Wasteland Of The Onesies.

 

[RatRace123]

I love character customization, even if you just customize how a preset character looks it's still a nice feature to have, I prefer to be able to create one from scratch though. Really helps make the experience feel like your own, and immerses you into the game, to me anyway.

As for my vote for best character customization. Gonna have to go with Saints Row 2, with all the options given, there is almost an endless amount of ways to make the character your own, including being able to choose a voice actor. (Cockney Gang Leader FTW!)

Speaking of character customization, for a game like this not to have it, just seems criminal.


Really disappointed with that, sure you can choose from 3 of the defaults and customize them a little and like I said that's a nice feature, but I feel they really dropped the ball by not giving players the ability to make their own heroes.

 

[camsha]

oblivion without a doubt but i feel the need to mention saints row 2 also

 

[Draken Steel]

I loved city of heroes customization.

Umm....idk, not real big on ones with sliders, while they can be VERY useful if u know how to use them, i can never make anything I like.

As for customization itself, i think it is a VERY nice feature and am kinda disappointed that so many rpg's are kinda lacking on it.

 

[AdeptaSororitas]

probably the best customization Ive seen was in champions online, you can make almost any kind of hero you want

I really wanted to like Champions Online because of the ability to alter body structure, but then I hit the costume section *shrugs* I'm just not a Super Hero kinda girl I guess.

 

[RevRaptor]

I'd have to pick saints row 2, pick you character how they walk talk and dis people, I've yet to find a character generator that feels so complete.

As much as I love creating my own character it's not something that works for every game. It all depends on the game

 

[Saltyk]

I think of two things when I think of customization. Appearance and abilities. Appearance is nice, but it needs to be streamlined. I like to be able to pick from a nice variety of presets and then tinker with them. If I have to alter the size of the cheeks and other features blind, I'm afraid I'll end up with a Frankenstein monster looking hero. Not an ideal look.

But I really like being able to choose my own abilities. Be it mixing and matching abilities on my soldiers in Final Fantasy Tactics, or selecting from huge lists of abilities in KOTOR, I like having options.

 

[Rylot]

I do really like customization. The ME series, Dragon Age, and others are much better because of the customization you're allowed. One thing I'd like to say is that despite it's short comings I did like how your actions affected what your character looked like in the Fable series. Not really sure if you'd consider it customization but having scars and muscle mass based on what you do and how you act in the world really added to the immersion for me.

 

[Mouldy Cheese]

I hate to be obvious, but The Sims series?

I love character customisation. It takes me longer to decide on what hairstyle to use on a character than massive moral decisions to make for my toon! And it's not always just about making them look hot (*cough* Forsaken World *cough*) but making them unique to you and the style in which you evolve the character throughout the game.

 

[Worgen]

probably the best customization Ive seen was in champions online, you can make almost any kind of hero you want

I really wanted to like Champions Online because of the ability to alter body structure, but then I hit the costume section *shrugs* I'm just not a Super Hero kinda girl I guess.

I was able to do all sorts of things with the costumes, really there is so much it can be hard to know where to start, you can do powered armor, costume tights, jeans and a tshirt, a top hat and tux, its almost endless

 

[AdeptaSororitas]

probably the best customization Ive seen was in champions online, you can make almost any kind of hero you want

I really wanted to like Champions Online because of the ability to alter body structure, but then I hit the costume section *shrugs* I'm just not a Super Hero kinda girl I guess.

I was able to do all sorts of things with the costumes, really there is so much it can be hard to know where to start, you can do powered armor, costume tights, jeans and a tshirt, a top hat and tux, its almost endless

Still, I guess I don't like the aesthetic.

 

[Jezzascmezza]

The Saints Row 2 character customisation is pretty great.
You can make an overweight red-headed woman with a Michael Caine-ish voice, who also wears a chicken suit and duel-weilds SMGs.
Madness, I tell you.

 

[Suijen]

I love customizing things, but I understand that it's not appropriate for some games (but a lot of games can use it). Even little customization options like in Crysis is interesting to me.

 

[Beautiful End]

So far, the best character customization I've seen is White Knight Chronicles'. You can change looks, height, weight, muscle, voice, and pretty much all the basics. I'm talking about physical customizations. Second favorite one would be Dragon Age.

But I always have a recurring problem. Whenever I customize my character and I start the game, I realize my character doesn't look EXACTLY how I thought it looked during the customization. For example, for my first Dragon Age run, I accidentally created a character with exaggerated cheek bones. It looked fine to me before but once the cutscenes kicked it, I didn't quite like it. And believe it or not, it bothered me so much that I restarted the game from scratch.

On the other hand, stuff like DA where you're allowed to customize your strength, defense and such kinda make me feel uncomfortable because I feel like I'm screwing up my character's default stats with my own ideas of "more useful character". For example, when Alistair was just an NPC, I think he was more useful than when I was able to control him and customize him. But maybe its just me.

 

[Worgen]

probably the best customization Ive seen was in champions online, you can make almost any kind of hero you want

I really wanted to like Champions Online because of the ability to alter body structure, but then I hit the costume section *shrugs* I'm just not a Super Hero kinda girl I guess.

I was able to do all sorts of things with the costumes, really there is so much it can be hard to know where to start, you can do powered armor, costume tights, jeans and a tshirt, a top hat and tux, its almost endless

Still, I guess I don't like the aesthetic.

could be, but I have seen a few space marines running around in it

 

[TheKruzdawg]

One of the best character creators I've ever used would be in either Oblivion or Saints Row 2.

Oblivion let you customize almost every aspect of your physical appearance as well as your class and skills. Saints Row has even more choices for physical customization, but there is no class to choose from.

SR2 allows for some hilarious creations.