Character Design Podcast Fighting Game

Alright, I've had it. Games with the best character designs?

'Sup? I'm an amateur character designer lookin' for games that have amazing character designs and with servers that aren't dead. I bought Guilty Gear Xrd just to main May after I saw fan art of her.

I try to avoid sexualized designs but I don't mind them so long as they don't look absolutely fucking stupid. (Jam's shrink-wrapped clothes).

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It's gotta be King of Fighters, a collection of beautiful and stylish people going at it. The designs are realistic enough to look like actual people in an actual world, but not so generic as to be mundane.

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I concur, that's the appeal of KOF design philosophy and what makes it so unique. I'm no hater on the overdesigned and/or stereotypical type of characters in other games (on the contrary, I like them), but KOF design approach really stands out.

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You need to check out Garou: Mark of the Wolves and King of Fighters XIII.

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Ooo, I vibe with King of Fighters. Thanks!

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King of Fighters designs always stood out for me and they always gave me this "non martial arts" vibe. I love this somewheat casual but same time very stylized look of characters. Namco was probably inspired by KoF because you can find this design philosphy in Tekken series. As for other series Guilty Gear always had cool anime inspired designs (but this shouldn't be suprising when we take into account that Arc System Works took their inspirations from SNK) I also always liked a lot of Darkstalkers designs.

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Susano'o from BlazBlue.

Enough said

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There are 2 ways to look at this:

Visual design: how the characters look and move Good examples are G and Seth from SFV, Leeroy from Tekken 7, Nagoriyuki and Giovanna from GGST.
Gameplay design: the mechanics a character has. I personally love micro managing characters, some examples are Steve, Link, Villager and many more from SSBU, Jacko from GGXrd, Menat and apparently Rose from SFV, and most characters from Power Rangers BFTG.

I wish i could add more characters from indie games, but i've been unable to play most fighting games lately bc I'm poor.

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In my experience as an art dude, character design refers to visuals alone. But I guess I am in a more mechanic-focused space

All your suggestions were great! Seth, Leeroy, Nagoriyuki and Giovanna especially

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I mean is MVC a copout answer?

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Check out some artwork done by Kinu Nishimura and Shinkiro, they were both featured in Capcom vs SNK and their artstyles provided wildly different interpretations for every character in the game. And they've both done artwork for plenty of other games and franchises too

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Would you be fine with using Fightcade? If so, I'd suggest KOF and Darkstalkers.

If not, I believe Killer Instinct is still active and has some pretty cool designs too.

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KOF designs are great. They're not as outlandish as Guilty Gear and BlazBlue, and they look more like something you see in real life, yet it still manages to be stylish and unique.

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What's your favorite design?

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I think Skullgirls is a good choice, especially if you pull up all the characters from the DLC poll from its indiegogo campaign

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Hmmm the body types are all too similar but they all got distinct designs regardless

Cute art style too

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Melty Blood. It gets flak from some for having "boring" designs, but I like the fact that the people look like people and not circus clowns. The only ones that look monstrous are the monsters (and a couple of joke characters).

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Yo I love how Melty plays and feels, but it's designs are boring generic anime. I'm excited for the new Melty, but I hope it has more males and less variations of the same characters, not counting "types"

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Oh yeah, I started playing that recently!

I saw the first design, a red-head in a t-shirt and pants and was like "Welp. That's a slice of life character." and that was true for most the designs

My favorite design is Archetype:Earth. Though, she could use a corsette