The final post of Vagrant Rant’s guest week comes from a tall man who will play just about any game you put in front of him. As long as it fulfils this criteria…
—Written by DeathOnStilts—
—Edited/formatted by Vagrantesque—
It’s no secret that the characters of a game either make or break it. Having lots of them makes a game better. Having LOADS of them makes a game glorious. The variety of personalities and play styles they bring enriches the life of the gamer and fills them with an incomprehensible joy. Well, that joy can be explained:
All gamers, in their heart of hearts, longs for games to have loads and loads of characters.
The discovery of a game that DOES have loads and loads of characters fills all gamers (without exception – don’t lie to yourself) with the happiness that comes from fulfilling the soul’s desire.
Jubilatory.
The characters pictured above are just 60 of 112 “champions” in the ever-growing, ever-popular Multiplayer Online Battle Arena known as League of Legends. The game’s developers at Riot Games bring out a new character or “champion” every month (or so they say), each with vastly different play styles. Due to the glorious plethora of characters, no two matches are the same. In addition to this is the likelihood that you probably have a champion that not many people have. This obviously makes you “sah indie” and “alternative”. If you’re actually good with a champion nobody uses due to them “sucking”, then you get to rub that in their face and insult them by simply being a presence on the battlefield.
Oh Smash Bros. If only you had more characters to delight us with!
Certain game developers, God bless them, have knowledge of the fact that the more characters a game has, the better it is. However, some get stuck in an awkward place. They put in a “lot” of characters, just not enough. They get caught in the nether-region of having too many to be interesting in regard to story, but too little to be interesting in regard to the long-lasting euphoria brought on by a character roster of over 50.
On that note, here is a layout of how a certain amount of characters influence a game:
LESS THAN 10: a twisted imitation of human creation that came from the pits of the earth and houses a large percentage of the world’s evil.
10 TO 25: obvious troll by the developers. A pitiful amount of characters for anything not an RPG.
25 TO 50: a sub-par roster. Getting there.
50 TO 75: the fun only stops after long gaming sessions.
75 TO 100: the fun lasts for what seems like forever.
MORE THAN 100: the fun of the game literally never ends for anything ever for all eternity. Pure, unadultered jubilation.
What is this, some kind of sick joke?
Games like the one pictured above…hmmm. Uhh…well, to be blunt, their fun lasts for about as long as it takes (in this one’s case) to finish eight races, playing as a different character in each race. I mean, 8 characters? Seriously? If they gave convicted murderers games to play in prison, those games would have at least 15.
All joking aside though I really loved this game when I was younger.
Why do you think all the “fan” rosters for games feature upwards of 50 characters? Because that’s what we want for these games. We want to see all our favourites. We want to play as the bad guys we’ve spent three or four titles smacking around. We want to set up rivalries between allies, both good and evil. We want to decide who is the strongest. We want to learn about the new characters we’ve never seen before and show off our talents. Games with loads and loads of characters supply the answer to these desires.
Additionally, they provide a greater chance of having a character that really speaks to a certain player, and that player may play them in a way that no one else has ever done. It makes it a personal experience for that player, as he or she grows to more deeply understand the character through constant exposure. Eventually it gets to a point wherein even if one’s character is X and another player also plays as X, the two players may not even notice that they’re playing the same character because their play styles are so different. It truly is a fantastic experience.
Fighting games, MOBAs, sports games and racing games. Any game that has a roster of characters is better if it has loads and loads of them. I encourage all the gamers reading this to, if you haven’t already, extend your gamer attention to a game that has more than 50-75 characters. League of Legends, DotA, Dynasty Warriors, Samurai Warriors, Pokemon. They are all great examples of this. Truly, you will not be disappointed, and you will come out (if you don’t spend spend eternity within their embrace) with a greater appreciation for the versatility in gaming.
Vagrant Rant 