I have a good story for how I came to play Jack-O in Xrd. When I first started, I was trying characters like Raven and Ramlethal, but really wasn't feeling any of them. I didn't even want to touch Jack-O because I didn't want to deal with setplay and Starcraft mechanics. At one point, my club picked up a Project Diva F pad with huge buttons for the D-pad and face buttons. So one day I said, "What if we played Guilty Gear with this thing?" I was messing around with random characters, and of course it was really awkward trying to do inputs with big buttons. Then my friend said "Why don't you try Jack-O, since house management is all on down-down inputs?" I did, and next thing you know I was going crazy and actually doing some sick stuff, and it sold me on the character. And now every time we play, we always have to bring up the Project Diva controller.
I generally go for the character that doesn't play like the rest of the cast. Tekken? - Yoshimitsu. Skullgirls? - Squigly. KI? - Holy hell I'm in heaven
I was watching GG strive character guides, and at some point I watched May's guide. I saw this tiny ass pirate girl riding a dolphin around and was sold on the character immediately. When strive comes out, I'm gonna main May, and that's how I'm gonna learn the game.
Lol I had the opposite reaction she looked annoying as crap so I decided that I was gonna learn how to destroy that character. See you on the battlefield
I look at the characters and pick who looks the coolest. Mostly testosterone fountains like Ryu, Sol, Scorpion, Paul and shit like that. Picking a character takes me about a minute and I usually stick with them unless they turn out complete ass.
I hate when the coolest character doesn't play how I want at all. I really wanted to play Noob in MK11 but it didn't vibe with me. Collector is much more my style apparently
My characters just always end up being blondes, but they're never the character I start the game with. Thought I was gonna play Chun-Li when I started SFV, switched to Karin, then Kolin. Thought I was gonna be Eliza in Tekken 7, switched to Nina. Was gonna be Ramlethal, became Millia. Marth switched to Peach. Lancelot to Djeeta. It goes on into every game I swear, except tag games, where my blonde teams include one non-blonde just hangin' around not-blonding.
My favourite story of picking a character is how i picked Makoto in SF4. It was a first time with SF for me and i was playing with a friend who had some experience with the game, so we went with random select. And, in like 10 games, i got Makoto 5 or 6 times, and he tells me that it's bad luck, cause she's trash. So what did i do? Bought the game and start maining Makoto, of course.
@@Robstafarian this was the first time i ever played any Street fighter game (well, technically i played demo of ex 2 on ps, but i think it doesn't count). I tried third strike, but only after this situation.
For me it's a mix of two things: I'll choose a character with cool/interesting character design and cool/interesting backstory. Everything else doesn't matter
I like characters with just frame launchers. It's like when you fall in love with a girl and then you only find girls like that attractive? Welcome to Heihachi main life.
Akihiko in P4A is the only time I found a character who I truly loved everything about, and then I started making the mistake of looking for the "Akihiko" in all other fighting games. Recently realized I'm probably never going to find that again, so I just play whoever looks cool and is fun - been a lot happier with my character choices ever since! Another thing I had to tell myself to stop doing is hesitating to pick a top tier cause they make wins feel less satisfying - now I realize I should just absorb any salt that my wins produce for more power. This bit I realized after watching one of Sajam's vids.
I watched Akihiko in p4au and actually played him in bbtag and I've been looking for a char to give me the same kinda satisfaction ever since. Also coming to the realization I'm probably not gonna find it and just need to find the fun in the chars I'm already playing.
I've been doing this ever since I got into FGs, I thought I was the only one, currently searching for the "Carmine" (UNIST), maybe I should simply follow your example.
my criteria for the 1st pick : 1. in a world full of swords and magic, they use their fists 2. bonus points if it is a girl with big tits and cool shirt (or not shirt in case of Enkidu UNIST) 2 Alt. muscle girls like Darli Dagger samsho 3. mechanically, no charge characters 4. personality-wise, they prefer to brute force their way to victory 5. Rushdown style combat that is why i main Makoto and Yang in BBtag, and Soriz in GBVS. Yeah most of the are ass competitively but it is satisfying to just punch them. The only exception to this is Akatsuki from UNIST, i prefer Enkidu thanks. at least that is for the first few weeks, i might pocket some others but i will always main the characters with that characteristics.
This is it. The perfect "straight middle-class introvert with slightly above-average grades who likes anime" profiling. I might as well have wrotten your comment.
My first thing is definitely aesthetic, I cannot play characters that I feel are ugly no matter how much they fit my playstyle. Then I look at combos and moves and if those are satisfying to do then I go for that
I think it's important to realize too that you're not locked to that first character you pick. You're not soul bound to the first character you pick, so don't be afraid to mingle with the rest of the cast if you're not feeling your first pick or you feel like another character might fit you better. You can even play multiple characters. Although depending on the game it might be easier or harder to do.
Generally, I go for characters I like the aesthetic of or the moveset. Thinking about it however, I also feel this limits me to playing the same archetype of characters (in this case, they're almost always shotos & all primarily swordsmen/women) Akuma, Ky, Jin, Yu, Hyde, Yuzuriha,Goku, Trunks, Fukua, Jago, TJ Combo to list a few
This is a good conversation. The best character in a fighting game for me that fits all my boxes is Jin Kisaragi from Blazblue. Particularly Central Fiction. Arcana Heart 3 Saki was my first charge character. I played her because I liked how she looks and the combos looked fun. Then I learned she’s a charge character. Had to learn that shiz and I never played like that before. I play so much different characters in fighting games it’s weird. I play Metera and Ferry in Granblue. Seth is my UNI main. Most people I play check off the ‘looks’ box for me first. Aaand that’s usually how I end up maiming characters. Play styles are a big secondary to me. If I like how they look and like how the combos look, I will learn and adapt.
I need good mobility, a fast jump with a strong cross up normal, swaggy combos or mix ups, and explosive burst damage. Can be male or female as long as they look sick.
I hated KoF Athena growing up but I thought if I could annoy other people with PSYCHO BAAAAAAAAAAAAAALL and the like and get in their head then it was a win in my book. Years later and I genuinely enjoy using her and she's almost always in my team.
I like rushdown characters and characters with great movement options. In Melee I play Fox, in KoF98, mostly Benimaru/Iori and usually Terry, but I'm never 100% on him. In Skullgirls I play Valentine/Fukua/Filia. The most important characteristic for me is beeing able to move as freely and fast as possible on the screen
I have basically three things that makes me interested in playing a character: Flight mode. Love flight mode as a movement option, love it in combos for cancelling ect. It's good stuff. Violent aesthetic. Things that brutally just maim things, generally with random sharp objects, are fun as hell. Funny okizeme thing. Bonus points if it spins. I love okizeme setplay, and anything that puts a lasting hitbox over the opponent is my type of move. Examples of characters I love: Merkava, Firebrand, Jedah, Painwheel, Raven, Ridley. I wanted Carnage in MvCi so bad.
If you think about the long chain of interlocking relationships that connect the classical principles of "good cartoon design" to "good visual conveyance of game information" to "the gameplay design and properties of moves and movement" to "viable tactics available to the player" to "game strategy in the context of player-versus-player competition"... it's actually kind of insane that--as players--we can just eyeball a character's appearance and immediately start making some educated speculative guesses with ANY significant degree of accuracy about how that character is actually going to play. I feel like it's only fair to acknowledge that there can be validity in criticizing a fighting game for leaning too heavily on clichés, but I think it's juuuust about magic that we have this common language to communicate character archetypes through images and animation that can be relied upon by players and developers alike. Special shoutout to the immaculate Justin Wong new-game strategy of picking whichever character is wearing a cape: if any character in the game has a cape on, that character has best mobility in the game. You want good movement? Pick the character with the cape.
I usually pick up characters in games that I recognize and I can visualize their kit based off their appearance so to speak, such as I've mained Link since melee and played him in every smash game since melee. He can zone and rush down he's versatile. Street Fighter 4 and 5, Juri is the main, I play her for the same reasons I play Link in smash zone/rush down. DBFZ its all about Gogeta, Goku SSJ, and Broly(DBS)
I just recently picked up BBCF as my first 2D fighter after having played Smash since 64 and some 3D fighters very casually. Reason being cuz I thought I'd check it out and just loved how every characters has so much personality, and usually i pick an easy character i like to learn with (like Lars in Tekken or Mario). In Blazblue though, instead of learning with Ragna which I did try since he's easy, badass and I do like his play style. Instead, I'm learning with Tao, a high difficulty character. Why? I love absurd mobility in video games and she's just fun, plus I love the friendship between her and Ragna, it's so wholesome. I am also learning with Susanoo and I'm really enjoying the game.
i like big larg characters, but i also enjoy characters that are just bizzare to act and bizzare to use. these usually end up being the low tiers (pre-buff Majin Buu, for a good example), but i just love large weirdos
I always pick who looks cool and if i dont like em i move on to the next one. I love characters where my main option is to throw myself at people. I think Naoto Kurogane is the sickest character in any FG dash cancelling is the cool as shit and i love that shit.
I take a big survey of the cast and pick a few that I'm interested in aesthetically, then I go read about them and watch high-level matches of the character, and ultimately, and this is the biggest criteria: I choose a character whose win conditions I find fulfilling and rewarding. Will I feel good popping off after winning with them? Yes? CHOSEN
There's this character in Blazblue, ES, that I love her design, I love the look of her moves and I love a lot of things about her, but when I play her, I don't have as much fun as other characters, but I don't understand why. Sure sucks, because she is somewhat easy and she's good too.
I always just go for whoever looks the most appealing to me personally or has some moves I like and then check if they're not too complicated to pick up as a first character, but if I find out another character is even more sweet looking or fun to play, I move on to that character. For example: from Corrin to Terry in SSBU.
I like to be annoying. I like characters that don't rely on big/complex combos. I like ground mobility (or mobility in general). I like long normals (to annoy with). Vega is of course my prototype character (and the process is the inverse, actually, I picked Vega because he was a Spanish psycho ninja, then stayed for theg ameplay). But I often end up playing characters that have stuff like that in common: Remy and Elena in Third Strike, Faust in GG, Rose and Elena (and Vega too of course) in SFIV, Katalina in GBVS, Peacock/Double in SG...
I've realized recently that I always gravitate toward characters who leave some sort of object on the stage that can be interacted with. Urien in SF3/5 (Aegis Reflector), Ms Fortune/Beowulf in SG (head and The Hurting), Kokonoe in BB (Grav bomb things), Elphelt in Rev 2 (Grenade)
As a noob I pick my character like this: -Look up a difficulty tier list, so I can ignore everything but the 'easy' ones -sort the easy characters by how much I like them -try them out in practice from most to least coolest until I find one that has gameplay that 'clicks' with me and makes sense
That being said, in Tekken i tried out different characters for over 150 hours, ended up really liking Alisa. I tought I would be more into rushdown with counterhits, but Alisa has a lot of safe, long range pokes and very good movement. I just got Guilty Gear Xrd (I saw Giovanna in a trailer and wanted to play her, but she's new in strive, not in Xrd yet lol) and I play Ramlethal
Honestly, to me it just comes down to "What am I doing in game and how can a character help me achieve that?" I thought I liked playing shotos, but then I started giving characters like Bison, Zangief, and Dhalsim a try. I feel like I wasted time trying to force a playstyle I wasn't as interested in.
Aspects for me are characters I can vibe with. Mains I pick are Ky (GGrev2) Hyde (Uni), Jin (BB), Lancelot (GBVS), Taiga (Dfci). I'm guessing I like footies characters.
i fell in love with nanase's character design the moment i saw her, and she fit my playstyle Perfectly pom was a character who i saw and her character of not wanting to fight and being a puppet character was really fun to me, and i loved her ryougi shiki took me a bit to get into, but watching her movie series made me really get interested in playing her
Seeing this reminds me of how rivals of aether gave the option to upload your own character through the steam workshop somebody made a character that, fits my playstyle, pleases me visually and has a weird but likeable asthetic and somehow I couldn't get enough of playing rivals for a while even tho I didn't play THAT much before. Thanks to whoever made my perfect character xD
I typically try the cast out in untill I find something that clicks (Usually defensive non-specialist zoners). The order in which I try them is entirely dependant on character design however.
i never really liked the advice thats just "pick the easy character", and the easy characters would always be the super basic shoto/rushdown dante/ken looking guy. almost every single character i ever picked when i started off was either really low tier and or among the hardest characters to play but i just spent time learning the game and im just as good as anyone else. hell people always say they dont recommend new players to start off squigly but i had an easier time learning her than big band, im still terrible at e-brake resets.
The first character I pick is usually the female character that I think is the cutest because I'm weeb trash. Though occasionally I'll pick a male character first if the design is just super cool and appealing to me. Though often the first character I pick is never the character I stick with though. Partly because I always want to try other characters seeing something they do that's cool, though I always keep my first pick as a pocket. I also like and play a lot of charge characters, but I usually don't play charge characters in casuals just because I like moving my joystick and doing combos and feeling fancy.
If you are competitive player is way better pick a character based on your own personality, if you are very lame/defensive don't pick a rushdown character, you will struggle. Also pick toptiers or uppertiers
Like shotos, coolness, and mixups, so: Ken/Akuma in SF SSJ Goku and Cell (for mix/swag) in Fighterz Sol in Guilty Gear Dragunov in Tekken Big Band in Skullgirls Also its nice to have a command throw
On Smash, I play Kirby because he's my favorite Nintendo character. On Brawlhalla it's Jhala from her design & skins then her moveset and options and then her lore. On Street Fighter, Ken, after seeing EVO Moment 37 (what got me into fighting game). But if a SF has Poison, then it's gonna be her since she's my favorite character of all time and even a model of some sort. If I play Tekken 7 one day, it surely be Lilly from her design and I played her on SFxTK.
I chose Rise in P4AU cause of her DDR special was amazing, helped she was cute. She is now best girl to me in all of Persona thanks to how much I play as her
I think there are bunch of nuances there. For example, I dislike playing charge characters. I did the same thing you did, I played Chun Li on purpose in order to get that awkwardness out of my system. But, I discovered it's not about whether I'm comfortable with the control scheme, it's way more simple - I don't like playing charge characters in a mechanical sense:) It's not about feeling awkward about it or not being used to, it's about me really hating to hold down back while I'm jumping and things like that. I just don't like doing that. I also think there are layers to the "if you dislike the archetype, but like the character, play the character". With me, it's not about general archetypes. I don't see them as that much different and I can play any archetype, zoner, rushdown, some neutral guy, setplay, grappler, whatever. I see them as parts of a whole game with differently expressed mechanics and I don't have any inherent opposition to playing any archetype. But, I do have archetypes in terms of "feel" that I simply cannot play, regardless of my investment. For example, Dhalsim. When Menat came out, I really liked her and wanted to play her, but the floaty, startup-heavy normals and stuff were off-putting to me. But, I was like ok, let's rewire the brain through repetition. So, I played Menat for like 200 hours and no. Zero satisfaction there. Even though I LOVED the character. Every time I did jump in HP, I wanted to kill myself. My main problem is the grass being greener on the other side. If I absolutely adore the character both as a design and mechanically, I give myself like six months tops with that character. I managed to play Ibuki in sfv for like two years. But the last of those two years was filled with me glancing over to catch some sweet tenko combos and all Karin's costumes started to seem better than Ibuki's lol. it's just the way my brain functions, I guess and it's really annoying sometimes:)
I picked up SFV wanting to play Karin. She's beautiful, her theme is top tier, and she does the fucking ojou-sama laugh in her super. I got the game and no matter how much I practiced I couldn't do her command dash into the punch/shoulder consistently, so I tried another waifu, Cammy. It was better, but I was losing more than I liked so I thought to try out other characters and eventually landed on Urien, despite thinking I could never do charge moves. I still go back to Cammy just to mess around, her cowgirl outfit is SSS+ tier with those abs, but Urien is my guy and pretty much fits perfectly to me.
For me the biggest thing is just playstyle and how a character feels to use, and visual design / aesthetics are kind of secondary. Like, if we're going purely by aesthetics Potemkin is easily my least favorite character in Strive (he's still cool, I just like everyone else better), but I main him anyway because I just love having a big slow character with big dumb attacks.
Legit just dropped Zeta after 3 months of just not being able to get the character to work for me. I thought my Koihime netural and good DOA reads would help me here, but OOF, she ain't got Koihime buttons and the good reads don't get me anything. Changed to Djeeta and now I'm having fun on GBVS
When I first pick up a new fighting game I pick up a character that I like as a character based on lore/aesthetics/intro dialogue/ect that I would regret having never played otherwise at the end of the game's life with no reguard for game play. Then in a few weeks when I understand the game better I'll re-evalute and pick up a character that I want to play based on game play/tier/how they fit my style and a bit of the things I took into consideration picking my first main.
The only time I've ever found a "perfect" character where the stars aligned and I loved absolutely everything about a character was Kokonoe. I need more fighting games with science cats.
Waifus, monsters, or weird, trolly shit. Usually with simpler moves. Astaroth, Dhalsim, Big Band, Ridley, Potemkin, Yoshimitsu, Bullet, Samus, Ibuki, C. Viper, The Blob, Jubei, Shao Kahn, Voldo, Krillin, Raam, Hakumen, Kilgore, Taokaka, Oleander, Gon, Wii Fit Trainer, etc. Things I avoid: Ryu, Jago, El Fuerte, Abigail, Jin, Bang, Arbiter, Tager, Bison, Ranga, etc.
I like peacock and Faust for fun. Exception to faust but if its a serious game and u win with cocktail by zoni ng its like "good job you did exactly what the character is supposed to do"
I pick whoever's most alike to whatever main I have in my previous fighting game.. _Usually_ Grapplers, preferably fast moving (Bowser, Arizona, etc..) or high range (Astaroth, Hugo, etc.)
I tend to pick up characters based on either pure aesthetics and visual design (Leo Whitefang, BBCF Susanoo), or satisfying moves with lots of impact (BBCF Bullet, Susanoo). That, or if they're just gorilla-brained Unga Bunga big boys (Susanoo, DBS Broly) because I like not using my brain and letting my command grabs and Africa-sized hitboxes do the thinking for me.
A few years ago, there was a local MKX tournament where I live. Up until that time, I only played MKX extremely casually on Friday nights with a friend. I decided to pick whoever seemed cheapest, take them to 30 minutes of training + RU-vid combo tutorial and then 1 hour online to see if I can get wins. My first choice was Jax and I got bodied. My second choice was Covert Ops Sonya. Today, I'm pretty capable with most characters in MKX, but I've learned that I feel most comfortable with a rush-down + mixup character. That's why my main in MK11 is Sub-Zero and my secondary is Shao Kahn. I also tend to gravitate towards edgelords, which is why Testament is my favorite Guilty Gear character and Squiggly is my favorite Skullgirls character. Unfortunately, Squiggly doesn't fit my play style and I also suck at Skullgirls in general, so I'm unable to have fun playing it. I do enjoy watching tournaments, though. Despite my love for edgelords, I hate Noob Saibot. He may be too edgy for me.
While playing a bunch or fighting games growing up i never stuck with one and went against other people not on the sofa next to me until SF4. Picked Dan. He was funny, goofy, lots of silly things and crazy taunts, and i loved it. Got pretty good woth him (what i felt was good, anyway) and stuvk with him until Ultra. Tried SFV, didnt like it, left it early. Came back for SF6, hmmmm who to play. Picked up Jamie fkr same reasons as Dan back in the day. Really enjoying him so far. Having just started watching fighting game content again turns out theyre both supposed to joke characters that are bad lol. No wonder i suck at thw games haha
Honestly I don’t know why I choose certain characters because I started playing certain fighting franchises at different ages. As a kid I thought scorpion yelling get over here was cool in mk2. Noob saibots teleport in mk trilogy. By mk9 I was playing scorpion smoke sub ermac cage (love how he trolls the opponent) and noob. Mk11 it’s sub scorp noob Kano and shao. KI (90s and new one) I use sabrewulf and jago. Mvc2 I was all about captain America, Wolverine and spidey/strider. Sfv I still haven’t really found a character I enjoy but in sf3s I liked Dudley and Ken. Sf on switch was my first time really playing the franchise. I don’t really like sf that much . Dbfz I like cooler vegeta frieza and broly. And then when ggst comes out, I’m hoping they add Johnny. If not I’ll probably play chipp or Faust.
I can’t play charge characters AT ALL. I just can’t do the inputs especially in combos properly and i just can’t stand the feel of charge inputs. Which really sucks cause I fucking adore EVERYTHING else about balrog but I can’t bring myself to play him
I guess I'm weird af, because I will play and drop characters ENTIRELY on game feel and mechanics. I played MODOK, Bridgette, and Byakuya/Carmine because I like putting stuff on the field that combos and zones, and I played Tager, Waldstein and Potemkin because big throws/big buttons make dopamine in my brain. I suppose there might be a level of ugly or weird that would put me off a character, but it's waaaaaay more likely that something about their playstyle will make me hate them first.
I find the struggle characters, if they don't have an uphill battle connected with them, I ain't touching them. Tekken 7, Steve Fox, hey, guess what? I don't get to hit low unless I want to be punished EXTREMELY easily, but at least I got one of the lowest frames in the game back 1. UNIST, Akatsuki, in a roster filled with characters that can easily attack in the mid range I chose one of the 3 characters that don't, but guess what? At least I have a fireball. Skullgirls, one of my mains is Squigly, hey you know how most characters have consistency in their special moves? Fuck that, each special move is different. Smash Bros Ultimate, Yoshi...this is weird because the struggle just comes from not being able to get into elite, and I specifically don't play like normal Yoshi's, if you are anywhere in the map guess what? Egg throw.
