They're in every fighting game, but Character Select menus don't get the credit they deserve. I look to fix that by telling you about some of the best and worst ones in fighting games. Twitter: / stumblebeetv Patreon: / stumblebee
Rivals of Aether has a full button check and handwarmer ability inside it's character select screen, it's incredible. You can move your character around, make sure analog deadzones and controls are set, and even practice against a stationary CPU all while on the CSS.
I feel like the character select screen is heavily underrated. When you see a good character selection screen, you don’t notice it, but when it’s bad, you do
As a boxer in real life, I always imagine myself in a character select screen. I listen to character select screen music to pump myself up for a workout or for sparring. These screens are super important because they are the connection I make to the characters
Bear in mind that its chronological. Base Vegeta is from the saiyan saga where he was still evil. Android 18 is based on her androids saga appearance in Z but later she and 17 become good and his appearance is from Super, as evidenced by his ranger shirt.
One correction. With Injustice 2, the character's "personality" animations don't show until AFTER you've picked your character, which makes that a part of the versus screen, not character select.
Amazing point about how a good character select screen that informs new players about the characters and their strengths and playstyle does way more for new players than simplifying gameplay mechanics. So many developers seem to be focusing on simplifying mechanics than making better products. The biggest sin of fighting games... is that they are usually poorly made products.
That's not just the character select screen. BBTAG yeeted out everything that made BB and the other franchises cool in favor of overly simple controls and half the buttons typically in the main games.
My first experience with blazblue was bbtag and I only got it because it was for 5 dollars... I got it on the Nintendo switch that now suffers joy con drift. So I can't choose my mains. Vatista and Merkava.
The year is 5381, and this video has now been deemed obsolete due to the existence of the perfect character select screen and music that all fighting game developers use.
Kazuya in Tekken is a terrible example of a good character to learn the game with for a beginner XD That one stuck out like a sore thumb among the other actual beginner characters
I’m guessing that Nintendo designed Ultimate’s select screen that way because they knew ahead of time that they’d be adding a ton of DLC fighters. And the easiest way to do that without reshuffling all the characters (more work for the UI designers) and screwing with people’s muscle memory (more player frustration) would be to simply add them all to the bottom, and then come up with “order of appearance” as a convenient way to mask this for marketing. I’m not saying it’s the perfect solution, but anything that makes it easier for more characters to be added to the game turns out better for everyone, no?
They already had to create a character select screen for each unlockable character combination, so I don't see how adding additional versions for the dlc would create a significant more amount of work. Especially since the first dlc pack only brought Piranha Plant and Byleth as characters with their series already in Smash, the others could just be tagged onto the end.
Short C. Button That’s exactly my point. Look at 8:12 for Smash 4’s screen. Look at how Mewtwo isn’t with Pikachu, and how Corrin is separate from the Fire Emblem characters. It’s not as organized as this author is trying to claim, and Nintendo probably realized this. They saw that their initial “group everyone by franchise” plan for Smash 4 would’ve required too much UI work + reshuffling whenever a DLC character was added, so for the next game, they reasoned the best tradeoff between organization and ease would be grouping by order of appearance. Even if it’s a bit obscure, it’s still more universally organized than Smash 4’s screen.
Tyra: winks & kiss Gisele Heidi: walks with both hands on her waist Adriana/Bratz doll Alessandra the fox Karolina: Swan Lake face. She opened that pass in 2007 show. They didn't play Swan Lake song but she has a beautiful bird/Aves face Odette
Something i actually just noticed for the first time when you were talking about third strike is that player 1 and 2 both start on the main beginner flagship characters of the game newcomer Alex and classic Ryu, that way the principle of starting on a pick up and play character still applies.
Most they removed was button testing and separating the roster by archetype. (Though, the archetypes are still displayed, so it's not too huge a loss.) All the rest of the information is kept
Rivals and Skullgirls probably have my favourite select screens. Really readable and loaded with quality of life features like button checks or the ability to select colour presets with button combinations for quick access rather than scrolling.
Just to add to the whole music discussion, music on the select screen goes a long way to get me to enjoying the game. The original Tekken Tag Tournament has one of the best select themes ever made since it does such a great job of hyping me up for the fight, that and it goes with the visuals pretty well.
A Yellow Yoshi I really liked Smash Ultimate’s menu song at launch, but now it gets annoying. And I can’t change it without completing the World of Light campaign, which I have no interest in doing anymore cause i got stuck & had to start over. :/
If you want to talk music, while the character select screen isn't as good at showing other aspects of the character, Them's Fightin' Herds gives you a character select screen whose music changes as you highlight each character (and modifies it differently based on player 1 or player 2 highlighting a character). Those instruments used in character select are also used to modify the music in a match if you have a big lead, too.
I think maybe to new players, Smash Ultimate's character select screen may be hard to read, but as someone who at least played Smash 4, It's saved me an extraordinary amount of time, since I don't have to try and remember where a franchise was, it also makes it easier for 1-off characters.
You would have to have played every game and kept track of the when the DLC came out to know where everyone is to find any given character, as opposed to just finding the big pool where that character's series, and then just stick the one-offs at the end. Mildly shuffling everything to add new characters that happen to be part of old franchises would hardly be an issue, though that's largely because that happened once so far out of six DLC characters.
@@hoodedman6579 they've never 'just stuck the one-offs' at the end, though. A character select screen needs to fit within a certain space, so they typically keep characters from the same series in one solid chunk (usually a single row or column), and one-offs are tacked onto the free spaces to fill out the rest of the screen so as to not break up other series chunks. I certainly get the point towards sorting by series and I think that's an easier method for a total newcomer (which is important to consider, since that's the person you need to sell on the game!), but sorting by release date does have its benefits nonetheless imo.
If we're talking about character select music I'd like to highlight Mario Kart Wii. The music builds up as you go through the menus, telling new players that they're going in the right direction while building tension for experienced players.
Character select screens are criminally underrated imo plus my favourite one is Kof 13's character select screen specifically the artwork,music and the outfit/color select for your character
@@johnny4941 yes I agree same goes for Blazblue as when Blazblue came out the only thing Steert Fighter 4 was better against Blazblue was roster and popularity and it was only played coz it's Capcom as most of capcom fans are double standards the people who picked BlazBlue over were called people with no taste and when Kof 14 came out they made fun of it's graphics by calling it a PS2 game but when MVCI came out they defended it due to it's gameplay which shows how of a double standards they are as they couldn't take DBFZ taking their spot
@@johnny4941 I also feel they are underrated in America but SNK games and characters are really popular in countries such as Mexico Brazil and Pakistan
@@saadhasan2518 Yes I know they are popular in those countries. I feel they are not talked about much in these videos about fighting games. I remember seeing a video on the Hardest Bosses and the person didn't include any from SNK, the very company that gave rise to the term SNK Boss Syndrome
I actually prefer Smash Ultimate's character screen for finding characters that are the single rep in their franchise. In smash 4 I could find myself lost in the screen trying to find a specific character because I had no idea where they are but in Ultimate I just have to think "Character was introduced in brawl, I just have to go to the general Brawl area and go from there". But yeah it does making finding characters in franchises with a lot of reps harder
Agreed, it's a layout that works to the longtime Smash veterans' benefit. The only thing that annoys me is I get tripped up when a new DLC fighter gets added because while the order remains the same, the layout changes. I had a character I use go from one side of the screen to the other.
Right. We could definitely have some sorting options added in, but the structure being based around the appearance of characters and stacking echoes means that even playing or watching one prior Smash game gives you a good idea of where to look. The echo part can be a bit confusing for Dark Samus vs Dr Mario and odds are people don't know the franchise everyone is from but it is a good structure to start with. DLC and unlockables (don't forget we unlock most characters and the order can vary greatly) do scramble things so you will be relearning the menu for the lifespan of the game to a limited degree.
I think he just asumed he was beginner friendly, but Tekken is actually an outlier where all of the Mishima's require good execution, both to play and master Kazuya also lacks tools that almost every other character has, such as a launching df2 and a generic df1 If anything, he's a specialized character that relies on 50/50 and whiff punishment with electric, so someone you shouldn't really start with unless you really like him
I really like “Them’s Fightin’ Herds” Character Select Screen Mostly because of the music The CSS theme has a base beat, and when you hover over a character their instrument is added to the beat. The same goes for player 2 and it feels like a cool 2.5 person band. This is probably easier to do because the roster size is small with 6 characters but it’s so fun the listen to nonetheless. And it feels like you’re travelling the world (or even their world) with each character having their own instrument that is from somewhere on this earth.
Love your content. Ever since the beginning. You cover fighting games in a way many don’t and we can appreciate them through your vids even if we’re not big fighting game experts.
Funny you would talk about STRIVE's character select screen when it was recently announced we would get a new one in the CBT. Honestly though, all the info available directly on the select screen is just the greatest touch. Hope it keeps all its clever design elements in the the new version!
God fucking damn it, I still can't get over the fact that they just had CBT in big letters with no context for a solid 3 seconds before the words closed beta test came down.
Eyy, _there's_ that upload! Great work. Thoughts: While you spoke on the "function" of a select screen, I feel like we shouldn't ignore the "form" of one either. While I do agree that Strive presents it's information better than most, me and many other surely agree that how it _looks_ isn't "in tone" with the franchises core artstyle (something something Mario Tennis). On a slight tangent, but this reminds me of the _slew_ of screenpacks and lifebars and such with the Mugen scene. Real deep rabbit hole if you ever find yourself interested. Can't wait for your next showing. Stay safe, and wash those hands! Good stuff as usual
Music in Character Select screens are very important. My favorite FG DBFZ has theme that represents the game and the legacy the characters have. It’s very welcoming.
Opinion: SFV has a really bad character select, all the characters are nearly grayed out so its really hard to tell where each character is, on top of each icon being really small so its just naturally hard to see a character in a dark 60x30 pixel rectangle, and their idol animations don't give you much to go off of personality wise. If there were stats or a more interesting portrait for each character it would go a long way in making it better, as well as obviously more readable icons from afar. Also, I had never thought about it but you're right ultimate's select is a mess for someone who isn't a big smash fan. Great video, Stumblebee! You're improving a lot!
Apart from organizing Ultimate’s character selection screen by order of appearance in Smash, I think the Smash team also wanted to encourage casual players to explore the screen and avoid sticking to one franchise they recognize. Sakurai has said the team’s #1 goal with Ultimate was getting every character from the series onto the roster, so naturally they want to encourage everyone to play with all the characters, not just a select few. This may also explain why Ultimate doesn’t have “sticky” character select (though that’s not a great excuse for removing something so convenient).
Ssbu is supposed to be a celebration of how far the series has come. I honestly really love that. The problem is that a newcomer to the series would have no idea why Mario and Piranha Plant are in different places.
12:31 thank you for featuring my CSS, I worked hard on that one with the full diamond because holy shit BBTag's CSS sucks, although you covered my favorite part where I snuck in a character I wanted in the game that unfortunately isnt
I love that you are giving a big appreciation to the CCS, it’s on of my favorite parts of fighting games and the thing that usually gets me excited to play a match, especially with the versus screen that play some super hype music! Like with fighterZ at the current moment, it’s shows you which character you are fighting against along with what assist they run, plus the awesome guitar solo that plays gets me hype every time!
In fairness to Ultimate, as a long time player who has all the games to heart, I know from memory when each character came in, and where along that line they should be.
lmao RIP to how much you liked the old strive css. The release one is still solid, giving you both a 1-5 difficulty rating and a hint at their style, but that old one gave way more info even if it was a bit uglier.
Strive's final menu handles this well in that it tells you what a character's deal is with a simple description that introduces you to them and what they want to do, and even ranks how easy they are to use with a 5-star rating system. The balanced characters like Sol, Ky, Leo and May are in the middle with more gimmicky characters and dlc further away
As someone who spent a lot of time making Mugen menus I appreciate this. UIs are an underrated art form. Though given Mugen's nature I didn't really do shit with character organization, that's all on the user but most people I see have their own way of organizing and I love seeing it.
I was talking to a friend about character select screens about 2 weeks ago. I feel Fighterz was Soo close to being perfect in having alignment x saga. I didn't notice that about 3S so I gotta check it out. I kinda like BBTag Layout but understand how unappealing it can be.
Vanilla SF4, MvC 1 AND 2, Capcom vs SNK 2 with the narrator, Saint Seiya Sanctuary PS2, Tatsunoko vs Capcom(both versions), Smash Melee, Dissidia FF and SF Alpha 1 and 2 are some of my favourites, really pump you up. Bloody Roar Fatal Fury has a damn good theme as well.
4:08 this is true for all the examples except for kazuya cause of how much execution and knowledge of the game you need to be good at him compared to other tekken7 characters
5:20 Fighting Herds' character select theme changes depending on which characters are being selected.. The character player 1 is hovering over dictates the overall melody, while the character player 2 is hovering over gives accompaniment and tempo. It blew my mind just how good Fighting Herds' sound design is in general. Especially when in-game the winning player hijacks the background track.
Ok Smash 4’s character select isn’t as good as you think. DLC characters had to be just tacked on, even though some of the characters were returning veterans (ie Roy, Mewtwo). Also, a lot of characters were NOT apart of their series. Clones like Dr Mario, Lucina, and Dark Pit were for separated for being clones, and characters like Little Mac had to be randomly inserted due to only having one rep
Hooded Man I think Ultimate made the right call. It’s not perfect, but the roster got too large (shown by Smash 4) and using the numbers for the characters really made sense for the type of game that Ultimate is. Smash 4 was designed poorly but it was an uphill battle for that game.
I'm glad you shined a light on this, man. A simple rectangular box is sometimes just the best way to convey your characters to the player, but so many games try to go for an overly-artstic style that just ends up taking away from it. One of the ones I hate are the select screens that go for the honeycomb (hexagon) look, which just confuses you as you're moving your cursor in a zigzag formation instead of a straight line.
*Shows Vega when cutting off ass.* - nice Shout-out to character select screens that don't show dlc characters, unless that character is bought. An ugly lock or shopping cart on the select screen just sucks.
Another underrated aspect of the MvC2 select screen is that its the only fighter ive played who's announcer positively responds to your selections. Just something about the way the guy says "Good decision!"; "Awesome!"; and "Just what i expected!" always stuck with me. Its been 10 years since ive played that game and i still remember the words of encouragement from The Character Select Homie
One of my absolute favorite things about smash 64’s css in particular is how the characters got their own little animation when you picked them and changed their color especially for a low poly game like that I wish it could be done more often if not always it was real cute Also what in the fresh hell was that game at the very end I can’t help but be curious
I like it when character select screens show characters in real time. Tekken Tag Tournament and Tekken 6 for example, you pick your character then that badass announcer says out their name as your character strikes a pose, forms their stance, ready to fight, really adds to the tournament vibe of the game, like, playing Tekken 6 in the arcade for example you and your opponent picks each other's characters, seeing them strike a badass pose ready to fight on that large led screen surrounded by people. Add to that the kickass soundtrack that accompanies it. Kinda wish Tekken 7 went that route as well, they should do it with Tekken X Street Fighter.
Killer Instinct really fucked this by having a vague shadow until you take the time to "load" the character. Many news players just get turned off because they can't even see their character in the small boxes,and have to load everytime to see what it looks like.
"If you dont notice the well made product, then it's Good design. If you notice the issues immediately, then it's bad design" An important lesson you learn in design courses
Can you do a video analysis on why modern anime arena fighters bad, because I agree, quality has gone out the window lately (looking at you Bandai Namco)
Freefork yeah, I remember seeing that games reveal trailer and being hyped, than I saw gameplay and thought jump force. That took away any and all want to play that
People *defend* the BBTAG CSS. They say they like how it’s sorted. They also ignore that you can’t see half the cast, and the biggest problem, every time the roster is increased, they move around some characters. Just look at where characters like Susano’o or Elizabeth are placed. And considering the game seems to be done with support,(?) I guess we’re stuck with this. Also, I can see why you like Strive’s CSS, but it just is not visually appealing to me. I feel like the ‘archetype boxes’ don’t look good, and are redundant with the 2-word playstyle you brought up. I do hope they’re cut for full versions of the game.
I think they'll probably pretty them up a little bit for the final release, but I think what's more important is that when the screen is filled out with a bunch of colorful character icons the big amounts of white space are filled out, so it doesn't look as... unfinished as it kind of does now.
Being split based on when they were introduced to the series makes perfect sense for fans of the series who would know whether a character is from melee or ultimate
I feel like KoF should have been mentioned a little more than it was for its character select screen. It's a team based game, and the characters are all next to their team mates, as if the team itself was a character, but you can pick each character a la carte.
Kazuya definitely isn't an accessible character. In fact, if there's any character you don't want to pick as someone unfamiliar to Tekken, it's Kazuya.
Katarina, Noctis, Eddy. All have a lot of crushing, range and built in movement in their attacks. The Mishimas are the least beginner friendly characters. And Gigas
You don't need to learn PEWGF to functionally play the character. Kaz is just fine for beginners. The Mishimas teach the fundamentals of Tekken at a base level and have some of the most straightforward, limited movesets. Having a character that has a low skill floor and high skill ceiling is perfect for the starter character.
Freefork thats actually interesting for the bears. Because I feel like people playing the game for the first time see those bears and are like, “oh bear, fuck yeah” so kind of a good design to have a character like that be easy friendly
Capcom vs Snk 2 has the best character select screen in my opinion because I love how they talk you while your picking your characters and hyping you up, their lil portraits are small but still look so dam cool and it's one of the few select screens I think would be such a badass poster.
the point of nostalgia in a fighting game is when after so long watching and hearing the select screen your mind transports you a million memories, it is one of the best experiences. and even many people haven't realized that.
The April Fools joke was when he said Kazuya will give you the best shot at learning Tekken, when Mishimas are so different from the rest of the Tekken cast that the first thing new players are told is to either only play them, or never play them, until they get better at the game.
While I’ve never had an issue finding characters in Smash Ultimate since I’ve been a fan for years and know who debuted in which entry, I can’t say the same for the stage list. I still have trouble finding some of the legal stages when I have to actively search for them.
My absolute favorite character select screen is the rivals of aether select. While not a triple A fighter it has everything you mentioned that's good. Characters of similar series together, start on the easy to play character while still showing all fighters at once. But the best part is that your player portrait has the ability to change controls and has its own little button check area when picking a character so you know if you like the character before you get into the match. It's honestly pure genius
My favorite part of character select screens from 5th Gen/Early 6th Gen fighting games is... When you scroll the cursor OUTSIDE the screen to access the unlocked hidden characters, and the cursor literally disappeared from the screen. Games like the Tekken trilogy, Critical Blow, Power Stone (1999), Street Fighter EX Plus Alpha, Star Gladiator Episode 1: Final Crusade, and Fighting Vipers duology are examples of those kinds of Character Select Screens.
i honestly think that Capcom VS SNK 1 select screen is gorgeous. it may not follow a lot of rules presented here, but boy it is beautifull, and not complicated to use once you know what you're doing.
