Video Game RPG Character Tropes

[Mollarom]

Maybe this will be a podcast someday.

I was playing Star Ocean 3 last night when I was confronted by the character Myuria. She was barely clothed and the jiggle was set to "Dead or Alive."

It reminded me of something Chibi had said in one of the podcasts referring to RPG character tropes, one of them being "breasts."

I thought it'd be interesting to outline the standard tropes, identify their key characteristics, and list which characters from which series fit the tropes.


Here are a few to start off with (I'll get back to this as work allows)

The Amnesiac - Cloud

The Boobs - She may have a story. She may kick ass. But don't kid yourself. She's eye candy.  Tifa, Myuria,

The Ace - What they lack in emotion, they make up in skill - Lightning,

The Smartass - Comic relief - Sazh

The Muscle - Hulk smash - Barret, Snow, Bacchus

The Kid - Battling the forces of darkness with uber-cuteness. Vanille, Lymle

[Azhrei Vep]

Maybe this will be a podcast someday.

I was playing Star Ocean 4 last night when I was confronted by the character Myuria. She was barely clothed and the jiggle was set to "Dead or Alive."

It reminded me of something Chibi had said in one of the podcasts referring to RPG character tropes, one of them being "breasts."

I thought it'd be interesting to outline the standard tropes, identify their key characteristics, and list which characters from which series fit the tropes.


Here are a few to start off with (I'll get back to this as work allows)

The Amnesiac - Cloud

The Boobs - She may have a story. She may kick ass. But don't kid yourself. She's eye candy.  Tifa, Myuria,

The Ace - What they lack in emotion, they make up in skill - Lightning, Arumat P. Thanatos

The Smartass - Comic relief - Sazh

The Muscle - Hulk smash - Barret, Snow, Bacchus

The Kid - Battling the forces of darkness with uber-cuteness. Vanille, Lymle

First: Fix'd

Second: The Dark Ally - Sure, he's on your side.  But he looks and sometimes acts like he belongs on the other side - Vincent Valentine, Arumat P. Thanatos (again), Albel Nox, Dias Flac

[Seraph]

I was gonna contribute something useful, but then I found this. So instead, I'm just going to take advantage of this topic to say that Bayonetta is a ridiculous game that revels in every terrible trope to ever grace a Japanese video game. It's great, and every single one of you should own (or at least rent) it.

Also, you should probably add "Japanese" to the title of this thread.

[Mollarom]

I tried the demo for Bayonetta, and while I definitely appreciated its Sega-ness, I couldn't bring myself to like it. There's only so much visual stimulation I can stand before my brain melts.

[Azhrei Vep]

I'm just going to take advantage of this topic to say that Bayonetta is a ridiculous game that revels in every terrible trope to ever grace a Japanese video game. It's great, and every single one of you should own (or at least rent) it.

Own it.  Love it.  Beaten every difficulty except the easy ones.  It's actually harder for me to play the easy modes than the hard one on that game.

It's easy to die when you fall asleep on the couch while playing..

[StingRay]

I believe Bayonetta is next on my GameFly Q.  I dismissed it early on both because I'm not that huge a fan of DMC-type games, and because it seemed on the insulting side of ridiculous.  I'm giving it another shot because of all the people saying it transcends the ridiculousness.

Some less Japanese tropes:

The Hard Ass - he doesn't need anybody or anything, he can do everything on his own, and he's only in the party (member or leader) because he has to be - Wrex, Sten
(can be mixed with the Dark Ally trope, a la Morrigan)

The Innocent One - the world can be saved through love and piety - Leliana, Aeris

[Azhrei Vep]

If you don't like DMC-style games, you're really not going to like Bayonetta, even if you were as into the over-the-top ridiculous silliness as I am (it is ungodly silly).  It's even made by a fair chunk of the same team (including the lead guy) as Devil May Cry.  It's essentially a more reckless version of DMC, in that it actually encourages you to throw yourself into the path of enemy attacks.

That took a lot of getting used to.  I'm a huge DMC fan.  I've played the everloving shit out of all three games, and it's hard to get into the mindset of "Oooh, an enemy's about to attack.  I should go toward him instead of away from him!"

[StingRay]

It's not that I don't like them.  In fact, I should probably just retract that entire statement and start over.  I never much cared for the Devil May Cry series.  I can't really put my finger on why, but they never interested me enough to get through them.  I really enjoyed God of War, as well as other hack-and-slash-brawler-type games.  Just not DMC.  So, since it sounds like Bayonetta is firmly tongue-in-cheek, I think I might enjoy it more.

[Neosect]

The Damaged Goods - The character who obviously is damanged from past relationships, mentally-ill AND functioning in varying levels or completely crazy.  (Vincent Valentine, Locke)

The Betrayer - Party member who betrays the party, potentially more than once and always promises to be good once let back in. (Kain, Leon)