• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

show me the absolute WORST character design you can think of

Damn it, I was rushing to post Camilla too.

But yeah, Fire Emblem Fates has lots of dumb shit for women, most, if not all, on the Nohrian side too.

I meam this:

134.jpg


is the standard model for female cavaliers and it sticks with them through promotion to Paladin. Hell it happens with female Knights -> Generals and Dark Knights too.

Good God, thanks for reminding me how much I despised some of the clothing for females in Fates. The female Nohr Noble class for Corrin is just as abysmal. Wish it was't so common. T_T
 
Quoting this again so the maybe a top page post will finally get people to realize that this is actually a good design with full justification.


Because the designer knew their mythology and art history. ;)
Diana/Artemis of Ephesus (1st century AD):

Artemis_of_Ephesus%252C+1st+c.+CE+Roman+copy.jpg


Villa d'Este Diana Fountain (16th century):

1451-Villa%20d%27Este-fountain%20of%20Diana.JPG


Peter Paul Rubens (early 17th century):

25mythol.jpg


Diana wasn't just the goddess of the hunt but also of nature and fertility. ;)
 

Cirerus

Member
A lot of stuff in the first page is great, and I agree with it all. The OP is fantastic... I thought that character design is just terrible.

But...



... what's wrong with this? I don't see anything wrong with it.

She used to be that fearless femme fatale woman and that was cool. Now she is just an generic pretty white woman who gets hurt a lot.
 
Going to hazard a guess that you're a straight guy? Because it's been pointed out numerous times that as an objective piece of character design, the Dante we got in the final game was hot as hell. Now, he might not be your type (he is very college twink looking which isn't to everyone's taste), but there's no denying he's a sexy guy.

I'm guessing, filthy, greasy teenagers is your fetish or something? You just keep going on and on about it and calling people who don't share your fetish sexist homophobes.
 
She used to be that fearless femme fatale woman and that was cool. Now she is just an generic pretty white woman who gets hurt a lot.
That has nothing to do with her visual design though (which does have a different problem - she never makes a fur or leather coat despite killing and skinning animals and constantly complaining about how cold it is)
 

Cirerus

Member
So she is a believable adequately proportioned and non-sexualized female lead and that's a bad thing?

And that is not necessarily good things either. Having a cartoon-like body or sexual connotation are only bad when this is the only way which females characters are represented.

My problem is to pick a beloved character and change everything appealing about it. Why not create a new one?
 

kami_sama

Member
That has nothing to do with her visual design though (which does have a different problem - she never makes a fur or leather coat despite killing and skinning animals and constantly complaining about how cold it is)

It's not like you ca use the animal's skin just after skinning it. You need to prepare it before you can wear it. If you didn't, she'd wear bloody skin over her clothes.
 
Damn it, I was rushing to post Camilla too.

But yeah, Fire Emblem Fates has lots of dumb shit for women, most, if not all, on the Nohrian side too.

Eh, there are some decent ones:


Well, er, one, at least. Given Beruka always comes in tow with Camilla and has nearly identical stats, I wonder if she's there specifically for people who don't like Camilla's design.

As a side note, most of the generic portraits are pretty good. I wish the actual character portraits were more in line with those:


At least you can capture and brainwash convince them to join your team.
 

Archtreyz

Member
New Lara is aces. Super believable design and her character arc is decent. Old Laura was bland. The only personality she had was being british.
 

Freddo

Member
Japanese female character design: the thread. If most Japanese devs would try designing their females as actual people instead of fuck toys to be stared at by pervs their designs would be more likeable and relatable. Ironically I think Terra from FFVI is probably my most beloved female character design of all time, tasteful and beautiful with an underlying sense of tragedy and sadness chased with divine power to her, but it just seems like Japanese female character design has regressed heavily since the 90's.
Yeah, I agree. It would be a nice surprise to see some mature designs for females in Japanese games.
 

Spman2099

Member
The biggest thing I learned in this thread is there's a good reason most here don't design characters for a living.

There are a few posters who chose solid designs that they just had a bone to pick with. Also, a few other posters picked characters that aren't necessarily poorly designed, but have clearly contentious elements (or are just super far out there). However, the majority of the designs that have been posted here are just super bad.
 
I really hate PS360Wii era JRPG character designs.

These are all from different games. They look like FFX NPCs. Everyone is completely overdesigned, and it lacks any sense of artistic or thematic cohesion. I can't tell anything about the characters or the world they inhabit. Compare this to something like Final Fantasy VII, a game where you instantly get a sense of the character's personality and the atmosphere of the world simply from their designs. Even something like FFXV, a game often criticized for its artistic direction, still manages to convey a sense of the game's setting and atmosphere. These pictures are just visual gibberish. The faded color palette does it no favors either.

What in the hell, Dunban (Xenoblade) is a fantastic design and not overdone at all.

latest


Can't agree with your blanket statement because you lumped him in with it; his default outfit fits very well with the character (the sword cape being used to cover his damaged former sword arm in particular is a nice touch) and the world it takes place in, unlike the other equippable gear sets you get later on which do get silly.

The folks who posted stuff like Drake and the 99 Dragons, Nooj in X-2, Aero the Acrobat and that Streetwise Cody skin on the other hand, are dead on. Those are really nonsense designs because they either don't fit or are just so unappealing that even if they do, you don't want to look at them.
 

Gunblade47

Neo Member
Spyro going from

Spyro_the_Dragon_%28character%29.JPG


to

latest


And Vaan:

latest


But thankfully they're gonna change those brick abs soon.

Let's also not forget that wonderful moment when they decided to take this adorable little bird from FF13:

latest


And turn it into:
latest

In the later games because of reasons that to this day still elude me.
 
I feel this one has been posted already?
SLUUQsG.jpg



Also Vaans character design isn't that bad, his model is which is a different concept in my brain.
 

Akai__

Member
343i has some terrible redesigns (1st row: Grunt, Jackal and Elite) and some horrible new ones (2nd row: Watcher, Crawler and Knight):

Ub61bdR.png


Absolutely hate what they have done to the Bungie designs.

The 2nd row is also exactly what it looks. Not fun to fight against.
 

SomTervo

Member
Nooj from FFX-2.

nduQXCP.jpg


Here you go. What do I win?

The more one looks at this... the more... just... ugh

I'm outraged at the lack of Quiet.

I guess I don't consider her design itself terrible; it's the context, animation and "lens" that makes her really problematic.


This is brilliant

They let you shoot him in one of the expansion packs. It's amazing.

Props to Monolith for creating the most hateable character in gaming.

...

*reinstalls FEAR*

*installs expansions for the first time*
 

RRockman

Banned
Any other examples? The SO2 guy just looks like a cleaner and more modern art style with the same design.

That's pretty much it.


A poster with both styles. The unseen characters in the bottom are still in the game but the the guy who made the poster didn't put them on.

Some fans prefer the old look and think the new one is to "generic". My only falt with the new artstyle is that Rena, the girl (with the moon symbol in her hair) got deaged with the new style. I think everyone else ESPECIALLY Claude is serviceable.
 
Ya'll harping on Nooj, but have you seen literally any other PS2-era Nomura design? They're all terrible. Look at this shit:



From The Bouncer. Yes, this character is supposed to be a bouncer like you would see in a bar. He has a 10lb weight chained to his neck.


On top of the fact that it looks like grown-up "edgy" Sora...

0401568b69680c9d82b29e30e00424da.jpg
 

Aurongel

Member
She used to be that fearless femme fatale woman and that was cool. Now she is just an generic pretty white woman who gets hurt a lot.
She was always the latter. At least now she's the least exploitative she's ever looked. Lara Croft's design has been a slow curve upwards.
 

Forkball

Member
What in the hell, Dunban (Xenoblade) is a fantastic design and not overdone at all.
I'll give you Dunban, I do think he's the best design out of everyone I posted.
On top of the fact that it looks like grown-up "edgy" Sora...

0401568b69680c9d82b29e30e00424da.jpg

Bouncer guy came first. In fact, if I'm remembering correctly, Sora is supposed to be an amalgamation of several Nomura-designed characters including Mr. Bouncer (that's his name, right?). There are also some blatant references to The Bouncer in KH1 I believe.
 

PillarEN

Member
Norton Mapes from F.E.A.R.
Fuck everything about this guy

But he's perfect for what he is. Incredibly hate-able which is the whole purpose.

I feel this one has been posted already?
SLUUQsG.jpg



Also Vaans character design isn't that bad, his model is which is a different concept in my brain.

Oh my lol. this really is bad. If you want to go trashy, go trashy. But this makes it look like she has no brain and forgot how to put on her clothes.
 
Top Bottom