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Are secret characters not a thing anymore?

It's really a combination of the internet ruining all the fun, and publishers thinking showing everything up front will most likely net them a sale more easily.

EDIT: And yes, of course DLC.
 
I dislike secret unlockable charafters in fighting games. The worst parts of my Vanilla SFIV/MvC3 and TatsunokovCapcom/Brawl experiences was taking the games to a friends' place to play and having 1/4 of the roster locked behind too long unlock conditions.

It used to not be a problem back in the day because memory cards existed and were easy to carry. Nowadays, with saves being account-locked or not as simple to transfer, I appreciate a dev that lets me not waste time and jump into Versus mode with the full cast.
 
thetrin said:
They're pretty much our only hope, since they've always believed in secrets being a central part of an active community. I love that side of them.
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Agreed.

Now, the only thing I would wish that they would change? Doing things like forcing me to play their 5 hour story mode just to unlock the likes of Cyber Sub and Quan Chi. My ideal solution would have been to offer multiple means to unlock the characters, be they on a successful completion of the Arcade Ladder a piece, or a secret code sequence that the internet would eventually get wise about that would at least unlocked the characters for play for that particular play sequence (re: until hard reset).

I mean, I'm all for NRS maintaining their secrecy and various other elements for the sake of fun. But especially now, with the way that they're vying for the competitive stage? It might be nice to have some elements that would play directly to that crowd, as well.

Boss Doggie said:
Wait, people criticizes MK9's dev because they weren't going full blast on reveals?!
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It's true. Go to any Injustice topic on this very forum, and you can find a number of examples.
 
TreIII said:
Agreed.

Now, the only thing I would wish that they would change? Doing things like forcing me to play their 5 hour story mode just to unlock the likes of Cyber Sub and Quan Chi. My ideal solution would have been to offer multiple means to unlock the characters, be they on a successful completion of the Arcade Ladder a piece, or a secret code sequence that the internet would eventually get wise about that would at least unlocked the characters for play for that particular play sequence (re: until hard reset).

I mean, I'm all for NRS maintaining their secrecy and various other elements for the sake of fun. But especially now, with the way that they're vying for the competitive stage? It might be nice to have some elements that would play directly to that crowd, as well.
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I agree with this post 100%.
 
TreIII said:
It's true. Go to any Injustice topic on this very forum, and you can find a number of examples.
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I blame the ADHD-like nature of people wanting more :(

And yeah, I wish more devs would put multiple routes on unlocking characters.
 
This reminds me a bit when Tekken 3 (Arcade) would have Time Release characters and stuff, where after X amount of days, a new character (or whatever else) would be unlocked on the game.

Unless you hacked the board, you had no idea what might pop up apart from a Coming Soon screen that only showed who was coming next.
 
Sushigod7 said:
Thanks for the spoiler tutorial you added so much to the thread

On topic I haven't been surprised by a character in a game for a long time I actually can't remember a current game where that's happened at all.
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Actually that's pretty important because I saw the spoiler totally forgetting Assassin's Creed III was out and I'm waiting for the Wii U version. If it was labeled appropriately, that would have avoided that situation.
 
I still have my certificate of authenticity for Mew, snagged from an event.

All bases covered in this thread. Spoilery internet, DLC, Marketing, consumer disinterest (in unlocking shit). There's a number of reasons we don't see as much unlockable shit in games these days.
 
Dr. Feel Good said:
catchmew8.gif


Miss secrets like this.
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For real, and secrets like Zelda actually being Sheik, that was dope!
 
TreIII said:
You know it's a sign of the times when even one of the "critiques" for Netherrealm's MK9 and upcoming Injustice is that they dare to *gasp* take their sweet time unveiling their contents of their rosters, because they prefer to maintain some degree of secrecy and keep people guessing.

If it weren't for people data-mining the website and pre-release MK9 demo, NRS likely would have been just fine letting some things about the game remain a secret until release/post-release. Much less hidden unlockables through regular play like Cyborg Sub Zero. I wonder if this means that NRS will attempt to "defy" the internet even more so now with Injustice as a result.
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For fighting games it's an issue though. Not everyone can afford to drop $60 without knowing EXACTLY what they're paying for.
 
TreIII said:
You know it's a sign of the times when even one of the "critiques" for Netherrealm's MK9 and upcoming Injustice is that they dare to *gasp* take their sweet time unveiling their contents of their rosters, because they prefer to maintain some degree of secrecy and keep people guessing.

If it weren't for people data-mining the website and pre-release MK9 demo, NRS likely would have been just fine letting some things about the game remain a secret until release/post-release. Much less hidden unlockables through regular play like Cyborg Sub Zero. I wonder if this means that NRS will attempt to "defy" the internet even more so now with Injustice as a result.
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unlockable/hidden characters in competitive fighting games is stupid. Can you imagine going to a tourney and not having a char unlocked that you mained? Or what about if you want to go over somebody house and session and they don't have it unlocked because they don't care about the character?

If you want to have a non-competitive fighter then go ahead. But NRS wants to make a competitive fighter and it would be in their best interest to have all of them available at the start.
 
Remember in one of the Rogue Squadron games for N64? They had one of those yellow naboo fighters hidden in the game for at least months before the prequel even came out. I don't remember the timeline exactly, I want to say the game came out a year before hand... but I had already beaten the game and put it away and forgot about it and then much later I remember reading on IGN that there was a code to unlock it and freaked out. That was pretty great.
 
NeonZ said:
The issue with TTT2 is that unlocking a bunch of irrelevant stuff isn't enough of a "hook" to most people. They also had the completely misguided idea of centering the game's main "single player" mode on a big tutorial with Combot. The result of all those decisions is showing in its sales. They can only market it as "Here's a new Tekken tag fighting game!" and as such it's looking like it's going to do significantly worse than T6 worldwide. The fanbase is responding well, but everyone else doesn't seem to care...
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While I agree on the lack of single player content, putting some unlockable characters wouldn't have changed anything. Tekken has become too big, too cryptic and too frightening for the average player, that's his main problem. Maybe they should've used a different business model, but that's a subject for another thread.
 
Do it like Rock Band. Have a mode where you input a secret button code to unlock every character and disable achievements/saving for that session. Let people who care more about single player content to unlock it the normal way. And let the people who care about playing competitively do so too.
 
FSLink said:
Do it like Rock Band. Have a mode where you input a secret button code to unlock every character and disable achievements/saving for that session. Let people who care more about single player content to unlock it the normal way. And let the people who care about playing competitively do so too.
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That's a pretty good idea, actually.
 
LiK said:
it would be nice if the devs/pubs themselves didn't reveal them. and yes, the internet is pretty good at finding them fairly quickly.
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I remember rouge squadron on the n64 having a hidden ship from the phantom menace, which wasn't found until they revealed after the movie came out like 6 months later. They even hid it from gamesharks that can dig into the code for all kinds of stuff.
 
I remember EGM's near-monthly update on some new secretly hidden character in Mortal Kombat. Yes, the Noob Saibot Chronicles.

So while it wasn't as immediate as the internet made it, there were magazines and fanzines going after it to find them and reveal them. Also, the net did exist in some form, and I remember trying to figure out if you could glitch or legit your way into getting Leo into your party on Prodigy Internet Bulletin Boards for Final Fintasy 3/6.
 
Ahasverus said:
Jeanne in Bayoneta is the last I remember
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I think Jeanne was pretty obvious as a secret character

I still don't know who or what the fuck zero was about on the other hand.

It was like platinum just thought fuck it and made a random character doodle playable. He doesn't fit in the games style in any way shape or form.
 
I usually like some characters being hidden so it forces me to play as and warm up to the starting roster, but there are times where it just feels dumb. Like heavily advertising Snake and Sonic being in Brawl, having their stages unlocked from the start yet having both characters themselves 'hidden'. Obviously most people know better but I can imagine some kids initially being upset or feeling cheated that the characters on the back of the box can't be played as when they first boot up the game.
 
I hadn't really thought about it but now that you mention it this is a feature I really really miss. Especially in RPGs finding secret characters were great! Especially FFVI was so fantastic in this regard.

This is seriously making me quite sad :/
 
"Content tourism" is what happens when some rich person/executive leader wants to make money, thinks that making games is easy, and puts together a team of people who don't really like/love games to make games, or, I assume in a few instances, where the developers had to sign a contract with a publisher/company for some reason, and is forced to make games for a brand.

Basically, unless they love what they are doing, they'd most likely just want to get it done.

I assume.
 
Super Smash Bros. Series!!!!!

That's one of the things that I love the most from these games.

Unlockables everywhere (more in Brawl :D). From unlocking characters to unlocking stages and music. Nintendo MUST continue this.

Its true that it is horrible when memory is erased (someway xD) and everything is lost... getting everything back is quite a hassle.

But man, that feeling when playing the game and watching how all the emptiness the on the character and stage screen starts to fill up, as you advance and do required actions, is GREAT!
 
I really do miss them, especially in fighting games and RPGs.

I'd like to see them return, and I want them to be really secret. Little to no mention of them pre-release would be best.
 
Gunloc said:
I really do miss them, especially in fighting games and RPGs.

I'd like to see them return, and I want them to be really secret. Little to no mention of them pre-release would be best.
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I wish dude, but even if they don't mention them, pirates will data mine the disk pre-release and throw it in the web. Only real way is for a black out on media, and being careful on which threads you go into. Complete blackout is best though, especially from sites.
 
Ragingnight said:
unlockable/hidden characters in competitive fighting games is stupid. Can you imagine going to a tourney and not having a char unlocked that you mained? Or what about if you want to go over somebody house and session and they don't have it unlocked because they don't care about the character?
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Wait...

Why do people think you have to unlock them in a tournament? That's a tourney, of course it's expected everyone is unlocked!

The second part is legit, but at the same time weren't people saying local multiplayer is moot with online? :P
 
Boss Doggie said:
Wait...

Why do people think you have to unlock them in a tournament? That's a tourney, of course it's expected everyone is unlocked!

The second part is legit, but at the same time weren't people saying local multiplayer is moot with online? :P
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you would be surprise at how many majors have consoles that don't have the DLC character. Now those are majors, not even locals.
 
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