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Secondary characters that are more fun to use than the main ones

Seven in Xenoblade. With the right skill tree and equipment, that character is THE tank from that point onwards.
 
Nightwing is great in the Arkham games.

But it's Nightwing, he's my favorite character in the batfamily so maybe I'm biased.
 
Zero in X4 onwards, Peach in 3D World, and Knuckles in the classic Sonic games.

Ultimadrago said:
From a lesser known title, Carol from Freedom Planet. Unfortunately, the game is structured almost purely around Lilac's playstyle (the main chatacter) so the flow is clunkier for Carol and her motorbike. Regardless, her Special move, Jump Pads and wall jumps are much more involving to use than simply Dragon Rushing everywhere.
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I prefer playing as Lilac for the most part, but every now and then I'll mess around with Carol, and her motorcycle is probably my favorite thing about her playstyle. That baby got me my fastest clear time in Dragon Valley.
 
TheSpoiler said:
I was playing onimusha 3 recently and found Jac, the new protag, more fun than Sam. He can throw enemies and items around him, some of his boss fights have a jumping mechanic, and he just feels more fuild with his combos.

Chaos Legion's side character uses guns, and you play as her for one mission. So instead of using summons and slogging through some mediocre mashing, you get to play a better version of DMC2. Definitely found her more enjoyable to play.
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Now that's a game I haven't heard about in ages. I agree, though. The girl was way more fun.

I also second Fetch.
 
Bass in Megaman and Bass is the primary reason to play that game at all. I didn't like him as much in MM9/MM10, but his gameplay in MM&B was really cool.

44140-MegaMan_&_Bass_(U)(Venom)-2.png


Mega_man_bass_gameplay.jpg


Laguna and co. were also much more interesting than Squall in FFVIII. A shame they kind of fell out of focus in the latter parts of the game. I think Disc 1 of FFVIII, on its own, is one of my favorite JRPG experiences because of the shift between the two groups.

502053193_small.jpg
 
Not a character per se, but I'll go with the bikes in Mario Kart Wii. It might as well been called Mario Bike Wii due to their OP speed boosts from when you do a trick. The titular karts are really only better on a few tracks with wide enough corners to use their extra drift boost, but even then you're probably getting cheaply hit before you can use it most of the time. Bikes on the other hand can do tricks everywhere.
 
Ciri more fun to play? Yeah warping is cool but it removes everything about Witcher combat from potions to keep health up and oils . On harder difficulties it's a chore as you warp around waiting for health to rise up after being hit once and nearly killed
 
Breakaway said:
I preferred using Eric Lecarde in Castlevania: Bloodlines.
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Darn skippy. Morrison might have been a more fitting iconic Castlevania protagonist, but he's comparatively vanilla because of that. Eric on the other hand felt like a breath of fresh air, and his moveset made Bloodlines my favourite classic-style Castlevania game.
 
Man, the best part of Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow is when you get to use Julius. To a much lesser extent the same could be said for SOTN. As much as Alucard is a ton of fun, it was awesome to be able to run through that game with Richter afterward.
 
Melia in Xenoblade Chronicles because she breaks the game and is massively overpowered

Leila in Tales of Zestiria is very fun to play as, I always main her.
 
Virgil in DMC3/4SE is the king of this. He was the bad guy of 3 and the opposite of Dante. The gameplay changes were refreshing and he was a beast. There aren't many games that let you play as the last boss outside of fighting games.

Playing as Knuckles in levels of Sonic 2 where you could fly over the stage to the point of top speed was so satisfying to me.

Castlevanias were super satisfying, too. Finish the game of collecting things and powering up, then jump into a character with a complete moveset from the word go. Richter and Julius stand out. Especially when they have moves the originals don't even come close to replicating.

Actually, scrap DMC3.

Resident Evil 4 is the king. Getting to play as Hunk, Krauser and Wesker was amazing and varied gameplay. That neck snap and custom TMP on Hunk. That... everything on Krauser. That Falcon Punch on Wesker. I want to play the whole game as one of them, maybe I can on PC. Maybe it won't break like on consoles.
 
Ultimadrago said:
From a lesser known title, Carol from Freedom Planet. Unfortunately, the game is structured almost purely around Lilac's playstyle (the main chatacter) so the flow is clunkier for Carol and her motorbike. Regardless, her Special move, Jump Pads and wall jumps are much more involving to use than simply Dragon Rushing everywhere.
Click to expand...
My first playthrough was with Carol, IIRC that made the bosses harder than they already were.
 
Ellie from TLOU is when the game truly feels like a survival game because she has limitations unlike Joel who can one man army a ton of situations. Shame we only play as her for a small amount of time as her gameplay sections are infinitely more compelling.
 
Ciri being more fun than Geralt is nonsense. She certainly has more flash and sex appeal but he game play consists of nothing more than a slightly glorified QTE. You hold a button and release it and watch "awesome" happen. As another posted pointed out on higher difficulty levels hope to god you don't get hit because then your fucked as her options are nill. I'd say her fun level runs out very fast but I do welcome the break up from always playing as Geralt.
 
Adnor said:
Nightwing is great in the Arkham games.

But it's Nightwing, he's my favorite character in the batfamily so maybe I'm biased.
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Yeah, he's a lot of fun. Really, all the side characters are.

It's a shame none of the characters' movesets are as varied as Batman's, though. At very least, everyone needs that 'weapon break' move, combat challenge waves where the enemies have a bunch of stun rods and car doors get really annoying without the ability to take those things out of play. Harley Quinn was especially lacking in options, which is a shame because she had some great animations.
 
Gojeran said:
Ciri being more fun than Geralt is nonsense. She certainly has more flash and sex appeal but he game play consists of nothing more than a slightly glorified QTE. You hold a button and release it and watch "awesome" happen. As another posted pointed out on higher difficulty levels hope to god you don't get hit because then your fucked as her options are nill. I'd say her fun level runs out very fast but I do welcome the break up from always playing as Geralt.
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Yeah, I'm kind of baffled by the Ciri gameplay praise myself. They have to neuter the difficulty to ensure that Ciri can compete, since you have no opportunities to ever equip or level her, which makes it an adventure in pressing dodge and attack until there's nothing left. Like, IIRC all enemies except the few bosses die in a single hit--flashy, but not really fun. Particularly in the late-game Ciri segments, I was pining to use Geralt instead, because at that point he was far stronger and more interesting to play than her.

I do think that it's good that she's in the game, since the alternate storyline happening with her is really interesting, but the gameplay is a far cry from good.

I figure CDPR originally had much grander ambitions with Ciri, but then had to scale it back into reality at some point in development.
 
TheSpoiler said:
I was playing onimusha 3 recently and found Jac, the new protag, more fun than Sam. He can throw enemies and items around him, some of his boss fights have a jumping mechanic, and he just feels more fuild with his combos.

Chaos Legion's side character uses guns, and you play as her for one mission. So instead of using summons and slogging through some mediocre mashing, you get to play a better version of DMC2. Definitely found her more enjoyable to play.
Click to expand...

Bringing up Chaos Legion gives you my full respect, OP. Her mission was indeed fun, but I think the whole game as her would get repetitive. Also Chaos Legion is mainly about using a variety of summons tailored for the situation at hand, that's where the variety comes from. Your character is intentionally not as nimble as, say, Dante, for this reason. I think they nailed it perfectly.

I think the Ninja in MGS VR Missions for PSX (aka MGS Integral) was incredibly fun to play as, the controls were amazing. That's how ninja style gameplay could work in a stealth MGS game. Not that Rising was bad, but that was an action game.
 
Spman2099 said:
Man, the best part of Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow is when you get to use Julius. To a much lesser extent the same could be said for SOTN. As much as Alucard is a ton of fun, it was awesome to be able to run through that game with Richter afterward.
Click to expand...

Agreed! the fact that you could recruit
Yoko (as a Sypha stand-in) and Alucard
, makes it a kinda Castlevania 3 remake! it was awesome!.
 
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