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Are the days of the fat, short, out of shape or odd looking hero over?

Joined
Oct 14, 2013
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Today most video game heroes are trim, buff or just relatively good looking humaniod creatures. Is that all we'll get for video game heroes from here on in?

Characters like Mario, Luigi, Wario, Kirby, King Dedede, Super Meatboy etc etc all oddly shaped heroes.
I guess Abe from Oddworld is weird but he is still a skinny humanoid creature. But he is weird do that does apply.

What do you think? Will developers look outside the fit and buff look for a different design of hero or are they a thing of the past now?
 
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Well, now that the whole body-positive thing is trendy now, we'll probably be getting some oddly shaped protagonists lol. Personally I like the eccentric "odd" hero, or the underdog. I feel Link may count. He's of smaller stature, dresses differently from the rest, and doesn't acquire very masculine features. I don't think those days are over, however, I feel there will be a trend of forced-diversity among protagonists in the industry and I'm not looking forward to that.
 
I think with video games becoming more like movies in recent years the ideologies of character representations have changed.

In a movie you can only aspire to be like the buff hero.

In a video game you didn't need to aspire to anything because you were in control, be it a buff hero or a fat hammer weilding duck, you were the hero.

That mentality doesn't look like it applies now if we look at the biggest games around at the moment such as Uncharted, God of War, Tomb Raider etc. All athletic and buff in ways we could never be.

The only times i see characters of differing body compositions are in roster-centric games like Overwatch and Tekken but if there's just one hero like Nathan Drake I rarely see a character with a body that isn't buff and even if I do then the game is usually heavily stylised to make it look normal within its own world.
 

Dio

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It's no different from what it's always been like. Most heroes are trim and buff and have been that way since the beginning.

We get the odd cases like mario and some of the ones you mentioned (Though Deedeedee and Wario aren't heroes and villains more often have unnusual shapes to them) but heroes mostly look attractive and fit to appeal to the player because people are drawn to these features.

I doubt this trend will change. Action heroes have bodies that portray their strength and athleticism.The dominant genres in the game market seems to be shooters and open world action games. People who participate in combat tend to look fit therefore we see a lot of fit heroes. It would look odd or comical to have an obese solder or imagine them doing the backflips and climbing link does (Though in BoTW he has the stamina of one in the beginning) so that's why we don't see that sort of thing often.

In platformers which don't have a realistic look it doesn't matter so much which is where you tend to see the Mario's, the Spyro's, the Banjo's or the Donkey Kong style characters but these sort of games are not the dominant genre in the market.
 
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Castle

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Was there ever a days of fat, short, etc protagonists? I just seem to remember a lot of buff and sexy heros and anthromorphs like Saanic, Spyro, Crash, Bubsy, Fox McCloud, Ratchet, etc. And of course kids. Lots of kids like Commander Keen, Cool Dave or whatever his name was and the cast of Maniac Mansion, etc.

Nintendo characters are the outliers. No one else has a mascot who is a short fat Italian plumber (and three variations thereof). Or Captain Olmar or Kirby or some such. This was never trendy. It's a nintendo thing.

And I never understood how that ever appealed to anyone. But there is this big dumb "diversity" push to have ugly protagonists in video games. Female protagonists, especially. Like that freak of nature from MAss Effect: Andromeduh or the ginger bruiser broad from Horizon: Zero Yawn. But games, movies, and comic books that go woke go broke so this trend will inevitably fail itself out of business anyway.

Not every protagonists needs to be buff or sexy or handsome and really there is plenty of variety when it comes to the physical appearance of video game protags - even if we do tend to see a lot of the same archetypes over and over again. Super handsome buff dude (Leon, Ryu, Dante, etc.), sexy chick (Bayonetta, Dead or Alive girls, Lara Croft, Samus, etc.), your Dad (Joel, Nathan Drake, Kratos now, etc.), the anthros which we don't see much of any more (Saanic, Spyro, Crash, Ratchet...)
 
Nintendo needs to finally make a Wario Land 5 to right this wrong. And, no, Shake It doesn't count.

As far as photorealistic games go, the characters will always appeal to standard masculine and feminine stereotypes. Men will be tall and muscular while women will have big busts and butts. That's what sells.
 
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Nintendo needs to finally make a Wario Land 5 to right this wrong.
I think WarioWare Rumble HD would be totally amazing on the Switch. HD rumble plus motion controls would make it an amazing game. As long as it's proper and bot liek the terrible WiiU game.

WarioLand 5 though? Sure why not. I've only plyed the first game and second games. Both I really enjoyed. If a 5th was good I'd probably get that too.

But what about Wario and Waluigi - Partners in Crime? Or something like that? That would be amazing.

Nintendo characters are the outliers. No one else has a mascot who is a short fat Italian plumber (and three variations thereof). Or Captain Olmar or Kirby or some such. This was never trendy. It's a nintendo thing.
Yeah back then it was never trendy. It sure as hell is trendy now though. 5 million Smash Bros U sales in 3 days.
 

Bowsette Plus-Ultra

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Well, now that the whole body-positive thing is trendy now, we'll probably be getting some oddly shaped protagonists lol. Personally I like the eccentric "odd" hero, or the underdog. I feel Link may count. He's of smaller stature, dresses differently from the rest, and doesn't acquire very masculine features. I don't think those days are over, however, I feel there will be a trend of forced-diversity among protagonists in the industry and I'm not looking forward to that.

You know, I always hear the term "forced diversity" thrown around, but everyone falls silent when I ask for an example.

So, what would you consider an example of forced diversity in gaming?
 
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You know, I always hear the term "forced diversity" thrown around, but everyone falls silent when I ask for an example.

So, what would you consider an example of forced diversity in gaming?

I never said that there are, but it's become a trend in media. I could definitely list those examples if you want. The gaming world is less severe. In the Witcher 3 (and the witcher series as a whole) there are only white people - which makes sense, because the geography in which the characters inhabit is inspired by medieval Europe (specifically Poland). People got upset about the lack of diversity, so CD Projekt Red put a transgender NPC in the game to slightly satisfy people. It seems that people are a bit too obsessed with making characters in media "different" by making them gay, disabled, mixed race, etc. There's absolutely nothing wrong with those three things, it's the way it's delivered. It's like the token black person trope, it's forced and was done for marketing purposes.

Anyways, my point with that post towards the end was that I expect a trend, not that I've seen one.
 

Bowsette Plus-Ultra

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I never said that there are, but it's become a trend in media. I could definitely list those examples if you want. The gaming world is less severe. In the Witcher 3 (and the witcher series as a whole) there are only white people - which makes sense, because the geography in which the characters inhabit is inspired by medieval Europe (specifically Poland). People got upset about the lack of diversity, so CD Projekt Red put a transgender NPC in the game to slightly satisfy people. It seems that people are a bit too obsessed with making characters in media "different" by making them gay, disabled, mixed race, etc. There's absolutely nothing wrong with those three things, it's the way it's delivered. It's like the token black person trope, it's forced and was done for marketing purposes.

Anyways, my point with that post towards the end was that I expect a trend, not that I've seen one.

...but why is that bad? Also, how can you say that it was included just for publicity's sake? The transgenderism of one secondary character wasn't used as some big selling point for the game. It was hardly forced. The also included a gay character in a secondary quest (the world of the Witcher is still largely homophobic). I don't see how the game would have benefited from the removal of these "token" characters.
 
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...but why is that bad? Also, how can you say that it was included just for publicity's sake? The transgenderism of one secondary character wasn't used as some big selling point for the game. It was hardly forced. The also included a gay character in a secondary quest (the world of the Witcher is still largely homophobic). I don't see how the game would have benefited from the removal of these "token" characters.

I never said they were wrong, I even said those traits are perfectly fine. What's wrong is when it becomes an obligation or it's pandering. I don't know who would enjoy a game that likes kissing ass rather than create something from passion. How is the Witcher homophobic? That's the most outrageous thing I've ever heard. I don't care if a game has no diversity or a large spectrum of different types of people, if a game is good and it's a creation the developers put their all into, who cares? Pandering is an extreme turn off in any form of media, that's where it becomes a problem.
 

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