A fair handful of games out there give you the option of a character creator. This could be crafting your PC at the start of the game, or crafting a crew of NPCs to use as your party members - or a myriad of other things. I mention those types because those immediately come to mind and are the two most common ones, but there are other types as well. Some character creators just let you pick a name and generic appearance (or class, depending on game), while some give you more freedom to design and recolour the body and other features, and some just go all out and let you modify every single little thing. (The character creator in Saints Row 4 is one example of that, and it's a work of art unto itself, never mind the rest of the game.) Have you played any games with character creators? What were they like? What features did you tend to use the most? What do you tend to derive from them? Or, if you haven't played any games with character creators like this, would you want to try one? I'll post a bit later with my own thoughts on the subject. For now I want to get the thread out there and get people's brains moving.
I've played a few like Saints Row 4, and Dragons Dogma and Stick of Truth. They were pretty good, all things considered. I liked how they offered a lot of customization because back in the day I'd be the player who'd spend a lot of time trying to make the perfect character (an hour before even starting the game). I still like the options, but now I tend to fudge around a bit and make some ridiculous avatars instead now. To add to Eclipse's thread, I'm curious to know if people are similar in that regard. Whether they are really immersed in the process of character creation, trying to make the perfect protagonist character like I was, or are they out to make something funny like I am now, or some variation thereof?
Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing, Terraria, Sims, Fire Emblem Awakening, and Miitopia are really the only games I can think of that you can go rather custom and even then, they are limited. I love creating my own characters and I think that it adds a lot more to the enjoyment people can get out of it. For me, I can put myself, or ideal self, into the game and my friends which is a lot of fun. Though in all the games I have played, other than sims, you can not control other people around you, only your self which removes a bit of customization which is a shame.
By now I've played a few. The only one that really comes to mind tho is the Saint's Row series. It had some pretty nifty sliders and skin colour combinations. Was able to come up with a Junebug skinned male char with a mohawk haircut and a superhero costume in SRIV lol. Fun times. But I kinda prefer games where you can customise your character's gear instead, swapping out armour and weapons and such. Rainbow Moon and Nioh are my faves for this.
I honestly think that the Sims series is the only game I've played that relates to this subject. The first three Sims series were quite limited in customizing options with the usage of sliders, but the Sims 4 is the series where the creators finally did it right; the ability to freely customize Sims without sliders and instead dragging parts in order to change their body. What makes customization better in the Sims 4 is the Custom Creative Content that you can add in order to make Sims more realistic and alive. In terms of making characters in the Sims 4 series, I tend to try my best in order to create Sims look unique and different from each other. I really enjoy doing that because I feel like I'm creating my own world; a world where I can control many different Sims and command them what to do with their lives.
Gosh, it's been so long since I played around with a character creator... Most of the time, if draconic or animalistic characteristics are an option, I go nuts. For instance, in the Elder Scrolls series, I will always play as an Argonian due to me liking dragons and reptiles. If the draconic/animalistic characteristics aren't appealing to me for some reason or they aren't an option to begin with, I just go with the normal human character and base it off of myself.
I'll admit that, since a lot of the games I play are RPGs, the character creators in those games (if they even have one) are usually not much more than giving the character a name, gender, class, and sometimes a portrait to go along with it. That usually tends to be sufficient, though I know that's a fairly basic feature. One game I've played, Dragon Quest IX, goes a little further than that in that you get to choose the colour of the character's eyes, hair, skin, and even shirt and shorts - though due to the way armour is rendered over that in this game, the last two don't really serve much purpose, but they are a nice touch - largely because the colour of the shirt matches the colour of the character's box when viewing their stats. Usually choosing clothes for a character tends to be cosmetic, and of games I've played where that was a choice, that tended to be the case (Dragon Quest IX not being one of them - armour and clothes aren't quite the same thing). I haven't played either of the Splatoon games, but I am aware that clothes in that game have effects beyond cosmetic, and you have some leeway with customising appearance, so that could be considered a character creator in itself. Generally, the more options I am given in the creator, the more time I will tend to spend. One such game I picked up recently allowed me to choose name, gender, class, portrait, colour of hair/eyes/skin, and even voice clips - with the ability to change all of those later (except for gender and portrait). I was stuck in the character creator for hours building my party, and that was even after I'd spent a few hours in the demo for the game doing the exact same thing. Yes, I take character creation very seriously. I like to slip in a few inside jokes here and there, but if it's something I'm in for the long haul, I want to make sure I get it right and am satisfied the first time around.
FE:Awakening, KotOR, and Mass Effect are the only games I've really played that let me control more than just the name (and sometimes the gender) of the player-character (Blazing Blade falls under the latter rather than the former).
I love character creation systems, I just never use them. I prefer the default look most of the time just because I'm a default kind of guy with any game. I prefer just to get into the game than spending tons of time in a character screen.
I have played more than a few games with character creation and I absolutely love the heck out of them. I can easily spend like 2 hours messing around with the character creation and that increases when I have sliders.
