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I love cookie-cutter characters as much as the next guy. When every character seems similar, with only minor cosmetic changes, it makes me feel all warm and tingly inside. Going through the game without ever knowing most of the details about the heroes, their hopes and dreams, why they fight, or what they hope for in life makes me thankful the developers didn't bother fleshing out their characters. If I ever again have to learn something about the characters I'm playing, I'm going to spew.
In truth, I hate cookie-cutter characters with a passion - and in fairness, most developers aren't trying to create poorly-developed characters. In fact one of the reasons we play RPGs is that they generally provide unique characters. But sometimes developers decide to include dozens of playable characters for variety's sake without remembering to develop each of the characters in their new clone army. If gamers are to grow close to characters in RPGs, developers must meet them half-way by creating fully developed characters to appreciate in the first place.
For example, take Chrono Cross with its over forty playable characters. Each one could have had a series of side quests to more fully form him or her. It would have taken relatively little development time to create a few events for each character to give them background. As it turned out, some of the most prominent characters in the game received little screen time. Most of the dialogue in the game was limited to generic responses that could be said by any character.
Compare that to a game like Dragon Quest VIII, which had only four characters, less than one tenth the number in Chrono Cross. With so few characters to worry about, developers put a lot of focus on each character and their relationships with each other, not only creating full, rich characters, but also an outstanding sense of camaraderie among them. Each character was meaningful to the others - the game simply would not be the same without any one of them.
Side by side, the games highlight an important fact: as a developer, having more characters for the sake of variety doesn't mean that the developer is free from his obligation to create well-developed characters when the plot calls for it. But that begs the question: is there ever a time when the plot doesn't call for well-developed characters?
The answer is yes, there are times when five minutes of character development will work. Radiata Stories for the PS2 succeeded at it because of its focus on slapstick comedy. As when watching a TV sit-com, gamers didn't need to know the background of the characters in order to enjoy the game. All the player had to do was laugh at the dialogue, work with the battle system, and not mind the lack of plot-centric playable characters. If players were inspired to collect characters, it was due to the quirky uniqueness of each one, not because they were important to the story.
Developers must remember that with great numbers (of characters) comes great responsibility. Giving 5 minutes of development time to each of the 50 characters a developer puts in a game is not enough to make players care about them. And if the only feeling developers inspire in players is the need for their characters not to die in battle, they have not succeeded in making full, rich characters. They've instead sacrificed worthwhile character development for the sake of plain variety. And variety is no consolation when a gamer is faced with faced with Generic Character No. 57.
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