Schrödinger's Player Character: Difference between revisions

 

== [[Action Game]] ==

 

== [[Adventure Game]] ==

** ''[[Final Fight]]'' only allowed up to two players simultaneously, meaning that at least one of the three main characters will always be left out of the action. This is particularly egregious in the SNES version, which was single-player only and came in two versions: one that that featured Cody and a second version which replaced him with Guy (providing the explanation that Cody is still training under Guy's sensei in Japan and couldn't return to Metro City on time). The opening intro in ''Final Fight 2'' for the SNES establishes that all three of them fought the Mad Gear gang together, despite the fact that neither version of the first SNES game had the full roster.

** ''[[Streets of Rage]] 3'' offers a choice between four player characters. The [[Cutscene|cutscenes]] shows all four heroes working together, while the game itself only supports two players at most.

** Also averted in ''[[The Bouncer]]''. The three initial characters stick together and before each mission the player given the choice to select which one to control. This even leads to unique solo stages and even the chance to fight and unlock several [[Secret Character|secret characters]].

* The arcade version of ''[[Double Dragon]] 3'' features a third Lee brother named Sonny who never shows up in the opening and ending sequences and seems to exist only to provide the third player a character to control. Similarly, the other playable characters are grouped as teams of siblings (the Urquidez, Chin and Oyama brothers), but the ending only shows Billy and Jimmy plus one lead member from each of the other groups.

** The NES version of ''Double Dragon III'' changes the opening intro depending on whether one or two players are playing. Hilariously, the opening intro of the 2-Player mode misspells Billy's name as "Bimmy" in the opening, despite the fact that the 1-Player mode uses the correct spelling. However, the ending plays this straight by showing all four characters (although in the Famicom version, only the characters who survived are shown).

 

== [[Fighting Game]] ==

* ''[[Super Smash Bros Brawl]]'' has this for the adventure mode. It is assumed that your current party is fighting all the enemies in the story but depending on the character limits placed as you progress, you will never see the other characters jumping in to help.

 

== [[First-Person Shooter]] ==

** This can be the case.... Your team can also consist of a swarm of Brick clones, or Mordecai and Three Liliths.

* One of the original rejected concepts for ''[[Doom]]'' involved four playable characters, complete with unique stats. In single-player mode depending on which character you selected, the other three would be killed in the opening sequence, leaving their bodies in the first room.

* ''[[Hexen]]'' would later do what ''[[Doom]]'' hoped to do. You pick as a class Warrior/Cleric/Mage and never see the other classes again, barring multiplayer.

* ''[[Rise of the Triad]]'' offers another interesting variation on ''[[Doom]]'''s rejected player choice concept (unsurprisingly, as Tom Hall worked on ROTT). At the beginning, the player could choose one of the five members of the H.U.N.T. to control for the entire game. This would determine the player model, voice, and relevant stats like speed of movement and how much damage the player could take. Oddly enough, the cutscenes depicted the team as operating together through the game, but only the chosen character was visible in game, suggesting that they split up and regrouped during the levels' loading screens.

* Averted and played straight in ''[[Far Cry]] 2'': some (but not all) of the other available player characters show up in the game as mercenaries that you can befriend.

* Similar to ''Borderlands'', ''[[Dead Island]]'' seems to assume that canonically all four characters are working together even if only one is chosen. All the characters are shown together in cutscenes.

** This is an interesting example because, in the games' canon, all of the heroes were indeed present. The Rogue, Sorcerer and Warrior from the first game show up as Blood Raven, the Summoner, and the Wanderer (possessed by Diablo himself) in the second. Story fragments for the third game indicate that all of the heroes from the second game were involved in defeating the three Prime Evils and their armies, and they all went [[Axe Crazy]] from the ordeal (except for the Barbarian).

* Averted in the ''Kingdom Under Fire'' games. The character you choose inevitably interacts with one or all of the alternative characters in the battles (and storylines) that ensue.

* The Konami arcade game ''Devil World'' changes the ending depending on whether the player completes as Condor, Labryna or both. The game's U.S. release, ''Dark Adventure'', adds a third player character named Zorlock, but only has one ending which shows all three characters (regardless of the number of people playing).

 

* In ''[[Mega Man ZX]]'', your plot only includes either Vent or Aile.

** ''Advent'' continues this; if you play as Grey, you meet Aile and she saved the world in the previous game, and if you play as Ashe, you meet Vent and ''he'' saved the world, but you never meet the other two characters. However, in Ashe's game it's hinted at one point that Grey still went through his intro stage, and a picture of both Vent and Aile is seen at one point in both stories, but otherwise the other characters never appear.

** ''X4'' is the closest the series gets to playing the trope straight. You can play as X or Zero, but each have their respective sides to the same story, meaning you have to play the whole game with the character you choose. Aside from one battle, both characters fight the same Mavericks. Zero calling X's escape pod in X's ending is the only time they interact.

** ''X5'' and ''X6'' have this to a lesser extent (individual missions as opposed to the entire game).

** ''X7'' and ''X8'' avert it by letting you switch characters on the fly.

** In ''[[Mega Man Powered Up]]'', if you choose anyone other than Mega Man or Mega, he will not show up at all outside of the ending (the Mega Man you face when playing as the Robot Masters is an [[Evil Twin]]). And Proto Man, of course, doesn't show up at all if playing as anyone other than him.

** ''Mega Man & Bass'' plays this trope straight. This puts an interesting spin on [[Disc One Final Boss|King]]'s fate. In Mega Man's ending, he returns home to find a letter telling him that [[Redemption Equals Life|King survived and is now fighting for justice]]. In Bass's ending, although we learn exactly why Wily built King, no mention of what happened to him was made, and the player assumes [[Redemption Equals Death|King perished after all]].

** In ''10'', if you play as Mega Man, the only time you see Proto Man is during the cutscene you get after defeating four Robot Masters. When controlling Proto Man, Mega Man appears during said cutscene, then after defeating all eight Robot Masters, Wily announces to the world that Mega Man is sick with Roboenza. But after clearing the first Wily stage, we see a perfectly healthy Mega Man running alongside Proto Man, and even stops to help the latter out when he himself falls sick. Mega Man stops appearing after that. If playing as [[Downloadable Content|Bass]], neither Mega Man or Proto Man appear, and the only mention of Mega Man is during Wily's announcement to the world (again saying he fell sick).

* ''[[Terramex]]'' does this.

** A version of this occurs in the alternate modes of the post-''[[Symphony of the Night]]'' games: After you beat the main game, you can choose to play it again as one of the side characters (usually by entering that side character's name for your save file). However, except in two instances ({{spoiler|the ''[[Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow|Dawn of Sorrow]]'' "Julius Mode", where Julius, Yoko, and Alucard go into the castle to kill Dracula-Soma and ''[[Portrait of Ruin]]'' where the [[Bash Brothers|Sisters]] try to investigate the castle before they go [[Brainwashed and Crazy]]}}), the normal main character and any of the other side characters will be nowhere to be seen (and, indeed, the story elements of the main game will be stripped out completely).

* Averted in the Sega Genesis version of Ghostbusters, you'd choose one of three Ghostbusters (Winston wasn't present for some reason). Each had their own strengths and weaknesses (Egon could run fast but couldn't take many hits, Ray was slow but could take massive damage, and Peter was a balance between both). When you chose one of them, all three would appear at the firehouse, but only one would show up in the cut scenes at the end of each level. This would imply that the other two just hung out at the firehouse while the player chosen one did all the work. In the final level, however, you'd fight the other two as boss characters because they'd been possessed by ghosts.

* In ''[[Kirbys Return to Dream Land]]'', Kirby is always depicted with Waddle Dee, Meta Knight, and King Dedede at his side in the story scenes, even when he's traveling alone, accompanied by [[Color-Coded Multiplayer|Yellow, Green, and Blue Kirbies]], or teamed with a mixture of the palette-swapped Kirbies and the former three characters during actual gameplay.

* The first two ''[[Fallout]]'' offered pre-generated character with mini biographies. Whoever you did not choose never appeared.

** [[Deconstruction|Deconstructed]] in the ''Cafe of Broken Dreams'' special encounter in Fallout 2, where you can meet all the other player characters who were pre-generated for Fallout 1, but not "chosen" by the player or even included into the final game.

* Played straight in ''[[Lands of Lore]]: The Throne of Chaos''. The player has a choice of four champions, each of whom has a little blurb about why he's the best choice and how the others will fail. It seems as though they are in competition. However, once the choice is made, the other three are never mentioned again. One wonders why, if the kingdom was in such great peril, they didn't just team up.

** In the sequel, it is stated that the character Kieran has been "credited" with defeating Scotia, lending itself to the interpretation that the other three champions were also questing.

* Averted in the ''[[Threads of Fate]]'' game which allows you to play as either Rue or Mint. Whoever does not get chosen still shows up in the game and goes on similar missions.

** But also played straight to the effect that {{spoiler|playing as Mint completely ruins Rue's goal by the ending.}}

* Variation: in the original ''[[Persona]]'', there are five possible party members - Brown, Ayase, Yukino, Elly, and [[Guide Dang It|(if you jump through the right hoops)]] Reiji. You get to recruit one of them. (Possibly two if you take the Snow Queen path, if you replace Ayase with Nanjo, the latter of which is prerequisite for the SEBEC story.) The rest? Well, who knows what happens to them?

* ''[[The Spirit Engine 2]]'' allows you to choose a party of three characters from a total of nine, and only the three you pick ever show up in the main story.

** The exact same thing is true for the [[The Spirit Engine|first game]], though in that game the chosen characters are physically chosen/abducted by a fairy. The others presumably continue their boring lives.

* Averted in the ''[[The 7th Saga]]''. There are 7 characters that you can choose from and the other becomes NPC that can become your ally, your rival/enemy, or even a level boss!

** And, played totally straight later on when recruiting certain extra characters. If you recruit Ashton, Opera and Ernest never appear or play any role in the story, and if you wait to recruit Opera, Ashton is never seen or heard from.

*** They aren't entirely absent, at least. Ernest still appears briefly regardless, as his PA can appear long before Ashton is even mentioned. Ashton is still mentioned if you go to Salva at the appropriate time (they'll mention the fighter who went down to challenge the dragon) but he'll be [[Lost Forever]] if you don't actually go and watch him fight. It's implied that he succeeded, since no one was there to distract him, and once you come back to Salva the dragon is gone.

** Also averted to the maximal effect in ''[[Sword of Mana]]'', where the characters take the same paths and face the same challenges regardless of which you choose.

* Averted in ''Faery: Legends of Avalon'' where you get the choice of a male or a female, and you get the other one as your first companion when you set off on your quest, (you get Azielle for a companion if you play as a male and Aziel if you play as a female) either way they have a massive crush on you.

* Averted in ''[[Dungeon Siege]] III'', where the characters that you didn't pick show up later in the story with some reason of why they couldn't show up at the gathering in the beginning and can be companion characters later on.

* Averted in spectacular and still-unique-16-years-later fashion in ''Chou-Mahou Tairiku Wozz''. Once the initial party is gathered together at the start of the game, you choose one of its members to be your player character. The rest are still part of the party, but are now secondary characters in the storyline.

 

** Aversions: Everyone has a canonical story in ''Phantasmagoria of Flower View'', ''Scarlet Weather Rhapsody'', and possibly ''Hisoutensoku''<ref>the outcome of a certain fight changes depending on the character played. This can probably be chalked up to [[Broad Strokes]]</ref>.

* Averted in many two-player arcade gun games such as ''The [[House of the Dead]]'' series (from ''III'' onwards), the ''[[Virtua Cop]]'' series, and the ''[[Time Crisis]]'' series (from ''2'' onwards). The cutscenes and during-gameplay dialogue play out with both player characters exist. Though this does pose the new problem of [[Fridge Logic|the unused character, who does nothing while his or her partner does all the work.]] (Except in ''Time Crisis''...sort of. The other player character is shown attacking alongside you, but [[A-Team Firing|misses every freaking shot]]. Watching the COM's side at the arcades shows that the enemies that the other player cannot possibly hit retreat after the other player clears his side.)

* Averted in the [[Turbo Grafx 16]] version of the Data East shooter ''[[Bloody Wolf]]''. The character not chosen by the player at the start of the game will become a playable character when the initial protagonist is taken captive by the enemy.

 

* Averted in ''[[Pathologic]]''. Whoever you didn't pick would go off on their own story.

* The original ''[[Resident Evil 1|Resident Evil]]'' contains a strange example. Both scenarios start the same way: Chris, Jill, Barry and Wesker are attacked in the woods, and run towards the mansion. In Chris' mission, Barry goes missing in the game (explicitly mentioned in the intro) and Chris later encounters Rebecca of Bravo Team, who escapes with him and Jill; Barry never resurfaces. In Jill's mission, Chris is the missing person, but he's found later in a cell; Rebecca is never even alluded to, not even as an encountered corpse or in a note or file. Yet, the storyline for the sequels holds that all four of them survived the mansion incident.

** ''[[Resident Evil Outbreak]]'' offers eight playable characters throughout a total of ten scenarios (between the first game and ''File #2''), with no hints whatsoever of who definitively did what and where due to the games' need to be considered a [[Gaiden Game]].

 

* ''[[Alien Swarm]]'' has this trope even if there are 4 players in the game. There are 8 characters to play as but only 4 at a time can be played, leaving you to wonder what happened to the other 4 characters.

 

* Averted in the turn based strategy game ''[[Dark Wizard]]'' for the Sega CD. The player picks which hero to play, but the ones he didn't choose will appear during the course of the story as one-off NPCs with a single line of dialogue.

* In the second part of the fourth ''[[Fire Emblem]]'' game, ''Genealogy of the Holy War'', you take control of either the children of characters from the first part, or, if a character never got married, a set of replacements that bear no relation to anyone from part one. While it's obvious why offspring don't appear if their potential parents never got hitched, it's unclear where the replacements are (or if they even existed at all) if they did actually marry.