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Solo Character Run: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:Solo1.jpg|link=Final Fantasy I
A variation of the [[Self-Imposed Challenge]] restricted to games with multiple controllable characters, like [[Role
▲A variation of the [[Self-Imposed Challenge]] restricted to games with multiple controllable characters, like [[Role Playing Game|RPGs]] or strategy games. The player selects one character from the roster and completes the game using ''only'' that character, with all the others being restricted to a support role, [[Not Quite Dead|perpetually dead]], constantly blocking, or just ignored.
The difficulty level for this kind of run can vary wildly, depending on the character and the game. For example, RPGs frequently divide the experience gained from fights evenly among the surviving characters, which means that [[One Man Party|a solo character can gain levels very quickly early on]], thereby breezing through the early game. However, later on, exponential requirements for gaining levels mean that the character is not nearly so relatively powerful compared to a full-on party.
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Not to be confused with [[Solo Sequence]], in which single-character play is temporarily enforced. A character class ([[Fake Balance|supposedly]]) designed to facilitate this kind of play is a [[Solo Class]].
{{examples}}
== [[First-Person Shooter]] ==
* This is more or less the preferred method of playing the game ''[[
* Through the use of console commands, people have tried solo runs in ''[[Left 4 Dead]]'' by kicking bots from the game and had various levels of success. Valve seemed to have noticed and introduced a [[Game Mod|mutation]] for Left 4 Dead 2 called Last Man on Earth, where you play alone against only special infected and can only be knocked down once before true death applies.
== [[Hack and Slash]] ==
* Possible to do in the Empires subset of ''[[Dynasty Warriors]]'' games, ''[[Dynasty Warriors]] 6 Empires'' outright rewards you for doing this for one battle on [[Nintendo Hard|Master]] or the hard '''[[Harder Than Hard|HELL]]''' difficulty (that's '''CHAOS''' for everyone outside Japan). needless to say, doing this for one battle on the higher difficulties is hard enough. Doing it for every battle on '''HELL''' puts you on par with [[Memetic Badass|Lu]] [[Precision F-Strike|Fucking]] [[That One Boss|Bu]], [[Bag of Spilling|if only for the fact that your stats are not carried over between]] [[New Game
== [[Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game|MMORPG]]s ==
* A player known by the handle "Sydney Prime" is attempting{{when}} to play ''[[
== [[Role
* The ''[[Tales
* There is a version for ''[[Breath of Fire]] 3'', but it can be something of a hassle, as the game automatically revives slain party members after battle; thus you must keep killing them at the start of each fight...
* In ''[[
* ''[[Rogue Galaxy]]'' allows for a solo character run of sorts, by setting the AI on "keep away", under which circumstances they won't help you fight at all, and won't heal themselves so they can be left dead. Party members auto-revive with 1 HP if [[Only Mostly Dead]] at the end of a fight, but they'll die again in short order if not healed, making their momentary livelihood mostly meaningless.
** And due to the sheer stupidity of the AI, you're probably better off doing this even if you're playing the game the ''straight'' way.
* Many of the ''[[Exile]]''/''[[Avernum]]'' games from Spiderweb Software are arguably easier in some respects with a solo character, as that character gets all the good loot (of which there is a strictly limited supply), all of the experience (a high-level character is much harder for monsters to kill than an equivalently-leveled character), and only a fourth of the available target space. The big problems come in figuring out your skill distribution.
** Singletons, as they are called in ''Avernum'', are also extremely vulnerable to being wrapped in web by giant spiders. If the spiders continue spinning webs (and they will. They always do), a single character will get no turns at all, getting stuck in a zero-AP loop. Cue either an impossibly long death process or a Ctrl-Alt-Delete.
** Actually, skill distribution isn't that much of a problem since you'll be getting a whole party's experience worth for just one guy early on, and later on you can buy potions that award skill points. The real problem is inventory space: in Exile it's often a good idea to give up armor and helmets after a certain point so as to be able to carry more loot.
* This, or simply using a much smaller party than the maximum, is a popular challenge in ''[[
** Better Infinity Engine games to try this trope with are the ''[[Icewind Dale]]'' series. Trying it in the sequel is lunacy (doable, mind you, but still lunacy), because the Challenge Rating system ensures that you'll soon end up gaining as much XP solo as you would with a full party.
** This is not, on the other hand, very common among ''[[Planescape: Torment]]'' players. This is possibly because dying is easy for the lead character, but staying dead is hard; or because after the initial roughness of going it alone, even dying becomes hard; or because so much of the game is character interaction, including with party members, and there are so few mandatory fights that you're missing the point of the game if you try a
* Both [[
* ''[[Final Fantasy]]''
** This is very popular in the original ''[[Final Fantasy]]''. A solo Fighter is regarded as easiest. Black Belt is not difficult when massively overleveled, Red Mage has both good offense and defense plus multi-targeting black magic, White Mage has the advantage of the RUSE spell, and Black Mage has multi-targeting black magic starting from the third town. By far the hardest, Thief has to grind halfway to the level cap (with poor offense and defense the whole time) before being able to have a CHANCE to defeat the fourth mini-boss. Nobody has ever gotten past the fifth one.
** ''[[
*** Only Cecil is possible, unless of course one uses patch codes of one form or another. It's quite possible, though mages will have a rough time. As, in some versions, bosses that are fought without a magic user in the party, such as Valvalius and the Dark Imp, are totally immune to spells.
** ''[[Final Fantasy VI]]'' has a variation, with people only following this as long the required character is around, meaning someone that joins early and rejoins early like the Figato twins is the "closest" to the feel of the challenge. [[Attack! Attack! Attack!|Umaro]] is considered to be the only one that can't win it, [[Tier
** This can be done in ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]'' except when plot-necessary ({{spoiler|when Cloud is out of his mind in Mideel and Tifa, then Cid take over}}). It's somewhat trivial if you use Cloud, since the Yoshiyuki sword you pick up in Rocket Town powers up if you have dead people in your party. It's balanced out by three bosses (Reno, Bottomswell, Carry Armor) that have attacks that trap your character and require intervention from your dead party members, netting you an instant game over.
*** It's possible to get through those bosses without using anyone except Cloud. The key is you have to kill them before they can attack (done by power leveling, Meteorain is needed before you leave the Train Graveyard in order to beat Reno).'
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* Extremely common in the ''[[Fallout]]'' series, especially the first one. This is mostly because party NPCs in the first game did not level up and were liabilities due to friendly fire and [[Dronejam|obstructing doors or corridors]].
** Also doable in ''[[Fallout 2]]'', though less desirable because the joinable characters add so much to the game. Much easier in ''[[Fallout 3]]'' because not only are joinable NPC's liabilities, they're pretty uninteresting characters.
* Also easier in ''[[Arcanum:
* ''[[Geneforge]]'' is a rare case where this is neither beneficial nor negative, simply a different style of play suited to a different class. (If you're wondering how that could work, it's a [[Mons]]
** This is only a [[Self-Imposed Challenge]] for the Shaper class, and later Lifecrafter class, because Shaping skills are their specialty. Without creating mons, the benefits of Shaping specialization can be focused on healing and defensive buffing, but the build doesn't leave much in the way of direct damage ability.
** In fact, with the Agent class, this is actually a BETTER idea, because it means you don't have to share experience with creations that really won't do you any favours. Generally Agents only make creations for large scale battles where they can benefit from Meat Shields. Not having any creations also means a bigger essence pool, so it becomes much easier to use essence-gobbling spells like Augmentation, Essence Blade, or Aura of Flames.
* The ''[[Dungeon Siege]]'' series, having a bad rep for essentially playing themselves, become reasonably challenging when this is attempted.
* Try playing any of the ''[[
* This is actually fairly popular in ''[[Persona 3]]'' and ''[[Persona 4]]'' for certain bosses due to the modular party system. (You can go into Tartarus or the Midnight Channel alone if you like). ''Persona 3 Portable'' even has a Tactics Command that orders your party to leave for the duration of the fight. The problem is that unless you set your party on Stand By or have them block every turn, you don't have access to [[Combination Attack|All-Out Attacks]], lowering your damage output considerably. Interestingly enough, some bosses are actually -easier- solo, because your ability to change Personae allows you to exploit [[Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors]] without having to worry about your party giving the enemy a free turn.
* ''[[Ultima VII]]'' will allow you to do this if you tell all your party members to "go home". It also means you don't have to keep listening to them whinge about wanting food all the time.
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== [[Third-Person Shooter]] ==
* ''[[Alien Swarm]]'' requires a console command, (normally requires 2 players minimum) but it is entirely possible to play every level solo. Including ones where you need to stop and protect the tech while he [[Hollywood Hacking|hacks]] a door or computer.
== [[Turn
* Extremely common among the ''[[Fire Emblem]]'' community. The series is well-suited to solos because a powerful character can dominate the battlefield, so if the player can get the character out of his early vulnerable levels intact, it's usually smooth sailing from there on out. The generally accepted rule is that only the selected character can deal
** The final bosses of ''[[Fire Emblem]] 4'' and ''7'' almost entirely rule out this challenge for those titles because of their high stats and/or weapon properties. Likewise, a [[Crutch Character]] solo run in any game (save 8) is unlikely to succeed.
*** There is a tactic that allows ''[[Fire Emblem]] 4'' to be soloable (by sword users, anyway), that utilises the Berserk status and a lot of luck.
*** [[Eleventh
* The ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics]]'' series. This also applies to a similar challenge, whereby a player is allowed to use a full party of five characters, but they all have to be the same class. A large part of the difficulty arises as most classes are incapable of healing themselves, and a dead character who is not revived after three turns is dead for good. This has also been combined where only the main character is played and he must remain as a single class.
** To this day, a five-man party straight class challenge has been completed for all playable classes, including Calculators not using math skill ever. Solo straight class challenge has also been completed for all classes except mime and true calculator, as well as many other game-shark only classes or even monsters.
* Because ''[[Disgaea]]'' doesn't give [[Leaked Experience]], it can be simpler to power level one of the main characters and stomp the rest of the game rather than try to balance levels across a party of ten characters. This is almost a requirement in the post-game, because levelling and appropriately equipping just one character takes an absurd amount of time, even if you aren't trying for perfection. This restricts the options to using one horribly overlevelled character and nine decoys or abusing the base-panel combat mechanics and Enemy Level Up Geo-Effects to create a team of poorly equipped Lv. 9999 monsters.
* This is what a large part of the community says the easiest way to beat the original ''[[Front Mission]]''.
* The original ''[[Summon Night]]'' based all combatants created by summon spells on the summoner's level ''and'' put all experience in a single pool that could be distributed freely, making this fairly easy.
== [[Turn Based Tactics]] ==
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