Video Game Characters: Difference between revisions

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#REDIRECT [[:Category:Video Game Characters]]
{{trope}}
The act of being a video game character is a bit of an odd one. You spend all day killing things, all night healing from wounds that should have killed you, and there's a better than eighty percent chance that your [[Tomboy Princess|tomboy female friend is a lost princess]]. But what's a guy to do, eh?
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=== Playable character types: ===
<div style="float:right"><sidebarmenu>
Sub-categories:
*[[Player Party]]
*[[Boss Battle]]
</sidebarmenu></div>
* [[Acrofatic]] <br />A fat character who can maneuver like a gymnast, sprint like an Olympic runner, or kick your ass like Chuck Norris, despite being... you know... fat.
* [[Adventure Duo]] <br />A serious main character coupled with a weird or quirky partner.
* [[An Adventurer Is You]] <br />A description of the class-based systems common to many [[Role Playing Game|Role Playing Games]].
* [[Amnesiac Hero]] <br />Where the main character has no recollection of who they are.
* [[Bare Fisted Monk]] <br />A character who excels in melee attacks without wielding weapons.
* [[The Beast Master]] <br />A type of character who uses the assistance of an animal, force of nature, or just some sort of not-highly-sentient creature to help them fight.
* [[Black Mage]] <br />Magic-user who specializes in offensive magic.
** [[Black Magician Girl]] <br />A young female [[Black Mage]] with a [[Plucky Girl|forceful personality.]]
** [[Lady of Black Magic]] <br />An older female [[Black Mage]] with a [[Lady of War|more reserved or mature personality.]]
* [[Bratty Half-Pint]] <br />Snarky self-important kid (usually a boy) who's usually the youngest in the party.
* [[Child Mage]] <br />The main magic user is the youngest in the group.
* [[Cipher Scything]] <br />Blank slate characters always get the short end of the stick in adapted works.
* [[Combat Medic]] <br />Although he's the main healer and buffer, he can also dish out damage.
* [[Combat and Support]] <br />The two roles video-game characters often divide each other into when in groups.
* [[Competitive Balance]] <br />The various character types in competitive games need to be balanced so no one character is automatically better.
* [[Confusion Fu]]<br />A character whose main advantage is their unpredictability.
* [[Crutch Character]] <br />Early game playable character who starts out powerful, but whose usefulness declines.
* [[Cute Bruiser]] <br />A young girl who has [[Super Strength]].
* [[The Engineer]] <br />A character who specializes in the use and application of machines and technology. Usually a support unit, but many times quite capable of combat.
* [[Elite Tweak]] <br />A character or class that can be very effective, but needs a lot of work or strategy to reach its potential.
* [[Fantasy Character Classes]] <br />The most common character classes in a medieval fantasy setting.
* [[Featureless Protagonist]] <br />An Ageless, Faceless, Gender-Neutral, Culturally Ambiguous Adventure Person is [[Audience Surrogate|you!]]
** [[Non-Entity General]] <br />The player is a general or commander in a strategy game who may not actually even exist.
* [[Fighter, Mage, Thief]] <br />The three most common character classes for [[Western RPG|Western RPGs]].
* [[Forest Ranger]] <br />A character typically using bows and tapping the forest he or she protects.
* [[Fragile Speedster]] <br />A character who's very fast, but can't hit very hard and has low defense.
* [[Glacier Waif]] <br />A character of thin build who's nevertheless extremely strong and slow.
* [[Glass Cannon]] <br />A character who is strong but can't take a lot of damage.
* [[A God Is You]] <br />Games that star a protagonist who's actually a god or who has godlike powers.
* [[Gradual Grinder]] <br />A character type that deals damage over time, wearing the enemy down.
* [[Guest Star Party Member]] <br />Someone who joins your party temporarily as a "guest".
* [[Healing Hands]] <br />A character who has the ability to heal others.
* [[Heroic Mime]] <br />A main character who never speaks.
* [[Hero Unit]] <br />A unit, usually in a [[Real Time Strategy]] game, that represents the player, or a major character in the game's story, on the battlefield.
* [[Item Caddy]] <br />A character whose skills revolve around using items.
* [[Jack of All Stats]]<br />A character who has good strength, speed, and defense, but is not great in any category.
** [[Master of None]] <br />The [[Jack of All Stats]] where the end result is an almost useless character, since their mediocre skills are never useful enough to be chosen over a specialist.
* [[Job System]] <br />[[Eastern RPG]] system whereby classes have distinct equipment and abilities but can be changed at any time.
* [[Joke Character]] <br />Characters, often in the form of [[Easter Egg|Easter Eggs]], deliberately unbalanced in the negative sense.
** [[Lethal Joke Character]] <br />A [[Joke Character]] who has one or two awesome skills which can lead to him being used very effectively.
* [[Kid Hero]] <br />Slaying dragons and beating down goblins, but he still has a teddy bear when he goes to sleep.
* [[Lady of War]] <br />A [[Action Girl|female fighter]] who retains [[The High Queen|an air of grace and reserve not usually associated with violence.]]
* [[Lightning Bruiser]] <br />A character who has very good strength, speed, ''and'' defense.
* [[Magic Knight]] <br />A wizard who can also swordfight.
* [[Mascot With Attitude]] <br />A snarky [[Funny Animal]] with [[Totally Radical|kickin']] powers and [[Jump Physics|improbable jumping abilities]].
* [[Master of Unlocking]] <br />Opening doors is an art, don'tcha know.
* [[Mighty Glacier]] <br />He's got great strength and defense, and moves about as fast as mould.
* [[The Minion Master]] <br />Summon [[Mooks]] to do the job for you!
* [[Modern Day Sci Fi RPG Class Equivalents]] <br />A collection of character-classes or equivalents of such for non-fantasy RPG-settings.
* [[Monster Allies]] <br />Where monsters fight alongside the humans in RPGs.
* [[Mutually Exclusive Party Members]] <br />Several party members who, for whatever reason, cannot all be in the same party at the same time.
* [[Mystical Waif]] <br />A young girl with a mysterious past who the villains are trying to exploit and the heroes are trying to protect.
* [[One Man Army]] <br />You're the video game hero. It's perfectly normal for you to go around killing thousands of [[Mook|Mooks]].
* [[Optional Party Member]] <br />Someone who may not join your party, if you don't fulfil the requirements to get them.
* [[Overrated and Underleveled]] <br />A character introduced as being really powerful ends up, statistics-wise, as being weaker than the main character.
* [[Platforming Pocket Pal]] <br />An adventuring companion in an [[Action Game]] who, for whatever reason, is not hindered by the action segments.
* [[Player Character]] <br />A character controlled by you, the player.
* [[Player Mooks]] <br />Nameless, personality-less characters that make up your team.
* [[Powerup Mount]] <br />An animal ([[Ridiculously Cute Critter|usually adorable]]) that the main character can ride on and is beneficial in some way.
* [[Promoted to Unlockable]]<br />A former [[Boss]] or NPC becomes playable.
* [[Protagonist Without a Past]] <br />You just sort of popped into being in the first village.
* [[Rebellious Princess]] <br />She's had enough of being pampered and wants to get down and dirty with the monster fighting!
* [[The Red Mage]] <br />A magician capable of casting spells from two different or even [[Mutually Exclusive Magic|mutually exclusive]] schools of magic.
* [[Required Party Member]] <br />Someone who you have to have in your group, usually due to plot reasons.
* [[Schrodingers Player Character]] <br />The game offers multiple characters to choose from with various backstories, but only the character you choose as your PC ever appears in the game.
* [[Secret Character]] <br />A bonus character that the casual player may never see.
* [[Skill Gate Characters]] <br />[[Fighting Game]] characters that are a challenge to newcomers, but those with experience will easily mop the floor with them.
* [[Solo Class]] <br />Classes capable of going alone where others are forced to team up.
* [[Space Marine]] <br />Standard [[First Person Shooter|FPS]] hero: A military man (often in bulky armour), who wields lots of big guns and kills lots of aliens.
* [[Squishy Wizard]] <br />[[Aladdin (Disney)|Phenomenal cosmic power]], but teeeeny weeeeny little life bar.
* [[Stone Wall]] <br />A character with extremely high defense but lame offensive capabilities.
* [[Support Party Member]] <br />A party member whose' primary abilities are mostly non-offensive.
* [[Sword and Sorcerer]] <br />When a physical fighter and magic user team up.
* [[Team Pet]] <br />The default mascot of the party and usually the most outlandish of the bunch.
* [[Third Person Seductress]] <br />An implausibly curvy, twenty-something woman in a [[Stripperiffic]] outfit, who obeys the commands of the fellow behind the controller.
* [[The Turret Master]] <br />A character with the ability to [[Exactly What It Says On the Tin|summon a stationary turret]] that attacks enemies or an object that fulfills a similar role.
* [[Tomboy Princess]] <br />A princess that breaks the mold by not being [[The Chick]].
* [[White Mage]] <br />Magic-user who specializes in healing and support magic.
** [[White Magician Girl]] <br />The female magic-using co-star of an [[RPG]], who often wields a staff or rod.
* [[Wild Man]] <br />A usually [[Wild Hair|shaggy]], muscle-bound and under-dressed character who looks like he just came out of the jungle.

=== [[Fighting Game]] characters (may or may not be playable): ===
* [[Assist Character]] <br />A non-playable character which asissts somehow a playable one.
* [[Ditto Fighter]] <br />A character who copies the moveset of the other characters, sometimes with the added catch that the moveset is chosen randomly.
* [[Guest Fighter]] <br />A character who shows up in a [[Fighting Game]] who has no reason whatsoever to be there and is totally out of place.
* [[Husky Russkie]] <br />Is bik, stronk, and dreenks wodka.
* [[Perfect Play AI]] <br />An AI which continually walks forward, dodges or blocks all attacks, and attacks flawlessly once it reaches its target.
* [[Ryu and Ken]] <br />Two characters are given equal or similar abilities/appearances, and often wind up as being the main characters for the series.
* [[Shotoclone]] <br />Stock [[Fighting Game]] character whose skillset includes a fireball and uppercut and often wear a karate gi.

=== [[NPC]] types: ===
* [[Apathetic Citizens]] <br />Big bad guy is destroying the world? You take care of it.
* [[Arms Dealer]] <br />Some dude that sells weaponry, often to the highest bidder.
* [[City Guards]] <br />The local authorities, generally swaggering, superior-sounding grunts.
* [[Easily Angered Shopkeeper]] <br />If you steal something from a shop, you'll be attacked or zapped instantly.
* [[Exposition Fairy]] <br />A recurring or sidekick character whose purpose is to [[Mr. Exposition|fill you in]] on elements of the interface and your abilities.
** [[Stop Helping Me!]] <br />Where your [[Exposition Fairy]] just '''can't shut up dammit!'''
* [[Invulnerable Civilians]] <br />Whenever an [[NPC]] shows up in a monster-infested dungeon, they will always leave him alone.
* [[Precursor Heroes]] <br />A hero or group of heroes (often oddly similar to your own [[Player Party]]) that arose in the hour of need and [[Sealed Evil in A Can|sealed the Ultimate Evil in its can]] [[Exty Years From Now|1,000 years ago.]]
* [[Quest Giver]] <br />An [[NPC]] designated somehow as someone who will give you a sidequest.
* [[Recurring Traveller]] <br />A character who just keeps showing up throughout the game, usually thoroughly lost.
* [[Redundant Researcher]] <br />A researcher who's trying to figure out all those ancient ruins and is invariably pre-empted by the hero.
* [[Skill Point Reset]]<br />A trainer who can reset a [[Player Character]]'s skill and ability scores, allowing you to redistribute them.
* [[Voice With an Internet Connection]] <br />The helpful person at the other end of the main character's earpiece.

=== Enemy character types (excluding [[Boss Battle|Boss Battles]]): ===
* [[Actually Four Mooks]] <br />An enemy appears as a single sprite, but turns out to be a whole party of baddies.
* [[Airborne Mook]] <br />Dammit! These things can fly? I can't even hit [[Goddamned Bats|them]] half the time!!!
* [[Asteroids Monster]] <br />A creature of significant size that, when killed, splits into several miniature versions of itself.
* [[Bandit Mook]] <br />An enemy that employs [[Video Game Stealing]].
* [[Border Patrol]] <br />A monster or other hazard introduced specifically to prevent the player from wandering too far without resorting to the immersion-breaking Invisible Wall.
* [[Boss in Mook Clothing]] <br />A "normal battle" with an enemy that, as it turns out, can wipe the floor with you.
* [[Chest Monster]] <br />an enemy or hazard that has disguised itself to look like something positive, like [[Exactly What It Says On the Tin|a chest]].
* [[Clairvoyant Security Force]] <br />Manages to always appear the second you try to steal something.
* [[Degraded Boss]] <br />Once you beat the boss, it comes back as a normal enemy later.
* [[Drop in Nemesis]] <br />Where an enemy or obstacle comes out of nowhere and kills you, generally in a [[Cutscene]].
* [[Elemental Embodiment]] <br />When the elements that are the [[Elemental Rock Paper Scissors|basic building blocks of the universe]] get up and [[Everything Trying to Kill You|come for you.]]
* [[Enemy Summoner]] <br />An enemy who casts spells which bring additional enemies into combat, while causing some damage itself.
* [[Everything Trying to Kill You]] <br />You see that cutesy widdle rabbit? ''It wants you dead.''
* [[Evil Chancellor]] <br />The helpful and suspiciously toadying assistant to the monarchy whose morality is usually inverse to the head of state.
* [[Fake Ultimate Mook]] <br />A massive monster of terrifying appearance that's no real threat.
* [[Flying Seafood Special]] <br />Fish that float in the air. And generally try to kill you.
* [[Giant Hands of Doom]] <br />A character who fights only with giant hands.
* [[Goddamned Bats]] <br />Enemies that don't pose much threat on their own, but can frustrate, annoy, and get in your way.
** [[Demonic Spiders]] <br />Enemies that frustrate you by killing you in unfair ways, which make them innately more dangerous than other normal enemies.
** [[Ledge Bats]] <br />Enemies that knock you back in the middle of jumps, often to your death.
** [[Metal Slime]] <br />A monster that appears and runs away very quickly, is hard to hit, and gives very good rewards.
** [[Wall Master]] <br />Monsters that lurk within the environment and never fully appear until you walk close to them, at which point they suddenly lunge out and try to grab you.
* [[The Goomba]] <br />An enemy who will always be encountered in the first level, has a simple movement pattern, and is reassuringly easy to beat.
* [[Halfhearted Henchman]] <br />A normal henchman who's lazy, unmotivated, or otherwise unwilling to do his job.
* [[Heavily Armored Mook]] <br />An ordinary mook, but with hard steel accessories.
* [[Incredibly Durable Enemies]] <br />When the basic mook is an unstoppable killing machine, you know you're in a difficult game.
* [[Invincible Minor Minion]] <br />A weak enemy who is nevertheless completely impossible to harm in any way.
* [[Invisible Monsters]] <br />You can't see them, but they can probably hurt you.
* [[Killer Rabbit]] <br />Any monster that's far more dangerous than it looks.
* [[Mook]] <br />A slang term for the hordes of standard-issue, disposable bad guys whom the hero mows down with [[Moral Dissonance|impunity]].
** [[Slave Mooks]] <br />Even sadder than regular Mooks.
** [[Mook Bouncer]] <br />A [[Mook]] that can teleport you to a specific location whenever they touch you.
** [[Night of the Living Mooks]] <br />Zombies, skeletons, mummies, oh my!
** [[Mooks Ate My Equipment]] <br />Enemy that eats your stuff (and might eat you as well).
* [[Personal Space Invader]] <br />A monster who grabs onto you and must be shaken off.
* [[Pinata Enemy]] <br />An enemy target or victim in a video game sought out by the player because they are (relatively) easy to kill and have a very high cash payout.
* [[Raising the Steaks]] <br />Dead animals coming back to life and ''moidering you''.
* [[Rat Stomp]] <br />Finally you get to the adventuring part! But first, fight some rats.
* [[Roaming Enemy]] <br />An enemy which appears randomly under various circumstances.
* [[Segmented Serpent]] <br />An enemy which is made up of lots of mostly identical segments, and moves like a worm or snake.
* [[Shield Bearing Mook]] <br />A mook with a shield to protect against frontal attacks.
* [[Smash Mook]] <br />A big, strong enemy that does nothing but smash you with straight physical attacks.
* [[The Spiny]] <br />A [[Platform Game]] enemy that will damage you if you try to jump on it.
* [[Standard FPS Enemies]] <br />Those generic baddies seen in nearly every FPS you've every played.
* [[Stock Monsters]] <br />Those generic baddies seen in nearly EVERY [[RPG]] you've ever played.
* [[Teleporting Keycard Squad]] <br />Whenever you take something important, a slough of new enemies suddenly rushes in.
* [[Underground Monkey]] <br />Exactly the same as a regular monkey - but underground, and therefore has better stats.
* [[The Unfought]] <br />A major antagonist who you just never get to tussle with.
* [[Unique Enemy]] <br />An enemy that only shows up once in the whole game but is otherwise fairly unremarkable.
* [[Waddling Head]] <br />A stock monster that resembles a colored oval with eyes and feet.
* [[Whack a Monster]] <br />You see lots of holes in the ground: you know you're going to have to fight a bunch of monsters that pop up, attack, and pop back in.

=== Unclassified: ===
* [[Character Select Forcing]] <br />The game forces you to choose different characters.
* [[Game Over Man]] <br />A character shown on the [[Game Over]] screen.
* [[Lady Not-Appearing-In-This-Game]] <br />A sexy female in a game's promotional material who's not actually in the game itself.
* [[Live Item]] <br />A character or creature that the game treats as an item.
* [[The Missingno]] <br />A video game character whose existence is due to a [[Good Bad Bug]], rather than being deliberately coded into the game.
* [[Pet Interface]] <br />An interface in which you are given a sidekick, usually a pet, that acts as a guide/virtual pet of sorts in the world.
* [[Reviving Enemy]]<br />An enemy which can only be dealt with temporarily.
* [[Series Mascot]] <br />A character, creature, etc which is heavily associated with a fictional universe, to the point of being the (official or unofficial) [[Mascot]].
** [[Mascot Mook]] <br />An iconic [[Mook]] which can also double as a [[Series Mascot]].
* [[Training Dummy]] <br />Some (usually) immortal character that you can return to, to practice your moves on.
* [[Two Guys and A Girl]] <br />The main character and his [[Rival Turned Evil]] spend most of the game fighting over the girl (who owns a [[MacGuffin|mysterious amulet]] or something).
* [[With a Friend And A Stranger]] <br />The game starts off with the hero, his or her childhood friend, and [[Mysterious Waif|another person, often a girl, from out of nowhere]] who needs his help.

{{reflist}}
[[Category:Index Index/Sandbox]]
[[Category:Otogi Myth of Demons]]
[[Category:Video Game Tropes]]
[[Category:Index Index]]
[[Category:index]]
[[Category:Video Game Characters]]

Latest revision as of 18:59, 3 August 2014

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