Opinion - I think Capcom designs the coolest characters in the industry. Any challengers?

[francium87]

Bioware's catalog mostly contains somewhat generic character design confined by the games' IPs (wuxia, starwars, dnd), but Mass Effect has some of the most stellar character designs ever.

Legion is my all time favorite, who fused Shepard's N7 armor into itself, and slyly replies "no data available" when confronted if that action was emotional instead of rational
Garrus gets a badass face scar and Shepard tells him "well Garrus you were always ugly"
Mordin, "the very model of a scientist Salarian"
Blasto, "a lover in every port and a gun in every tentacle"
Wrex, "Shepard" /nod

 

[Atom Heart Mother]

I'm gonna interject my own contender (if it hasn't already been posted): Team Shangai Alice (ZUN)'s designs.
Touhou Project's character designs are 3 things: elegant, simple, and cool. The characters from Touhou are extremely varied (one for everyone to pretty much love) and have such a strong charm. Most of them are just outright iconic. And, they've been refined over the course of 15+ years.

While the art isn't exactly the best, I think the character designs follow the rules of great designs. For one man team, he did a great job. When your characters constantly get fanart even 10+ years later you know you did something right.

 

[ScreamingMadden]

Let's not pretend that Capcom hasn't had their share of missteps:

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What if Capcom had their own form of Glottis from Grim Fandango where Abigail is super into cars, is really loud and likes to make car sounds. The difference is Glottis is porty and his personality is endearing where's Abigail is jacked but his personality is annoying. Seriously if you think about he's a lot like Glottis, but unlikeable.

 

[foggy]

Capcom could shit the bed for 30 more years and they'd still be GOAT.

 

[Tetrinski]

I gotta say Sega though. Throughout the years, they have had some really cool characters(excluding the Sonic OC crew). I mean, you got Sonic. You have the entire cast Valkyria Chronicles

You have Jet Set Radio

Phantasy Star:

And much much more.

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The art of PSO on the Dreamcast is so underrated! That city hub that was the space station has one of my favorite art level designs ever. The final boss also was very well conceived.

 

[raterpillar]

Capcom is historically the best, but now? Nah. I feel sorry for people saying SNK and Square-Enix, tbh, but they can't help it.

 

[Lulu]

I'm gonna interject my own contender (if it hasn't already been posted): Team Shangai Alice (ZUN)'s designs.
Touhou Project's character designs are 3 things: elegant, simple, and cool. Most of the characters are extremely varied (one for everyone to pretty much love) and have such a strong charm. Also most of the designs are just outright iconic. Also, they've refined over the course of 15+ years.

While the art isn't exactly the best, I think the character designs follow the rules of great designs. For one man team, he did a great job. When your characters constantly get fanart even 10+ years later you know you did something right.

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Yikes

 

[raterpillar]

Yeah I think I'll put Blizzard over Capcom too. Warcraft is a trendsetter in Western fantasy design

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lol. rip off warhammer: trendsetter in western fantasy design

 

[PeakPointMatrix]

Megaman Legends is the only video game artwork that has come closest to reaching studio Ghibli to me without being Ghibli, which is some of the highest praise I can give it.

Zack and Wiki also had really appealing designs:

 

[Alcibiades]

Looking at Super Smash Bros., it's obviously Nintendo. Just with Pokémon alone they have more iconic designs than Capcom in their entirety. Street Fighter V has very ugly character designs if you ask me.

 

[Hibiki]

Let's not pretend that Capcom hasn't had their share of missteps:

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This may very well be one of the dumbest looking characters designs I have ever seen.

 

[lvl 99 Pixel]

Cartoony stuff is easily Nintendo
Realistic/serious stuff is probably From Software

 

[Zippo]

Nintendo, SEGA and Capcom are all at the top for me. Unparalleled.

 

[petran79]

Sierra with Gabriel Knight 1 was 20 years ahead in character design and character development

 

[Atom Heart Mother]

Yikes

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I don't know what you mean. Touhou has some of the my favorite character designs. You should really look into it more!

 

[Evilisk]

Yikes

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The Touhou games are all done by one person (gameplay, music and yes, the art too). The creator, ZUN, actually does have good design sense when it comes to his characters... his rendering of those designs are pretty awful though. Aside from the sameface issues, other visual details come off as incredibly vague (e.g. one of the main characters, Marisa, is supposed to be shorter than the other, but it's basically impossible to tell comparing portraits)

His design sense shines more when he collaborates (like with the spinoff games and manga series, where he only serves as writer). Here are some designs that are rendered in a much better, official style, with few changes to the original design. (I would have picked the protagonists' designs, but their exact designs change with every game. The art is specifically from the more recent Touhou fighting games, Touhou 14.5 and Touhou 15.5. The artist also illustrated one of the official manga series)

Nitori

Spoiler

Mokou

Spoiler

Yukari

Spoiler

There's also countless pieces of fan art with their own takes on ZUN's designs.

ZUN also tends to put a lot of thought into the designs whether it's with musical themes, historical / mythological influences and other references. I think that second layer is what really sets ZUN apart, but not all characters are as lavishly designed or thought out. This topic is also mostly on the visual designs of the character, though I'll leave this video of one design being analyzed.

It's easy to say that it's the work of better artists that have made the designs work, but the most popular characters and designs (specifically Touhou 6, Touhou 7 and arguably Touhou 10) are all solo works, with art and designs done by ZUN. Even today you can still find new fan art (or comics) of those characters. Something about the designs definitely resonates with fans, and I definitely think that ZUN's very good at using color and creating distinct silhouettes.

 

[GongagaSOLDIER]

Capcom often have great character designs but they are VERY inconsistent in quality, often between one entry in a series to another. The RE characters seemingly have a different (sometimes COMPLETELY) different design in every game, not always for the better. As for DMC Dante (and I'm talking original Dante) has looked really borked in a few instances, and Dante 2 I personally liked his design but it turned out to be a misstep to the hard-core DMC crew (could be argued this was actually down to NT though). Street Fighter designs go somewhere from phenomenal to dreadful, with dreadful or uninspired being the more common recently. They certainly have cool characters (especially in the back catalogue) but I would argue Square and even Atlus have almost as many. My honourable mention also goes to SMS because GoW has some really nice character design as well.
(Hot take: Leon has looked dreadful since RE4 and still looks like he's been plucked from an early 90s boy band, so far from cool for me personally.)

 

[Alek]

I really enjoy the character designs and animation in games made by Amakna studios. They're a French developer that have talented 2D artists.

Click the spoiler for more.

Spoiler

 

[Atom Heart Mother]

The Touhou games are all done by one person (gameplay, music and yes, the art too). The creator, ZUN, actually does have good design sense when it comes to his characters... his rendering of those designs are pretty awful though. Aside from the sameface issues, other visual details come off as incredibly vague (e.g. one of the main characters, Marisa, is supposed to be shorter than the other, but it's basically impossible to tell comparing portraits)

His design sense shines more when he collaborates (like with the spinoff games and manga series, where he only serves as writer). Here are some designs that are rendered in a much better, official style, with few changes to the original design. (I would have picked the protagonists' designs, but their exact designs change with every game. The art is specifically from the more recent Touhou fighting games, Touhou 14.5 and Touhou 15.5. The artist also illustrated one of the official manga series)

Nitori

Spoiler

Mokou

Spoiler

Yukari

Spoiler

There's also countless pieces of fan art with their own takes on ZUN's designs.

ZUN also tends to put a lot of thought into the designs whether it's with musical themes, historical / mythological influences and other references. I think that second layer is what really sets ZUN apart, but not all characters are as lavishly designed or thought out. This topic is also mostly on the visual designs of the character, though I'll leave this video of one design being analyzed.

It's easy to say that it's the work of better artists that have made the designs work, but the most popular characters and designs (specifically Touhou 6, Touhou 7 and arguably Touhou 10) are all solo works, with art and designs done by ZUN. Even today you can still find new fan art (or comics) of those characters. Something about the designs definitely resonates with fans, and I definitely think that ZUN's very good at using color and creating distinct silhouettes.

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Thank you for this post. You're much better at explaining it than me. Something about the character's designs in Touhou just resonates with me, even ZUN's less than stellar art just amazes me. So much actual passion was put into these characters. As an artist myself, they're also extremely fun to try to draw.

Also, I love Mokou's look so much. It's so cool.

 

[Griselbrand]

I think Metal Gear, from Solid to V, has always had great designs. Quiet, and maybe some others are outliers to me.

I'm thinking specifically the futuristic suits that some characters wore like Cyborg Ninja, the BB unit, and pretty much every character in Rising. I like the overall designs but I especially like the small consistent touches like cabling, bar codes, and nodes for who knows what. I think most of the credit goes to Yoji Shinkawa but I can't be sure.

 

[PSqueak]

Let's not pretend that Capcom hasn't had their share of missteps:

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He might not look "cool" but he looks exactly as intended, an ugly, ridiculous clown of a thug. Design hits the intended target.

 

[The Orz]

He might not look "cool" but he looks exactly as intended, an ugly, ridiculous clown of a thug. Design hits the intended target.

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Exactly! Nothing about Abobo here is meant to be cool. His animations coupled with his absurd proportions give the character a hell of a lot of personality and I love it. He's also fun to play which doesn't hurt.

 

[tusk]

i truly can't believe anyone dares compare blizzard to capcoms 90s-00s output lol

blizzards designs started out as watered down warhammer/40k and basically every design in overwatch is derivative of something else. android cowboy is done to death and junkrat is literally just australian joker with a worse physical appearance

 

[fbnaulin]

I'm here just to spread my dislike: Tetsuya Nomura sucks.

 

[Cinemikel]