You would think that now we have games a generation away from photorealism with analog controllers in our hands that the mechanics have refined themselves to the point where creativity would run rampant. Yet here we are in 2010 looking at a stable of newcomer characters that reads like everything else you've seen before, and sometimes developers are even skipping the "new" step in some cases and running straight into the cliche bin.
As I'm looking back in my growing retro collection, I started to notice things that were bothering me with characters that never bothered me before. At one point, the "you gotta have blue hair" approach was pretty fun, since in most cases games were meant to be as colorful as possible and it worked out for everyone. I realized that the reason why it bothered me so much is because developers haven't seemed to figure out a way to evolve beyond that. If you're playing a Japanese designed game, the odds are high that you're going to be controlling someone with blue hair, a giant sword, a metal suit, or an obvious set of knockers. If you're playing a western release, then you'll either be a scruffy bald guy, carrying a big gun, using metal armor, or have a huge set of knockers. Come to think of it, it's all running together now.
God of War and Bayonetta is where the argument pretty much starts and ends. Aside from the fact that the games are obviously comparable in style and genre, the two characters share something in common. They are the furthest thing from original as you can get, yet somehow manage to bring something new to the table. Kratos is pretty much Riddick on steroids and the powers of a god, so being bald and painted is all part of the gimmick. If he had long hair, then he would be closer to the Prince of Persia series, and we would never think of Kratos the same way again. So while the man is a walking cliche of design, the game itself is about kicking copious amount of ass in the most brutal ways possible. It's complete indulgence. The game itself made that character great. Stick Kratos in the role of the Hitman, and you probably wouldn't have achieved the same result or impact.
Likewise, there's Bayonetta, who takes the indulgence sell-point and runs naked through her game with it. She doesn't have much of a personality "yet" (I haven't beat the game yet, but I'd be shocked if she somehow decided to change her approach), and it's not like sex appeal hasn't been done before. The thing that separates her from your token jiggly girl on a fighting roster is that the game is based around her going completely ballistic (literally) with her sex appeal and letting it fly all over the place. She spends the entire game naked, but she's covered by her hair...which looks like a cat-suit. She has guns for heels, does stripper moves while fighting, uses lollipops to heal herself, and tells everyone she meets to piss off. That's just to start things off, but you get the idea. There's no character, only fan service. Do we care? No, because it's actually sort of original to just go nuts with this kind of character once and a while.
So a great game can make an otherwise "we've seen this before" character into something neat, and thankfully those two at least have every reason in the world for being who they are. They have a reason to be able to get away with the things they do. The rest don't.
Sadly, it dawned upon me while writing this that there is a better way to demonstrate everything that I'm trying to say. So 15 minutes later, I threw together what was already in my brain. Squeenix, thank you for making this so easy on me. All I had to do was turn down the blue on Rinoa.
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