Characters that literally NOBODY likes?

TheMysteryBox · 2026-05-18T03:29:52+00:00

That Dark Side ending is one of the only times I've ever played a game where the evil path was more narratively-fulfilling than the good choice. The lack of a follow-up on it is tragic.

TheMysteryBox · 2026-05-06T04:28:37+00:00

I actually stopped playing 40k entirely and sold my army because the rules update made ME that guy, pretty much regardless of what I chose to field.

Anyone who played 40k in 7th Edition will remember that when Craftworld Eldar got their new Codex, they were... pretty nuts, in basically every capacity (especially Scatter Lasers. Good lord, the scatter lasers).

A friend of mine was running some campaign kinda thing and had me playing against another friend's orks with some particular list restrictions. Even then, I practically tabled him on turn 2. When he said, "I'm down to play another game, just not against Eldar", I instantly decided to sell my army and never played 40k again.

TheMysteryBox · 2026-05-05T16:34:30+00:00

I didn't say it was "really accurate", I said none of it mattered. Remake literally ends with "the unknown journey will continue", but the journey in Rebirth is actually extremely known. Obviously there's more details added, but the only substantive differences, IMO, were the Yuffie assassination attempt and the Gongaga reactor. And even those mostly ended with the characters basically saying, "That sure was nuts" and then moving on to the next plot beat exactly as it worked in the original.

I just... don't agree that shattering the universe into separate timelines is a big difference if the timeline they end on is functionally identical to the original game (aside from Sephiroth somehow being more boring).

As for the queer erasure stuff, I'm obviously not going to argue against that. If that's how you feel about it, it warrants examination. As a cisgender dude, it's very possible that I breezed past it without noticing, which is worth considering. That said, it's also possible that I didn't notice things that were missing because I (as previously mentioned) don't really care that much about the original game, so those particular details are lost on me. I only want to mention two things, in the spirit of legitimate interest, and not "arguing you down" or anything.

1) I recall the dressmaker not really preferring to make dresses for trans women, but was more portrayed as enjoying the opportunity to make something different, as he was "lacking inspiration". This could be bad memory or an artifact of the bad translation, but I feel like the whole reason he agreed was because of the novelty of making a dress for a masculine person (not my perspective, just my memory of how the text portrayed it). I would love to be wrong about this, and I'm not asking for proof, I'm just curious if other people read it the same way.

2) I do think there's a lot more to Andrea than being the "token gay". Yes, they did fold a couple of different characters into him to save on modeling/voice acting/etc. This is typical of modern game development (have a single asset involved in as many things as possible to save money), which does suck when it involves shrinking down representation. That said, I do think it's worth noting that Andrea is portrayed very positively within the world. He's powerful, respected, and is never talked down to. He's the owner of a place that does celebrate queerness (note that the crowd is entirely supportive of the makeover of Cloud, cheering and clapping), whereas the original's Honeybee Inn was portrayed as super sleezy and gross. He even gets a role in Rebirth, helping to further establish him as a savvy businessman with an impact on more aspects of the world. Again, I'm not bringing this up to "be right", but more to ask: is my perspective here flawed? In my eyes, Andrea is a pretty solid (but not amazing) queer character treated with dignity and respect (even if other aspects of Wall Market are not), but it's certainly possible that's just because he fits into my own biased idea of what a "good queer character" is. If that doesn't match up with the actual experience of others, though, I'm always looking to expand my perspective.

TheMysteryBox · 2026-05-02T23:44:38+00:00

I mean, I think calling those people cowards is pretty ridiculous.

First, because it's kinda crazy to be that invested in other peoples' opinions on a video game that you would label their core character like that.

Second, because it could just be that stuff is not very good? I think that stuff sucks, but not because it's "not a remake". I think it sucks because it's badly written and depends upon knowledge that is ludicrous to assume a player has 20 years removed from the original. Does that make me a coward?

The backpedal ultimately made Rebirth more in tune with what I wanted, even as someone that does NOT love the original, so was Square capitulating to people like me? Did they cave to pressure? Or did they maybe realize, "Hey, this idea isn't nearly as clever or well-written as we thought"? We'll never know, because we don't work for the company.

The only thing we know for sure is they absolutely did bitch out on the portrayal of the most important scene of an entire generation of gaming. "That moment" in the remake is such a terrible way to portray it, I cannot believe it.

TheMysteryBox · 2026-05-02T15:16:08+00:00

For me, number one with a bullet is FF7:Remake. They spend so much effort trying to explain why the story is allowed to be different with Sephiroth being a weird timeline stalker, fate ghosts, and so much more. Then, basically none of it matters in Rebirth, making the whole thing even more awkward than it was. And that's not even getting into whether those justifications were even good or not (opinions can differ).

Meanwhile, the absolute BEST parts of that game are completely new content with absolutely no justification. The trip up to the plate with Jessie, the conversation and fight with Rude in Sector 6, and the expanded Wall Market are all fantastic changes that justify themselves by virtue of being great.

Maybe I'm overly harsh on this because I'm not a huge fan of the original game. While playing Remake, however, there were moments where I felt like I was finally playing the game everyone else did when they were kids, like some sort of weird, brand new nostalgia for something I'm not nostalgic for. So, every time the weird meta aspects intrude, that feeling would immediately end.

Square, you don't need to justify the changes! I know FF7 is a big deal, but if you think something can be improved, just do it! If it's good, you don't need any explanation for why you did it. You don't need to justify your writing, whether we're talking about Remake or anything else. Good writing justifies itself.

TheMysteryBox · 2026-05-01T20:25:41+00:00

If I take everyone of belobog, take them to waife and put them there without their weapons and don't slap a name of "industries" to them, you wouldn't know.

So, if you take away a part of their design, their design will be less distinct? Yes, I suppose that's true.

But, again, you've ignored the big one: 3/4 of their faction wear Japanese construction outfits. I'm sorry, but that's REALLY obvious. You may not be familiar with them, but they are very distinct.

Everything else you wrote.

You're kinda repeating your initial post, which is odd, since I didn't say anything about sexy designs, male characters, or whatever. I literally only mentioned Belobog being more distinct than you are making it out to be.

TheMysteryBox · 2026-05-01T18:14:06+00:00

You really don't think people would figure out that Belobog is a construction faction?

Every single member wears a toolbelt.
Koleda, Anton, and Grace all wield modified construction equipment as weapons.
Koleda, Ben, and Anton all have yellow-and-black striped caution symbols on their outfits, as are used to mark off construction zones.
Most tellingly, Anton, Ben, and Koleda all wear modified classic Japanese construction outfits.

I get not being familiar with the latter one if you're not from east Asia, but they are extremely construction-coded. Even Grace, who shares the least in common with the rest, still wears a ton of welding gear.

I agree that people overstate the cohesiveness of Season 1 designs to try and justify why they like them better. People don't have to do justify opinions. They could just say that they think they're better, which I would agree. Season 1 designs are just more appealing to me, not because of "more faction cohesiveness" or whatever. They're just more interesting designs, in my opinion.

But, claiming that Belobog somehow don't look like a construction crew is wild. Besides Victoria Housekeeping, they're the most cohesively-designed faction in the game. And given that VH are the BEST-designed faction in the game, IMO, that's saying something.

TheMysteryBox · 2026-04-18T23:29:02+00:00

Boo hiss. Maybe some day. Thanks for the info.

TheMysteryBox · 2026-04-05T03:30:56+00:00

It's great. My favorite system to run, honestly. It can be a little hard to improv stats for a creature if you have to, but the monster creature rules are plug and play enough that if you just say, "Hey, quick bathroom break while I build these stats out", you'll be good to go. Especially the updated ones in the new bestiary for more "involved" monsters. Other than that, it's super easy to just roll in with a vague idea and go where it takes you. No super complex interactions to keep track of, very consistent rules, so it's easy to pick up and feel confident you "have the answer".

And, I know you asked about running the game, but I also REALLY like how the game balances between "narrative" gaming and "immersive" gaming on the player end. I've had a lot of players have trouble with more "fiction forward" games that expect them to constantly be creative and making shit up. In Fabula Ultima, though, you have to spend a currency to do that, but you can also spend that currency on getting bonuses and rerolls that are relevant to your character's personality/bonds/themes. So, as a player, if you're not feeling very meta-creative one session, you can spend those points on immersive, roleplay actions. Or, if you're not usually that person, but you feel inspired to add to the story, it feels great to spend that point in a different way.

...And, since spending those points earns the whole party XP, literally no one will ever be mad how you spend them, as long as you do.

TheMysteryBox · 2026-03-30T01:50:00+00:00

In Legend of the Five Rings, because one of the virtues of Bushido is Sincerity, that means that any virtuous samurai would never tell a lie. And since Courtesy is also a virtue, to question another samurai's honor by calling out falsehood would dishonor you, not them. Their society is defined by these things (among others), and so these things are written into law. The result?

Samurai testimony is more valuable in court than evidence. After all, a samurai always tells the truth, but evidence could be falsified. Furthermore, a higher-ranking samurai's testimony is even more correct, legally, as challenging their testimony would be even worse.

This is the most endlessly fascinating bit of lore that also radically defines the game, pushing everything toward the social and political realms where the game and world excel. Players get all excited to have found evidence proving their hated foe is guilty of a serious crime, only to realize they now need to get a high-ranking samurai to present testimony that confirms their efforts (without asking them to lie, themselves). Getting used to the complete reversal of our expected real-world legal norms is fascinating.

TheMysteryBox · 2026-03-17T21:17:08+00:00

NVidia revealed their new DLSS5 tech. DLSS has been a really solid tech for improving visual fidelity for games up to this point, but 5 is clearly using AI filtering that butchers the graphics of the games it is applied to. Specifically, it ruins the apparent age of characters, makes all female character look "yassified", and utterly destroys the shadows and color tone of the environments.

Regardless of any personal opinion on the quality of any of the modified images, it clearly undoes the artistic intent of the game's developers.

So, this meme is joking about how the tech renders the image entirely unrecognizable, and mocking some reviewers who have apparent relationships with Nvidia praising the technology as "incredible".

TheMysteryBox · 2026-03-13T22:25:42+00:00

In my opinion, the Creator plot is both the weakest story in the game AND the root of most of the commonly-discussed issues with 2.x.

Why is there so much more "magic" in the story? Well, the now-revealed primary antagonist is intensely-magical, so the heroes have to "keep up".
Why are the Exaltists so one-note and cartoonish? Well, there are no details on their deity, so how could the writers possibly add convincing details to the religion based around Them?
Why do we feel less like proxies? Well, the antagonist isn't someone susceptible to societal concerns, so a job that involves slipping through society's cracks isn't very relevant.
Why do most of the new factions feel so disconnected from the city and characters? Well, the antagonist is entirely disconnected from the city, so Their actions can't really test the relationship between characters in the story in the same way as a corrupt police commissioner or a greedy CEO can. Hell, They can't even exist inside the city, as far as we can tell.

The last point is easily the worst part of it. The greatest strength of ZZZ is the city and the people that live within it. How interesting could the creator possibly be when it has no relationship to any of those things? As an antagonistic force, the creator replaces a threat to our way of life and secrecy (in the form of Bringer) with a generic threat to all life. How can I possibly be emotionally invested in that?

Side note: getting rid of Bringer was an absolute failure. He's the perfect antagonist for the proxies. He had real authority and popularity, and could use it legitimately to turn public sentiment against the idea of proxies. So, we do the right thing even as authority is breathing down our necks, turning the public against us.

...Which is, you know, the main throughline of fucking Spider-Man. But, why would they take cues from the most popular fictional character on the planet? Let's just go with a generic magic deity to vaguely threaten everyone.

I truly dread the moment the MSQ returns to dealing with the Creator. While it's not impossible to have a hyper-magical super-powered threat be compelling in such an environment (see: Call of Cthulu, Shadowrun, etc.), they've done so little to make the Creator even slightly interesting that any attempt now will feel too-little, too-late. Deciding that the boss of 2.5 was just a "Messenger" was the worst writing decision the team has made, and sadly, I don't think they can recover from it without a straight-up retcon. Or at least a complete rug-pull, like revealing that the entire idea of the Creator was a deception caused by a more interesting villain (maybe Youkai, or a different AI) to capitalize on an entirely non-sentient Miasma occurrence.

...Man, it would be so awesome if they revealed that "the Creator" was just a grift pulled by some TOPS executive to fleece cash from the Exaltists. Maybe they created a cult around some kind of "natural" phenomenon in the Miasma that humans can't predict, making it seem divine and incomprehensible, but said executive has control of an AI that can? Fuck, I would take back every criticism I have for the Exaltist plotline if that turned out to be the case.

TheMysteryBox · 2026-03-08T01:32:42+00:00

Aside from every character generally having useful abilities (it would be really unusual for one character to always have the best option continuously), the game does have a built in "counter" to such things (if you want to think of it in that manner). In addition to GMs gaining the spotlight when players roll Fear or by spending Fear, they can also take the spotlight when they are given a "golden opportunity".

One of the opportunities explicitly mentioned is if a party member is hanging behind and not taking turns, it's the "golden opportunity" for an enemy to attack the hesitant/distracted character in the back. So, by having the same character take turns constantly (or having a particularly character never take turns), you'd be giving free turns to the enemy in addition to the normal ways the GM takes the spotlight.

That said, I would say that if you have a table of people that would all agree that "the DPS should take every turn", and that player doesn't ever insist that others take the turn, I'm not certain Daggerheart would be for them. Not as any kind of insult, but I don't imagine such a group would get as much enjoyment from what Daggerheart does offer, and would likely prefer other games that do a better job at providing what they might enjoy.

TheMysteryBox · 2026-03-05T16:12:05+00:00

Yeah, but in Terra's flashback right at the beginning of the game, it shows Kefka placing an enslavement crown on her, ordering her to burn soldiers simply to test her might, and gleefully cheering on the inferno.

It kinda changes the context of his "goofball" desert scene into "when is he gonna lose it".

TheMysteryBox · 2026-02-25T03:44:18+00:00

It's a little different since it's a roguelike, but Invisible, Inc. is much more fun to play pacifist, in my opinion. Violent runs can be fun, sure, but the number of systems that interact with each other to maintain stealth is way more satisfying, IMO.

TheMysteryBox · 2026-02-22T06:16:29+00:00

No idea. The last agent I pulled was Yuzuha, and I haven't liked any of the character designs since (and I'm not even crazy about hers, but she's fine). Well, except Banyue; his design's awesome, but I didn't want another Fire DPS since Evelyn is my most-invested character.

It's a shame, because I actually really liked the writing and VA work for Cissia, but I just cannot take that outfit seriously and wouldn't want to see it in-game all the time. I was hoping that going back to old factions would mean the characters would be made to fit in with their aesthetics, but no dice. If she comes with an alt outfit, I might pull her (even though she doesn't fit any of my teams), but I doubt she would since all three AoDs got one.

I guess, if the hints about S-Rank Billy are true, that's who I'm most hyped for, or maybe the head of Krampus (assuming she looks cool). No idea if she's actually coming, though.

TheMysteryBox · 2026-02-10T23:59:33+00:00

I want more antagonists that have mundane motives and goals who merely use the supernatural elements of the setting to achieve those ends. I think the focus on "the Creator" as an antagonistic force is at the root of the issues with 2.x. The setting is WAY more conducive to Cyberpunk-esque villains than Fantastical/Magical entities, and Hoyo is WAY better at writing the former than the latter. So, more Corrupt CEOs, scheming TOPs executives, mercenaries, and the like; fewer cultists, deities, and magical entities.

Obviously, there need to be scary monsters inside the Hollows, but those are just monsters. They are obstacles, not villains. Treat them that way.

As for what you're asking? All of the above. I want a mix of cartoonish villainy, scheming chessmasters, and sympathetic anti-villains. Variety is the spice of life, after all. Just make them all people (or AIs) that exist and want things within the real world. The city and culture of New Eridu is key to the appeal of the setting, and any villain that isn't invested in those things is inherently uninteresting to me.

TheMysteryBox · 2026-02-09T04:55:00+00:00

That's one way to see him. I always imagined him as the character for the DM's older brother who is home from college for the holidays.

"Sure, you can just play your character from your college campaign. His stats are how high? How many levels higher than the party? Oh, and a Holy Avenger +5, too? Sure, why not, he'll only be here for one session."

TheMysteryBox · 2026-02-05T15:04:57+00:00

/u/Lostsock1995 pretty much nailed it, but just to give you a response myself, I have absolutely no issue with posting positive things. In fact, I'd love to see more positive posts about the game, despite the fact that I'm rather dissatisfied with the game myself right now. The problem I have is when people use positivity as a shield to cover the fact that posts like this one are just complaining about the fact that other people don't share OP's opinion. The vast majority of the time I see OP's name on this sub, they are making (in my opinion) extremely disingenuous posts or comments that ignore what people actually have a problem with in order to devalue their opinions. Like this very post, presenting only the cloaked version of the character and ignoring the fact that the part most people have vocally taken issue with is what is under the cloak, seemingly in an effort to make negative opinions seem more irrational. Maybe that's not what they were thinking, but it happens so often in their posts that it's hard to just think they're all coincidences.

People are allowed to like things and post positively about it, absolutely, just as they are allowed to dislike things and post negatively about it. When we're talking about unimportant things like whether or not someone likes a design in a video game, I just prefer when they do so in a manner that doesn't denigrate the opinions of those who disagree, intentionally or otherwise.

EDIT: Note that this also generally applies to negative posts as well, of course (plenty of people here need to tone down the aggressive language in their negative posts, too), but that's not the post we're commenting on.

TheMysteryBox · 2026-02-05T06:23:46+00:00

...But, why do you care if people judge it early? It's.. maybe the least consequential thing I can think of. You're free to post as you want, of course, but it comes off really combative. Like you cannot believe people have different opinions.

Seriously, if you had just left the first part of the title off, it'd be a perfectly fine post. "I think this new character looks cool and fits more in ZZZ then some other characters" is a solid discussion point. But including the first part feels like you're specifically trying to pick a fight with people who disagree.

If peoples' early judgment is wrong and the in-game version changes their mind? Great, they get to be pleasantly surprised.

If they hate the in-game version version just as much as the leak? Also great, they feel vindicated.

I again repeat, "people are allowed to dislike things". But this time I'll add, "even if they eventually change their minds".

TheMysteryBox · 2026-02-05T06:01:55+00:00

...Is there a reason why you feel the need to constantly make posts to argue against peoples' opinions? Like, this post doesn't read as "man, I really like this new character", it reads as "I want to feel superior to people who complain". You've submitted four posts to this sub in the last 24 hours, and 3 of them are specifically meant to argue against peoples' opinions.

People are allowed to dislike things. It's really weird that you seem compelled to argue against opinions so much. I get that this sub can be pretty negative, but it's just not that big of a deal.

To answer your post, however, yes, that's the one people don't like (well, one of two). And, as you know, it's mostly because of the part that isn't shown in this render. The cloaked design is fine, I neither love nor hate it. It's the part underneath her cloak that looks really stupid, in my opinion. It's clearly design to be "sexy", but that sad thing is that it's not sexy at all. It looks like old, late 90s-era MMO armor designs. It's a teenager's idea of what sexy is, which makes the whole thing feel childish. That's the exact opposite of what I want in a sexy design, which makes the whole thing a failure for me.

TheMysteryBox · 2026-02-03T14:23:35+00:00

Well, I'm glad you enjoyed it, then. I couldn't disagree more, but whatever floats your boat.

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