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What criteria made you choose your main(s)?

Felipe_Gewehr

Felipe_Gewehr

Twinktile
I find this is a rarely discussed topic. If there are objectively worse or better characters in a fighting game, what made you choose YOURS? Is it because he looked fun to play? Is it because you checked some tier lists and you wanted to get ahead by learning a good character? Is it because your kids like seeing the VFX of a particular character while you play?

Is it a process for you - as in, do you learn multiple characters and then decide which ones you will play mostly?

Personally, I mostly discover who I'm going to play as based on 3 things:

  1. How cool does the character look to me?
  2. Is the character competitively viable?
  3. How much time do I need to invest before doing well, if this character is hard to learn?
 
Juxtapose

Juxtapose

Master
For me, I've generally been a Scorpion and Sub-Zero main for the original trilogy, and then used Scorpion again for Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe. I started with him for Mortal Kombat (2011) but felt Scorpion-ed out and looked for someone else.

Mortal Kombat II was my fav klassic game in the franchise and Mileena was top tier in that game. She also had a fast and aggressive play style that seemed to suit me, so I picked her up.

Several months later, I was very impressed with what I was seeing 16 Bit do with Kitana in tournaments, so I picked her up to. I've stuck with Mileena and Kitana as my mains through all the NetherRealm developed games since.
 
chrisisnice

chrisisnice

I'm a lover, not a fighter
Tier lists do not matter to me. I will do better with a character I like rather than an S tier character I don’t like.

Firstly, I am a character loyalist, and Kitana is always up there in my mains. She is #3 MK1 after Li Mei and Ashrah who I mained in the 3D era.

After this, it is a combination of aesthetics, and their gameplay. I need to like both, or I won’t play them. In MKX, I really wanted to play Cassie, but I could not get used to her gameplay. I loved the gameplay of Kung Jin, but he was aesthetically boring, so I could not play him.

After a year or so, I usually have a serious go at a couple of others that I would never even consider playing in any other title. This is how I ended up having co mains Kitana/ Ermac in MK9 and Kitana/Triborg (Sektor), in MKX. At the moment, I am giving Noob a crack and having fun.
 
Eddy Wang

Eddy Wang

Skarlet scientist
I don't care about tier lists

Most of the time i tend to pick up characters who are fast, with a usually good walkspeed and annoying, characters like Ibuki, Cammy (SF series), Kunimitsu (Tekken) fit my style of quick offensive.

In Mortal Kombat this translates most of the time to Shaolin monks, since i don't like much of the Liu Kang Trope, he used to fit more my dead cousin playstyle as he was one to get hooked on looks and protagonists with headbands (Ryu, Liu Kang, Mizoguchi, etc) i tend to gravitate towards kung Lao more over the others (Kai, Liu Kang, Bo Rai Cho etc)

Kung Lao in MK games it's a bit of a niche because he has a unique system, he can move in air space like no other, and the exclusive ability to jump back away from any retaliation and coming back with a dive kick, its probably the only thing he has retained from every MK game he was in since MK2 (Outside of 3D era where he has no dive kicks).
And no one can really jump at him, his combos and normals are always swift and fast AF, adding that to his amazing mobility depending on the game where he is.

The other character who had an interesting design and has drawn me back into her was Skarlet in MK9, she was quick, excellent walkspeeds had a command dash was a Ninja, and her ability to play through blocking to make her game was something i felt an enormous previllege of exploring, NRS has never made a character like this, literally if you start to block her, she would start to get stronger, due her chip, meter gain, blockstring loops were insane, it was definitely a part of the character that defined her a lot
her projectiles didn't even did Chip damage, and her highs used to whiff on crouch block, so you had to crouch block to beat her to prevent her build meter, and deprive her of good wakeup options and defensive options, but her overheads and high jail for chip loops made her gameplay 100% interesting, since with each bar she could get, it was one for defense(wakeup or armor) or boost her offense through chip jails if she caught you stand guarding trying to avoid overheads and chip loops trough high blocking

Sadly they never caught this lighting on a bottle again and this concept has been rotting in mK9 ever since, but i do expect to see this back again in a future.

the other style is space control, which is using characters with good range, MK11 skarlet did this to an extent, she was essentially MKX Ninjutsu scorpion/Mk9 Kitana with worst normals.

In MK1 i Find Ermac's gameplan interesting enough to develop, sadly no one plays the game here, as everyone is out of it
 
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Kiss the Missile

Kiss the Missile

Red Messiah
Character has to be cool first and foremost, I wont even try out a character if they're aesthetically boring.

Gameplay wise I prefer characters who can fight from multiple ranges. Someone who works up close, but can zone for bad matchups. Deathstroke, MKX Reptile, MK9 Sektor, my all time favorite FG characters

I'm also a bit of a tier hipster too unfortunately. So I use characters who aren't that popular just for attention. I used Deathstroke and Deadshot in the Injustice games, but I used them after they got nerfed to death.
 
LEGEND

LEGEND

YES!
I find top tier character to be boring, and I can't do well if I'm bored.

Screen control is fun. Anti airs must be good.

Personal preference on aesthetics. Can't play a character that looks lame or doesn't have satisfying moves.

I always play one zoner and one rushdown.
 
E

Eji1700

Kombatant
Aesthetics mixed with nonsense. Nonsense usually being some level of "playing the game a little differently", often with setups or block pressure.

I already mentioned elsewhere that I loved SFV bison. His appearance/demeanor is top notch, and the amount of silly bullshit he gets to do just made me happy, especially with VT2.

Sub Zero mostly fits that bill for me. Cool ninja is cool, but more importantly his gameplan being that he does less mid screen but can put you in the corner with clone and RUIN you is the kind of stuff I love.

Likewise I enjoy quan chi for similarish reasons. I still wish we had mk9 rune trap nonsense (not as oppressive but something), but he's also got a weird way of hitting his win conditions.

Some other favorites of mine have been:
Crow from Rising Thunder (god i miss this game)
Bedman from GG
Quince from Fantasy Strike
Kragg from Rivals of Aether
Hanzo from SamSho
Half the fucking cast from KI.

I'm certainly a character loyalist, but it does suck when the tiers are oppressive enough that you don't get to do anything "fun" without serious skill. Many of my favorites wind up low/mid tier at best, but i'll stick it out so long as I can still "do the thing" that I picked them for.
 
Vulgar

Vulgar

Kombatant
Honestly? I'm not really sure. I'm just gonna name characters I mained in different games and let someone else figure it out.

Street Fighter 2 - Guile
Street Fighter Alpha 3 - Juli, Charlie
Street Fighter EX Plus A - Skullomania, C. Jack
Soul Calibur 2 - Ivy and Voldo
Soul Calibur 3 - Tira, Voldo, and Lizardman
Soul Calibur 4 - Voldo
DoA 2 - Ayane
Virtua Fighter 4 - Jacky Bryant
Guilty Gear X-2 - Faust and Testament
BlazBlue Chrono Phantasma - Yuki Terumi and Arakune
Mk1 - Scorpion
MK2 - Reptile and Mileena
UMK3 - Cyber Smoke
MK4 - Reptile
MK DA - Kenshi and Drahmin
MK Deception - Mileena
MK Armageddon - Drahmin and Mileena
MK9 - Mileena, Reptile, and Quan Chi
Injustice - Batman and Deathstroke
MKX - Quan Chi and Kano
Injustice 2 - Deadshot, Batman, Darkseid, and The Joker
MK11 - Skarlet, Baraka, Kano, Kabal, and Geras
MK1 - Geras, Havik, Quan Chi, Ermac

And that's about it.
 
Kiss the Missile

Kiss the Missile

Red Messiah
Vulgar said:
Honestly? I'm not really sure. I'm just gonna name characters I mained in different games and let someone else figure it out.

Street Fighter 2 - Guile
Street Fighter Alpha 3 - Juli, Charlie
Street Fighter EX Plus A - Skullomania, C. Jack
Soul Calibur 2 - Ivy and Voldo
Soul Calibur 3 - Tira, Voldo, and Lizardman
Soul Calibur 4 - Voldo
DoA 2 - Ayane
Virtua Fighter 4 - Jacky Bryant
Guilty Gear X-2 - Faust and Testament
BlazBlue Chrono Phantasma - Yuki Terumi and Arakune
Mk1 - Scorpion
MK2 - Reptile and Mileena
UMK3 - Cyber Smoke
MK4 - Reptile
MK DA - Kenshi and Drahmin
MK Deception - Mileena
MK Armageddon - Drahmin and Mileena
MK9 - Mileena, Reptile, and Quan Chi
Injustice - Batman and Deathstroke
MKX - Quan Chi and Kano
Injustice 2 - Deadshot, Batman, Darkseid, and The Joker
MK11 - Skarlet, Baraka, Kano, Kabal, and Geras
MK1 - Geras, Havik, Quan Chi, Ermac

And that's about it.
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This reminds me of signatures on other old fighting game forums, and how mfs would have lists exactly like this at the bottom of every single post lmao
 
Kiss the Missile

Kiss the Missile

Red Messiah
I can add that another example of a character barely missing the mark for me is MK1 Sektor. She looks cool as fuck, plays cool as fuck, but her personality is just nonexistent. Just arrogant science lady, that is max level boring.

I miss MK9 Sektor, he was a fucking psychopath. He would scream when he did his throw, he would laugh when he did his EX teleport. Fuck that mf was perfection
 
Jynks

Jynks

some heroes are born, some made, some wondrous
Felipe_Gewehr said:
what made you choose YOURS?
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I pick based solely on "The Rule of Cool"... if I like the way they look, their lore or how their moves look then I play them. It is the only thing that makes me pick them up and play them. I look at nothing else.

What makes me KEEP playing them, is if I am able to. Some of the newer FGC characters are to hard for me. Like I wanted to play Kenshi in MK1, but he is to hard for me.

So...

  1. I have to physically be able to play them and pull of their moves and stuff. They have to be within my skill level to play.
  2. They have to be "cool" in some aesthetic way.
 
Vulgar

Vulgar

Kombatant
Kiss the Missile said:
I can add that another example of a character barely missing the mark for me is MK1 Sektor. She looks cool as fuck, plays cool as fuck, but her personality is just nonexistent. Just arrogant science lady, that is max level boring.

I miss MK9 Sektor, he was a fucking psychopath. He would scream when he did his throw, he would laugh when he did his EX teleport. Fuck that mf was perfection
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Dude she serves cunt whilst using her rocket boosters to pose. Definitely not boring.
 
Vulgar

Vulgar

Kombatant
Kiss the Missile said:
Boring for Sektor
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More personality than Sektor has had in years. A chuckle during a teleport and yelling during a throw when just about every character yells in MK does not a personality make.

Liu Kang has such a deep personality in MK9 cause he goes, "wah, wah, wah" when he does b312.

Peak character writing, to be honest.
 
Vulgar

Vulgar

Kombatant
I'll be honest though: I'm a certified MK robot hater. I only ever played Cyber Smoke because he was purple and he had a spear. Younger me had lower standards.

Broadly speaking, I've never liked them much. MK9 tried to rehabilitate their personalities, but even then it could be boiled down to, "Sektor is the bad palette swap and Cyrax is the good palette swap," as far as I'm concerned.

Kitana and Mileena - also falling into the "good" and "bad" palette swap format - were significantly mote interesting than Angry Robot and Sad Robot.

There's a reason that it was super easy to get people on board with Triborg. They're so fucking bland and uninteresting that you could smoosh four of them into one character and the vast majority of players won't care/will still play it.
 
Juxtapose

Juxtapose

Master
Vulgar said:
Kitana and Mileena - also falling into the "good" and "bad" palette swap format - were significantly mote interesting than Angry Robot and Sad Robot.

There's a reason that it was super easy to get people on board with Triborg. They're so fucking bland and uninteresting that you could smoosh four of them into one character and the vast majority of players won't care/will still play it.
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Keep in mind that Kitana and Mileena are lead supporting characters, while Sektor and Cyrax are tertiary supporting characters.

For Sektor, he (and Cyrax) do indeed have personality in Mortal Kombat (2011), though it's pretty one dimensional (like much of the cast). It's very much the same deal in "Khaos Reigns" save that now they're thrust into a lead role, so you see them more.
 
Vulgar

Vulgar

Kombatant
Juxtapose said:
Keep in mind that Kitana and Mileena are lead supporting characters, while Sektor and Cyrax are tertiary supporting characters.

For Sektor, he (and Cyrax) do indeed have personality in Mortal Kombat (2011), though it's pretty one dimensional (like much of the cast). It's very much the same deal in "Khaos Reigns" save that now they're thrust into a lead role, so you see them more.
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I'm a certified robot hater. Never liked them.
 
Kiss the Missile

Kiss the Missile

Red Messiah
Vulgar said:
Broadly speaking, I've never liked them much. MK9 tried to rehabilitate their personalities, but even then it could be boiled down to, "Sektor is the bad palette swap and Cyrax is the good palette swap," as far as I'm concerned.
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Their differences were a lot better shown pre-new era. The cyberization process is brutal and torturous. Skin is peeled, eyes removed, jaws wired shut. You have one person who went through this willingly and loves it, and the other who forcefully had their humanity taken. What made them interesting is how they went on after it. Cyrax tries to pull back any semblance of who he used to be and Sektor becomes an isolated weirdo, fully insane.
 
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