The Majestic Twelve - Custom Character Ideas

This was originally going to be a “Top Twelve” characters I want to make for Dark Souls. But as I wrote, I thought, why should I just do my favorite ideas for custom characters in one game? But then I realized I don’t want to do multiple posts on the topic because it’s basically just me going on about character ideas without much context other than that. So here is just a compiled list of my favorite “Create-A-Character” ideas from a variety of games. Some of them I’ve already attempted to make… others I am in the process of working on it. Enjoy. 

Side note, while I’m not counting Minecraft into the mix because I’ve never made my own character skin, I do want to at least give it a mention for two of my favorite costumes. The first of which was Tony Stark, which makes sense in a game when you’re building stuff and working with complex redstone. The other is Waluigi… who doesn’t make any sense but the sheer absurdity of his character in anything trumps logic. Because Waluigi is numbah one!

#12 – Avatar Korra (Saints Row IV) – I went Korra when I went to replay Saints Row IV (as you can see in our Game On Power Hour Video with myself and Connor). In terms of fitting with the story of the game, this was just absurdity at its highest form. But the range of powers you get (telepathy notwithstanding) are almost all powers the Avatar is capable of. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get arrow tattoos in this game, but since we’re also killing waves of aliens time and time again, it makes more sense to go with the more aggressive Korra over the peace-loving Aang. That being said, I might want to modify her design to fit with Season Four Korra as I like that look better and that hairstyle might actually exist in the game. Still would rather have Toph though.

#11 – Tuxedo Mask (Any Game Possible) – I’d love to make Tuxedo Mask in Dark Souls, but unfortunately the game’s lack of tuxedos makes that rather difficult. I came across a similar problem among the Saints Row games. None of them feature ALL the gear needed to make it work. Saints Row 2 lacked the ability to attach a cape when wearing a tuxedo. And all the latter games lack a proper tuxedo, save for SRIV. And lack of a tuxedo is a problem in many other games (looking at you Skyrim). Thus far, the only place this legitimately works is in Minecraft (sorta). And, sorry, that Tuxedo Mask is taken.

#10 – Captain Falcon (Any Game Possible) – I’m sorta cheating with these two in a row, so I’ll stop this trend here. But I love the idea of Captain Falcon just appearing in other games despite the fact he’s only in a racing game. His existence in Smash Bros is still the most bizarre, especially considering that’s what he’s more known for at this point. So why not try to stick him in GTA or Saints Row? I saw a mod for Dark Souls that made him work. Even in fighting games, he’d be an easy one to do (barring certain aspects of the costume.

#09 – Silva (Skyrim) – Given my old screen name for most sites was Silver, whenever I played a female character in a game (which was the preferred option for me) I’d just name them Silva. There was nothing particularly special about the character herself, but the adventure she had with a mod-added NPC named Hoth were some of the best moments in my gaming memory. I’d make up all kinds of stories myself as to how their adventures go and the bizarre stupid bullshit they have to endure. Sadly, this came to an end with a slew of bugs that prevented me from being able to re-recruit Hoth after a string of vampire missions. So I stopped playing because of this. Once my internet is working better and I can download mods more expediently, I might take another crack at Skyrim and see if Hoth and I can team up once again in his updated mod that should hopefully have that fixed.

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#08 – Nebula Knights (Legends of Grimrock) – This is going to require some explaining. In my spare time when I can think of something to write, one series I work on is something called “Nebula Knights”. Out of boredom one day while playing Legends of Grimrock, I decided to build characters with the characters from those stories in mind. It wasn’t a perfect 1-to-1 representation, but it was enough to pass the time and seeing the team of characters I imagined working as a team here is something I greatly enjoyed.

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#07 – Aeon (Fallout 3) – One of the Nebula Knights characters I mentioned in a previous post is a bounty hunter named “Aeon” and the original concept from her character came from playing Fallout 3 as my own unique character. In writing the story, I kept the “searching for her father” angle as a goal of hers, but I changed so many other aspects of her character, including the fact that she doesn’t really work alone, and Aeon became so much more than just a deep space sci-fi version of my Fallout 3 character. Again, another moment to be proud of on my end.

#06 – RWBY (Soul Calibur 3-5) – I’m not going to lie, I stopped playing Soul Calibur after the third installment. Mostly because the stories for the respective characters became too confusing to follow, the addition of Star Wars characters kneecapped my interest, and the costume designs were getting more insanely stupid with each iteration. Therefore, I don’t know if the feature exists beyond Soul Calibur III, but the character creator was a cool feature I greatly enjoyed during my time with the game. And now there are four characters I’m very interested in making for custom fighters. Ruby would be easy since you just pop a scythe on a small girl and call it good. Yang also wouldn’t be difficult as I know gauntlets exist as weapons in SC3. Weiss wouldn’t be too terribly hard, but recreating her magic abilities aren’t something I think the Soul Calibur games can do well. And then Blake would basically be Taki with guns (in a game where she wouldn’t have guns). So, yeah, not too bad. Just wonder how close we could get the costumes to look.

#05 – Ganondorf (Dark Souls) – Ganondorf is the only thing from the Legend of Zelda series (aside from the music) that I genuinely like. So transposing him from that to another, much better game, as a playable character (like Dark Souls) would be something fun to do. The only question is which iteration of Ganondorf would I want to make? Do I go classic Ocarina of Time? What about Wind Waker Ganondorf? There’s also Twilight Princess Ganondorf which is the best of the canonical Ganondorfs. But if I could make Hyrule Warriors Ganondorf, I think I’d be pleased with that.

#04 – Achievement Hunter (Smash Bros 3DS/WiiU) – Yes, I did make these guys. Yes, each one has a different moveset and fighting style. No, they aren’t perfect replicas (and I don’t even have all the gear unlocked yet). But I do like how most of them turned out and I wish I had more customization options to make each one feel even more unique. Hell, I wish Miis had more customization options to LOOK more unique. But they are what they are and the Lads and Gents are fun Miis to Smash around with.

#03 – Joker (Saints Row 2) – Probably one of my best creations. First time I played Saints Row 2, I knew the gameplay style was described by Yahtzee as, “like playing a Batman villain.” So I took that to its logical conclusion and made the Joker. And the stuff you do in the game works very well with Joker’s persona, it’s just a shame none of the voice options really match. In the end, I made a very solid and scary dude for my Joker that I am still very proud of. I went on to make Harley Quinn in Saints Row The Third, but it never really felt the same to me. And the look of Joker in later games never sat well with me either… leading me to my favorite design so far…

#02 – Dr. Robotnik (Saints Row The Third) – Watching some gameplay of this, I saw there were high-tech vehicles to fly around on (like the jet bike). Upon discovering this, I immediately made Dr. Robotnik from Sonic the Hedeghog because nothing, to me, made more sense than the tech genius himself hovering around and terrorizing Steelport on a jet-bike. Again, I never could find a costume that felt quite right. But I made various costume alterations that ended up creating a “realistic” Robotnik and each of them actually looked really good in that regard. Just a shame the cartoonishly large mustache wasn’t available.

 #01 – Pyramid Head (Dark Souls) – Dark Souls is an oppressive, scary game that can frustrate some players and cause others to panic. Pyramid Head is the physical manifestations of sexual frustration for James Sunderland from Silent Hill. Imagine if I invaded players in Dark Souls as Pyramid Head and their screen read “You are being invaded by Pyramid Head / The Boogeyman / Silent Hill.” Those who get it would start to get nervous about the dark monster that is slowly coming and stalking them, waiting for them to make just one mistake. The dark atmosphere of Dark Souls would also be a perfect fit for the ever dark and mysterious Pyramid Head monster.

Those are my current top twelve ideas for custom characters in games. If you have some custom character ideas of your own you want to share, let us know in the comments and we might make a mention of them in a future column. Likewise, if you enjoyed this and want more content like it, please like, share, and subscribe and we’ll see you next time!