Late Game Characters (and why I hate them)

Gamer but not originally a subscriber here, just wanted to mention that it was on my front page suggested. Really interesting and fairly rare topic, with just enough examples to justify the thesis. Well done, looking forward to more!

I like late game characters for all of these reasons. You have to make do with what you have and find a way to survive, and then you slowly get ahead of everyone else. It rewards patience and creativity.

Here's the acknowledgement for the smooth genji dash transition between clips, i can tell you've been waiting for someone to bring it up.

another "late game" fighting game character called Yoshitora Tokugawa from samurai showdown, he has seven swords, and has to land a hit with 6 of his swords before he can use an absolute bangin sword attack. thats all

Alright I understand what you mean with sonic in smash ultimate. However that was not the best footage because the character he’s fighting against kinda forces him to camp 😭

nasus falls off in teamfight, kit doesn’t scale

i love late game characters across all games, i love scaling and becoming infinitely stronger than what you once were. also late game characters make me feel safe because you can only get stronger as the time goes on, early game characters are on a timer and that makes me uncomfortable

(big info dump) Being the "pokemon nerd guy " here the pokemon example you gave is very random and unrealistic the beldum in gen5 is not obtainable without breeding with metang or metagross which are level 45+ when you encounter at wild, like wise for dreepy you can only find it after 6th gym which are also 45+ level from wild encounters. The only way to obtain them early is if you have a friend who will breed them for you which then will hatch to level 1 then you will face the problem you mentioned or maybe hack them in, also I guess randomizer is another way but the game is not designed to account for that, a better example for pokemon would have been the starters' type choices where you can choose the one that has most advantage in early gyms or one that has more advantage on later gyms but giving a sudolegendary example which are true that they are a late game pokemon but not for the reason that they evolve slow but they are only catchable when you reach close to the end of the game or sometimes after the elite four, literally end game. Thou nice opinion on late game characters. Summary: Your Pokémon example is unrealistic. Getting Beldum and Dreepy early in the game is tough because they're usually high-level. You'd need to trade or use special methods to get them sooner. Discussing starter Pokémon types would be a better example.

A game that definitely needs mentioning for this topic is Pokémon Unite. Like every game of it's genre, early vs late game Pokémon has been an issue, with some examples in this game being....particularly egregious. On one hand, we have some mons with VERY late game final evos (Metagross, Tyranitar, Goodra, and Mamoswine all becoming fully evolved at lvl 9vl of the max 15). Theres other pokemon that arent quite as laye and thus better, but still struggle with a mix of late evos and a weak early game like Charizard. This leads to 2 problems with these mons: 1. These mons have a WAY too weak early to mid game on average. While some aren't quite as bad as others (Goodra particularly actually is very solid at start, though has a valley of power and usefulness from level 4-7), often these mons simply are gonna get bowled over by mons with better early game or if they can squeeze out the slighest lvl advantage early on. However, there is one bigger issue: 2. Mons that are better early... and still better late. The eeveelutions (eevees evolutions) all share a very early evolution level of 4, and get their unite at the earlier lvl of 8 vs most mons at 9. These mons will very easily dominate and potentially snowball the early game. The problem is that their stats and overall power are still on par or even better in the late game that once the late game mons are at their peak, the fight only then becomes EVEN. Not in the late games favor, only even. And when you consider how important early objectives can be at times and how quickly a game can potentially snowball, sometimes a games outcome can be decided before the late game evolution can actually reach their evo, or it's simply not enough to stop the oncoming storm of the enemy team. Theres a reason that early game powerhouses like the eeveelutions, blastoise, buzzwole, meowscarada, eldegoss, and crustle, all of which either evolve super early or are still good at their early stages, almost across the board outperform the "late game monsters" in almost every recorded metric, and unless these late game mons are made a bit better earlier or the early game mons aren't as dominant in that early game, it'll probably stay this way for as long as the game exists.

I feel at least a lot of these gripes come from the fact that late game characters in traditional video games aren't designed with tools to combat their weaknesses unconventionally - take a control deck in MTG for example, while the early game is weak, you get tools to buffet your opponent (recall spells, boardwipes, stax/stuns) so that it doesn't feel like a waiting game, but videogames don't have that luxury because they need to make early game picks actually mean something

I personally really enjoy lategame characters, most of the time. I played league for about an year and most characters I enjoy are more mid-late game focused, one example being Aurelion Sol, the buffs and changes he got to make that he got half of his stacks by attacking and farming was really good so I can do some early game trades to get small advantages. But I remember that I felt useless with Nasus and Vladmir during the whole game when I tested both, yeah their damage is high when they scale, but both need to use ghost all the time they want to get in

I think using Sonic as the smash example is a bit misleading, considering the topic. When I think of late game characters in fighting games, I think of characters who don’t start at full power. These characters’ win condition generally revolve around some sort of resource that they must build towards in order to upgrade their gameplan/stats. For example, UMVC3 Phoenix Wright starts out as one of the absolute worst characters in the game. Stubby normals, lackluster movement, the works (or whatever the opposite of the works is). However, once he collects 3 pieces of valid evidence, a resource Phoenix can obtain given enough space and/or time, he gains the ability to use a move that, if successfully connected, grants him access to a special mode that makes him an undeniable top tier threat. Full screen attacks, unblockable setups, the ACTUAL works. Going back to smash, two characters stand out to me as more late game centric characters with that Phoenix example in mind, Hero and Steve. Hero starts off with 100mp which might seem like full power, but he doesn’t start getting really crazy until he gets buffs to his damage, speed, and other scary effects like passively reflecting all projectiles or becoming giant. Steve starts with wooden tools and a limited pool of useful resources, but given enough time, he gains diamond tools and an upgraded version of his minecart. For Sonic, there is no resource inherent to his kit that he works towards. In his case, the resource that he plays for is the timer, something that many characters in the zoner archetype tend to do as well. To put it another way, Sonic forces the other character to approach due to his speed and, like you said, having a stock lead because of the looming threat of losing to a timeout. I think what this really comes down to is a combination of different competitive gaming backgrounds (fighting games vs mobas/shooters) as well as potentially different definitions of what a “late game” character is, but it’s for these reasons that I thought I’d throw my hat in the proverbial ring to offer a new perspective on this topic. I hope my rambling was at least somewhat interesting. 😇

I'm surprised no one has mentioned by far the biggest example of late game characters in fighting games: Phoenix from UMvC3. From the SuperCombo wiki: "If Phoenix is allowed to activate her Dark Form, which only requires having 5 bars of meter stocked when she dies, she becomes the most powerful character in the game. The huge boost in strength granted by Dark Phoenix not only stacks with the buffs from X-Factor, it actually enhances the X-Factor buffs, making them even stronger. Phoenix is an extremely powerful Anchor character that warps the game around her presence, forcing the opponent to try and kill her as quickly as possible, or have some specific setup in mind to deal with her immensely powerful Dark Form." She defines the late game character imo and is very interesting and very scary to play against, albeit pretty frustrating.

There are some late game characters i really like Kali from smite being an example. Kali is kinda combo of a late game character and a snowballer. The snowball comes from her passive where an enemy is selected from the enemy team and if she kills them she gets a big heal and the next closest enemy is selected as her next target. She does not do much through the start but when she gets some build up she turns int a total woodchipper just absolutely slicing through enemies. It also doesnt help that her ultimate basically makes it so she cant die for a few seconds.

I like late game (veigar) but i understand the view haha. Also i checked ur subs and I was surprised u didn’t have more, good video man keep it up!

LETS GOO PIXELRORY

It was interesting to think about the contrast between risk of rain and a game like league. In league I never played or enjoyed late game champs, but recently I started finding myself playing hwei and I understand now the appeal to "late game" champs and with this I understood that a big problem in league with these champs is the competitive factor. Players of a roguelike wont mind losing a run or two just to get to that perfect run where you are OP. In league this playstyle of waiting until you get strong is a playstyle that is not viewed favorably especially on lower ranks as it can lead to an early loss due to your team performing poorly and not being able to recover because the late game champ cant deal damage due to still being early/mid game and with the now strong enemy team. And these losses discourages players as the players lose their precious LP Good video btw 😁

Hey, new subscriber here. I really, really enjoyed the video, and I'm glad I decided to check it out. Loved the Susanoo example, and personally, I get the frustration over late-game characters, especially in league. Honestly, really cool video, glad the algorithm suggested it.

Randomly got this video recommended and was super surprised to see you only have 639 subs (with me being the 639th) since it was so high quality. I really like some late game champs like kayle or veigar but i also love early game bullies like Sett. Also whats the name of that outro song?

Also, is late game play style would include Decks form CCGs and TCGs? Because there are some examples there as well, which are mostly just control and how they don't let you play the game.