Character Retrospective (spoilers inside)

[Falkenstein]

Hi, no purpose on this thread - just thinking out loud here. Having played all the Mimimi games, it's hard to avoid comparing them to this one - in particular the characters and their power levels.

What do I consider a good character design? I'd say a few points:
- fun to play with (cool abilities, not underpowered)
- good conversation lines and voice acting
- versatile abilities that allow for creative solutions to problems
- can be used through whole mission, not just in the beginning or in the end

I believe that the best example of bad character designs is the good old Commandos 2: the character Sapper existed only to fill a very specific niche - planting and blowing explosives. For most of each mission he just kept waiting somewhere until the very end, then came to the site already cleared by the other characters, did his work and the mission ended. Such a character is completely unnecessary and doesn't really add anything to the game, which is imho also the reason why very few modern stealth strategies include such a character.

Sid - in comparison to the Mimimi games he's much stronger than Hayato/Cooper (the closest comparison). His Flash is an upgraded version of perfume skill from the Mimimi games - at first I thought it was worse, because unlike perfume it alerted the target. However, it turns out that blocking not just sight, but also hearing, is much stronger. I never really warmed up to Hitchhike. Yes, the skill is incredibly cool and sometimes it's useful (especially for bypassing the force fields), but I only recall very few situations where it felt necessary. After the upgrade I instantly fell in love with Dash - it offers a wide array of applications and makes Sid so much better.
Overall in the context of the game Sid feels fun, useful and not overpowered.

Speaking of overpowered - Isabela instantly felt much stronger than Sid. Her Invisibility is just too good. The same applies to Luring Lights - I solved a lot of rooms with just these two abilities. Swap Places, on the other hand, feels kinda obsolete. Basically you won't be using it if it placed Izzy in danger, i.e. she could be seen by an enemy after swapping. That also means that if there's a situation when you can safely use it, you can also just kill that enemy outright without using Swap. Yes, there are a few rare situations where it is helpful, but these are rare.
Isabela is inconsistent - two of her skills are superb, one fairly useless.

After getting Rosa, I thought that the power creep intensified even more. Her abilities are just through the roof - Stunning Link is the best stun out there. It works on officers, doesn't alert the target and usually doesn't even alert nearby enemies. Disperse is also very powerful, probably slightly weaker than Izzy's Luring Lights, but still good. Human Bomb is just perfect, after seeing it I was very surprised it did not have a limit on number of uses. Also her attack dissolves bodies outright, which is much more useful than it might sound.
I believe Rosa to be the strongest character at your disposal. All her abilities are very powerful and a lot of fun.

Wojtek is imho the best written character - with the best voice acting and best lines. Ingame he feels a little bland. His human form only has SMG (somewhat inferior to Sid's Handgun) and Throw Bottle. The later is useful in some situations, particularly under the disruptors. Bear form, sadly, is very limited and only exists to take down Panzerwolves. There are situations where bear form is the only obvious solution (Panzerwolves, heavy stuff) and the bear is pointless anywhere else.
Wojtek feels cool at first, but he's actually the least innovative character. Honestly he somewhat suffers from the Sapper problem I described above - needed in clearly defined situations, useless otherwise.

Alistair - here we're getting to the worst part imho. Alistair has three abilities and all have major drawbacks. Chain Lightning is very powerful, but never necessary - there was always another option that didn't require wasting an ability charge. I can imagine using it for speedruns, though. Whistle, on the other hand, is extremely weak. I mean all the abilities so far had been stronger versions of their Mimimi counterparts, but Whistle is the only one that's weaker. Maybe I'm just bad at using it, but it felt very hard for Alistair to whistle and manage to get away without being seen by the lured enemy. In Mimimi games I never had this issue. Launch Pad a cool upgrade to the traps possessed by Hector and Yuki. Unfortunately I didn't really use it that much, but that might be just due to a specific playstyle. Launch Pad feels like it takes forever to set and setting it requires you to choose target spot - that means it takes extra time to configure it, so it's hard to do under pressure.
Imho Alistair is weak, but that might be due to how I play the game and others might feel very differently about him.

Sigurd - now we're getting somewhere. Similar to Rosa, Sigurd feels pretty OP, especially because of his Invisibility field. After you learn to use this skill, the game will become much easier for you, but also much more fun. Soul Bolt is just a clone of Theresa's ability from Shadow Gambit. Ghost Form is really cool and offers both distraction and relocation - both pretty strong.
Sigurd is great fun to use. I'd just say he doesn't really need Soul Bolt, he'd be quite alright even without it - SB makes him imho too OP.

Overall I think the game and character design is excellent. Yes, some characters are too strong, but Mimimi games suffered from exactly the same issue - some characters were much better than others (except in Shadow Gambit, which felt very well balanced).

If you've made it this far, thank you for reading my thoughts and I hope you enjoyed reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them down!

[Mitzy Spencer]

Interesting, I agree

[Tricking Trapster]

In some ways that is true, sometimes some characters are more powerful than others. However, I have to disagree on your point in commandos 2, as the Sapper can do most things the others can, he's just an explosives expert. He can still knock people out, tie them up, take their things - The only thing he doesn't have is a melee kill like the Green Beret, but only the Green beret and the Diver can even use the knife in the first place, so when placed among 7 other commandos I am not holding that against the Sapper. Plus, clearing it out with commandos specialized in clearing those areas out and then sending in your explosives expert does feel very thematic to commandos, in my opinion.

I also disagree on a few points for the Sumerian Six characters though. Isabella feels just right to me. Swap Places allows you to swap with allies - Say for example, with Sid who hitchhiked into an enemy area that her Invisibility did not allow her to get into. It's more useful if you just think outside of the box with it. Wojtek is also great - Not just for solo-ing panzerwolves (also you can just triple tap them easily with Sid's handgun) but his area kill also often is able to clear a whole patrol by itself.

Your issue with Alistair is understandable, but indeed a gameplay issue. He's got the same problem Takuma has in Shadow Tactics: Their special ability is limited, but not required. This causes a lot of people to go 'omg what if I need it later' but really you should just use it when you see a good opportunity. Or make one, of course. Launch Pad tends to be great for patrolling enemies to walk right into it - PReferably right after you whistle anyone that was looking at their direction. Reverse the process and you'll get a lot more use out of it.

[arnaud_defrance]

A good review of the characters overall. I agree with most points, particularly their characterisation.

Some are more powerful than stated : Swap places for instance shines to get allies to places they can't get to otherwise, bypassing chunks of the levels. Even in the Nazi Castle, you can get Sid up on the castle wall just after you get swap places, then get Isabelle there so you can move both though the same places.
Similarly when you get Sigurd, toward the end of the level there are stairs protected by guarded forcefields, it's time-consuming... or you can use isabella to get everybody topside.

Sid hitchhike is very strong, but mostly because leaving cause stun, so you can chain with stun bomb and kill to wipe out guards even with patrols around. Insanely strong.

Rosa is very useful, though I often felt her range really hurt me (lack of mobility and lot are fairly close range), which does make her well balanced.

For Alistair, what he really need is an invisibility cloak like Isabella. Whistle and Pad are just much better when you can use the ability, then vanish from detection. Particularly for pads where that'd let you hang close to retrieve the pad.
He's just both too similar to Hector and Yuki from Shadow Tactics and Desperado 3 while being weaker than both. His lightning is indeed very strong but as stated limited, and never truly needed.

[Falkenstein]

Originally posted by Tricking Trapster:

In some ways that is true, sometimes some characters are more powerful than others. However, I have to disagree on your point in commandos 2, as the Sapper can do most things the others can, he's just an explosives expert. He can still knock people out, tie them up, take their things - The only thing he doesn't have is a melee kill like the Green Beret, but only the Green beret and the Diver can even use the knife in the first place, so when placed among 7 other commandos I am not holding that against the Sapper. Plus, clearing it out with commandos specialized in clearing those areas out and then sending in your explosives expert does feel very thematic to commandos, in my opinion.

I completely see your point. Yes, Sapper absolutely can do most of the things the others can. In fact if I remember correctly, you technically can even clean up the whole map with just Sapper - basically all you need is being able to knock people out, tie them up and hide the body. My issue with him is that there was no real incentive to use him - everybody else had unique abilities that were useful before the end of the mission. Actually, now I do remember one specific case - in some missions there were minefields which only the Sapper could get you through. Still it's the same problem - you need him for the minefield and there is no alternative solution (unless you want to snuff the mines with the dog and zig-zag through them).

Every other character had some interesting abilities that lent themselves to solving situations in different ways throughout the whole mission. The Driver, for example, was mandatory to use tanks, but his trap, sleeping gas and smokescreen were very immensely useful for the whole mission. Even better was the Marine - he did specialise in water stuff, but he could also do a lot on land. His grappling hook in particular often provided new options on tackling the obstacles.

I guess it's about preference on how you want to play the game - I still believe that not having Sapper and just planting the final explosives with anybody else would make the game more streamlined. On the other hand I completely agree with your point that Sapper indeed fits well to the team and makes sense lore-wise.

[Tricking Trapster]

Sapper was the only one able to use grenades though. Though it is quite natural to not use him as much as the others - Explosives don't really help a lot when trying to be stealthy. But it also makes no sense for the others to be able to dismantle mines or handle high explosives like the timed or remote ones. Though one thing unique the Sapper does do: If you put him in a tank after the Driver it lets you actually shoot with the tank. I guess we'll see if Commandos : Origins makes the Sapper any better.