I think, by genre, fighting games have the best character designs on average. This is probably because the first trend-setting games had pretty fucking excellent design.
Also I am pretty sure the most important reason why nobody cares about Virtua Fighter is because they have the most uninteresting characters in history.
I think you are wrong on many accounts.
Character design in fighting games should answer questions, not raise them. Why?
In those games, most of the storytelling is done either in the game handbook, in cinematics inbetween fights, and by the moves characters do. In a different genre, you can get away with asking more questions than answering them. In an RPG with exploration the player might come across elements later that explain strange character design choices. This isn't the case with fighting games, Quake3/Unreal games. All the questions need to be answered directly. Players need to be either told stuff directly, or to understand through gameplay or exploration.
Someone explain to me what the hell Dhalsim is supposed to be? Or Blanka? Or Bison?
What the hell is Vega from Street Fighter? I haven't read any tie-in comics, and that movie with Van Damme sure as hell isn't worth mentioning.
Vegas character is very vague and undefined. Is there information in the booklet that comes with the game?
Why does he wear a mask? Why does he dress like a matador, and fight with that claw? Nobody else has weapons in that game.
Copied from wikipedia:
Vega was designed by Akira Yasuda, and was initially conceived as a brief sketch of a masked man in a ripped shirt with long, frizzy hair.[1] As development progressed the design evolved into a large, unarmed man, retaining the mask and dressed as a matador. The design was changed again, revolving around the concept of a foreign soldier with a cross on his vest and armed with a broadsword, while still retaining the mask.[2] This design was eventually replaced in turn with another concept, a masked ninja in a bodysuit armed with a long metal claw on his right hand.[1] Ultimately the character's finalized appearance was a culmination of all of these, incorporating various aspects of each into the finished design.
Does this sound like a good design to you? It doesn't to me.
Vega is iconic now, because the design is so old. Same goes for most of the weirdos in the roster of Street Fighter, and most of the weirdos in any classic fighting game.
Yoshimitsu is a cyborg ninja and King is a wereleopard. No seriously, those designs are terrible.
I'm glad my shitty attitude is annoying you. I'm getting through that wall of fanboyism that exists between you and good practice of character design.
Why I ask for a deconstruction? Because I haven't played the games that you refer to. Characters might be weird outside them, but make sense in-game.
Morrigan from Dragon Age makes no sense whatsoever outside her setting, but in it she is a hippie witchdaughter who lives in the woods with her crazy mother. The outfit, the magic she uses, the everything about her works there. That's why you need to motivate why a character design is good. Stop getting offended and take criticism. Is this a game development community or is this a circlejerk of anime fanbois?
EdgeOfProphecy, good talk about Pyramidhead, deconstructing like a designer.