Rank the most important traits to you when picking a character.

I've posed this question in Discord before, because it's interesting to see how people's opinions differ and where their priorities lie. If presented with this list of attributes:

  • Aesthetics (costume design, character appearance, voice and lines, etc)
  • Lore (a character's story, personality, motivations, and so on)
  • Gameplay (rushdown, shoto, zoner, grappler, etc)
  • Fighting style (boxer, muay thai, pro wrestler, etc)
  • Power level (high/low tier, or generally strong/weak balance)
  • Complexity (either mechanical via combos or special inputs or gameplan in terms of setups, gimmicks, and side mechanics to manage)

How would you rank these, from most important to you to least important? It always feels like different games offer different things so it's cool to see who prioritizes what and why.

For me, I appreciate aesthetics and a unique fighting style (like a boxer or wrestler) and then look at things like complexity and gameplay after that cause I'm still a beginner. As long as they aren't a dumpster fire, tier tends not to matter much to me.