There's this urge in humanity to create. Creation is the ultimate form of expression, after all. From buildings to music, dance and weapons, to paintings and statues. And yet, one of the most enticing areas to use as a canvas is our own bodies. Tattoos are a lifetime commitment and are something we carry with us everywhere.
For games, they're a wonderful design choice too. In character creators, part of the personal expression of tattoos is lost. This list is going to focus on those custom-made for their characters, those intense inky artworks that speak for these characters in volumes beyond what words ever leave their mouths. Plus, a bunch of them are just cool pretty cool.
8 The Last Guardian – The Boy's Body
Fumito Ueda and his team have made some of the most astounding works in gaming. From the hand-held guidance of Ico to the sheer scale and emotional weight of Shadow of the Colossus. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Last Guardian fell in a funny place, having been delayed for years and years and not being the steadiest game on release. But it makes up for that in spades with the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:beauty of its design.
Trico is already gorgeous for the amount of depth and movement the꧃y posses🧸s, but the Boy is something special. They almost glow in the game, ethereal against the washed-out brickwork around them. Their tattoos, spread across their entire body, are never explained. They are as much a mystery as the rest of the world. That personal side of them makes them all the more distinct. Nothing can replicate that aspect of his design because no one else can share its meaning.
7 Vagrant Story – Sydney's Blood-Sin
Before there was 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Final Fantasy 12, one of the most stylistically distinct 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Final Fantasy entries, there was Yasumi Matsuno's Vagrant Story. The first story in the fictional world of Ivalice, Vagrant Story achieved amazing things, both stylistically and technologically for the PS1, with scenes that stand up to this day.
Vagrant Story is not a light game, heavy in themes and atypical in aspects of gameplay. The game begins with the character Ashley heading to the ruins of Leá Monde, with things only going downhill from there. The antagonist of the game, Sydney, bears a rather distinct tattoo that, without getting too much into it, is called the Blood-Sin Tattoo, a rather dangerous thing with a distinctive look shared in other Ivalice games. Because of plot spoilers, you'll have to experience the game for yourself to truly understand what makes the Blood-Sin Tattoo so special.
6 Street Fighter – Vega's Coiled Snake
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Street Fighter is one of the biggest gaming franchises out there, and easily one of the biggest and most well-known fighting games to boot. Its characters are iconic, from headliners Ryu and Chun Li to other beloved entries like Guile and Juri. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Even the bosses you fight ha⛦ve won the hearts of countless fans. But when it comes to characters, all that love is reserved for Vega.
To Vega, noth𓂃ing is more important than beauty, especially his own. From his long, blonde hair and sculpted body, he views himself as art, so only logical he would view his body as a canvas. Weaving its way up and around his back and chest and resting below his neck, his coiled snake is always eviﷺdent to see all because he wants you to.
5 Devil May Cry 5 – V's Demonic Tattoos
The birthplace of character-action, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Devil May Cry is nearly unmatched for the sheer absurdity of combat and weapons. It has a certain personality to it, Whether it's the funny cowboy Dante, the overly confident idiot in Nero, or the intensely jealous Vergil. Yet all that angst and heavy metal, there isn't a single tattoo among them until the birth of V in DMC5.
V, whose name is an entire joke in itself, is covered in tattoos. Wispy shapes and bursts of deep black ink hold entire lives in their depths. Literally. V's demons actually live in his tattoos and even his hair, rushing from his body onto the battlefield. It's an incredible way of portraying the storied history of tattoos in a way that contributes back to his character and even the history of the series as a whole.
4 God Of War – Kratos' Markings
The technically titular 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:God of War is a familiar face nowadays with Ragnarok on the horizon, though sporting a more aged appearance now than in his initial game. Kratos has had something of a tragic backstory, to put it lightly, so it only makes sense that he's angry just about all the time.
Though that anger may never truly settle, his tattoos are a reminder of why he's so angry in the first place. His brother Deimos was born with those same marks and feared as a harbinger of destruction for Mt Olympus, and killed as a result. Kratos branded himself with those same marks, to remember always why he fights.
3 Shin Megami Tensei 3 – Demi-fiend's Whole Body
When talking about Atlus, most people will immediately jump to Persona 5, that big ol' money bank. Though it is of course a massive amount of fame, something that pushed them from a niche interest firmly into the mainstream, their initial fame in the west came with 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Shin Megami Tensei, its decidedly darker sibling.
SMT3 was a turning point for the series, and to this day still one of the most beloved entries. SMT has a tendency to focus on heavier themes, of g🍸ods and demons and what prompts us as humans to keep on going. The Demi-fiend is intended to be your wa🧸y of expressing that, though his design has plenty to say. Those tattoos are unlike much else apart from giving him an unsettling look, that sickly glow against his pale skin.
2 Dishonored – The Mark Of The O🌌utsider
Arkane has made a name for themselves in the rather broad genre of immersive sims, making game after game that is an unequivocal hit, though 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dishonored is where it all began. Those painterly scenes of a washed-out Faux-London beset by plague may seem a bit too close to reality now, but maybe that's why it hit so hard in the first place.
The art of Dishonored is one of its highlights, though only one of many. The pure creativity afforded to you is second to none, and the lore they've built is so enticing. A rather important figure in the world, and the story at hand, is the Outsider. Branded with his mark at the beginning of the game, you're constantly reminded of it anytime you use one of his mystical gifts.
1 Yakuza – Everyon꧂e, Apparently
Yakuza is special for plenty of reasons. It struggled for quite a while to gain a foothold in the west against other city simulations until Yakuza 0 when everyone suddenly realized everything that makes this series so great. It's a gorgeous recreation of so many Japanese cities and the people in them, the hilarity and seriousness that's entailed in all that.
The stories of the Yakuza games tend to be a few degrees more serious than the sub-stories, but there's a moment you can rely on in every game, a moment that it feels like everything builds up to. And that is the moment you get into a really big battle and the various characters tear away their shirts to reveal massive, intricately designed tattoos. They are always such moments of hype in the games that never fail to please.