Games where all characters are mechanically identical are OK.
Judge the roster by: stylistic variety among the characters, how much they convey about the setting of the game, whether the roster feels cohesive, etc.
While this blends fantasy and sf, there’s a mostly stable technology level among them, and there are few interesting divisions to be made between them: pilots vs. giant flyers, soldiers vs. treasure hunters, age, etc.
In Dark Savior, you can capture your enemies and they get added to your roster. I can’t take a picture of everyone that’s in the roster, but you can get a banana with maracas, a cyborg bear, a sake drinking Siberian tiger, and Blade the Killing Machine.
Forget to mention that the roster is cohesive because it’s set on a prison island so these are the baddest of the bad.
i like that honest john a lot! he says something like “hey! it’s my turn” every time you pick him which is nice. is chitta’s name also gun-dalf or is that what she named her ship? very good joke, sounds like some stupid shit i would say
dunno if it’s my favorite or if it’s obscure enough, but i really like all the people in gunbird 2. i usually go with tavia because bc i tend toward the blue haired anime girls and she’s fast as heck. think i like all of them, except for ayin (tho i do like his special with all the roses bustin’ all over the screen) and morrigan. they’re the hardest to use!
I have a real soft spot for the original MM racers but the Micro Maniacs roster is so evocative of the post-grunge/early y2k aesthetic that I can’t not post them.
You get to customize your monster. As a kid, I loved the idea of, for example, a dinosaur with tentacles or photosynthetic skin and a missile launcher strapped to its back.