Personality test in video games

[SamsDisciple]

I was sitting back remembering the good times I had playing Dragon Warrior 3 and how it had a personality test at the beginning of the game. Other games have similar things and it changes what type of character you play and may even change certain aspects of the game. I remember Dragon warrior 3, Fallout 3 (with the infamous GOAT test :smallbiggrin: ) and Fallout New Vegas kinda had one as well. Does anybody else remember any more games that have some sort of quiz at the beginning that changes how you play?

[Winthur]

Ultima series from IV onwards does this.
Ultima IV is free on GoG, too, so check it out, it's an iconic RPG series, it helped spawn many titles, including jRPGs.
Basically, since Ultima IV, there exist virtues of Truth, Love and Courage that have subvirtues like Honesty, Valor, Humility, etc. You answer questions based on two virtues that basically ask you whether you'd exert one or other virtue. So for instance there could be a question like "You vanquish an ogre but your compatriot gets all the glory for it, do you challenge his claims to prove your Honor or do you exert Humility by staying out of it?" Each virtue corresponds to a different class - Honor is Paladin, Humility is Shepherd, in that case. At the end of the test based on your answers you get your class assigned to you.

ADOM lets you do the personality test to determine your stats, but you can assign them randomly as well, and most players opt to do just that, given that ADOM is a roguelike and your characters will die a lot.

[GolemsVoice]

I think at the beginning of Vampire: Bloodlines you had the options of either taking a personality test to determine your clan and stats, or to assign them manually.

[Grinner]

Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis
Kingdom Hearts?

[Zevox]

The one from DQ3 actually only affects your stat growths. Funny enough, there is a best personality in that respect - for female characters only, the "Sexy" personality gives great growths all-around. Something the game itself tacitly acknowledges by having one of the rewards you can request for beating the secret, super-hard post-game bonus boss be the chance to read a book that will change your personality to "Sexy." This alongside rewards like opening one last bonus dungeon or reviving your dead father.

Ogre Battle 64 also does something sort of like this at the start, asking what you'd do in various situations. But it just determines the makeup of your starting units and which elemental Elm Pedra you start with.

[Narkis]

Jagged Alliance 2. The character generation for your first mercenary has a personality test that determines his skills, specialties and personality. Most answers ranged from antisocial to completely psychotic.:smallbiggrin:

[Ailurus]

Daggerfall (Elder Scrolls 2) had one IIRC.

[Fargazer]

Elder Scrolls: Arena has one as well.

[Starwulf]

Morrowind and Oblivion had it as well, though to a significantly lesser extent. Can't particularly remember if Skyrim did or not, though I want to lean towards no on that one.

[Kitten Champion]

Steambot Chronicles, a relaxing nonlinear adventure for the Playstation 2, starts with a personality test. I don't know how dramatically it effects gameplay since I've only played through it once, but it's a nice introduction to the game's morality and relationship mechanic.

While you technically can play as a jerkass greedy antihero (not of GTA levels, more douchebag than sociopath), the protagonist is just so gosh darn cute and wholesome with a cheery voice and likeable friends that it feels so very wrong to screw them all over.

[Emperor Ing]

The Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series (up until the latest one) had personality tests to determine what the player's pokemon would be. Let me just say: Red Rescue Team knows me better than I know myself :eek:

[Cespenar]

Morrowind's was pretty famous (within itself), to the extent that it created its own inside joke/meme with the "sweetroll" question.

[Togath]

Morrowind and Oblivion had it as well, though to a significantly lesser extent. Can't particularly remember if Skyrim did or not, though I want to lean towards no on that one.

Skyrim has a much lesser version, unfortunately, the closest that come up are mainly grey v grey questions(and a few "good vs. good" questions, where whichever option you choose is "revealed" to have been the heroic/good one:smallwink:).
It's still a great game, but I just feel that personality quiz things add some extra fun to character creation:smallsmile:

[Whoracle]

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories did this. Doesn't alter the Character yu play, but alters the game apparently. Never noticed it too much while playing, though.

[Grinner]

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories did this. Doesn't alter the Character yu play, but alters the game apparently. Never noticed it too much while playing, though.

How many times did you play it, and did your answers ever vary?

You could just be another victim of umwelt.


That sounds pretty clever though...A game that tailors itself to the player...

[GungHo]

Jagged Alliance 2. The character generation for your first mercenary has a personality test that determines his skills, specialties and personality. Most answers ranged from antisocial to completely psychotic.:smallbiggrin:
JA2's test was my favorite one of these. Ultima 4, 5, 6's Tarot readings were close seconds.


Morrowind and Oblivion had it as well, though to a significantly lesser extent. Can't particularly remember if Skyrim did or not, though I want to lean towards no on that one.
Not really as a part of creation. There are some mods that attempted to put it back in, though... some more successful than others.

[Tylorious]

I think an amazing example of this would be Ogre Battle 64. It changes the first 5-10 hours of your game drastically, and influences the entire game to a smaller degree. Ah I love it very much.

[erikun]

That's actually been something since the first Ogre Battle game on the SNES. The personality test not only determined the main character's starting alignment, but also army composition and starting reputation. As Grinner noted above, the related Tactics Ogre series does the same thing, although I think it only influences the main character's alignment (which matters a lot less).

[Whoracle]

How many times did you play it, and did your answers ever vary?

You could just be another victim of umwelt.


That sounds pretty clever though...A game that tailors itself to the player...

Played through it 2 times, maybe 3, can't remember What I know is that between 1 and 2, I picked the exact "opposite" answers. Seen a good LP of it a few times, too, hence it's a bit fuzzy. And yes, it changed, just not too much. But I'll be darned if I remember how exactly. It simply has been too long.

I'll see if I find the mood to fire it up again this weekend, then I can tell you more :)

[Gabe]

Played through it 2 times, maybe 3, can't remember What I know is that between 1 and 2, I picked the exact "opposite" answers. Seen a good LP of it a few times, too, hence it's a bit fuzzy. And yes, it changed, just not too much. But I'll be darned if I remember how exactly. It simply has been too long.

I'll see if I find the mood to fire it up again this weekend, then I can tell you more :)

I know the one thing that changes is that the house you visit in game changes colour depending on what colour you drew in the house on the test.
So if you drew a yellow house with a red roof then that's what you'd get in game. Kinda spooky!

[Sylthia]

At the end of Baldur's Gate 2, there's an alignment test of sorts.