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Certain games have a drawing of a character's face, usually in a portrait style. In RPGs or other games with menus, these are usually displayed next to the character's name. Also, in some games with talking NPCs where one can't directly see characters' faces, a portrait may be displayed next to their text box. If they don't, then they may be of Nominal Importance. (Some games may try to give everyone a portrait, but there are usually unique ones for important characters, making this an example of You ALL Look Familiar) Prevalent in RPGs, since there tend to be a lot of NPCs in them.
Certain games may also have different portraits for the same character to indicate facial expressions and the like. A few facial expressions, anyway.
Examples:
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Action Adventure
- Cave Story. There's some interesting variations: Balrog's head is so large that his character portrait can only show half of his face, and Misery's hair is a different color in the portrait than it is on her sprite.
- Solatorobo has portraits for most every character, excepting the absolute most minor of NPCs, and most characters have at least one alternate portrait for different moods or facial expressions. Some major characters not only get face portraits but also full-body portraits that show up for dramatic moments or soliloquies.
Adventure Games
- Seems to be pretty common in adventure games. The Quest For Glory series, some of the Kings Quest games, and Gabriel Knight all had text boxes with pictures of the characters' faces. Quest For Glory IV (which had very detailed pictures featuring most of the character's upper body) and Gabriel Knight had pictures whose mouths moved when they spoke.
- Kings Quest V was one of the earliest games to feature these, with close-up images of Cedric, Icebella, and Beetrice, among others. Kings Quest VI featured 16- and 256-color versions, and they were even voiced and animated in the talkie edition.
- The PC adventure game Secrets of da Vinci: The Forbidden Manuscript shows an interactive portrait of Valdo, the protagonist, on the inventory screen. It indicates what he's wearing and is where the player changes his outfit. After Valdo meets the character Marie, she also appears in his portrait, and their relative position to one another indicates the current state of their relationship.
Platformers
- Banjo-Kazooie actually uses this despite having the characters in question in clear view, right next to the heroes and with their faces visible. They do this for the bosses as well as certain other characters.
- Batman: Return of the Joker shows these in every boss stage.
- The occasional dialogue sequences in Metroid Fusion use portraits, although one of the three characters with speaking parts doesn't have much of a portrait, being an AI, and the other two don't talk outside of one or two scenes.
- Mega Man X used them in the first game onwards, and passed it on to the Zero and ZX games. Classic Mega Man followed suit in the SNES and PlayStation titles (one of which was later ported to GBA stateside). Legends used them in places (not necessarily for dialogue, though). Battle Network and Starforce, by virtue of being RPGs, use them the most extensively.
- Sonic Colors uses them in the Nintendo DS version.
Puzzle Games
- Panel De Pon and Tetris Attack both use them for dialogue. Both games animate blinking; PdP animates mouth movements, TA does not.
RPG
- The MARDEK series uses character portraits for every single talking character in the game. Facial expressions and all.
- Neverwinter Nights
- In the first one, the player chooses a portrait for their character, which doesn't need to be remotely connected to the Player Character's actual appearance. The same goes for all the NPCs, who all have portaits from among the few dozen stock ones available in the game, only a small handful of the most important ones getting unique portraits. Given the repetitiveness and unavoidable occasional inappropriateness of the portraits, it doesn't exactly make each character a unique snowflake.
- Normally averted in Neverwinter Nights 2: the portrait is rendered directly from the Player Character's 3D face, including whatever equipment they currently have on. Played straight with the companions in the Mask of the Betrayer expansion, however.
- The Persona series.
- Of particular note, Persona 3 Portable gives several characters portraits who didn't have them them originally.
- Persona 4 plays with this a little, by leaving the gas station attendant without a character portrait unless you confront them in the true ending which causes her to play dumb, while adding various "important NPC" trappings as you persist in questioning her and discover that she's a god and behind everything.
- Pokémon:
- Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: In Rescue Team, only story-important NPCs and the starting forms of the Hero and Partner had portraits. In Explorers and Gates to Infinity, every Pokémon has a portrait, but only certain NPCs and the starters' first evolutions have alternate portraits for different moods.
- Also done rarely in Pokemon Black And White, only used when characters are talking via the XTransceiver or when talking with N.
- Most RPG Maker games.
- Last Scenario has different portraits for facial expressions and emotions for certain characters, as well. So does The Way and The Reconstruction.
- Completely averted in Visions & Voices. There aren't even menu portraits.
- Exit Fate uses very large portraits, featuring not just the face, but usually the character's entire upper body as well.
- Suikoden. In particular, Suikoden Tactics gives generic characters eyeless portraits.
- Skits in the Tales Series. Most of the games also have these by each character's status in and out of battle. In the former case, they often have their expressions change based on what's happening to them.
- The Ultima series from VI on, until it goes 3D in IX and just zooms in on people.
- Valkyrie Profile has portraits which take up approximately half of the screen when dialogue boxes are present. There are several portraits for each playable character which help reflect the emotional aspects of the dialogue.
- Inazuma Eleven has a unique face portrait for every single character in the game. All 1000+ of them. Although only characters important to the story have multiple portraits for different facial expressions.
- Wild ARMs:
- In Wild ARMs 2, you can name every storyline-important NPC one meets, but only a very few of them have portraits when naming them or talking to them; this can lead to some Interface Spoilers. For example, Tim is a seemingly unimportant NPC met early on, but it's obvious he'll end up being important since he has a character portrait. It's even more amusing considering one meets the "leader" of Tim's little circle of friends first - who doesn't have a portrait.
- A similar tactic can be used in Wild ARMs 3 and Wild ARMs 5. Wild ARMs 4 and Wild ARMs XF had portraits for pretty much everyone, but there were still "generic" and "unique" portraits, allowing the player to tell them apart.
- Xenogears uses basic portraits in the dialogue boxes.
- Used oddly in Dragon Age: Origins. The Warden's character portrait is a freeze-frame from the character model, but then the player gets to choose the exact angle at which s/he is drawn.
- In the Ys series, NPCs in important conversations have portraits that take up at least a third of the screen.
Simulation Games
- Harvest Moon uses the "multiple portraits for different emotions" version, when it's not using Going Through the Motions. You can tell how important a character is by how many portraits they have; Love Interests will have five or six, while minor characters will only have one.
- Mitsumete Knight R: Daibouken Hen uses the text box version of this trope for all voiced characters of the game. Their facial expressions however change in real time as the dialogue is unfolding, instead of waiting for the dialogue to finish to change the expression, and instead of using the swapping a new portrait method.
- The Trauma Center series, with multiple portraits for different emotions.
- Warship Gunner 2 uses portraits whenever someone's speaking.
Turn-Based Strategy
- Final Fantasy Tactics and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance uses them in the dialogue boxes.
- Most of the Fire Emblem games use these. Interestingly, these ones have a few different expressions, move their mouths when speaking, and blink, even if their portrait isn't currently the "active" one. They also have a tendency to move around to simulate the person they represent moving.
- The Shining Series use these for all the characters in the party. The Shining Force Gaiden games also used them for cutscenes. Only characters who are in the eponymous force or have speaking roles got portraits, though.
Visual Novels
- All characters appear like this in Ace Attorney; either looking directly at the camera or, in case of attorneys and assistants during courtroom sesions, looking at the side. Notably, all the characters have many unique animations, ranging from sweating, waving, bouncing up and down, and a "freak out" to name some.
Non-Video-Game Examples
Fan Works
Web Original
- Mario Party TV: Mr. Doom, Steeler, Holms and Clel use pictures of themselves to mimic the portraits used in the in-game Ranking charts, which change appropriately in accordance with their status.
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