God Eater Self Avatar NPC Trick Should Become a Feature

The God Eater series holds a special place in my gaming memories. As one of the more established competitors to Monster Hunter, Bandai Namco gave a more extensive focus on the characters. It also let players bring NPCs as party members even in single-player sessions, which did not appear as a feature in Capcom’s games prior to the 2022 release of Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak. However, the God Eater games released on the PSP, PS Vita, and PS4 also had a trick that allowed players to register characters from the same account’s saved slots as avatar NPC companions.

To put the trick into perspective, we should first learn how the avatar NPC feature came to be in a genre that thrived with multiple competitor titles around the 2010s. The Monster Hunter games have a Guild Card that records each player’s activities. Players can also customize the card before sharing it with others by writing their own messages while choosing a specific pose and title. However, the cards barely serve any gameplay purposes other than recording proof that you have encountered those players in a multiplayer session.

This was where Bandai Namco tried to amp up the competition by adding a meaningful gameplay feature to the cards. In the God Eater games, exchanging these cards would not only let players see each other’s records; it also actually let them select the player’s avatar as an NPC party member akin to the in-game story characters.

Some of the games’ players have even discovered a trick where they can register characters from other save slots in the same account as avatar NPC companions, which also means they can technically add their own created characters as party members. Such a trick has since been known in the community as the “Self Avatar Card.”

The trick was made possible by utilizing loopholes in the wireless and online features of the now-legacy consoles, although one would be required to own two copies of the same game and/or console to pull it out. While methods to execute the trick had existed as early as the release of God Eater Burst—the enhanced edition of the first series entry released for PSP in 2010, I had the most profound experiences with God Eater Resurrection and God Eater 2: Rage Burst when Bandai Namco released them for the Vita and PS4.

Screenshot by Siliconera

There were two methods possible to execute the trick in both games. The first one utilized two Vita consoles—one of them could also be a PlayStation Vita TV. And if one had purchased the game digitally, they could download and access the same game on both consoles and then connect with the local Ad-Hoc mode.

The second method—and the one I actually used—involved purchasing a copy of the game for each of the PS4 and Vita. I still remember how I could connect to a private online room with the same account simultaneously on both platforms. After successfully performing the internal exchange, I could sync the saves with the updated Self Avatar Cards via the cross-save feature. In God Eater Resurrection, that also meant I could add the franchise’s anime protagonist Lenka Utsugi besides my own characters to the list of callable allies.

God Eater was not the only series in the hunting action genre to feature the Self Avatar Card trick. When Koei Tecmo launched Toukiden Kiwami around 2014-2015 and Toukiden 2 in 2016, it released both games on the PS4 and Vita. I still fondly remember how I could pull out the same method and have my characters appear in each other’s saves.

God Eater 3, unfortunately, does not support the same trick due to the lack of cross-play and cross-save between its PS4, PC, and Switch releases. Technically speaking, players of the Switch and Steam versions could have a similar experience of exchanging avatars between two respective devices. However, both platforms have more stringent account checks so it would necessitate a secondary account. And while there is a way on the Switch to access a single digital copy on two consoles and accounts, both consoles can only connect via online multiplayer, which also requires a Nintendo Switch Online subscription for each of them.

Screenshot by Siliconera

The experience of having another self-made avatar as an NPC companion in these character-driven hunting games is different from the likes of Freedom Wars‘ Accessory androids or Dragon’s Dogma‘s Pawns. In the latter games, you could create the secondary avatar right away, but they are more designed to be emotionless servants to your primary character.

The avatar NPCs can appear as callable characters with a more complete personality that can even become indistinguishable from the existing story characters if they are created elaborately enough. I actually felt more motivated to replay God Eater and Toukiden games with secondary and tertiary avatars when I had my previous character(s) appear to help me in the new playthrough.

However, looking at how stringent the user account check has become in more recent platforms, it becomes more crucial that generating self-made NPCs should not be the result of a cross-play trick, but rather should be implemented as an official gameplay feature. Having such a feature can help give more motivation to players who want to get immersed into the game’s world but prefer playing in single-player modes, such as myself.

But I am personally hoping that the self-made avatar NPC feature can appear formally in not only a hypothetical God Eater 4 by Bandai Namco or Toukiden 3 by Koei Tecmo but also all other upcoming hunting action games, including Capcom’s Monster Hunter Wilds which is starting to go all-in on NPC support hunters. Imagine replaying the latter game with a newer character and you spot your first avatar coming to help after you launched the SOS Flare… How cool would that be?

Screenshots for this article were taken from the PlayStation 4 version of God Eater 2: Rage Burst. The game is also available on PlayStation Vita and PC.

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