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[Umbasaborne]

I just beat cyberpunk for the 2nd time in a row, i was thinking about why that game resonated with me so much, and while the world was awesome and the gameplay was fun, the characters are the thing that kept me coming back for 120 hours. I didn’t want to leave characters like river, judy, panam, or jackie.

In many ways, it reminded me of why I love mass effect so much. Characters like Liara, garrus, and tali keep me replaying those game every year, because they are well written, well performed, and you as the player develop an emotional attatchment to them.

A few other games that I love for the characters are final fantasy 7 (og and the remake), the witcher 3, dragon age inquistion, kingdom hearts, the outer worlds, assassins creed odyssey, and fallout 4. What are some other games that have an awesome cast of characters that you became attached to?

 

[Captain Toad]

Persona 5

 

[InfiniteCombo]

Red Dead 2: Arthur is the protagonist and he's amazing, but the ensemble cast around him are all awesome.

Yakuza series: fantastic characters all around.

 

[darth.shrimp]

Tales of Symphonia (also Vesperia and Eternia... but mostly Symphonia)
Vampire 2: Bloodlines
Darksiders 1 and 2

 

[SSfox]

The most recent one game that has incredible cast of characters are Persona 5, Genshin and RDR2.

And yes, characters are super important, main reason i'm not too much into Horizon2 or TLOU2.

 

[The_hunter]

Persona 3-5, tales of vesperia, planescape torment, kotor 2, gta v, dragon age origins. I want to also add Mother 3.

 

[Umbasaborne]

Red Dead 2: Arthur is the protagonist and he's amazing, but the ensemble cast around him are all awesome.

Yakuza series: fantastic characters all around.

Yes, i should have mentioned red dead 2. I adored that game, a large part of that was due to the amazing cast. I definitely shed some manly tears at a few points. One of my favorite parts of that game were walking around the camp in the morning with a cup of coffee and seeing what everyone was up to.

 

[Umbasaborne]

The most recent one game that has incredible cast of characters are Persona 5, Genshin and RDR2.

And yes, characters are super important, main reason i'm not too much into Horizon2 or TLOU2.

Same feeling with horizon. There is a lot to love about horizon 2, but ive always struggled to care about alloy or her friends

 

[chaseroni]

Gotta go with Mass Effect 2 for sure.
Undertale

 

[kyliethicc]

The Last of Us, Uncharted, Red Dead Redemption.

 

[sainraja]

Uncharted. God of War. Prince of Persia. The Last of Us.

 

[UnNamed]

The Witcher
Dragon Age

 

[ButchCat]

Andrew Ryan and Sander Cohen from Bioshock. That's really all I have to say.

 

[klosos]

Divinty Orginal sin 2
Disco Elysum
Have excellent characters

 

[Ezquimacore]

 

[STARSBarry]

For all its flaws I do have to say the Final Fantasy VII remake does a great job of taking characters that for years we have filled in the gaps ourselves with and making them "feel" right... even in a future world with summons and magic. Its not even the main cast either but some of the now fleshed out side characters like Jessy, Biggs and Wedge.

Outside of that, and this is cheating a bit because its not fully released yet, but your party members in Baldurs Gate III are fantastic. I can't wait for that to be finished so I can get some closure, but suffice to say its shaping up great.

 

[Zannegan]

Psychonauts (cartoony, but great), Portal 2, and KotOR (for its time).

Cave Story, Chrono Trigger, and Earthbound all made me feel feels with fairly understated character portrayals, so I'm not sure if it's down to the characters themselves or just the whole game experince. That's the magic of pixel-art era games: there's enough text and detail to shape your impression, but it's also open to interpretation to a degree, which leaves players room to sort of project their own version of the story on top of what's actually there.

 

[Fbh]

Mass Effect was the first that came to mind.

The main plot isn't bad but it's some fairly standard end of the world threat that the hero needs to stop. It's the characters which really make it memorable.

Garrus >>>>> everyone from Stat Wars.

 

[Umbasaborne]

I should have mentioned tales from the boarderlands. I dont even like traditional boarderlands but that game really resonated with me

 

[Umbasaborne]

Gotta go with Mass Effect 2 for sure.
Undertale

Mass effect 2 is a strong contender for my favorite game ever made

 

[Bragr]

You mentioned these, but The Witcher 3 and Mass Effect must be the 2 GOATs when it comes to characters.

Alyx in Half-Life 2 is one of the greats. I liked Deacon and Boozer from Days Gone. The first Pyschonuats got some great characters.

Some of the Zelda games got some memorable characters that I still remember well, like Saria or the Skull kid.

But if I had to say one outside of the ones you mention, I would say Persona. You will remember those cast members for a long time, feels like home. The game ain't perfect, but I didn't expect it to get me as it did, after you finish the game you will start to miss the world.

 

[GymWolf]

Yakuza brand.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Any good visual novel

 

[worldwithpyramids]

People poke fun at FromSoftware's characters for having limited and cryptic dialog but they stick with me more than most games. Take Elden Ring for example... Blaidd, Malenia, Ranni, Iron Fist Alexander, Radahn, Fia, Rykard, Sellen, Hewg, Iji, D, Miriel. Just from quick memory as I know I'm missing a lot. I love these weirdos.

I think it shows that there is something to their storytelling philosophy. There's something about how this game's world building quietly unfolds through text and your own imagination filling in the blanks that makes them feel like they're actual people in the world with a real history.



Valve games (Portal, Half-Life, TF2), Mass Effect 1-3, RDR2, Psychonauts 2, Witcher 3 all great examples too.

 

[MagiusNecros]

Legacy of Kain, Xenosaga, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy IX, OG Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic.

Other games have characters that are either iconic with little to mild depth or are all player created.

Not seeing very many engaging stories in games these days.

 

[InfiniteCombo]

Yes, i should have mentioned red dead 2. I adored that game, a large part of that was due to the amazing cast. I definitely shed some manly tears at a few points. One of my favorite parts of that game were walking around the camp in the morning with a cup of coffee and seeing what everyone was up to.

Yup, exactly. And not even just in camp, around town, too. The people feel so alive in that game.

Also the amount of dialogue options is mind blowing. One of my favorite combos was the Greet/Greet/Antagonize sequence for almost any NPC.

Exhibit A when interacting with the same NPC:
Greeting 1: "Hey there, mister!"
Greeting 2: "You have a nice face..."
Antagonize: "... that I'd like to punch"

Exhibit B when interacting with a different NPC:
Greeting 1: "Good morning, mister"
Greeting 2: "That's a nice animal you got there"
(NPC responds: "Thanks!")
Antagonize: "... I was talking to the horse"



Arthur is a wisecracking mofo, there are whole YouTube compilations of him being a (funny) smart ass:

 

[Sleepwalker]

Arthur is probably the best protagonist in videogames.

TLOU 1 Joel-ellie dynamic is awesome

 

[SeraphJan]

 

[Danjin44]

 

[SeraphJan]

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

Each character are lovely.

Specially Kat

 

[SeraphJan]

 

[JimmyRustler]

Mass Effect is prolly my favourite in that regard. My man Garrus.

Close second is Legacy of Kain. I also loved MGS characters for a very long time but 4 kinda ruined them for me retroactively.

Also, for some weird reason many of the Bloodborne characters grew on me even with their limited dialogu. Especially the doll and Gherman.

 

[anothertech]

Red Dead, both
Nier series
Almost all Tell Tales stuff
Heavenly Sword, my GoaT
Best characters in gaming

 

[kovskaya]

Solid Snake, KOTOR characters Portal 2 characters.

 

[Y0ssarian]

 

[TheGreatMusashi]

Final Famtasy VI and Yakuza Like a Dragon have some of my favorite characters in games

 

[RAIDEN1]

Exactly what I was going to say....After part 4 it went down-hill badly...so much so you can't even see a spin-off let alone a main-line Metal Gear game coming out anytime soon...

 

[Fbh]

I should have mentioned tales from the boarderlands. I dont even like traditional boarderlands but that game really resonated with me

Yeah tales from the Borderland was great.

I can't stand the characters and writing in the main series, but Tales from the Borderlands ended up being my favourite Telltale game. Really liked the plot and characters and it was also legitimately funny.

Shame it never got a sequel.

 

[El Muerto]

Judgment, Yakuza, Persona, Wolfenstein, RDR

 

[64bitmodels]

undertale, deltarune, grim fandango, cave story, ace attorney and Danganronpa. the fact hardly anyone has mentioned any of these makes me dead inside

 

[arvfab]

TLOU, GoW, Steins;Gate, 13 Sentinels, Ace Attorney, Yakuza, FF7+8+X, RDR, Grim Fandango, Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Broken Sword, Heavy Rain, Detroit, Legacy of Kain, Persona 5

 

[TintoConCasera]

Yakuza games always make me care about their characters.

 

[fart town usa]

Resident Evil 1-3.

Especially 1 & 2 though.

 

[waquzy]

 

[brian0057]

SAM FISHER - Splinter Cell




GARRETT - Thief

 

[Dream-Knife]

Pretty much any big JRPG really. Persona 5 and Xenoblade 2 are recent examples.

 

[jshackles]

Legend of Heroes games (Trails in the Sky, Trails of Cold Steel, etc.)

 

[unintelligent orange]

Games I know with generally good character/story writing are below. Some of them may have questionable moments but im cool with the overall thing:

Jak & Daxter (2-3)
Ratchet and Clank 1-3 (fuck everything that came after)
Kingdom Hearts 1-2, COM (though the plot is very convoluted because money is a thing and this franchise getting milked to death over many iterations)
God of War (all)
Final Fantasy 7 (remake is so-so tho, the tone change is killing me)
Final Fantasy 10
StarCraft 1 & Broodwar (fuck SC2 tho)
Diablo 1-2
Uncharted 1-4

A lot of games characters and storylines tend to fall into re-hashed tropes without twists and turns to keep it fresh. Utilizing most established tropes isn't necesssarily bad though as long as it's masterfully kept interesting, but do realize some of them are just lame AF to begin with (e.g. 'the chosen one' plotlines/characters) and avoid those. Don't know if any devs actually read this shit, but take notes.

 

[Nikanuur]

All Darksiders:
What-the-hell-is-wrong-with-you-funny Strife.
Almost dumbly dead-serious, War.
Darkly-sarcastic and stoic Death.
Witty and intimidating Fury.
And the guest appearance: Shady, unnervingly-musing Vulgrim.