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Who is your favourite gaming protagonist?

lusca_bueno

lusca_bueno

Member
Nov 23, 2017
1,472
Bayonetta, she's the drama, all of it, and I am SO here for it. I identify so much with this character no one else could even touch her heels, no contest.

The VA, the expressiveness, the performance, so much extra and cheese I can't have enough. I'll buy a Switch for this woman.

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N64Controller

N64Controller

Member
Nov 2, 2017
8,535
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Hesitated between Venom Snake and Estelle Bright.

EDIT : Does the image scale actually work? I scaled mine and it seems at a decent size, but god damn these images in the thread are YUGE!
 
Huey

Huey

Member
Oct 27, 2017
13,632
300px-Wander.jpg


Wander from SOTC

Of course he's the villain in some respects but his story is so tragic and watching him descend through pain and suffering into his eventual fate is a remarkable feat of pathos for the medium of games. The way this is conveyed in the original game through changes in his character model and expression is particularly heart breaking.

Please don't reply with pics of the abomination that is the remake model, I will report you
 
Pyro

Pyro

God help us the mods are making weekend threads
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Jul 30, 2018
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I'll also say Wander from SotC since that's my GOAT. I don't think he's a villain at all and I think he probably knows that what he's doing is wrong, he just doesn't care. And while I don't think his redesign I atrocious and even like it, there's a certain gauntness to his original design that is lost.

latest
 
NotLiquid

NotLiquid

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
35,251
220px-TravisTouchdown.png


Travis Touchdown. For the simpler reasons, it's simply being hilariously written, fantastically acted and having an extremely memorable design. But beyond that, while on the surface he's a fantastic pastiche of toxic gamer mentality, under the surface he's a character study about someone that would be raised in a ruthless, borderline anarchic world, yearning to break out and finding an identity and means of expression despite only having his forms of escapism as a frame of reference. A character like Travis can only grow to be a "hero" by becoming cognizant of the world he inhabits. For a character who's objectively pretty crazy, it never stops impressing me how there's layers of humanity in him that's granted him a fascinating character arc. Even when he's hungry for the fight and a contract killer by trade, the he's progressed has been compelling. I'm extremely curious to see where his development will continue in No More Heroes 3 after the brilliantly written Travis Strikes Again.
 

Deleted member 68874

Account closed at user request
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May 10, 2020
10,441
Master Chief without hesitation. The Big Green Boi has been a part of my life for almost all of it.

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CaLe said:
In terms of pure quality and setting aside all biases and favoritism, Arthur Morgan is the best written and acted character in all of video games.
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Easily and I dont think it's even debatable.
 
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Ghost of Jhoto

Ghost of Jhoto

Banned
Jul 20, 2020
1,314
Clementine by far no close 2nd other than Lee in the first game. Her growth and overall arc from cute little girl who needed help for the most minor of things but still tried her best to be useful, to bad ass teen who could strike fear in most adults was superb.


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Alecs27

Alecs27

Banned
Dec 23, 2017
742
Zack Fair from Crisis Core, is the character I cared most in a videogame, back in the day. It helped that I was pretty young and I idolized him like some other character did..

So yeah, Cloud Strife too, from OG FFVII. Arrogant and cocky in appearance, he hides his weakness and inner shyness, with a facade, both caused by him and his illness.

Ellie from the Last of Us. She is great, I like everything about her, because I know her. She's the most real character I ever met in a videogame, and I felt her pain and her motivation, both in the first, but expecially in the second game. She's maybe my favourite videogame character in recent years.

Sora from kingdom hearts. End of the story, I love him for what it is and what he meant for my life.
 
purseowner

purseowner

From the mirror universe
Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,446
UK
NotLiquid said:
220px-TravisTouchdown.png


Travis Touchdown. For the simpler reasons, it's simply being hilariously written, fantastically acted and having an extremely memorable design. But beyond that, while on the surface he's a fantastic pastiche of toxic gamer mentality, under the surface he's a character study about someone that would be raised in a ruthless, borderline anarchic world, yearning to break out and finding an identity and means of expression despite only having his forms of escapism as a frame of reference. A character like Travis can only grow to be a "hero" by becoming cognizant of the world he inhabits. For a character who's objectively pretty crazy, it never stops impressing me how there's layers of humanity in him that's granted him a fascinating character arc. Even when he's hungry for the fight and a contract killer by trade, the he's progressed has been compelling. I'm extremely curious to see where his development will continue in No More Heroes 3 after the brilliantly written Travis Strikes Again.
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This is a really great analysis. (And I totally agree on Travis Strikes Again - gets dismissed for repetitive gameplay, when the writing is Suda on top form)
 

Deleted member 511

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Oct 25, 2017
3,676
The high summoner. Bringer of the Eternal Calm. Spira's most iconic pop star. Slayer of false religions. Master of dancing on water and sending the dead. Has made endless cameos - Smash when? Queen of making out in the water and somehow not drowning. An icon that reinvents herself and has character development that fans just can't accept - I said what I said, X-2 haters! Voted the 2nd most popular character in FF in Japan - only beaten by Mr. Strife. The baddest female character in Final Fantasy. The one and only, LADY YUNA.

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Queen sending all the haters away.

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J_ToSaveTheDay

J_ToSaveTheDay

"This guy are sick" and Corrupted by Vengeance
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Oct 25, 2017
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Leon S. Kennedy is the standing avatar of the campy videogame protag that I think is most emblematic of action games in general, and unlike most RE protags, I think he's had an opportunity over his appearances to have sort of an internal thought process exposed. I like his RE2 appearance as a capable do-gooder rookie and his more gruff and confident action star presence in RE4. But yeah, more than anything, in my own play history, he's just the iconic figure of the type of action games I enjoy in general owing to his RE4 appearance.

I very begrudgingly say this, but Sonic the Hedgehog. I started gaming as a proud Sega Genesis kid — I still loved Nintendo consoles, not gonna lie, but I was young and couldn't afford my own videogames so I had only a Genesis for a long time. Sonic was at the center of that and I was ride-or-die on Sonic the Hedgehog through the Dreamcast. Unfortunately, I am no longer a Sonic ride-or-die and the status of the franchise as a whole generally upsets me, but when he does manage to hit right these days, it still feels extremely special. I don't stan Sonic through the rough times and I think Sega's doing a shit job of maintaining the image of the brand, but I do celebrate when Sonic is handled in a way that feels good or respectful to my young days when he felt like a gaming juggernaut.
 

Deleted member 56752

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Naruto. He's a real one. Taught me so many things.

Real surprise though *looks away from profile pic*
 
GamerJM

GamerJM

Member
Nov 8, 2017
15,937
Ike from Path of Radiance. A true badass, but not in an edgy or overly trying-too-hard-to-be-cool way. His arc is amazing.
 
Aurongel

Aurongel

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Oct 28, 2017
7,065
Arthur Morgan.

He's one of the rare protagonists that the writers actually allow to be a complete asshole for a stretch of time. Then when his eventual fall occurs, you're actually invested in his redemption arc because you've controlled him through so much of what he's seeking redemption for. The first game lacked the set up for the redemption arc which made Marston a much, much less relatable person by comparison.

Seriously, it's one of the few examples in ANY medium of a redemption arc that actually puts in the hard work to make it believable and directly relatable.
 
Zaied

Zaied

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,642
Tough; so many more than two come to mind, but one of the first is Alcatraz from Crysis 2:

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I applaud his backstory; and the design and science of the Nanosuit 2 strongly appeals to me. Crysis 2's novel gives him a good amount of characterization — more than he gets in the game due to being a silent protagonist (he's silent in the novel, too, but it has the benefit of narration, and he's quite the entertaining supersoldier). Alcatraz can't speak due to suffering severe ballistic trauma at the start of the game, making him one of the few silent protagonists with a legitimate in-world excuse not to talk. I mentioned his backstory because it's fairly tragic for a nameless military grunt: for one, he ultimately never comes to fulfill a promise he made to his sister to remove her from an abusive foster care because he's mortally wounded at the start of Crysis 2 and placed inside the Nanosuit 2, which keeps him "alive" at the cost of his humanity (what little remained of it).

The book goes into great detail about Alcatraz's psychological trauma from being imprisoned inside the suit as a walking corpse: at first, he sees the Nanosuit as this awesome weapon that he inherited, but after a while, he simply desires to kill himself (which the suit's AI prohibits him from doing), rather than live post-humanly with the burden of saving mankind. It's fitting that he's called "Alcatraz" when he's literally a dead man imprisoned inside of a heavily fortified suit. Crysis, as a whole, suffered from a revolving door at the writer position, but I still found Alcatraz to be a remarkably fascinating character. At his most basic, there's something mystiquely cool about a clinically dead marine, who has no means of expressing himself other than through his deeds and body language (as exhibited in "The Wall" trailer), inheriting a symbiotic alien battle suit, and running around Manhattan as humanity's last hope against an alien invasion.
 
Retromess

Retromess

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Nov 9, 2017
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This thread is chock full of my least favorite type of post - no context images or gifs.

Heaven forbid not everyone is able to recognize every game character and know why they're cool at a glance. :/

On topic:

Kiryu from Yakuza is solid. He's an all-around great character, who undergoes a lot of growth throughout the series. He protects others from bullies and uses his power, wealth and privilege to help those less fortunate. While I may not LOVE those games (I DO love Yakuza 0 but the others didn't do it as much for me), I really enjoy Kiryu as a character.

I would also put Majima from Yakuza 0 up there too, he was a very interesting character and seeing his arc in that game was great. Wish he had more prominent roles in the rest of the series.
 
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