What games/franchises do you think have the best/worst character writing.

[cubiCampla]

2 hours ago, DaveMcDamage said:

Who would you guys say has the best written villain character in a video game? Rockstar Games are good at making slimeball villains but nothing that has you really routing to finish them as they still write charm for the character. Off the top of my head I cannot really think of one at the moment.

 

Adachi from Persona 4 is an excellently written villain to where there are literally days worth of hours in documentaries about him and analyzing his character on YouTube.

[Shaun1094]

Personally I think Handsome Jack from Borderlands 2 was an amazing villain. His backstory was so intricate and had many different parts to it. Once you played Pre-Sequel you really begin to understand him and how he became what he became. He was written so well

[DaveMcDamage]

I also think villains worth a mention are Deaths head and Irene Engel from Wolfenstein: The New Order. I think because they had no charm or anything you would want to connect with, then this gave the writers full freedom to actually make an evil enemy. Both were repulsive to watch and listen to, but you have to admire the writers skills when they can get you to hate someone so much. 

[Eraezr]

It doesn't please me to say this but Lunafreya is one of the poorest written heroines in JRPGs and the bar isn't even that high. I was hoping she would prove the haters wrong, pre-launch. FFXV's story and world-building gets worse and worse in hindsight's introspection.

 

Good written characters in games

Hiijiyama - Yakuza 4

Vaas Montenegro - Far Cry 3

Lieutenant Reyes - Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare

Max - Life is Strange

Bigby - Wolf Among Us

Aurora - Child of Light

Spoiler

Syanna

- The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt | Blood and Wine expansion

Edited October 9, 2021 by Eraezr

[Slava]

Surprised no one has mentioned The Last Of Us yet. Everything Joel and Ellie say and do makes sense at every point of the story. The plot is captivating and believable because they were written so well. The side characters were cool and memorable as well. 

 

I also want to make a point that good writing doesn't always have to mean paragraphs on paragraphs of expertly crafted dialogue, deep sophisticated story, and character development. In a game like Sonic, for example, all you need is a villain who just wants to capture animals, build robots, and rule the land, and a hero who will go all the way to stop him. Simple concept, but it works well in a platformer game. 

 

In a game like Need For Speed: Most Wanted you don't need the rival characters to be anything more than some mean looking assholes for you to want to race them and beat them. 

 

An example of bad character writing... IDK, something like Silent Hill: Homecoming.

 

Edit: I just picked some particular games, and not game series. It's hard to name a franchise because the quality often differs from game to game. The title says "games/franchises" so I thought it was allowed.

Edited October 9, 2021 by Slava

[Lava_Yuki]

Best is very difficult as I think all the FF, Tales, Persona and KH games all have fantastic character writing. Out of these I think the Tales games have the best character writing, as each character and their personality and backstory is very well written, the skits are very entertaining and I find the characters in Tales games in general to be captivating and interesting. I especially liked the cast in Tales of Vesperia, Graces, Abyss and Xillia 2, and also Berseria has a pretty quirky bunch as well. I particularly liked Yuri, Velvet, Richard, Pascal, Gaius, Ludgar, Milla, Aizen, Sophie, Ashe and Jade for character writing. 

Persona games are a close contender, I loved the cast of P3-P5R, and all the social links were very interesting as well. My favourite caste was the P5R cast followed by P3 and then P4G. I really liked the three protagonists, and out of the other characters, Akechi, Naoto, Mitsuru and Aegis were my top ones. P3 deserves a remake as the cast in that is amazing, and Akechi was a brilliant character and deserves more love, as he gets so much hate by everyone. I also thought the SL/confidants were pretty interesting as well, I really liked the ones in P5R as I thought they were the best written from a character point of view, my favourite being Takemi. 

 

Worst: Beyond two souls, the characters in this game were pretty rubbish and the story was all over the place. Out of the Quantic Dream games, Detroit was the only good one in my opinion. Jody was boring and the other characters and the story overall was so tedious and lacklustre. Another is Life is Strange 2, Sean and Daniel were nowhere near as interesting as Chloe and Max. Daniel was an annoying crybaby brat and Sean was kind of plain, the endings were pretty interesting but Sean and Daniel were boring characters to play as, and I didn't find myself interested in their story or journey at all. 

[DaveMcDamage]

17 hours ago, Lava_Yuki said:

 

 

Worst: Beyond two souls, the characters in this game were pretty rubbish and the story was all over the place. 

Indeed. It was like they wanted to do a Tarantino, Pulp Fiction type style, but it just didn't work and was an annoying experience.