Child character you LIKED

[IFS]

Food: Yes they do. You even get a quest to help them grow more food if you have the Child at Heart perk.

Still Kids: You watch them throw a teen out of the town.

Plywood door: I'll give you that one.

Kids Not Knowing How to Build/Maintain: Yeah, they do. Again, they talk about it if you have Child at Heart.

These Explanations Not Holding Up To Scrutiny: I didn't find problems with them, so my original question raises its head again.

Food: they grow fungus, which is not nearly enough to sustain any sort of population on its own, they also scavenge which has its own problems (how are there still 200 year old cram's lying around, if that's all anyone seems to live off of?). Really though the food problem is something that isn't addressed well in the entire capital wasteland though.

Still kids: Where do new kids come from? Why would they start a tradition of throwing out their strongest and most knowledgeable members? If anything the teens would have been the leaders and taken over the settlement. The fact that said teen is pretty much helpless on his own (as are some of his fellows at Big Town) doesn't exactly speak well for the Lamplighter's ability to go out and scavenge either.

Not knowing how to build: Yes, one of them has an interest in that sort of thing, still doesn't explain where they get the materials to build/maintain, or how a bunch of kids managed the manpower needed to put that stuff together.

Again I could go into more detail, but I'd really rather not derail the thread. As I said before I liked FO3, and I'm not trying to bash you for liking Little Lamplight, just trying to give the reasons why I didn't like it (and perhaps why others don't like it).

 

[lacktheknack]

Food: Yes they do. You even get a quest to help them grow more food if you have the Child at Heart perk.

Still Kids: You watch them throw a teen out of the town.

Plywood door: I'll give you that one.

Kids Not Knowing How to Build/Maintain: Yeah, they do. Again, they talk about it if you have Child at Heart.

These Explanations Not Holding Up To Scrutiny: I didn't find problems with them, so my original question raises its head again.

Food: they grow fungus, which is not nearly enough to sustain any sort of population on its own, they also scavenge which has its own problems (how are there still 200 year old cram's lying around, if that's all anyone seems to live off of?). Really though the food problem is something that isn't addressed well in the entire capital wasteland though.

Still kids: Where do new kids come from? Why would they start a tradition of throwing out their strongest and most knowledgeable members? If anything the teens would have been the leaders and taken over the settlement. The fact that said teen is pretty much helpless on his own (as are some of his fellows at Big Town) doesn't exactly speak well for the Lamplighter's ability to go out and scavenge either.

Not knowing how to build: Yes, one of them has an interest in that sort of thing, still doesn't explain where they get the materials to build/maintain, or how a bunch of kids managed the manpower needed to put that stuff together.

Again I could go into more detail, but I'd really rather not derail the thread. As I said before I liked FO3, and I'm not trying to bash you for liking Little Lamplight, just trying to give the reasons why I didn't like it (and perhaps why others don't like it).

Fair enough. Thanks for the explanations.

 

[jhoroz]

Little Sisters. I liked it when I sucked the life out of them.

 

[TwiZtah]

The Zelda series actually has a couple great ones. Its a little unclear whether you can call them all "kids," but the Skull Kid from Majora's Mask, Mido from Ocarina of Time, and Colin from Twilight Princess are all surprisingly deep and interesting characters for a Zelda game (my favorite franchise but admittedly the stories are pretty shallow). Though the best child character is unquestionably...

Spoiler: This guy

Clementine's pretty solid too, but I don't see her running a business empire.

without a doubt the ugliest kid characters I've ever seen too.

 

[Product Placement]

snip

Still kids: Where do new kids come from? Why would they start a tradition of throwing out their strongest and most knowledgeable members? If anything the teens would have been the leaders and taken over the settlement. The fact that said teen is pretty much helpless on his own (as are some of his fellows at Big Town) doesn't exactly speak well for the Lamplighter's ability to go out and scavenge either.

Everything about these points are pretty much the most non-sensible part of Little Lamplight. There is no official explanation about how this town managed to maintain itself. The fan created explanations are that they've maintained numbers by taking in orphans (supported by the fact that you can take the orphan from Grayditch and have him live there) and teen pregnancies, although no hints are given that any of the kids are in a sexual relationship when you visit the place.

First explanation has the problem that you have to assume that Little Lamplight is either well known place, so that orphans can know where to go, when they have no place else to go and thus it would be well know by crazy ass raiders, who'd obviously see this place as a prime target for a raid or it owes its success to obscurity, thus they could never hope to replace their numbers by passing by orphans.

Second explanation has even more problems:

The kids are kicked out of the town at the age of 16, meaning that a generational cycle is extremely short; when you show up, the town should roughly be running through its 14th generation, give or take. In that time, it has shrunk from a population of 82 children, to just over a dozen. Now there's a case where concerns of inbreeding would (or should) be an issue.

The window of fertility is also very short. On average, you hit puberty around 13, earlier if your upbringing consisted of a good and well balanced died, later if you experienced malnutrition. This means that if the town relied on births, parents would be abandoning their kids at the age of 1-3 because they're now being kicked out of town. How did the town handle cases where parents didn't want to depart from their child? How did the town handle toddlers, that still lacked the ability to understand the logic of an archaic rule that didn't concern them other than that it was now the sole cause of them loosing their parents?

Finally. The town is carrying a 200 year old grudge, that arouse from the fact that 1 person told the kids that they couldn't enter a nearby vault. This grudge has survived over dozen generations. At no point in time did it happen that someone in charge of the town, who was nearing their 16th birthday, decided to round up all the other kids near his age and convince them to raise the age limit or abolish it all together. At no point did the residents of Big Town decide to collectively charge and take over Little Lamplight. The status quo was maintained for two centuries and we're supposed to accept it was successful.

Oh, and to answer the original topic: Clementine, but that's kinda obvious. I mean, come on. Someone actually managed to write a realistic adolescent character for a video game?

 

[Hades]

The tales series is alright with Child characters.

I always liked Ion, the child pope from tales of the Abyss. Sure, he collapses or gets kidnapped once every hour but I find Ion to likable to mind that. Out of all the mayor characters in the game Ion's one of the few that acts friendly and helpful because he's genuinely friendly and helpful rather then because he's got some ulterior motive. I'd say he's the nicest character in the game with the possible exception of emperor Peony.

In vesperia the party member Karol starts off as pretty annoying. A know it all coward who lets out an annoyingly high pitched scream the moment an enemy looks at him. Because he grows throughout the story and eventually becomes sort of brave I started liking him.

Would Laharl from Disgaea count? He's a few thousand years old and is basically Satan but looks and acts like an obnoxious brat. He does it so well that its exactly why I like him.

 

[Rariow]

Well, Clementine of Walking Dead fame being my favorite character from my favorite game seems like a pretty obvious choice.

I'm going to go with The Kid, from Bastion. Not much of a character, but what you get on him from Rucks is really interesting. There's the whole underlying doubt as to whether The Kid's a good guy trying to save the world or whether he's in it simply because he likes the chaos, and that to me is a really well handled and extremely cool theme.

 

[norashepard]

No votes for the Starchild from Mass Effect? What a shock!

Jokes aside, I quite like the little sisters from Bioshock, including Eleanor. They're cute, they're creepy, and they are fond of sucking life force out of corpses. What's not to love? Eleanor specifically was just cool, because she was constantly finding ways to undermine her captors and to help you. All around pretty rad.

 

[Someone Depressing]

Two. And they're probably the most popular characters who fall into this character type.

Clementine from The Walking Dead, because she's portrayed as human, she has commited wrongdoings, continues to, and has empathy for what she's done. She's a well written character.

And Nanako from Persona 4. First she was annoying. Then I liked her. But because her S.Link is the slowest, I was annoyed by her again. But then I liked her again.

And of course, the entire cast of any Mother game. Particuarly Mother 3, where the focus of the story was fleshing out the characters. And yes, apparently Kumatora, despite being a head taller than you and swearing like a sailor, is the same age as the main character... who is, like, 9.

Edit: Who could forget Costume Quest? The game where you played as a snarker/idiot, on a quest to save the other with a D&D nerd, a science nerd, and the ability to murder random children. And you're all 5... and the science girl has won a Nodel Prize.

 

[scorptatious]

I forgot to mention Emizel from Diagaea 4.

Spoiler

He started out as a cocky brat who hid behind the fact he was the son of the Netherworld President to hide the fact that he's pretty weak. He would also try to avoid responsibility whenever he failed in his missions as Abbadon Commander.

As the game went on though, he realizes that he needs to grow up and improve himself.

When it came time to face the president, he told his father that he was no longer his old spoiled self who rode on his father's coat tails, and wants to prove himself worthy of being called his son.

I kinda saw a bit of myself in him.

 

[Skeleon]

Yeah, I'll agree with Psychonauts. Not really written like "genuine children", but utterly enjoyable in their various forms of oddity/weirdness/insanity.

 

[Shadow flame master]

I'm fine with pretty much all the kid characters that I play as. I haven't really met one that I outright hated.

 

[Zack Toler]

All of Little Lamplight.



...because I had the Child at Heart perk. Suddenly, all the kids (except Princess) were more than happy to show me around the town, trade with me, give me extra quests, and find me an alternate way in to the vault. And the insane survival system they had working was utterly awesome, the location was cool, and the kids were nice (except freaking Princess).

Since I always take the Child At Heart perk, I'm always confused when people say they hate Little Lamplight.

I agree with you 100%

 

[Seagoon]

I really liked those kids who chased the rat around Freeside in New Vegas, it was always amusing to watch them run around Benny Hill style after that rat.

However, don't kill the rat for them, then it becomes a depressing commentary on poverty in the fictional world of Fallout, I always assumed they were just like Tom and Jerry and would setup an elaborate dinner feast and the rat would escape before being cooked. That is not the case.

I'm so happy I'm not the only person who felt this way.

The Fallout series does have a lot of good child characters, my favourite probably being most of the Little Lamplight kids or the aforementioned Freeside Rat kids. Also, I liked the Mick and Ralph's crier.

Outside Fallout, kids in games generally just annoy me. But Clementine and the girl from The Last of Us are two characters I haven't yet had the pleaure of meeting but would like to..

 

[Neverhoodian]

Sweetie Belle. From My Little Pony [sub]come at me[/sub]
She's like the voice of reason for all the CMC episodes without ever coming off as a "small adult" which is what most reasonably smart child characters come across as.

I'm coming at you...

...to give you a high-five!

Spoiler

I didn't like the CMC at first, but they grew on me over time (probably because the writers started giving them actual personalities and other things to do besides trying to get their cutie marks all the time). Sweetie Belle's my favorite for the reason Mikeyfell mentioned as well as for her adorable squeaky voice:

Spoiler

Other noteworthy child characters for me include:

-Pretty much all the kids from Psychonauts. The devs really went the extra mile in giving even the smallest bit characters their own distinct personalities (even if some of them don't really act like kids).

-Momiji from Fruits Basket (the anime). Initially I found his hyperactive cross-dressing ways off-putting, but as the series went on his character grew on me. Indeed, when I learned about his traumatic early life I found his cheerful optimism nothing short of astounding. He may appear silly and immature at first glance, but in fact he possesses a quiet wisdom far beyond his years.

-Tim Drake from The New Batman Adventures. While I didn't care for the aesthetic changes they made from Batman: TAS, the writing was still as good as ever. Tim struck more of a chord with me than Dick Grayson did. I felt his character better conveyed the youthful optimism for Robin to counterbalance Batman's dark brooding. Also, the kid's smart. He's even managed to flummox Batman a few times:

Spoiler

 

[pspman45]

Haven't played Walking Dead, apparently the kid in that is pretty great
but my submission is Nanako Dojima from Persona 4
originally I was like, oh boy, another annoying kid character when she was singing along to the Junes Commercials
"Every Day's Great At Your Junes" ok, SHUT UP
but she grew on me, and by the time that her tragedy was explored, I felt genuinely bad for her

 

[Josh123914]

No Game of Thrones yet? Alright.

From ASoIaF pretty much any of the Stark characters. Its awesome watching Arya's slow descent to being a serial killer, and Bran and Sansa are at least reliable to act in a way children in their circumstances would act.
As for Rickon, well I'm just sort of indifferent, he doesn't really HAVE a character as yet.
GRRM is good at writing peasant kids too, if only for bit parts.

Also obligatory {INSERT AVATAR CHARACTER HERE} and while many will say Toph as the best.... yeah I agree with that.......

 

[Exhuminator]

http://nintendo.wikia.com/wiki/Melissa_Woodward

At first she annoyed me greatly... but she grew on me. When the credits rolled I felt a pang of remorse that I'd never talk to her again.

 

[ShinyCharizard]

Eliza from Tales of Xillia. She's helpful, isn't a whiny brat and has a tragic back story that makes you sympathize with her. Also I love how Teepo matches her cute dress, because I like cute things.

I'll throw in another vote for Elize. Now that's a child character done right.

 

[Atomic Spy Crab]

In the Rynn's World novel I liked the kids of that woman Cortez rescued from orks because of their extreme determination.