Games you didn't want to play because of the main protagonist

[Chaos Isaac]

I cringed a fair bit while playing the early .hack//GU games. Haseo is a thoroughly unlikeable asshole (although her mercifully mellows out as his character develops) and it made me want to reach into the game and punch him from time to time.

What D: Haseo was great. Any time he was being an utter asshole, it was pretty obvious where he was coming from and typically not doing it just to be an ass. Though, he starts with a kinda dickish persona as it is.

Anyways, a game I didn't want to play because of the main character(s). Well...
Tales of Graces: Ten minutes in, I wanted to quit. Thanks Asbel. THANKS.
Star Ocean; The Last Hope: While your starting cast isn't... anything, I wanted tos ee if anything cool was happened. Then I met this stupid little girl who is really not a little girl that ends every sentence with a dull monotone 'hey' or some shit and just I wasn't going to deal with her.
Halo 4: Die Master Chief. Die. Your adventure was fun but I need new people.
Army of Two 3: No, you don't replace Salem and Rios with two asshats to make Salem the villain. First of all, Alpha and Bravo are shitty character names. Second of all, you fucked up the characters. Salem and Rios were never super serious, great characters. But they were fun and silly and I could play rock paper scissors to see who would run out and get shot at while the other took out the gatling guy or whatever who was shooting at the other player.
Some Megaman games: Eh, I always liked Bass or Protoman's design better in the early days. And when Megaman Zero for the GBA came out, found my favorite two entries in the series. (3 and 4 were not my favorites, but were fun.)
Shadow the Hedgehog: Bro, you should have died in Adventure 2 when your character didn't suck and weren't repeating the same goddamn thing for years.
Metroid; other M: Who are you and what have you done with Samus?
Left4Dead 2: Shut up Ellis. You're not funny. Also, the rest of the cast isn't as enjoyable as they were in the first.
Tales of Symphonia 2: Haha... wow. No thanks.


That's a few off the top of my head.

 

[Genericjim101]

Bioshock Infinite, Infamous, Uncharted series, Prototype 1 & 2, Devil May Cry series, Metal Gear Series, Nier (western version).

Just off the top of my head. I'm sure there are tonnes of others. These are ones I've avoided due to strong feelings of apathy or disdain generated by the main character alone.

I implore you to PLEASE rethink playing Bioshock Infinite: unless you've already spoiled the plot for yourself you'd be missing out on a potentially good experience.

Now I'm done shilling to a random stranger I've usually stuck with a game but sometimes begrudgingly so. Two examples of this are "Final Fantasy 10", and "Metal Gear Solid 2". With FF X I was too used to Zidane from FF9 and in comparison Tidas seemed goofy but without charm. MGS2 I understand the idea of the S3 Plan, just as well it meant something else as it failed in causing Raiden to have a solidifying (pun intended) character forming experience and being anything like Snake.

 

[The_Scrivener]

The Batman Arkham games.

I played them, but Batman himself is easily the least enjoyable aspect of them.

Try cracking a fucking smile once in a while you miserable, joyless, gormless, constipated, uninteresting, zero-dimensional prat.

Oh, also, that Riddick game, Assault on Dark Athena. There's a point where Riddick finds an escaped prisoner, a little kid, hiding in the ventilation. He promptly starts growling baaaadaaaassss one-liners at her. What an arsehole. I promptly stopped giving a damn about what happened to him.

I love you.

Batman is an idiot. In addition to that game having way too many crack-the-vent-open quick time events, the idea that this pajama-wearing self-important clown goes around tip-toeing to make sure he only hits bad guys hard enough to knock them down and never ever accidentally kills anyone, crook or civilian, is (here it comes) batshit retarded. I hate the very idea of Batman so much.

Attention Batman: you kill people. You have to. Gotham is not a magical universe where only bad people die because of you. Just because the camera pans somewhere else doesn't mean that people offscreen aren't dead because of your actions. DEAL WITH IT.


OP: Final Fantasy X. I may try it again soon cause of the remake but I recall going from 6, 7, 8, 9 into 10 and thinking that the hero was such a goddamn whiny boyband loser that I couldn't take it. Confused, brooding heroes: sure. A bandit with a tail: sign me up. But a pro athlete mop head who cries about everything: get the hell out.

 

[teh_Canape]

the God of War series, I quit it after I got to half of GoW2
I really just could not take how bad he went from enraged yet driven and focused character to a violent ****
in my opinion, Asura is what Kratos should've been

 

[TheCommanders]

I think his name has come up a few times already but it bears repeating: Marcus Fenix (stupidest misspelling ever, by the way, Phoenix looks way cooler). Everything he says is just... painful, due in part to the horrendous script. But his voice was so annoying that I went and looked up what sorry ass poser was voicing him... only to find out it's John Fucking DiMaggio?? Come on man! I know for a fact that you are way better than this. Were you actually trying to make him sound like a human in the recording booth, but the director told you to dumb it down for the main demographic gaming companies think plays shooters? Did you have a cold? Did you just not care? Seriously, man, you're Bender!

 

[OpticalJunction]

Witcher 1 and 2. I didn't like the notion of not being able to play as a girl in an RPG. Fortunately I got over it and played anyway, and I'm glad I did. Both games are cool.

 

[SageRuffin]

Oh, that's an easy one: The Witcher series.

The games probably are the bees knees, but I don't wanna play as Geralt for several reasons (of which I'll spare you all of them). As such, I've never looked at the games past a simple glance.

 

[JagermanXcell]

Games I won't play because of the main protagonist, also partly rabid fanboys constantly droning on about them.

Metal gear solid- don't know the protagonists name, but he annoys me when I see the trailers, instant turn off.

Do you mean Solid Snake or Big Boss? Unles you're actually talking about Raiden from Metal Gear Solid 2 (the actually hated one), which one turns you off and why? (minus fanboyism) I'm not trying to offend I'm just really curious.

OT:
I regretted every second playing the new DmC. What we had before was a stylish, child at heart, responsible, and fun to be around with Dante. Sure he was a stupid silly but I like protagonist that have fun when they slice and dice.
Then we get a swearing bum (UGH 2DARKNEDGY4ME!), sex addict, uninspired in design Donte. Even the new devil trigger lacks creative design, all it was was lazy colored in fanservice.

Plus he acts like a douchebag to everyone then ended up a major tool:
One second: "What makes you think I give a @#$%!"
Next second: "How can I help?"

Once I beat Son of Sparda (easy...) I played half way through DMD (also easy...) until the game eventually crashed. There I was DONE.
To hell with Donte. (no pun intended)

 

[Kanova]

Probably Prototype 2. I liked the first game character too much, and I didn't really want to play as some random black dude.

 

[Furbyz]

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance featured the single most insufferable, lunatic protagonist I've ever encountered. They didn't make Marche that way on purpose, but it can certainly come off like that.

This twelve year old kid is transported to a storybook world based on Final Fantasy and his emotionally traumatized friend's wish for his Mom to be alive again. His first reaction is that this place isn't real and he needs to go home. It turns out that the only way to get back to his "real" world is to destroy this one and everything in it. He doesn't have any particular rationale about why what he's doing is right. He thinks that everything around him is a fantasy and as such cannot conceive that there may be more at work than he perceives. All he has is that there are pillars supporting this fake world and he needs to destroy them so he might be able to go back to the real world.

Also, he's clearly doesn't understand the consequences of his actions, as evidenced in the dialogue of one of the Jagd battles. Jagd are the only places in the context of the story where people you fight in a battle actually die. Perma-death happens only in these lawless places.

Enemy Ninja: A hit-and-run? Nope, don't know anything about it.

Marche: I know you do! You won't go unpunished for this!

[Battle begins. The enemy ninja is defeated.]

Enemy Ninja: I-I'm sorry... I didn't mean to run after the accident...

[All the enemies are defeated.]

Marche: Apologize to Nono. And don't ever do it again.

[Screen fades out to World Map.]

Marche: [Hit Again] went well. Now for the next one!

He just told the corpses of his slain enemies to APOLOGIZE and never get in an accident again. THEY ARE DEAD! CADAVERIFFIC! They are no more; they have ceased to be.

So when I got to a part of the story that has someone dropping truth bombs on this deranged mass murdering psycho path, I ended up having to fight Babus under extremely unfavorable laws. I actually lost a fight for the first time in the game and Marche went to prison. I could've loaded it up and done it again but...that was the ending I wanted. Maybe he starts seeming less certifiably insane later, but Babus and Cid kicking the shit out of him while making him understand that they do in fact exist as they are now and that thousands of other people that did not exist in his world are here and alive, then throwing him in prison because geocide is never the answer is just too perfect. I don't know the actual ending of FFTA. I don't care. That's how that story will always end for me.

 

[Teh Jammah]

I liked Raiden.

I assume we're talking MGS2 Raiden here? 'Cuz the large reason he got disliked is less who/what he is, and more IIRC because MGS2 was marketed as a Solid Snake game only for Raiden to take over an hour or so into the game. If Raiden had openly been marketed as 'the new guy' and the opening tanker chapter was either omitted or an unlockable MGS2 would have done a lot better.

The ending's still bollocks WTF Mind Fuck-WHATATWIST!~ but a vast majority of the Raiden hate is 'we were expecting Snake but we got THIS douche' hate. He does better on replays. You know, if you can be arsed to do so, which few people can.

... unless you're talking about recent MK Raiden, in which case I got nuffin.

 

[bug_of_war]

Half life, what a prat that Gordon Freeman is

Just kidding

I'm not. For the similar reasons as to why some people don't like Marcus Fenix, I don't like Gordon Freeman because I don't like who he is. How is it that a scientist is able to kill not just inter dimensional monsters, but trained militia as well. I just don't get it...

Didn't like the protagonist from Far Cry 3 either, he was just a hipster on a drug induced mission and I would have much preferred to have played as his brother.

 

[NeoShinGundam]

I simply can't give the Jak and Daxter games a try. Every time I think about it that damn commercial plays in my head and Daxter's voice just makes my skin crawl.

 

[ReinWeisserRitter]

Pretty much everything Naughty Dog has put out in the last decade, but Uncharted in particular.

Pretty much every protagonist in every Japanese RPG of late, too. Christ. Used to love those things.

 

[theresay]

The new Devil May Cry.

Oh, and any of the Dragon Quest games. Not because of the protagonist, I just hate Toriyama's art style.

 

[SoranMBane]

Dead Space 3, because I actually respect the main character too much. That game took one of my favourite video game protagonists ever, who I partly liked so much because he was one of the few action game protagonists that didn't take a casual approach to killing other people, and turned him into yet another action game protagonist who mows down other people like it's nothing. If they wanted to have a DLC or something where you actually do play as a hardened soldier character, then killing people would have been fine there, but while playing as Isaac? Fuck that.

 

[wulf3n]

Still Life.

They tried to make a Strong/Independent female protagonist, but instead created a *****.

There's a scene in which the pathetic but endearing side kick, saves the main character life after some stairs collapse, and instead of showing any form of gratitude she instead gets angry because he "touched her breast".

Maybe she was just in shock, played for another 15 minutes, still no apology/thank you, OK she's just a *****. I'm out.

 

[shrekfan246]

I liked Raiden.

I assume we're talking MGS2 Raiden here? 'Cuz the large reason he got disliked is less who/what he is, and more IIRC because MGS2 was marketed as a Solid Snake game only for Raiden to take over an hour or so into the game. If Raiden had openly been marketed as 'the new guy' and the opening tanker chapter was either omitted or an unlockable MGS2 would have done a lot better.

I suppose it should be at this point that I state I didn't get into Metal Gear Solid until about two years ago, so I already knew of the existence of Raiden and his place as a major character in the franchise.

Had I grown up with the original Metal Gear Solid and been 'tricked' by the bait-and-switch like everyone else, I might've been pretty disappointed as well. But it still wouldn't have been enough to make me hate the character/game.

 

[Savber]

Geralt from The Witcher.

He nearly killed the series for me the moment Geralt opened his mouth and that stupid, monotone voice came out.

The translated script didn't help either.

Fortunately, it improved over the course of time with the extended cuts.

 

[Kotaro]

I almost put down .hack//G.U. about thirty minutes in because Haseo was just a completely unrepentant prick. Glad I stuck with the trilogy though, as his character development from "prick" to "prick with a sense of decency" to "decent guy" is rather rewarding to see unfold, and it ended up becoming one of my favorite action-RPG series ever.