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

[Lunar Templar]

While I can't think of one that I actively avoided, I suppose I would be a lot less inclined to play as new Dante in the new DMC game. He seems so insufferable plus I wasn't a big fan of original Dante to begin with and the new one looks like a slightly more annoying one to me. That being said if someone gave me a free copy of the game, I'd play it, but I won't go out of my way to try it anytime soon.

He's really only a dick in the first level, he changes pretty sharply after the second and becomes closer to the Dante from the earlier games just with more swearing, cause it add 'so much' to it (it didn't)

Dust: An Elysian Tail.

I watched a video of the game and, although it looks like a really good game in almost every way, the main character seems to be an utterly generic, insufferable, brooding furry character. And, no, it's not because he's an anthropomorphic animal. I have no problem with Sly or Crash. It's the fact that he's written like a terrible Shadow the Hedgehog fanfiction.

Also, that flying companion thing seems even more irritating than Tails.

shush you, Fidget was not annoying. Rather have her around then Navi. Anyway, I'm gonna guess you never made it to the burned out village on top of the mountain, it, sadly, is near the end of the game (like right before the final area) it's kind of character important thing. Not sure where you got brooding though, he didn't really spend much time bitching about his own problems unless some one else mentioned them (IE his 'memory loss').


Now that i'm done defending the games I like, an answer!!!

Kratos in GoW2; Kinda lost interest after it dawned on me that Kratos was basically throwing a temper tantrum like a god damned two year old who wasn't getting his way.

Vann in FF12; He really has no reason to exist, I mean the story sucked regardless but he really had no reason to be apart of the game at all.

 

[OtherSideofSky]

A protagonist I hate won't stop me from playing a game. A protagonist who bores me will stop me from playing a game. I won't even bother to pick up a game that promises me a generic, grizzled, grunting dude; I want to play as someone crazy, someone I haven't seen before doing something I haven't thought of. I want games to surprise me.

 

[AnthrSolidSnake]

I can certainly understand not liking the main protagonist, but sometimes I don't understand how it can put some people off of the entire game.
I think the only game I was put off of because of the characters was Star Ocean: the Last Hope. I mean, even for some of the ditzy and stereotypical anime types they were bad...

I saw Metal Gear Solid on here...my heart...my soul...why?

 

[LAGG]

Never happened. The opposite, wanting to play a game because of the "protagonist", happened twice, with Rapture and with Columbia, but the latter turned out to be completely boring while the first was simply the best protagonist ever in a game.

 

[bigwon]

1st thing that came to mind was the fellow from Lost Odyssey. Which sucked because I really enjoyed those short story regarding his past. Obviously there were 2 different writers.

Although the characters in general were starting to grate on me.....I really wanted to like that game...hehe

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Well I didn't feel like playing Tales of the Abyss at first, seeing as I was stuck being a pampered asshole. Obviously stuff happened afterwards.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

Xenosaga - The main character has to be one of the most selfish, manipulative, arrogant, self-righteous, hypocritical, emotionally immature, and whiniest protagonists I have EVER seen. And of course to rub salt in the wound, she's also the least interesting character of the bunch as well as the most superfluous. She's (with NO hyperbole) the gaming equivalent of Bella Swan

 

[likalaruku]

The Witcher, because Geralt is both hideous & a womanizer, & the womanizing is apparently a big part of the game, & I am a woman who'd much prefer he was an attractive manizer or at least bi. (Says the incredulous hypocrite who had no problem playing Duke Nukem Forever).

 

[Pandabearparade]

Except the context did prompt that. Moviebob has said nearly the exact same thing I was replying to, except he was actually serious.

 

[Thomas Barnsley]

Crysis 2 and 3. Same character, right? I can't even remember, that's how shitty those games and the protagonist were. I rolled my eyes every time Prophet started talking about himself and how heavy his burden was, or some pretentious nonsense like that.

Most JRPGs. Seems most of the time like they are ticking off a checklist of what will make me like him/her instead of just making a character.

I didn't mind Alcatraz in Crysis 2, his story is quite interesting (Yhatzee says it quite well in his review), but Prophet is just irritating in 3. I stopped playing it because his voice was annoying.

Other than that I always feel slightly annoyed when a game has a generic white skinned brown haired male as the protagonist. I still play these games, if I didn't my options would be quite limited, but some variety would be nice.

 

[Snotnarok]

DMC: Devil May Cry, because while DMC3 had a bit of a smug bastard he was at least likeable. While I'm not opposed to change I don't think rewriting everything there is about something and titling it the same thing is alright.

 

[AidoZonkey]

Tidus from Final Fantasy X, he really put me off the game, I only played and finished the game last year because of this. Shame really, his character was the only one that I didn't like as the others fine apart from Aurron who was just amazing. If they Aurron had as the main charter I probably wouldn't have left it for so long

I know he can be a tad grating at times, but overall and throughout the game as a whole I really like Tidus and can't see why there's such a distain for him.

The sincerity of his character works great in a lot of the game, especially when it comes to watching him and Yuna fall for each other.

I will admit he did have some redeeming moments, his hate for his father seems something real and not just tacked on in my opinion, and thats great. However, his whining in a lot of the game is just greeting on me, his voice is horrible (I know its petty but I just can't help it) and overall I just didn't like his character. I understand there are people who like this character but I just can't see it

 

[JamesStone]

I fucking hate the protagonist in Elder Scrolls, Fallout and Dragon Age Origins. There are more, but I'm not gonna list them here. They're always so annoying and full of shit. And they talk too much, they think they're funny when they're not and they're ugly.

Wut.

Seriously, that makes no sense. Zero sense made. In Fallout and the Elder Scrolls you are the one -making- the character. You can't craft a character who doesn't annoy you?

I think ya missed the joke there, buddy.


OT: Besides the classics, GoW III and such, I couldn't play Uncharted 3 because I was sick and tired of the Indiana Jones-wannabe smug piece of shit who you call Nathan Drake (I prefer calling him Sir Dickinson McCock). After 2 fucking games the douchebagness is starting to hit Singularity, but then there's this moment when it looks like the guy is going to finally be granted some depth...
And Sir Dickinson McCock ignores it completely just to keep being a douchebag.
Fuck that, the games are already boring me enough without you coming here trying to jerk off to your own witty one liners.

 

[Tribalism]

It's a strange question that I can't give a conclusive answer to. I want to say "no", because a game has never swayed me to not play it based on the lead character. Having said that, I don't think I'd ever play a Superman video game. It's not that I hate Superman as a character, but I just can't see his games being that fun in this day and age. That's more of a criticism with the game, rather than the character. It's why I find the argument that "male gamers would be frightened of female leads" a hard argument to swallow. The lead shouldn't matter, but the game and how it's designed around those choices SHOULD.

Edit: I scrolled back through the discussion and found something. DmC's Dante is the closest contender. I followed a lot of the development for that game. If it wasn't a Devil May Cry game, I would have given it a shot. However, Tameem did himself no favours and designed a character that is a huge middle finger to fans of the previous games. That said, I tried the demo and found the game very uninteresting. This is less a case of "creating an undesirable character" and more "recreating a fan favourite". It's like replacing Duke Nukem with Tidus from FFX. Part of the charm for the previous DMC games was Dante's charm/attitude and the fluid combat. DmC had neither.

 

[ghostrider409895]

Far Cry 3 became this for me. I still ended up finishing it, thanks to the game finally letting me acquire all weapons and skills, opening up the full map, and giving me the glorious...

Spoiler

wingsuit and disguise outfit.

However, I did seriously almost quit the game outright due to Jason Brody becoming an unforgivable douche who did not believably and naturally develop into the horrible character that he wound up becoming.

Spoiler

After Citra rapes him and Brody embraces it rather than ripping her apart, then proceeds to abandon his friends entirely after having been a complete and unnecessary ass to his supposed girlfriend

I just could not stand him anymore, let alone want to play as him. Seriously, I wanted Brody to die from then on out more than even the villain who spent the whole game wrecking my life and those that I supposedly cared for. Die Jason Brody. Just fucking die.

When it came to Jason, I also didn't like playing as the guy in the first place. He was a privileged kid who has little skill. He then takes to killing and acts kind of smug. I get the idea of him being far from savage yet turning more and more into a hardened killer, but I had a hard time thinking of him like that. What he says and does really do not make him seem like someone with grief and anger pushing him to kill. The way he acts around other people like his friends are not how a normal person would act. He brushes his friends off after they have to deal with killing and being a captive, when that would be traumatic. I suppose Jason could just be a psychopath with little empathy for others, and he could really be a blank slate emotion wise. I suppose that would fit in with the idea of insanity that the developers were big on. Yet, that just makes him more of an unlikable characters.

I also do not like this character because there have been other main characters that are killers who are likable. For example, John Marston from Red Dead Redemption kills many people, and likes to shoot things. He used to kill for money. He could be considered ethically worse than Jason, but at least he has emotion towards these things. He expresses concern for others, and actually interacts with people in a way that I would expect a human to act. This makes me actually care for his reasons to kill.

In the end, I think I would have rather played as Vass or Hoyt. I know what they do are evil, but at least their characters accept that. I am not meant to like them, or support their reasons to kill, and what I would do as them would make logical sense with their interactions with others.

 

[TehCookie]

The Witcher, because Geralt is both hideous & a womanizer, & the womanizing is apparently a big part of the game, & I am a woman who'd much prefer he was an attractive manizer or at least bi. (Says the incredulous hypocrite who had no problem playing Duke Nukem Forever).

I'm the same way, but I see it that The Witcher takes it more seriously while Duke Nukem knows it's a joke.

Though I'll also add any game with steroidbeasts like Marcus Fenix and if a game does have a white 30-something guy with short brown hair they better have a lot of personality to make up for it. Good gameplay can trump bad characters and good characters can make me play a meh game, but most of the characters I don't like are in meh games.