Why do we praise the same characters over and over?

[TheMigrantSoldier]

Well-written characters can come out of reused (Even clichéd) archetypes. Your comparison is a pretty big stretch, anyway. It's all about execution. The characters can be "generic protective guy" and "generic needs-to-be-saved girl" or they can be Lee and Clementine. I haven't played TLoU but Joel and Ellie sound very little like the two mentioned.

 

[TheCommanders]

I feel like I say this a lot in discussions of this nature but it's an important point. Everything is in the execution. Yes, there are a lot of similarities between many stories, but, taking your first example, I felt much more invested in Joel and Ellie's story than Whatshisface and Clemantine. Part of it, admittedly, is that I really hate the art style of the walking dead (purely personally preference) but mostly it's because the way their story arc was written resonated more with me than that of... the other two. I'm sure there's people who loved the walking dead pair, but found Joel and Ellie as boring as I found blandymcblackguy and enforcedcutecharacter.

Take the heroes journey, a template a truly ludicrous number of stories follow religiously. Are the good members of this group to be exempt from praise because they stole the idea from Cambell? No. Because that would be dumb. As a teacher once told me, ideas are cheap, everyone has millions. It's how you present them that people remember. My point is, who cares if a lot of stories use the same frameworks? They're different enough that I continuously find new things to enjoy (or not) in each new work.

 

[[REDACTED]]

I guess I can take this as an opportunity to bring up Katawa Shoujo? Oh that works pretty well actually, in Hanako's Route (read: The only route you should ever take you heartless monster) if you keep going with the main character's MASSIVE White Knight crusade to "save" her you get her worse ending. Incidentally, her route is one of the only game examples I can think of where sex is a natural character development thing and is not just a throwaway minigame. It is actually integral to the plot. Keep up Bioware, if a few random collaborators on fucking 4Chan can do it you have no excuse.

I do agree with the save little girls thing, though that's because I fucking loathe all children ever with one exception and even she took tens of hours to get over. Yeah as good as Walking Dead is, sorry but my mind has a cap on child characters and Clementine is in 90% of scenes

Surprisingly, with the many gripes I have with Last of Us, Ellie is not among them at all. She's alright.

I would like more Spec Ops type stuff. As in focusing intensely on one character throughout the game, not so much the accidental genocide. Christ the seemingly rational conclusions Walker jumps to are staggering in hindsight.

You dare suggest that Rin isn't the best by far?

This means war my friend. This means war.

Anyway, as much as I would like to derail this thread into gushing about Katawa Shoujo, I like to think I'm better than that. Occasionally. Back to the OT! As other people have said more eloquently than me, it's not the formula used that counts, it's how that formula is used. What separates The Walking Dead or Bioshock Infinite from your typical damsel in distress story is how much respect they have for the characters in question. You don't get attached to Clementine because the story tells you have to, but because you've grown to appreciate and admire her as a person. Without that, her story would hold about as much appeal as the baby game from The Stanley Parable.

When a writer thinks they can substitute a haphazardly thrown-together collection of appealing characteristics for an actual, developed character, it shows. And no matter how many of the father-daughter bonding bingo squares they fill, we don't talk about them because they're just not interesting.

P.S @Wykydtron: As much as Hanako's sex scene did impact the plot, I think it could have been handled in a much less cringeworthy way. Had they just written Hanako as being a bit more explicit in her consent the plot would have been relatively unchanged, and I would have felt a lot less like I needed a hundred showers and a Hisao voodoo doll.

Edit:

Dear lord, It seems like my post makes me seem like a hipster douche that complains about games just for the sake of complaint. I guess i shouldve called it something else. As someone who writes stories just for fun I seem to get into character too much, sorry about that. Now that I read it it does sound kinda angry.
In any case, Im actually far away from being angry or annoyed - I actually liked those games at least most of the time. What Im actually wondering about is why those characters are so popular. Making a little game myself I do not have anything like that. No ragged men or little girls, despite the fact that It is a 'zombie' survival game. I still have good feelings about it though. At least its fun to make and thats all that counts ^^

My main and only question is why the game designers, who have a chance to shine pick a stereotype. If it was up to me Id do my best to make it unique.

Sorry, didn't see your post when I wrote mine. As for why those characters are so popular, I think it may be due in large to part to coincidence: all the examples you listed just so happened to be extremely well-written games. I guess those character's vulnerability does add to it somewhat. First, you set up a likable character and then, once the player's grown at least somewhat attached to them, you exploit their fear of losing them? Maybe. I honestly have no idea, but it is an interesting question.