Worst Protagonists.

[SteinFaust]

Well, this is a little off-topic, but there are several storyline theories about the Zelda games. .....
.....All in all, though, the timeline isn't important. Just have fun playing the games, allow yourself to be immersed in them.

Kay thanks, Windfish ! i sorta get it now, but unless anything definite happens, i'm filing the entire series under "Parallel Universes Highly Succeptable to Deus Ex Machina" lol

 

[Asymptote Angel]

There are quite a few on my list of hatefuls:
-Sora from the KH games (Whiny. Annoying. Childish. For once, a silent protagonist would have been more effective)
-A long succession of Final Fantasy characters
-At least half of the playable characters from the Guitar Hero games
-Nero (more so than Dante because although Dante is unbearably smug, he's better than Nero's pseudo-masculine whiny personality)
-Gimli from Two Towers and Return of the King (absolutely no mobility, a horrible detriment when you're fighting that many people at once)
-Anakin Skywalker in every Star Wars game he's in
-Not a protagonist, but Kaiden from Mass Effect is pretty bad. It's a shame how much this stood out considering how strong the rest of the cast is.

Good protagonists that jump to mind include:
-Alucard from SotN
-The cast of CoD4
-The Arbiter (the Master Chief is a pretty flat character, but playing as the Arbiter was different since it's the Chief's fault he's in the position he's in)
-Shepard (badass no matter how you play him)
-Sam Fisher
-Again, not a protagonist, but who doesn't love HK-47? Easily my favorite video game character ever.

 

[Housefly]

Damn straight, meatbag. "The function I perform has been referred to as wanton slaughter."

 

[Bulletinmybrain]

I would have to say that the worst video game protagnist is master cheif, faceless, nameless silent badass is cool, but wears off after a few levels

as for the best, I will have to go with Kyle Katarn *prepares against hail of rotten tomatoes* or Revan, if had a voice he would be the badassiest!

Revan is the meaning of badass! So right now we are just discussing how to make him stand out.

For the best besides revan i'm going to bring up the HK-47 or whatever from KOTOR and KOTOR2. Hes not a protagonists but if he was it would be awesome!

 

[Bulletinmybrain]

Theoretically, if you're talking about protagonists that don't have any back story, you could mention Jack from Bioshock, Gordon Freeman, that guy from TimeShift, ect. Most of them have very shallow backgrounds, and their main purpose is to allow the player to interact with the game, making it seem as if they are in the game. There's nothing wrong with them, just that they aren't very fleshed out.

I thought the protagonist in Bioshock did have a fully explained background; Son of Andrew Ryan with some stripper chick who gives the baby to Fountain who like accelerates his growth and does the whole "would you kindly" thing to him.

I hate when people don't delve into a game and don't know the story and then call fall on it.

 

[TobyMobias]

The 2 dudes from the Turok remake
Most of the characters from the Resident Evil series
Travis from Silent Hill: Origins
Jaws from "Jaws: Unleashed" (the game itself is what made him shit)
Superman from Superman 64 (see above)
Link, for sounding like "someone kicked him really hard in the balls and now all he can do is that high-pitched...squeally noise..."
Edward Carnby from the new "Alone in the Dark" (And WTF happened to Emily Hartwood?)
Lara Croft in the newer ones, aka the "Trying Too Hard" Saga.
The bloke from the Prince of Persia after, as Yahtzee so delicately put it, "he started listening to Linkin Park and letting his mum cut his hair".
Altair and great-great-great....great-grand relative from Assassin's Creed (works for a plot device, but not very deep)
Crash Bandicoot (I'd prefer playing all the levels with his sister because she actually spoke and had a personality)

 

[The Bandit]

Theoretically, if you're talking about protagonists that don't have any back story, you could mention Jack from Bioshock, Gordon Freeman, that guy from TimeShift, ect. Most of them have very shallow backgrounds, and their main purpose is to allow the player to interact with the game, making it seem as if they are in the game. There's nothing wrong with them, just that they aren't very fleshed out.

I thought the protagonist in Bioshock did have a fully explained background; Son of Andrew Ryan with some stripper chick who gives the baby to Fountain who like accelerates his growth and does the whole "would you kindly" thing to him.

I hate when people don't delve into a game and don't know the story and then call fall on it.

I hate when people expect everyone to be just as obsessed with a game as they are.

 

[SilentHunter7]

Arbiter! Ruined Halo 2.

Worst non Halo protagonist

Toad "The princess is in another castle!" Fuck you Toad.

Hey, I liked the Arbiter (at least up until Bungie relegated him to being the Robin to the Chief's Batman in Halo 3). I think he and half-jaw were better characters than 95% of the humans. And they didn't get any book time.

 

[Housefly]

To be fair, the whole growth-acceleration thing in Bioshock is pretty stupid. The "would you kindly" twist made up for it though.

 

[SimpleReally]

Roy from fire emblem 6, he's cliched, he's annoying, he's not even old enough to go to high school, but he's leading a resistance against the big bad empire.
also he is the weakest main character in any fire emblem series ever, so you have to protect his sorry ass in every battle or else its game over.

i cant believe this loser got into super smash bros while vastly superior (gameplay and storywise) characters from other FEs like hector and ephraim didnt.

 

[Volstag9]

I would say anyone from any medal of honor game

 

[gejsiv]

as much as i like link, i'm sick of every story starting out as he got shipwrecked/abducted/exploded/barbecued/etc-- and waking up in a bed. i don't really understand the storyline. i mean, i can understand the SL of a single game, but not the series. coz sometimes its in hyrule, sometimes its in hyrule but completely flooded, sometimes its not there at all! there are very few constants more than you wear a green nightcap, you can learn a spin attack, you can dig up a hookshot, you have to save the world from gannon (or some variant of such), and you have to deal with that annoying d!ckhole, Tingle. i would honestly like someone to explain it to me, because there doesn't seem to be any real story progression other than in windwaker *SPOILER*, that hyrule got bible-flooded and only the mountaintops exist, but at islands.

Now, to be fair, I was obsessed with Link back when I was a mindless foaming fanboy, but here's the skinny:

Link's story is cyclical. The first time Ganon tried to take the triforce, he failed. So, he simply waited until the hero of time would be dead and tried again. Unfortunately, the hero gets reincarnated and comes back to beat Ganon everytime. Its why Link's name is "Link", as in the link holding together all these attempts at universal domination. Both link to the past and Twilight Princess hint at this. Granted, there are occassional deviations where the developers are trying somethign new (majora's mask) which can be seen as other exploits of a "Link".

As for the topic, a lot of people are choosing characters based on their usefulness (or lack thereof) in the game. You can have a good protagonist who just isn't being used to their potential by the gameplay. For example, I really like Micaiah's character from Fire Emblem radiant dawn. Her sarcastic quips with Sothe were well appreciated and I liked the duality of her character. I just hated using her as a main character because she was so slow...

Gerald from Witcher was a bad character. I should have known better, but amnesiac-misogynist-asshole-cliche doesn't make for a compelling game.

That Wayne guy from Lost Planet. Actually, everyone from Lost Planet. "Hey, there's this super awesome fuel source located in the bodies of these giant insects! Lets kill them all so we can live here!" Except, you know, if you kill them all how do you harvest the afore mentioned fuelsource?

 

[Usnota]

I would have to say that the worst video game protagnist is master cheif, faceless, nameless silent badass is cool, but wears off after a few levels

as for the best, I will have to go with Kyle Katarn *prepares against hail of rotten tomatoes* or Revan, if had a voice he would be the badassiest!

Revan is the meaning of badass! So right now we are just discussing how to make him stand out.

For the best besides revan i'm going to bring up the HK-47 or whatever from KOTOR and KOTOR2. Hes not a protagonists but if he was it would be awesome!

Hell yes! KOTOR 3 with HK-47 as the main character, its Freakin' brilliant!!

 

[gejsiv]

Roy was present in Melee, which came out in 2001. Hector's game didn't come out until 2003, Ephraim until 2005.

Don't get me wrong, I hate Roy as much as the next guy. I also would have much preferred Hector or Lyn to show up as playable characters (assisst trophy doesn't count). I mean, they were the first lords anyone besides the japanese were allowed to play, and the ones most people connected with. Except Eliwood, whose only usefulness was for rescues after promotion...

 

[SimpleReally]

like father like son, even their critical hit animation is cheesy

one aspect that really pissed me off with fire emblem is that they don't let you choose your main character until you finish the game. If you want to play with Hector as main, you have to replay the game with increased difficulty, around 3-4 different levels, almost identical dialogue and an inferior soundtrack

 

[TheTakenOne]

I'm a huge fan of the Fire Emblem series, as anyone who knows me knows, but one thing it never really did well for me was have a good main character. It was odd for a series that boasted about 40+ characters each and gave them all fairly good to very good characterization despite not telling too much about them.

First we have Eliwood, the redheaded vanilla do-gooder with less personality than fighting ability who probably has sex with a dragon(depending on your choice of supports) and has a father who dies halfway through. Nothing interesting there.

Then we have Roy, the redheaded vanilla do-gooder with, quite literally, an entire harem of potential brides, less fighting ability than his father and also coincidentally the offspring of said dragon-humping(maybe). Oh, and his advisor is a merchant who has apparently been taking fashion advice from Hulk freakin' Hogan.

Moving on we have the vaguely incestuous twins Eirika and Ephraim from Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones. There's not a whole lot I can say about them considering nearly the entire story felt like an afterthought to the game.

Ike is a notable exception. His father is killed in front of him, he's thrust into a position of leadership of a band of mercenaries which causes two of the members to bail, and he and his group are suddenly targets of an entire enemy nation, all in the span of a few days. What does he do? He takes it like a man. Totally awesome. He had a pretty cool personality, too.

I like Micaiah, too. Maybe it's the silver hair.

 

[SimpleReally]

Concerning the sacred stones i thought most of the characters were shallow except for Ephraim (incest notwithstanding) and maybe Lyon (in ephraim's route where you learn more about him).

Eirika pales compared to lyn in every possible way

I'm just glad they removed merlinus and stopped adding fake difficulty by not allowing you to shop between battles

P.S: i wish they made Raven the main character instead of Eliwood, that guy had maybe 5 lines all game and he managed to be more interesting, plus his picture is badass

 

[HeyZeus_Ezekiel_Jesus]

The guy from UT3. Which begs the question why have a campaign in UT3 when you could just make a Unreal 3?

 

[the protaginist]

as much as i like link, i'm sick of every story starting out as he got shipwrecked/abducted/exploded/barbecued/etc-- and waking up in a bed. i don't really understand the storyline. i mean, i can understand the SL of a single game, but not the series. coz sometimes its in hyrule, sometimes its in hyrule but completely flooded, sometimes its not there at all! there are very few constants more than you wear a green nightcap, you can learn a spin attack, you can dig up a hookshot, you have to save the world from gannon (or some variant of such), and you have to deal with that annoying d!ckhole, Tingle. i would honestly like someone to explain it to me, because there doesn't seem to be any real story progression other than in windwaker *SPOILER*, that hyrule got bible-flooded and only the mountaintops exist, but at islands.

Well, this is a little off-topic, but there are several storyline theories about the Zelda games. Generally, with the exceptions of games that clearly are direct sequels of each other (OoT-MM, ALttP-LA, WW-PH, Z1-Z2), Zelda games come in eras about 100 or so years apart, with a different Link, different Zelda (mostly), and the same Ganon. Link is usually a descendant of the Knights of Hyrule, or simply just Chosen by the Gods. The name Link is unimportant, since Zelda games encourage you to name your own character. The name Zelda is important, and is explained in Zelda II. (Ganon isn't in all of them - my favorite is Link's Awakening, in which he is represented only by a Nightmare.) In general, as long as you put OoT first, the order of the games doesn't matter so much. I generally think of it this way:



Era 1:
1) Ocarina of Time - Ganon gets his hands on the Triforce. First Hero of Time
2) Majora's Mask - Hero of Oot gets sent back to his childhood, saves Termina. (No Ganon)
There is a possibility that the timeline splits here, because of the time travel. This allows for some Gaiden chapters.

Era 2: At least 100 years later. Different Hero, different Zelda
3) Link to the Past: The seal on Ganon's prison is weakened, and he is able to send a portion of his spirit through as the Wizard Aghanim.
4) Link's Awakening: After the defeat of Ganon, the Hero goes on a voyage to learn how to better defend Hyrule from future evils. Shipwrecks on Koholint Island. I won't spoil this one any more, since it's my favorite.

Era 3: Same deal, probably much farther in the future.
5) Zelda I: Somehow, Ganon has risen again. Link reduces Ganon to ashes.
6) Zelda II: Link learns of the original Princess Zelda, and learns that she has been in a cursed sleep for hundreds of years. The worshippers of Ganon endeavor to revive him by sprinkling Link's blood on his ashes.

Other eras:

Wind Waker and Twilight Princess could conceivably go anywhere between these gaps, since both have a clearly different Link. If there was a split timeline at Oot-MM, it is possible that these occur in parallel eras.

Also the Four Swords games and the Minish Cap could go anywhere, but I tend to think of them as either after Zelda II, or before Ocarina of Time, since Ganon doesn't appear in them. (I think - I haven't played Four Swords Adventures.) I think that the Oracle of Seasons and Ages games could also go anywhere, but I like to put them either between Link to the Past and Link's Awakening or After Zelda II.



All in all, though, the timeline isn't important. Just have fun playing the games, allow yourself to be immersed in them.

i know this makes no sense at all,but i think TP was what happened between the seven years that passed when link pulled the master sword in OoT.
i liked all the zelda games

 

[gim73]

The Prince from Suikoden V. Everyone in that game hates that character. Half the characters can be missed perminantly if you don't say the right thing to them before a certain point. There are like five times more bad endings than good endings. If you ever aspire to be something great in the 'Queendom of Falena' you wind up dead. The Dawn rune was pathetic. I wish I could trade it in for a useful true rune like the Bright Shield rune or Soul Eater. It felt like a struggle to recruit most of the characters. Most of them hated you cuz your mother got pissed and nuked a town. Others hated you cuz you incited a civil war against your little sister and were backed by an evil senator. Of course, Georg Prime makes this game worth playing.

As for all the hate for Shu because of his 'I'm never gonna give up' thing, that gets actually covered in the game. Really, Shu is a very interesting character, especially when put side by side with the antagonist Nene, who is causing strife and disorder in the world just because he's bitter about being old and likes to watch people suffer. The only thing I hold against him is his constant need to kick EVERYTHING in the ENTIRE WORLD. This fault is also found in Radiata Stories, which is a far better game, even if the dwarves come across as the weakest of the non-humans.

Alot of final fantasy haters out there as well. Cecil was awesome and I'm almost tempted to buy a nintendo system for the first time in 11 years just so that I can play the handheld version. Terra/Celes as protagonist of 6 both work as good characters who have great storylines. Cloud bashing is common in forums, mostly because even haters really want to see 7 re-released for a current system. Squall deserves to be abused, and is often by Quistis. The real flaw with 8 was the entire last disc was crap. Zidane was a decent enough main character. Knock him for being a thief all you want, but he did have some cool overdrive moves. X wasn't about Tidus, it was about Auron. He may have been dead, but he was the first character you met who wasn't imaginary. XI was about Tarutaru dancing in Jeuno for gilz. In 12, Vaan was the first character you could play, but I believe Balthier when he says that he's the lead man. I hope the protagonist in 13 is actually a girl.