This week on Semi-Ramblomatic, Yahtzee is making friends with NPCs. Or not. Support us on Patreon: / secondwindgroup Second Wind Merch Store: sharkrobot.com...
Kim takes second place for me after Gregg from a Night In The Woods, but it's a close thing. What both have in common is that there are no outright mechanics or visible friendship stats involved.
I didn't really like the game save for Kim, that +2 Kim truly trusts you for some reason has stayed with me across the years, had a really strong energy
This goes for enemies too. Remember Hades? Theseus and bull, brothers, have huge disagreement, but they work it out and you are actually happy for them? They also start doing new moves as a boss fight which is really good from a mechanical standpoint.
I also like the little moments that Zag gets with Asterius shows a mutual respect that could lead to friendship had the game's format make it somewhat impossible since he's literally a floor boss. One moment that springs to mind is when a certain other character wants an autograph from Asterius he only gives it to Zag because of his respect for him as a warrior
Tali is great, but there is no Shepard without Vakarian. "Not sure if Turian heaven is the same as yours but if this thing goes sideways and we both end up there, meet me at the bar"
I can't bring myself to romance either of them because they get together if neither of them is with Shepard and I'm not gonna do my friends dirty like that
I think one of my favourite moments with Garrus is when you take a break and just have a shooting contest. And you can intentionally miss a shot to give him a win, and he starts cheering. "I'm Garrus Vakarian, and THIS is my favourite spot on the Citadel."
It's funny that you mention Navi and Fi, but DIDN'T mention Midna. She imposes herself on Link, but you're not doing anything you wouldn't do anyway; she's useful both mechanically and narratively, but again, she doesn't ever interrupt Link's adventuring; she starts snippy, but pretty soon has no problem literally leaning on Link's shoulder while asking for help. Midna is a great friend.
Navi is just a plot device, with no character and barely any connections to the world. Midna is a character proper, a player in the world, a personality with traits and flaws, goals and desires, opinions and connections, and she and Link have excellent reasons to go together, and she goes through stuff through the adventure, and changes and grows as a result. Also she's hot. Midna is the GOAT of LoZ companions.
Navi is just Ocarina of Time's equivalent to the Lakitu filming Mario in Super Mario 64. A character introduced to explain a mechanic that at the time nobody would understand. Freely controllable cameras in 3d platformers weren't the standard when Super Mario 64 came out, but it made them the standard. Navi was a character introduced to explain the targeting system, and the devs decided to add more and turn the in-game tutorials and targeting system into an actual character.
@@Tosxychor And ironically as Yahtzee says.. the best part of some friendships you went from dislike/hate to understanding to friendship. And Midna and Link start off on "Dislike/hate" Link hates Midna at 1st cause he thinks she's an enemy but she starts to say "im gonna use you" Link goes along with no option.. but.. he isn't happy with it. Midna hates Link since he is one of the people who imprisoned her people long ago. Slowly but surely the two get to know eachothers quirks and personality. Midna starts to respect Link lil by lil and Link softens to Midna's crazy ways cause it helps him out. And then we have the 3rd dungeon turn around.. where Midna clearly has care for Link since he's being all chill about using a forbidden power and still going along with it even if he found all his goals already. And Link being the hero goes foward with the quest. After that we get "the scene" and after that.. Midna and Link become best buddies. With my favorite being when at the final boss the two both did an attack then come together Midna leaning on link's shoulder smug, but then they both exchange a glance and a smirk. It was the accumilation of their journey and story. They know this is the big bad.. but together.. "this guy is a chump we got this"
I still think Mordin Solus is the best "friend" I've had in a video game, and he hits every mark Yatz talks about. He's well characterized, does his job, and has an engaging and relevant character arc. I still choke up when he's riding up that elevator.
I would add the tidbit that he was perhaps the only NPC that got me to change my mind about something, as Yatz describes. In ME 1, the Salarian race came off as basically a flat expy of the Ferengi from Star Trek, with very little in the way of variance outside their core concept of being underhanded capitalists. Mordin embodied a whole other layer beneath that, showing that there are Salarians who have more complex beliefs, and regrets, about their actions, but still understand why they have to do what they do. Completely shifted my perspective on his entire race. :)
He also has the ingredient of starting off as hatable. At least for me, hearing that he was closely involved with the Genophage project and seemed to fully stand by it when confronted at first. That made me think "fuck this guy". Then I got to his loyatly quest and saw all the doubts about the genophage project behind the logical mask, as well as his whole stance when it came to how he practiced medicine. Made him one of my favorites in the game, if not my favorite period.
@@leithaziz2716 He likes to say "had to be me, someone else might have gotten it wrong." And his entire arc is in realizing that he himself did get something wrong. His mistake was a moral one rather than a scientific one, and his coming to grips with that is what makes him such an engaging character for me.
@@thestrangah9690yeah I listened to Frosts vid this morning. It's a real shame, I know most of them are probably tired of drama and just want to make THEIR content and talk about games.... Kind of need to sit tight and wait for the rest of the teams response
Yahztees first few lines about how friendship being two beings with a shared goal, while a relationship two people with each other as the goal, is quite profound. The simpler the words, the more it rings true, actual poetry. Yahtz is a great writer
@@lewstherintelamon244 Sorry, sometimes people don't know what they don't know. It's not a new concept but I appreciate the succinctness of how it was phrased here
The first time I played Dark Souls Remastered, I approached the game with the cynical eye I expected the game to come at me with. I was cautious of every corner and wary of every person. I didn’t like anyone, being so paranoid of them stabbing me in the back that I didn’t bother with a single questline. Truth be told, I didn’t even invest enough effort to like them, instead focusing on my own survival. Then, I met a man trapped in a barrel, begging for me to save his life. In this world, that would kill you without hesitation, was a man at his lowest begging for a stranger to save him. When I visited Firelink Shrine later, he introduced himself as Luarentius, and offered to pay me back with pyromancies, a strong magic that even I, witless and faithless, could practice. But I had no flame, therefore I could not practice the art. So he gave me one, so nonchalant I thought nothing of it until I questioned him about it. “A pyromancer’s flame is a part of his own body… When I gave you that flame, I gave you a part of myself.” Laurentius is my favorite NPC in any Dark Souls game, and has influenced the way I have played every Souls game since. This is probably a more universal feeling than it feels like it is, and is definitely a more universal experience for many who pick up the game, but since we’re talking about friends, I felt it important to mention the one I made half a decade ago, who’s pushed me through every Fromsoft game I’ve played since. I felt his loss more than any character in any game I’ve played, and still carry a Pyromancy Flame in every game I find one.
Laurentius is really understated when it comes to these. You hear Solaire and Siegmeyer a lot, even Andre, but Laurentius was my favourite too. Not sure if he still is, not thought about it much of the series as a whole, but he just seems like such a genuine dude. Always feel bad lying to him about where I found the chaos pyromancies, he sounds so deflated, but better that than hollow.
That's the fun thing about the Soulsborne games. There are always traitorous NPCs, but there are always others that are honestly just doing the very best they can.
Laurentius is just such a pleasant character, he's nothing but grateful to you, even going above and beyond in his attempts to repay you, even to the point of sharing his pyromancy flame with you. I think part of it is also that he's incredibly well-voiced, he just sounds so... sincere and friendly, he's nothing but positive towards you, is happy whenever he sees you're alive and always wishes you luck. A similar character in the series could be Greirat in DS2, what was a minor sidequest for you is something of such significance to him that he practically begs you to let him go out to scrounge up supplies for you, multiple times putting himself at immense risk. It also helps that Patches seems to really care about him too, making him seem more connected to the world itself.
@@Darca1n Greirat is in Dark Souls 3, not 2, just a little correction. But I agree, he's such a delightful NPC. When you meet someone who you can call a friend in Souls games, it gives you that boost to keep going no matter what
I probably blame Portal memes for that. After it was revealed that Portal is a Half Life spinoff, the Internet turned that cube, the cake & many of the other key items/characters into memes. Those memes then spread until they became parts of gaming culture.
The example from your book about hatable characters made me think about the relationship between Harry and Kim in Disco Elysium. Both the catalyst and the indication of their friendship deepening is Kim's patience and forgiveness towards Harry's bullshit. But furthermore, from a storytelling perspective, Kim's reactions help us as the player/audience define our tolerance towards Harry's bullshit, and actually help us become Harry's friend. Bless his heart.
For all of its flaws, FFXV did an amazing job of making the player feel like they were on a roadtrip with friends; I believe this is something Yahtzee pointed out in his review. This instance may not be in the spirit of the video, since these are established friends to the protagonist; however, the player still gets to discover and become endeared to the companions.
FFXV is a great example for this The already-established friendship thing is kinda in the spirit of Yahtsee's backstory example Heck, in an ironic twist, the game's ability to effectively establish & develop chemistry ultimately works against it since the main goal is for Noctis to go marry the *one* person whose relationship with him we don't get to see properly
I'm not sure if I would call it a friendship per se but the most unexpectedly emotional connection for me was between Cooper and BT in Titanfall 2. You don't start the game thinking of BT as anything more than something akin to your smart keep you alive machine but over time develop enough investment into the relationship that you genuinely care about what happens to BT and it feels almost gut wrenching at the end. It was more a partnership forged in battle than a friendship but showed how good writing and voice acting can provide an emotional depth and complexity... It was really the trials you endured together and the loyalty and reciprocity between the two that really provided the impact.
I really like how Baldur's Gate 3 had characters chime in constantly during dialogue. Mass Effect had them, but only in very specific instances. BG3 took those specific instances and spread them everywhere. It made me want to bring more and more combinations of NPCs around just to see what kind of reaction or chemistry Id see.
Didn't play BG3 yet but i remember being shocked about that in Neverwinter Nights 2. There were some events and then the dudes started piping up, they had opinions and hot takes and wanted to do stuff. The Mass Effect/Starfield type of companions which often deffer to "I won't like it, but i'll entirely support you in this massacre of civilians" and rarely if ever have a breaking point works entirely against the concept.The point is, part of making a friendship in a game, and have it be non transactional, implies the companion has to have some measure of agency. He has to maybe go away, and do stuff, and come back later, or set up boundaries and enforce them (also for romance, not going 'gay' if you /really/ want to get with someone). I played Marvel's Midnight Suns, where basically it's half tbs and half Persona, and most of the characters could easily be 'friended' by doing basic things and responding in predictable ways. But not Magik, there's guide saying to take all the right choices since she's the hardest to level up. The reason? She actually takes hot takes and stances on what's going on around her, she's angry often but it's often rooted in hard pragmatism. I found it refreshing and my favorite character to befriend and play with instead of all the labradors/golden retriever characters.
@@silentspartan46 agreed. I haven't been able to bring myself to ditch the OG line up of Lann, Paladin Girl, Psycho Cleric Girl, Ember, and Neenio once I got them in my party. Everyone has such character and personality it feels like a real betrayal to leave them at base camp.
In BG3, that actually broke my immersion. Might be my bad memory at work here, but if i recall correctly, the companions only ever react to what you, or the person your talking to, says. They hardly ever react to one another and the person you're talking to almost never reacts to your companions. After a while, it felt more like they are voices in your head. They react to what's going on, but no one ever seems to react to *them*.
The tone of a character versus the game is something I find makes me feel more attached to friend characters. Thinking particularly of Solaire and others in his template, like Quirrel from Hollow Knight. Even with the characteristically light soulslike storytelling it can be very effective to establish that this is a person on their own journey just like your own, and a little cheery demeanor in a dour atmosphere goes a long way. Then when they inevitably meet a grim fate it feels like a loss, because they were someone who actually understood what you were going through.
Fromsoft really does love the "This character is an oasis of goodwill in a desert full of despair" sort of trope, and it works so well at making you connect with a character. It doesn't even have to be subtle. When I played Armored Core 6, the moment Rusty showed up with a "Hey, buddy" I immediately knew he was going to be my best friend because everyone else in the game treated me like a disposable tool.
Having a character who's actually happy to see you certainly helps in a deliberately oppressive setting. And taking that character away is always an effective way of increasing the tension on the player, whether it's a meaningful sacrifice or just an inevitable consequence of desperate joy against entropy.
There really is something to be said for wandering around in a world, bumping into an NPC we recognise and going "OMG HI! 8D" when we see them. Just genuinely glad to see them again.
You make a really good point about characters who contrast with the atmosphere they're in being especially appealing. I felt this way while playing Valkyria Chronicles 4, a game set in the middle of a war. There was a particular commander on the enemy side who acted in ways that made me think, "if you were on our side, we would have been friends", and having to fight him was soul crushing. This is probably also why comedic relief / best friend characters getting killed off to raise the stakes is so common.
I do think it helps - as said in the video, a friend shares your goals (somewhat at least). Like Garrus, when compared to most other characters you meet early in ME1, is characterized by being a bit reckless and rushing into things; the player, being a player, also wants action and excitement. Most other characters are confused and careful initially. Or Kim Kitsuragi, the one guy in the entire city who truly wants to solve your case, while everybody else who knows about it is misleading you for one reason or another and most uninvolved people are also not that helpful. Contrast this to Esprit de Corps's first impression of Kim: " If an assault were launched on this building right now - if the windows came crashing down and the whole world descended upon you - this man would hurl himself in death's way to save you."
I still pour one out for Jackie Welles every time I have a tequila shot in the later hours of the evening. Cyberpunk did a pretty alright job with that friendship/loss cycle and it sets up some feels when you realize most of the journal entries about quests are him speaking to you from beyond the grave
"To this" is still the two words that make me do a Corpo run over most other starts in Cyberpunk. Jackie chastises you in the opening for such a half hearted toast if you pick it, but afterwards it becomes a fun in joke that you both laugh about and then after his death, any time "To this" popped up when doing a toast, it was now something done to the memory of Jackie, the weird toast coming full circle.
Jackie was so good, the rest of the game just felt like going downhill. I probably replayed the beginning 10 times before quitting after the heist, losing interest the second Johnny appears. And speaking about Johnny, it fits the "make a character hateable" Yahtz is talking about. The problem is that I never stopped hating him.
Jackie was fantastic but I still think every character in that game could have benefited from 4 more hours of character development. He really nailed what a waste of resources that open world was.
I, for one, can't get out of the car without talking to Jackie one last time. Some runs I spend some minutes talking to the screen as if he, a fictional character could hear me. Jackie, 'mano. Te quiero mucho.
YES, and it is also interesting that he is pretty much a mystery for the most of the story - but YET you can sense how he feels about things and what he thinks. Very good writing and voice acting.
I always appreciated the relationship between Snake and Otacon, particularly in MGS4. I think that friendship comes across a little one sided because Snake is a distant and quiet person, but I feel like they still made it clear how important they were to one another.
Ngl, the dog in Fable 2 acts so much like a real one you genuinely get pissed when the villain literally shoots your dog. Granted the Knothole Island DLC lets you bring him back but still.
One of the wishes you can pick at the end can bring him back also. There was destroy the spire sparing all the people (does nothing), resurrect your family (including the dog) or 1,000,000 gold, which is honestly not very much gold. The dog always seemed like the obvious option tbh.
The NPC I cared the most about is Curly Brace from Cave Story. Obviously, she's a cute little robot with a heart of gold (in your first encounter, she attacks you because she thinks you're threatening the helpless bunny-people she's taken under her wing), but the game does a good job at making her feel competent by giving her her own objectives and having an awesome team-up sequence with feel-good, triumphant music. She's also the only character like you in the whole game - the only other robot, which I think builds a lot of affinity right away. And then she sacrifices herself to save you, and she has this inverted plot armor where she winds up dying in all but the most secret, hardest ending, and a lot of that route involves going out of your way to care for her (drain her when she's flooded, find the mushroom that restores her memory). All of her deaths are so understated. There's no one there to react to any of them except for you, the player (and in some of them she isn't even on screen). She feels strong, but also incredibly delicate. She doesn't seem to care about her own self-preservation at all, and you start to get this anxiety about keeping her safe. The game asks you to invest all this into Curly and then finally it gives you one more challenge (MUCH more difficult than anything else in the game) that you can't save her without completing (which features a return of the sick team-up aspect too). I defeated Ballos for Curly Brace and for no other reason, and I still go back to do it again from time to time. So in summary, Cave Story uses the initial antipathy trick that Yahtzee mentioned, and it also makes her effective and what she's supposed to be doing. But it also does a few extra things I don't think Yahtzee mentioned - it establishes her as the only person "like you", and then it tightens the knot by making her doomed to die unless everything goes exactly perfectly (which I think only works after the game has establish a foundational emotional investment) - it draws out more and more investment from you until you're motivated enough to literally run Hell for her. She's a friend, she's a partner, she's the only one who "gets" you, and she's so star-crossed that the story is chomping at the bit to kill her off unless you stop it. I love her, and I love Cave Story so much. Such an earnest, horrifying, and cheerful trip that game is.
I love that you mentioned DS9, it does such a good job building believable friendships. Nog & Jake, Bashir & O'Brien, Sisko & Kira, Bashir & Garak. God I fucking love DS9.
Honestly, the companions are easily the best part about Fallout 4. They help out in different ways that are specific to each character, actually make comments and interject when you're talking to NPCs, and you don't have to spam them with gifts to get them to like you. It feels like they put the level up system from Skyrim as their friendship system so that you gradually become better friends through in-game actions rather then just gifts and dialog prompts at certain plot or quest points. Sure, you can game it if you wanted to, but it feels more like a natural progression then most other friendship systems. I wish Bethesda had kept this system when developing other games.
One gameplay mechanic that I don’t think has received enough attention in recent years is the Skyrim mechanic, where you gain more levels purely in the things you do. Like being a stealth archer? You naturally get better at stealth archering. It does eventually become a matter of sunk costs, of course-perk points being the “you must sink resources into this character build” option. But I wonder why friendship mechanics aren’t simply Skyrim mechanics-become closer friends with the people you’re friends with. Take people on a lot of missions? Now they’re better at going on missions with you! Seems intuitive enough, which means it must be hard as hell to implement.
Fire Emblem Awakening kinda does this, and you can feel how important the NUMBER of occurrences is to make the progression feel natural - if you try to get everyone to a usable level, you'll often end up taking one underlevelled character to a random skirmish battle with a bunch of zombies, team them up with one of your strongest characters for passive stat boosts, and have them reap massive gains from singlehandedly killing things they're not supposed to be able to fight properly yet. And then after that one skirmish, they're immediately ready to advance their friendship level with the supporting character, because they just got dozens of "helping each other out" friendship points. Presumably the devs balanced the friendship growth to the expected number of turns to clear X amount of missions, but when you use the "overlevelled moral support buddy" trick you end up with two characters spending dozens more turns together than they're supposed to.
There are a few games that build friendship points this way, but it tends to suck for the player. As much sense as it makes to do it that way (spend more mission time together = better chance of friendship), it can be a real pain if narrative and gameplay clash. We want to be friends with X and Y, but A and B are much more helpful party members? We'll have to pick our poison, and that's unsatisfying. The Bioware method may rub Yahtzee the wrong way, but it's a lot better than he gives it credit for. Shepard can bring anyone they want on most missions, but what matters most is which crew they spend time with between the action: having a drink, working out, calibrating the weapons, etc. That can make a lot of sense as well, as friendship-making convos are often had in a relaxed atmosphere when the people can open up to each other. That's not to say the Bioware method is perfect though, as anyone who is playing anything but an unfeeling ponce can't have Morrigan in their party, because she hates everything.
As others have said (and Yahtzee mentions), that way means that you're dragging whomever you want to increase friendship with on your missions, regardless of if they actually make a coherent party or not. I do think we need more of a blend of it though, where doing stuff with people naturally increases friendship, while making an effort outside of natural gameplay and/or things that increase the friendship while you're off adventuring with your party. The most important part though is that the writers for it make it feel natural instead of forced, transactional, or arbitrary while also having the characters feel human.
I really like these semi-ramblomatic eps that cover a topic and then use games as examples to illustrate the point. That feels like a good framework, I hope it can keep going!
I feel like when you ask people who their favorite member of the team is, the answer is almost always the last one to be sent home, either out of some kind if gameplay necessity, or the genuine desire to have them around as much as you can in your time which is ultimately fleeting. It was kind of both for Fae the Grey. She was the last high speed character on the team besides Bertrude's pounce.
@@Rehteal Pyre worked so well because of how it tightly integrated the player with the character that we're playing as. I didn't have to abstract or think 'in universe' about the consequences, my ability as a player to play and take on challenges directly tied to the characters i would be freeing. The entire game you're basically making it /harder/ for yourself per se by always kicking away your best/most comfortable to play characters. That tight connection between gameplay and story is the real juice that fuelled some of my fondest gaming memories. In Dragon Age Origins, Morrigan was my cold mage which CCd stuff and i could not imagine myself playing the game without her. My main character was entirely secondary to her in combat. I also liked her as a character and we had max friendship/romance. So you can imagine my surprise when she pulls the whole demon baby thing at the end, and if you decline.. she... just goes away. She's not there for the final huge battle. The main character i've been relying on for the entire game. It broke my little mind back then and i stuck to my guns. Made the final battle much harder but i heavily indentified and emotionally connected with my character i was roleplaying. It's not that /he/ was feeling betrayed, ME, the player, was feeling betrayed.
main story spoilers for Pyre: I don't think any game has made me cry multiple times in a single playthrough like Pyre does every time we get to the finals and I know the only thing victory gets me is saying goodbye to one of my teammates forever. Every time that fucking song started I'd *weep.*
The BioWare thing of friendships only progressing via gated conversations has always been deeply odd; Bethesda tried to rectify that a bit with the affinity system that allowed friendships to evolve simply by spending time together exploring and in combat. It's a model that I think works pretty well, and would likely sing if handled by a skilled writing team.
I think the problem is most players tend to use the same team for every mission. So out of 12 party members only 2 of them become friends. So bioware dialog friendship solutions made more sense for mass effect at least.
I don't think I've enjoyed the friendship system in any bioware game I've played that had it. I wouldn't call it deeply odd, so much as a deeply disturbing "buy your friends" kind of thing. I've never been able to really get into any bethesda games. They always look like something I want to play, but they always lose me rather quickly. The only one I played for much more than a few hours was Starfield, and it did feel less disturbing than a bioware game, but it still felt like the same "push the right button to receive naughty bacon" system in the end. Also, I love how you imply that bethesda lacks skilled writing teams :)
@@FlesHBoXI liked dragon age 2s approach. You are in one city with a gossipy population. Word of what you did is going to get back to your compatriots you didn't drag along for the ride. If they liked it they grew closer to you and would advance their story in a yeah we have shared morals let's celebrate your actions. If they didn't like it It the tone would be much more hostile. But notice I said hostile and not worse. Some characters had frankly better arcs if they did low key hate you and felt like you were sabotaging their plans and goals. The one who comes most readily to mind is myrel who as much as it pains me to say it cause she's adorable and probably my favorite companion in that game, she has a much happier and healthier resolution to her arc if you constantly fight with her and she hates your guts. Their stories will progress with or without you and by the end depending on how their stories played out they might even be against you for the final fight. And you know, maybe that makes it a bit linear if they are going to do what they are going to do regardless and it's mostly how you influence them that changes the outcome. But I find that better than most games I will only find the courage to confront my past once ive trusted you enough to talk about my obsession with shoes *coughLilianacough*Too bad about the rest of that game being so garbage that they never tried any of the ideas from it again.
@@siegfread9683 Honestly, I think this is the first time I've ever heard anyone say ANYTHING positive about Dragon Age 2. Like, not here to say your subjective taste in things is wrong AT ALL, but man Myrel might be my least favorite character in ANY game. Everyone she knows and loves tells her repeatedly not to summon a demon. Then she summons a demon that kills everyone she knows and loves. Fair enough as a backstory, but then she's 100% unrepentant and blames it on them. You can kind of work against that for her story, and that IS the better version of it, but she barely changes. And if you don't push against her she becomes an even bigger asshole. Not to mention she does literally the same thing again in the story TO YOU, and if you survive she is again wholly unrepentant for it. Man. If the game seemed like it was trying to get you to hate Myrel, I would have applauded it, but no she's intended to be one of the main love interests. I'm glad it worked for you, but man she was difficult for me not to hate. I try to love everybody, but she's fictional and awful. Either way, you have fun out there Sieg.
Channeling C. S. Lewis's definition of friendship vs. romance there in the beginning, nice and succinct. Speaking of which, anyone looking to better understand the contrast between forms of relationships should read/listen to Lewis's "The Four Loves". He shows how (the natural loves) each manifest both positively and negatively.
It’s pretty old game, but I find how they handle Elizabeth pretty compelling in Bioshock Infinite. As you progress through the game, you unlock mechanics for her, which is presented as interactions between her and the protagonist. The story also does a good job pacing it, as it really wants you to become invested in her for the big reveal at the end.
I especially like that she's helpful. When you run out of ammo, she will sometimes throw you a freshly-loaded rifle etc. She doesn't always do that I think, but often enough that when you're in a pinch there's a likelihood that Elizabeth will save you, making her your partner and making you appreciate her.
I'll always recommend CrossCode. I think the dialogue is pretty naturalistic and I love the dynamic Lea has with her friends; her being mute and everyone else trying their best to communicate with her and not just talk her ear off. I think it's great when the game has to *show* her love for her friends instead of having her outright say she loves friendship and stuff.
I just started last week. I have a mighty need to punch Apollo, so I'm expecting to love him by the end of the game xD Also Toby rattling off animal facts just gives me life
Oh my goooods, Crosscode was good at that. And they manage to leverage those friendships for drama in phenomenal ways. Godsdammit, I almost wanna replay it for a third time now! XD
I've got to nominate Karlach as best video game friend. She's arguably the most useful party member, your relationship score goes up organically for being heroic, helping the innocent and usual protagonist stuff and she has one line late in the game that hit me in the feels harder than any Bioware romance ever did. *spoilers* Something close to: "Will you stay with me? When it's time for me to go? Because with you around I feel like I can do anything. Even die."
Definitely agree with you here! I've never done her romance yet, but her platonic route felt nearly as important to my run as any of the romantic stuff! Very affecting!
Marcus, Dom, Baird, and Cole from the Gears of War series. I had a blast listening to everyone bantering back and forth - even in the middle of a firefight - and watching their stories play out really hit me in that part of the body I don't think I have.
The example that immediately springs to mind is Solaire from Dark Souls, in an extremely gritty world of violence, death and despair, early on you meet an extremely sincere knight in shining armour who offers to help you with difficult boss fights at your request. After hours of laboriously forcing your way through castles of monsters, you find a bonfire and a moment of calm and you see Solaire again and he might make a lighthearted comment that allows you to believe everything is going to be ok, if only for a moment. From a game mechanic perspective, he's unobtrusive and only talks to you if you strike up a conversation, and you have to go out of your way to request his help. From a story perspective, to me Solaire is the emotional heart of the story, he's the reason you'd even want to try and prolong this dying world at all, it's a gut punch moment in the story even if you know how to save him, if he dies to the Sunlight Bug you can imagine that he perhaps dies happy, if he survives he falls into a depression, but Miyazaki has suggested that if Solaire survives and you summon him to fight Gwyn then he links the fire in his own world like he wanted.
I remember playing through DS1 with a friend, doing every boss we could together, I was his summon through Gwyn first but we were sad to find out the game wouldn't let me summon him as he had finished, I had followed the saving solaire quest line but had forgotten about it until I saw that golden sign. Sun bro had my back
I'm reminded of Xcom. They aren't friends, exactly, but there's a helluvan impact when they die. I don't think it even needs a mechanic - just some good cutscenes and immersive dialogue could really bring out the blubbering when your Colonel Assault gets crushed by a Muton Beserker
Yeah he was great. I especially liked that they made it so he felt like he was a part of the world and not just a voice that talks about the world. Him asking Lydia a question and her giving answer will never cease being great.
Oh Inigo is the only mod that I consider a requirement for anyone wanting any companion experience. My boy has been through hell and back in so many of my games and I love him to bits
Sometimes I feel him a bit "trying too hard" but otherwise a well written character. Probably his best trait is to react to the surrounding world and events make him more alive. I don't think that a developer team could write ALL of the NPCs this well, you can't task a writer to work on only one NPC but yeah, Inigo as one of the best companion for sure.
Actually there can be : you can finish the 1st game without Turian Dirty Harry or get Turian Batman killed during the suicide mission. But Garrus really comes into his own in the 3rd game so that would be a real shame
Of course, Undertale told us one of the only real answers to making friends with an NPC, you write them well. It's an easy answer to give and difficult to actually practice, but I'll remember my time with Papyrus and Undyne a lot longer than the token 'friend' characters thrown into most games.
This vid explained why Sans is actually my favorite character in that game. It's essentially Yahtzee's "rival to friend" arc in reverse, where the only way to proceed is to betray the character you spent all this time making friends with. Also the music o/c.
@@youtubeuniversity3638 I like my waifu harems as much as the next anime nerd, but in reality that just ends up with the "Child wives and roving bands of young men with no prospects" situation that you may have heard works out so well in certain sandy countries. We don't do that. It's important that we don't do that. Really important.
@@Wertsdsf It happens in Utah too. Get over yourself. It has nothing to do with race. It's a religious doctrine about polygamy. Polygamy results in child brides and roving bands of young men with no prospects. There are two Religions of current prominence which feature polygamy. They both have these same problems. One has a population of 17 million. The other is about 1.9 billion. Same problem for the same doctrine.
Honestly, my ideal type of romance (both irl and in media) basically _is_ an upgraded friendship- both/all parties involved already regarded each other with affection, and it eventually became something deeper. It's a mistake to _assume_ friendship will lead to romance, but it _can_ happen, so in that sense I see no inherent issue with romance being the endpoint of a friendship mechanic, at least for some NPCs. (Indeed, variance is exactly what might help- not everyone has a romance option, so it might help make it more special when someone does.) In any case, well-written dialogue honestly seems like a necessity, both for friendship and romance. I would argue that's why games like Fable fall short (characters give stock deliveries of stock phrases and behaviors, so it's harder to see them as anything but NPCs unless you're actively filling in the gaps), while a game like, say, Hades pulls it off incredibly well.
This is an extension of the thing he said at the start. Friendships are a lot more stable. So building a romantic relationship on a platonic one feels a lot more stable, secure. You already know the others quirks and if you're close enough friends taking things in a romantic direction might feel like a relatively minor advancement. At least in theory. I've never even romantically held hands with anyone so what do I know.
Here's the 500th comment about Kim Kitsuragi while also mentioning Jackie from Cyberpunk 2077 and also Johnny Silverhand. I only knew Jackie for about an hour or so in the prologue but it actually bummed me out when he died cause he was cool as fuck and him dying on tne job in our arm sucked
It's an interesting contrast with Goro Takemura, who I also started thinking of as a friend. The humanizing touches like him accidentally sending his sushi and ramen search terms to V went a long way to making him more than the guy who fished us out of the landfill.
It may be cliché, and it's certainly not perfect (being points based for a start), but Fallout: New Vegas did friend/companion relationships really well imo. Many different levels to the relationship, more personal background stories only relayed after building that relationship, multiple "red lines" that will end the relationship which are believable, and none of them are "romanceable". The player character has real impact on the friend/companion's life, both in-game and post-game (end-slides). Companion perks change based on the player choices for the relationship, and are very useful. Again: far from perfect. Being able to speech-check your way out of a heinous act the friend/companion obviously objects to, there is a definite "end" to the level of progression of the relationship where there is nothing to do, some companions are objectively more useful than others, suffers from "I'm joining you and there's nothing you can do about it" that many games have, etc.
It's an interesting topic. I honestly can't think of a single time I've felt much for a narrative based friendship. Maybe the protag of oneshot counts? She isn't really a friend though, so much a thing to protect. The real friendship and attachment tends to come from ludonarrative. Your pokemon in a nuzlocke, your random NPC guard that happened to have survived 3 fights that killed the rest, etc. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I realize how much defying the odds helps. If you give me a village with 10 random NPCs, they mean nothing, but if the village gets invaded and they all die...they still meant nothing, but if the village gets invaded and 1 lives, now I've got some attachment. If that villager survives a second time though, thats where I get really attached. I remember back to my first time playing ark, which is an evil game with some good stuff in it. I tamed a sabertooth tiger fairly early on and it survived several different incredibly unlikely scenarios by the skin of it's teeth. At one point I died in a battle against other players, and it killed the person that killed me, then chased wild dinos that attacked it like a mile away, meaning other enemy players didn't find it. I eventually found it myself when it was on the brink of starvation. Another time I died when I was with it in the middle of the ocean and had to make my way across the whole map to get back to it. I was sure it'd die but it hung on against some megalodons and drowning until I made it back and it lived with single digit hp (fortunately the chunk must have been unloaded when I died, really lucky no other players were nearby). Finally, our entire base got wiped out while I was offline but somehow it survived, having chased something away from the base. All other 33 of our dinos died, our tribe quit except me, but it lived. That's by far the most attached I've been to the character. Hell, I kept playing the stupid game for like 3 more weeks cause I didn't want to leave it to die. Eventually when I did quit, I left it in a hidden cave loaded up with as much food as it could hold and said goodbye. If you want to make a truly great friendship system, I think it NEEDS to react to what happens with the player. Having it fondly recall important gameplay moments would be great. The only system that sorta but not really comes to mind here is the nemesis system from shadow of mordor/war. It has the random events and reacts and changes based on how they go. There's enough of them that some can afford to be killed off giving you that attachment to the survivors.
Talk about friend back story reminded me of Silverhand "reveal" in Cyberpunk 2077. You start with clearly sociopathic, violent entity in your head. But you can do his story reveal bit by bit. And you start to get where he is coming from. CD Project Red narrative team is amazing in what they do here with his character story. They have very similar approach to some of NPCs for side story lines in Witcher series. There is always secret with your "friends". Also while it might give people unhealthy expectations about friendship progression, idea of romance being as end game of friendship is alluring and very human one.
Sometimes when I play through a game a second time, I'll make different choices to try and experience all of the content. But I just can't be a jerk to some of the characters in Cyberpunk 2077. Johnny has such a good character arc when you help him come to terms with his past, and it leads to a chain of side quests that is probably my favorite in a game, ever.
It's not perfect, but I think _Recettear_ has some good ideas on this front. For one, it can embrace the transactional elements of many video game friendships because it's specifically about being a merchant. You're encouraged to sell good weapons and armor to your adventurer friends because it helps you in dungeons while also letting you pay your mounting bills. Recette's other friendships are similarly complicated. Tear is your friend and guide, but she also represents the agency that may foreclose on your house. Alouette presents herself as a rival, but she's actually one of your best customers.
And the nicest adventurers are also the poorest, meaning you've likely got to go out of your way to undercharge them if you want them to have better gear.
A good trick is to not make it so obvious you are supposed to like them. A lot of games over-characterize their NPC these days, and it always feels super manipulative. Keep the characterization light, but give us some intrigue. It's a lot better than just saying this character is your best friend
Honestly I'd like for simulated relationships to not be entirely linear: Not a scale from indifferent/antagonistic to either 100% completion, whether that is platonic or romantic. Relationships can have mixed emotions tied to them and I want a NPC who, depending on what you do and how the game just kinda goes, can say "I'd march with you to hell if necessary but, Sweet Pazuzu, you have a punchable face and I sure as fuck will not be loaning you money." There are a lot of different ways a relationship can go. Do they enjoy spending time with you or do they find you insufferable and prefer respecting you from a distance? Do they like you and find you sympathetic while also not trusting you because you are a murderhobo guile hero who requires they put locks on the liquor cabinet? Are they happy being led or do they want to stand out in front to protect you without being asked? Are they a loveable mooch or a poisonous friend who ends up helping you in ways that make you a worse person? People are complicated, relationships multiply the complications of the first person with the complications of the second, and I want as much of that shoved into my face as technology and production levels allow.
The absolute, undisputed best and most well-written supporting character friend in any game ever is still Kim from Disco Elysium. He's remarkably understanding of your needs, very competent to the point where he can pick up your slack, but doesn't trivialize things, and does really weird friend-like inside jokes with you, along with a few spoilery things
Absolutely, I still think back to Shadow of War and my favored bodyguard Pushkrimp the Raven. He saved my bacon more times than I remember and was an absolute unit in battle; I made it a point to redeploy him to whatever zone I was going to be in for long periods of time.
You mention Navi and Fi being constant nagging presences, yet Midna also is a constant presence who initially, and openly, uses Link for her own means and then grows on the player to the point where when she gets sick, teenage me is hauling ass across the map in order to save her because nobody is taking my Midna from me.
I agree with everything in this video; however, it also serves as further evidence that Yahtz didn’t really get enough time with Baldur’s Gate 3 because to my mind there’s no better friendship simulator than that game
I like Fi, and I got sad when she said goodbye. It was like making friends with someone severely autistic and seeing her develop to express emotion at the end hit hard for me.
@@howizee She doesn't say 'goodbye', though. She announces that "our necessary companionship has come to an end" and asks us to "dissolve our relationship as Master and Servant." My jaw hit the floor at that moment. Her mannerisms are weird, she doesn't know how to respect boundaries, and this meeting could have been an email, but... Is *that* what you think about our relationship? I thought we were past that: I thought we were friends. She has another go at actually articulating her feelings later, but what a moment that was.
@seancoleman3850 that is precisely how someone that is severely autistic and struggles to process and express emotions behaves. And that final attempt to do it is sweet, especially when you have family and have worked with people with those struggles.
Regarding friends produced through gameplay, Shadow of Mordor / War did such a great job with this concept through the Nemesis system. I had this one orc archer who I thought was just gonna be a throw away captain turn out to be one of my most reliable body guards throughout the game. He was a true friend.
@4:38 That's where Owlcat's games do a great job: having people in the party who make a bad first impression makes those you like immediately better too, because working with both people you like and people you don't because circumstances are forcing your hand feels quite natural. That's also where something like Starfield fails: you have sort-of antagonistic relations with people at the start, but they do nothing that makes you value them, so the entire experience is just one long sour note.
That’s a really good point he makes about making the character unlikable at first. I never thought about that. It’s a good way of immediately getting some kind of emotion out of the audience which keeps them from feeling indifferent. Plus, it compliments the humility that will be instilled in the character during the hardships they’re faced with over the course of a typical story. Our hatred turns to satisfaction when the character is humbled which can then turn to admiration as the character learns and grows as a person.
It's that saying, the oppossite of love isn't hate, it's apathy. You can do something with any emotion, it's engaging. Apathy, the thing that doens't give you anything to work with, is the worst.
I think one of the best examples of a best friend in a video game is Joe Barbaro from Mafia 2. He swings between genuinely comical and barely likeable while being relentlessly on your team, even when it seems suicidal. One of the standout missions from that game was him accidentally whacking somebody and needing your help to get rid of them, you have to drive out into the middle of nowhere and dig a big hole with him while he's cracking wise. By the end of the game you really get the impression this idiot would take a bullet for you.
@@AdventureAlbert genuinely finished replaying it couple days ago and he absolutely is a friend. Makes total sense why Vito and Joe make decisions which make little sense outside of their brother-like love (including the many many insults)
I quite like the Last of us 1 way of getting us to interact and bond with a character through little QuickTime events like high fives or something similar which you can fully miss and ignore and the characters respond to that or thank you for taking the time to interact with them which adds a bit of attachment
Cyberpunk by the end genuinely made feel like I lost actual friends. It isn't just the mechanics. It's their stories being simultaneously relevant to the plot and irrelevant in the big picture. They were stories realistic to the setting where you could actually understand and feel for them while also being part of the plot in a smaller way.
I like Malroth from Dragon Quest Builders 2. From the moment you meet him, he helps out by hitting enemies harder and collecting materials faster than the player can. When you're in a base, he wanders around the area where you're building - almost like he's patrolling the area for you. He even hi-fives you when you complete certain projects! Having him there as a core part of the gameplay makes it super easy to get attached to him (and since the story of the game depends on the friendship between him and the player character, it's pretty important that you do).
Theres a aimilar mechanic in the Visual Novel game "I Was A Teenage Exocolonist" where you passively gain friendship just by apending time with people as you build up your stats. (Great Indie game by the way, 100% reccommend.)
As I am currently playing Destroy all humans 2 ... My favourite friendship/romance arc is between crypto and Nataliya The bickering, fun convos they are amazing
Weirdly the character I feel I’ve connected to as a friend the most is the previous ranch owner from Slime Rancher, a character you never interact with or actually see
The best example I've ever seen was actually a mod, the Vilja companion for Oblivion and Skyrim. (The one Terry Pratchett helped make.) She had SO many interactions and functions that she truly felt like a *companion* and not just a lackey. She can even take control of the party and lead you to a dungeon that she wants to explore, which makes her feel so much more real. On top of that, she does have her own stories to tell, which advance in parallel to the main game, as well as talking about her past adventures when you come upon familiar locations. Hell, in Oblivion (not sure about Skyrim) when you buy a home she even acquires a dog on her own, and you start to feel like a little family. I've never had another NPC companion who felt even half as alive as her.
6:08 I wonder if at least tacking on a small chunk of randomness and making it also so there isn't a readily identifiable best path to friendship up could help sell the illusion? Like, even if a best path is calculated, if a new run has new math that changes what that best route is with no player facing indication that makes it EXPLICITLY clear, then at bare minimum maybe players will feel more inclined to up the friend stat in ways thag "feel right" rather than ways that are simply "optimal". Also, the idea of you making friends by just accountong for their input with stuff you'd do anyways seems neat. Like, you'll need to do a supply run no exceptions, so it's not too bad to buy X brand instead of the exact same cost and quality Y brand for the only person on the whole ship who is able to tell the difference. And repairs can't be avoided, but doing them in a specific order for the comfort of one crew member when the order is otherwise irrelevant seems fine enough. And, sure buddy, I'll pick orange next time the ship needs a repaint to cover up all the flaking. Heck, maybe have someone who simply asks you for a hug.
I think the first ratchet and Clank on PS2 is a great example of this concept played out. Ratchet and Clank really bond and you feel that bond stress, grow, and almost break at points in the story.
Great friend in a video game? Murray the Demonic Skull from Curse of Monkey Island. You start out antagonistic, but by the end there is a pretty enjoyable interplay between him and Guybrush.
First thought on seeing this title: "A smile better suits a hero." For those who know, you either think I'm a moron or are nodding in agreement. For those who don't, that's the final quote from an npc in a goddamn mmorpg of all things, and that character's arc and death have stuck with me in a way few other characters have.
I'm a level 100 Paladin main and I still carry the haurchefant house shield that I was gifted after his death - I keep glamouring whatever one I switch to so as to keep his memory alive. Such a great character and I completely agree - love that they've called back to him a few times in later expansions and story events as well.
Interesting on several levels. I’ve seen the best romances being between people who were already friends in some capacity, or else whose romance took on friendship elements later. “Partner” isn’t just a polite euphemism for queer SO’s. I didn’t realize Allison was supposed to be hatable? Like, she wasn’t obnoxious and she wasn’t rude to her classmates; I can see how she might not make friends but while I can see her being invisible to most and hated by a few… She just seemed to be an awkward nerdy type who cared more about getting a headpat from the teacher than much else.
The hateable trait is so true. Apart from that, would love to see a game which gave you extra voice lines or backstory based on favorite loadout or approach. Would be hilarious to troll cheaters or speed runners with it as well.
Two NPCs in _Planescape: Torment_ who are aiming for a "friend" role are Morte and Dak'kon Blackblade. That's oversimplifying - both relationships are complex - but that's certainly part of it. Note that you have to become a Wizard to see a lot of Dak'kon's story.
I think the main thing about friendship in games is that it should be about how much you interact with the NPC and generally be a good pal to them, rather than present stuffing. It felt weird in Hades that to become closer with the other characters, it wasn't enough to just spend time talking and listening to them, I needed to resource manage nectar to maybe perhaps possibly unlock the next stage. Friendship should not be about resource management unless that resource is time!
This very much. I also hate 'feeding' anything for progression. Yathzee nailed it, make me do the things i do already. Have challenges that tie into the mechanics i'm already engaged with. Blacksmith friend liking me more because i crafted a few daggers? Makes perfect sense. We get to talk about blacksmithing stuff together.
Absolutely, Garrus from Mass Effect was one of the driving factors of my playthroughs, even if it was sub-optimal I always picked him as one of my squadmates if I could. Paradoxically the "friendship" system I've been most invested in was the one in Dragon age 2, because you could become close to your companions without actually becoming their chums and liking every single thing they did. For npc friendships that felt very genuine I can't help but think of "In Stars and Time" and "Small Saga", both games I played recently. In Stars and Time you get to very intimately get a feel of every character's personality and how they'd react to certain situations and in Small Saga your main character at times gets utterly side-lined and has to be pulled back into the fight by his companions, they become just as much a driving force in the plot as he does.
Gothic 1 and 2 was extremly good at this. You meet a few very friendly faces over the course of the game and 2. fun was partially finding them again and seeing what they have been up to since 1. Diego stands out here as a friend and early mentor.
I was looking for this comment. The early titles did a really good job at making you grow those loose ties you have with Diego, Lester, Lares etc. by going on quests with them and slowly integrating you in the group. I like that there's some nuance , you're never best buddies from the start (except maybe Lester?) and at least in G1 you never completely lose the feeling of being an outsider.
2:21 And yet people wondered what happened to Navi, somehow missing the fact she flew off at the end of the game and the entire point of the starting plot of Majora's Mask was Link going to find her.
I think potential lost content can hand holding are two potential. Problems with both is most dev/publishers don't want to put in the effort. For hand holding I mean some older JRPG represent it best along with the mass effect. Where something like BG3 got closer but made everyone player focused. I mean where the player is the support character in a NPC story. Where that NPC is truly independent and you want to hold them hand to the final act of their story. Carry them up the mountain for them to destroy the thing before You go and beat the Evil lord The other is you never feel like pissing off a NPC will honestly effect stuff. Thus they can't be your friend because they are bound to you by the power of plot. Very few times do you say have to make a choice between say BFF and Love interest. Star field attempted is and broke itself trying to make that work and failed for it.
In Dark Cloud 2 there was a few characters where you didn't want to continue the game because the moment you did, they'd be gone for good. Usually they weren't exactly friends, and some of the related characters did hang around as people you could move into towns you built, but to improve on the theme I'd have liked to see town objects like statues and so on that represented the characters who were now gone for good, and maybe including the characters in later parts of the story could have given it more of a feeling of friendship. There was villain characters you end up wishing could have joined on the journey at a few points too.
Dark Cloud 2 has such good villains. It had a good variety of everything from pure evil monsters to sympathetic anti-villains. I like how the game makes you absolutely DESPISE certain characters...only to make you cry for them later.
The question of how to make relationship progress feel less mechanical in games is a topic that I return to over and over. It was nice to hear your take on it.
What enamoured me so much to Kim in Disco Elysium was how he was always amazingly uncritical of you, even when you were doing the most bizarre or downright deranged things possible. Turns out what I want in a friend is someone who is patient and accepts me no matter what
Well yes. Back when Bioware used to be good. The best DLC for an RPG was released back in the day for Mass Effect 3 and if that didn't make you feel like your friends with your crew then no game will.
I always kinda liked the NPC Serana in Skyrim. She started cold and a bit distrustful of you, but opened up towards the end. She also wasn't a romance target (because romance doesn't make narrative sense) so it never felt like I was putting coins into a vampire shaped vending machine until the sex came out.
If we're talking about "Skyrim" NPCs, then Erandur is hands down my favorite companion in the entire game. You get to know him through the "Waking Nightmare"-quest, which is one of the more interesting quests of the game, imho. You learn a great deal about Erandurs troubled past, and that even though he has done some bad things, he is going out of his way to right those wrongs. There is an option to kill Erandur, but if you let him live you can ask him to follow you after completing the quest. He's not essential in any way, but I like his voice and his battle quips. Erandur doesn't have plot-armor, so he can die. I found this out the hard way after yet another fight at Valtheim Towers, where I suddenly lost sight of him. After looking everywhere, I found his body outside, covered in arrows. It was a hard moment for me, and I still leave flowers when I pass that spot. His mace won't despawn, so I know where he fell.
Serana was, at one point, planned to be romanceable, but her voice actress, Laura Bailey, suggested that it would be weird and Bethesda cancelled those plans. You can still ask her to marry you, but she refuses, saying that she's uneasy around temples, and that she has a complicated history. Look up "Daughter of Coldharbour" if you don't know what that's about. (CW: implied sexual assault)
I do think a big part of what makes a friendship work in a game is that the character has to be someone that you want around for more than just gameplay purposes. Namely, the writing behind them has to give me a reason to care about them as a character outside of just combat. Using Mass Effect as an example, (and not going with the obvious Garrus or Tali), I almost never used Mordin in actual combat, and he wasn't my favorite character, but due to the various conversations with him throughout, you learn more about him and build up a sense of comradery as you see that there's more to him than just a scientist for the sake of a couple of plot points. You learn he has stared in musicals and deeply regret the necessity of unleashing the genophage. He has depth to him that makes him feel "alive". This in turn makes it all the harder for the player when, (depending on your choices), in the third game you have to let him sacrifice himself to cure the genophage, and while doing so he's quietly singing the musical to himself. Compare this to any number of NPC allies who show up in various games that might be quippy or do a lot more from a gameplay perspective, but don't really have a personality beyond whatever their quick archetype is. Characters like most Bethesda NPCs, or allies in FPS games. They tend to be characters you tend to barely think about in the moment, much less after the game is over. Sure, they might do something every now and then that's cool, or have a good moment as a quirk of the AI that will last with you, but most of the time if you replaced them with any other random NPC, nothing would have changed much. With well written characters like Mordin, or quite a few others from classic Bioware games or other games that develop their characters, if you take the time to get to know them, they leave you with a sense of "who" they are long after you've stopped playing. That in turn leads them to feeling like friends, rather than just "allies". "Had to be me. Someone else might have gotten it wrong."
Kingdom Come: Deliverance does this well, too. Hans Capon. He seems like a GIANT asshole at first. After a few of his quests, I thought to myself "he's just an entitled, dumb kid.. I actually like him."
@@melimsah Fr... The fact that he would rather talk about Fay instead of Midna. We don't even need to go there, Tatl from Majora's Mask is already a stark contrast to Navi and fits his narrative of "enemies to friends" well.
@@julianuribe9734I maintain that Fi was designed by someone who was tired of his creation Navi getting shit on, and resolved to give us something worse. I'll be honest, I never minded Navi that much. That fucking owl with his "Are you disinclined to not want to see my unskippable wall of text again?" bit was a lot worse.
@@BJGvideos It's especially evil that sometimes you need to say Yes and sometimes No to not have him repeat. Good news though, there's one quick way to tell: Whatever the cursor is on by default is the repeat-everything options. Which you will find out when you're mashing B to get through the text slightly faster one time too many.
It's more he could have used Midna as an example of friend instead of that cryptmaster guy, but I guess Midna could have had more. She was definitely friend by the end to me
Yes, his name is Kim Kitsuragi!
+1 The Lieutenant trusts you.
+2 Kim _truly_ trusts you.
Which goes with the video, ultimately you become friends with Kim because you don’t want to disappoint him
Kim takes second place for me after Gregg from a Night In The Woods, but it's a close thing. What both have in common is that there are no outright mechanics or visible friendship stats involved.
I didn't really like the game save for Kim, that +2 Kim truly trusts you for some reason has stayed with me across the years, had a really strong energy
@@yavorvlaskov5404 if you didn't like the game then why you keep playing long enough to reach that
This goes for enemies too. Remember Hades? Theseus and bull, brothers, have huge disagreement, but they work it out and you are actually happy for them? They also start doing new moves as a boss fight which is really good from a mechanical standpoint.
All the relationships in that game are nothing short of brilliant.
I also like the little moments that Zag gets with Asterius shows a mutual respect that could lead to friendship had the game's format make it somewhat impossible since he's literally a floor boss. One moment that springs to mind is when a certain other character wants an autograph from Asterius he only gives it to Zag because of his respect for him as a warrior
@@ninjakiwi2326 Similarly, teaching one of the furies a new word had no right feeling as triumphant as it did.
@@lexolotlgod though there's also BG3 which while has it's fair share of romance, also treats all characters as potential friends instead as well.
@@lexolotlgod Damn, who pissed in your cheerios? Dude was just bringing up an alternate theory, no need to bite his head off
Tali is great, but there is no Shepard without Vakarian.
"Not sure if Turian heaven is the same as yours but if this thing goes sideways and we both end up there, meet me at the bar"
I can't bring myself to romance either of them because they get together if neither of them is with Shepard and I'm not gonna do my friends dirty like that
@@artemis_smith The Best Outcome is when both of your friends get together ^_^
can't you literally not recruit him in the first game?
@@GBSpiral yes but it's not a popular choice
I think one of my favourite moments with Garrus is when you take a break and just have a shooting contest. And you can intentionally miss a shot to give him a win, and he starts cheering. "I'm Garrus Vakarian, and THIS is my favourite spot on the Citadel."
It's funny that you mention Navi and Fi, but DIDN'T mention Midna. She imposes herself on Link, but you're not doing anything you wouldn't do anyway; she's useful both mechanically and narratively, but again, she doesn't ever interrupt Link's adventuring; she starts snippy, but pretty soon has no problem literally leaning on Link's shoulder while asking for help. Midna is a great friend.
Ah, Twilight Princess, or Legend of Midna as I like to call it.
Navi is just a plot device, with no character and barely any connections to the world. Midna is a character proper, a player in the world, a personality with traits and flaws, goals and desires, opinions and connections, and she and Link have excellent reasons to go together, and she goes through stuff through the adventure, and changes and grows as a result. Also she's hot. Midna is the GOAT of LoZ companions.
Navi is just Ocarina of Time's equivalent to the Lakitu filming Mario in Super Mario 64. A character introduced to explain a mechanic that at the time nobody would understand. Freely controllable cameras in 3d platformers weren't the standard when Super Mario 64 came out, but it made them the standard. Navi was a character introduced to explain the targeting system, and the devs decided to add more and turn the in-game tutorials and targeting system into an actual character.
@@Tosxychor And ironically as Yahtzee says.. the best part of some friendships you went from dislike/hate to understanding to friendship.
And Midna and Link start off on "Dislike/hate"
Link hates Midna at 1st cause he thinks she's an enemy but she starts to say "im gonna use you" Link goes along with no option.. but.. he isn't happy with it.
Midna hates Link since he is one of the people who imprisoned her people long ago.
Slowly but surely the two get to know eachothers quirks and personality. Midna starts to respect Link lil by lil and Link softens to Midna's crazy ways cause it helps him out.
And then we have the 3rd dungeon turn around.. where Midna clearly has care for Link since he's being all chill about using a forbidden power and still going along with it even if he found all his goals already. And Link being the hero goes foward with the quest.
After that we get "the scene" and after that.. Midna and Link become best buddies. With my favorite being when at the final boss the two both did an attack then come together Midna leaning on link's shoulder smug, but then they both exchange a glance and a smirk. It was the accumilation of their journey and story. They know this is the big bad.. but together.. "this guy is a chump we got this"
I feel Midna should have been the owner of the triforce of wisdom & Zelda's sacrifice was for realsies, but that's just me.
I still think Mordin Solus is the best "friend" I've had in a video game, and he hits every mark Yatz talks about. He's well characterized, does his job, and has an engaging and relevant character arc. I still choke up when he's riding up that elevator.
I would add the tidbit that he was perhaps the only NPC that got me to change my mind about something, as Yatz describes. In ME 1, the Salarian race came off as basically a flat expy of the Ferengi from Star Trek, with very little in the way of variance outside their core concept of being underhanded capitalists. Mordin embodied a whole other layer beneath that, showing that there are Salarians who have more complex beliefs, and regrets, about their actions, but still understand why they have to do what they do. Completely shifted my perspective on his entire race. :)
He is the very model of a scientist Salarian...
"You defended the Krogan Genophage."
"I MADE A MISTAKE!"
He also has the ingredient of starting off as hatable. At least for me, hearing that he was closely involved with the Genophage project and seemed to fully stand by it when confronted at first. That made me think "fuck this guy".
Then I got to his loyatly quest and saw all the doubts about the genophage project behind the logical mask, as well as his whole stance when it came to how he practiced medicine. Made him one of my favorites in the game, if not my favorite period.
@@leithaziz2716 He likes to say "had to be me, someone else might have gotten it wrong." And his entire arc is in realizing that he himself did get something wrong. His mistake was a moral one rather than a scientific one, and his coming to grips with that is what makes him such an engaging character for me.
Yahtz, that opening statement about the difference between friends and relationships needs to be heard by a lot of people.
@@thestrangah9690 And check the response the SW team made (in the community tab).
@@thestrangah9690yeah I listened to Frosts vid this morning. It's a real shame, I know most of them are probably tired of drama and just want to make THEIR content and talk about games.... Kind of need to sit tight and wait for the rest of the teams response
@@icarue993 I haven’t as of yet but will do so
"Relationship" is a broad term, that includes friendships. That's why he specified "romance".
The best relationships are both. Where you are hopelessly attracted to the person who you can bro down with
Yahztees first few lines about how friendship being two beings with a shared goal, while a relationship two people with each other as the goal, is quite profound.
The simpler the words, the more it rings true, actual poetry.
Yahtz is a great writer
yea it's been a long time since a youtube video made me pause and think
That's just straight out of "The Four Loves", and was hardly a revolutionary thought then.
@@lewstherintelamon244 Sorry, sometimes people don't know what they don't know.
It's not a new concept but I appreciate the succinctness of how it was phrased here
@@lewstherintelamon244 every word a man speaks is plagiarism
The first time I played Dark Souls Remastered, I approached the game with the cynical eye I expected the game to come at me with. I was cautious of every corner and wary of every person. I didn’t like anyone, being so paranoid of them stabbing me in the back that I didn’t bother with a single questline. Truth be told, I didn’t even invest enough effort to like them, instead focusing on my own survival. Then, I met a man trapped in a barrel, begging for me to save his life. In this world, that would kill you without hesitation, was a man at his lowest begging for a stranger to save him. When I visited Firelink Shrine later, he introduced himself as Luarentius, and offered to pay me back with pyromancies, a strong magic that even I, witless and faithless, could practice. But I had no flame, therefore I could not practice the art. So he gave me one, so nonchalant I thought nothing of it until I questioned him about it. “A pyromancer’s flame is a part of his own body… When I gave you that flame, I gave you a part of myself.”
Laurentius is my favorite NPC in any Dark Souls game, and has influenced the way I have played every Souls game since. This is probably a more universal feeling than it feels like it is, and is definitely a more universal experience for many who pick up the game, but since we’re talking about friends, I felt it important to mention the one I made half a decade ago, who’s pushed me through every Fromsoft game I’ve played since. I felt his loss more than any character in any game I’ve played, and still carry a Pyromancy Flame in every game I find one.
Laurentius is really understated when it comes to these. You hear Solaire and Siegmeyer a lot, even Andre, but Laurentius was my favourite too. Not sure if he still is, not thought about it much of the series as a whole, but he just seems like such a genuine dude. Always feel bad lying to him about where I found the chaos pyromancies, he sounds so deflated, but better that than hollow.
That was remarkably well written. Never played or read much about Dark Souls but you took me on a journey
That's the fun thing about the Soulsborne games. There are always traitorous NPCs, but there are always others that are honestly just doing the very best they can.
Laurentius is just such a pleasant character, he's nothing but grateful to you, even going above and beyond in his attempts to repay you, even to the point of sharing his pyromancy flame with you.
I think part of it is also that he's incredibly well-voiced, he just sounds so... sincere and friendly, he's nothing but positive towards you, is happy whenever he sees you're alive and always wishes you luck.
A similar character in the series could be Greirat in DS2, what was a minor sidequest for you is something of such significance to him that he practically begs you to let him go out to scrounge up supplies for you, multiple times putting himself at immense risk.
It also helps that Patches seems to really care about him too, making him seem more connected to the world itself.
@@Darca1n Greirat is in Dark Souls 3, not 2, just a little correction. But I agree, he's such a delightful NPC. When you meet someone who you can call a friend in Souls games, it gives you that boost to keep going no matter what
Somehow players became attached to the Companion Cube, an utterly inanimate object only distinguishable from other cubes by having a heart on it.
I probably blame Portal memes for that. After it was revealed that Portal is a Half Life spinoff, the Internet turned that cube, the cake & many of the other key items/characters into memes. Those memes then spread until they became parts of gaming culture.
The example from your book about hatable characters made me think about the relationship between Harry and Kim in Disco Elysium. Both the catalyst and the indication of their friendship deepening is Kim's patience and forgiveness towards Harry's bullshit. But furthermore, from a storytelling perspective, Kim's reactions help us as the player/audience define our tolerance towards Harry's bullshit, and actually help us become Harry's friend. Bless his heart.
For all of its flaws, FFXV did an amazing job of making the player feel like they were on a roadtrip with friends; I believe this is something Yahtzee pointed out in his review. This instance may not be in the spirit of the video, since these are established friends to the protagonist; however, the player still gets to discover and become endeared to the companions.
FFXV is a great example for this
The already-established friendship thing is kinda in the spirit of Yahtsee's backstory example
Heck, in an ironic twist, the game's ability to effectively establish & develop chemistry ultimately works against it since the main goal is for Noctis to go marry the *one* person whose relationship with him we don't get to see properly
I'm not sure if I would call it a friendship per se but the most unexpectedly emotional connection for me was between Cooper and BT in Titanfall 2. You don't start the game thinking of BT as anything more than something akin to your smart keep you alive machine but over time develop enough investment into the relationship that you genuinely care about what happens to BT and it feels almost gut wrenching at the end. It was more a partnership forged in battle than a friendship but showed how good writing and voice acting can provide an emotional depth and complexity... It was really the trials you endured together and the loyalty and reciprocity between the two that really provided the impact.
I really like how Baldur's Gate 3 had characters chime in constantly during dialogue. Mass Effect had them, but only in very specific instances. BG3 took those specific instances and spread them everywhere. It made me want to bring more and more combinations of NPCs around just to see what kind of reaction or chemistry Id see.
BG3 was great at that, also the Owlcat Pathfinder games, especially WoTR, those guys charm in constantly.
Didn't play BG3 yet but i remember being shocked about that in Neverwinter Nights 2. There were some events and then the dudes started piping up, they had opinions and hot takes and wanted to do stuff. The Mass Effect/Starfield type of companions which often deffer to "I won't like it, but i'll entirely support you in this massacre of civilians" and rarely if ever have a breaking point works entirely against the concept.The point is, part of making a friendship in a game, and have it be non transactional, implies the companion has to have some measure of agency. He has to maybe go away, and do stuff, and come back later, or set up boundaries and enforce them (also for romance, not going 'gay' if you /really/ want to get with someone).
I played Marvel's Midnight Suns, where basically it's half tbs and half Persona, and most of the characters could easily be 'friended' by doing basic things and responding in predictable ways. But not Magik, there's guide saying to take all the right choices since she's the hardest to level up. The reason? She actually takes hot takes and stances on what's going on around her, she's angry often but it's often rooted in hard pragmatism. I found it refreshing and my favorite character to befriend and play with instead of all the labradors/golden retriever characters.
@@silentspartan46 agreed. I haven't been able to bring myself to ditch the OG line up of Lann, Paladin Girl, Psycho Cleric Girl, Ember, and Neenio once I got them in my party. Everyone has such character and personality it feels like a real betrayal to leave them at base camp.
In BG3, that actually broke my immersion. Might be my bad memory at work here, but if i recall correctly, the companions only ever react to what you, or the person your talking to, says. They hardly ever react to one another and the person you're talking to almost never reacts to your companions. After a while, it felt more like they are voices in your head. They react to what's going on, but no one ever seems to react to *them*.
The tone of a character versus the game is something I find makes me feel more attached to friend characters. Thinking particularly of Solaire and others in his template, like Quirrel from Hollow Knight. Even with the characteristically light soulslike storytelling it can be very effective to establish that this is a person on their own journey just like your own, and a little cheery demeanor in a dour atmosphere goes a long way. Then when they inevitably meet a grim fate it feels like a loss, because they were someone who actually understood what you were going through.
Fromsoft really does love the "This character is an oasis of goodwill in a desert full of despair" sort of trope, and it works so well at making you connect with a character. It doesn't even have to be subtle. When I played Armored Core 6, the moment Rusty showed up with a "Hey, buddy" I immediately knew he was going to be my best friend because everyone else in the game treated me like a disposable tool.
Having a character who's actually happy to see you certainly helps in a deliberately oppressive setting. And taking that character away is always an effective way of increasing the tension on the player, whether it's a meaningful sacrifice or just an inevitable consequence of desperate joy against entropy.
There really is something to be said for wandering around in a world, bumping into an NPC we recognise and going "OMG HI! 8D" when we see them. Just genuinely glad to see them again.
You make a really good point about characters who contrast with the atmosphere they're in being especially appealing. I felt this way while playing Valkyria Chronicles 4, a game set in the middle of a war. There was a particular commander on the enemy side who acted in ways that made me think, "if you were on our side, we would have been friends", and having to fight him was soul crushing.
This is probably also why comedic relief / best friend characters getting killed off to raise the stakes is so common.
I do think it helps - as said in the video, a friend shares your goals (somewhat at least).
Like Garrus, when compared to most other characters you meet early in ME1, is characterized by being a bit reckless and rushing into things; the player, being a player, also wants action and excitement. Most other characters are confused and careful initially.
Or Kim Kitsuragi, the one guy in the entire city who truly wants to solve your case, while everybody else who knows about it is misleading you for one reason or another and most uninvolved people are also not that helpful. Contrast this to Esprit de Corps's first impression of Kim: " If an assault were launched on this building right now - if the windows came crashing down and the whole world descended upon you - this man would hurl himself in death's way to save you."
I still pour one out for Jackie Welles every time I have a tequila shot in the later hours of the evening. Cyberpunk did a pretty alright job with that friendship/loss cycle and it sets up some feels when you realize most of the journal entries about quests are him speaking to you from beyond the grave
"To this" is still the two words that make me do a Corpo run over most other starts in Cyberpunk. Jackie chastises you in the opening for such a half hearted toast if you pick it, but afterwards it becomes a fun in joke that you both laugh about and then after his death, any time "To this" popped up when doing a toast, it was now something done to the memory of Jackie, the weird toast coming full circle.
Jackie was so good, the rest of the game just felt like going downhill. I probably replayed the beginning 10 times before quitting after the heist, losing interest the second Johnny appears.
And speaking about Johnny, it fits the "make a character hateable" Yahtz is talking about. The problem is that I never stopped hating him.
Jackie was fantastic but I still think every character in that game could have benefited from 4 more hours of character development. He really nailed what a waste of resources that open world was.
I, for one, can't get out of the car without talking to Jackie one last time. Some runs I spend some minutes talking to the screen as if he, a fictional character could hear me.
Jackie, 'mano. Te quiero mucho.
For me, Jonny is the NPC you build, or don't build a friendship with. He can very much become your ride or die, even if he is you...
Kim Kitsuragi in Disco Elysium is perfect for a friend
YES, and it is also interesting that he is pretty much a mystery for the most of the story - but YET you can sense how he feels about things and what he thinks. Very good writing and voice acting.
“I see it too.”
@@Neophlegm Best moment in a game for me in decades
I always appreciated the relationship between Snake and Otacon, particularly in MGS4. I think that friendship comes across a little one sided because Snake is a distant and quiet person, but I feel like they still made it clear how important they were to one another.
Ngl, the dog in Fable 2 acts so much like a real one you genuinely get pissed when the villain literally shoots your dog. Granted the Knothole Island DLC lets you bring him back but still.
yea, well, that was becus of threats to the devs i believe, and calls you a cheater if you do so.
@@craigmccune6066 lol still didn't stop me
@@chiefkeef74 fair
I spent the entire game wondering when the dog was gonna do any of that stuff Stephen promised it would do.
One of the wishes you can pick at the end can bring him back also.
There was destroy the spire sparing all the people (does nothing), resurrect your family (including the dog) or 1,000,000 gold, which is honestly not very much gold.
The dog always seemed like the obvious option tbh.
The NPC I cared the most about is Curly Brace from Cave Story. Obviously, she's a cute little robot with a heart of gold (in your first encounter, she attacks you because she thinks you're threatening the helpless bunny-people she's taken under her wing), but the game does a good job at making her feel competent by giving her her own objectives and having an awesome team-up sequence with feel-good, triumphant music. She's also the only character like you in the whole game - the only other robot, which I think builds a lot of affinity right away.
And then she sacrifices herself to save you, and she has this inverted plot armor where she winds up dying in all but the most secret, hardest ending, and a lot of that route involves going out of your way to care for her (drain her when she's flooded, find the mushroom that restores her memory). All of her deaths are so understated. There's no one there to react to any of them except for you, the player (and in some of them she isn't even on screen). She feels strong, but also incredibly delicate. She doesn't seem to care about her own self-preservation at all, and you start to get this anxiety about keeping her safe. The game asks you to invest all this into Curly and then finally it gives you one more challenge (MUCH more difficult than anything else in the game) that you can't save her without completing (which features a return of the sick team-up aspect too). I defeated Ballos for Curly Brace and for no other reason, and I still go back to do it again from time to time.
So in summary, Cave Story uses the initial antipathy trick that Yahtzee mentioned, and it also makes her effective and what she's supposed to be doing. But it also does a few extra things I don't think Yahtzee mentioned - it establishes her as the only person "like you", and then it tightens the knot by making her doomed to die unless everything goes exactly perfectly (which I think only works after the game has establish a foundational emotional investment) - it draws out more and more investment from you until you're motivated enough to literally run Hell for her. She's a friend, she's a partner, she's the only one who "gets" you, and she's so star-crossed that the story is chomping at the bit to kill her off unless you stop it. I love her, and I love Cave Story so much. Such an earnest, horrifying, and cheerful trip that game is.
I love that you mentioned DS9, it does such a good job building believable friendships. Nog & Jake, Bashir & O'Brien, Sisko & Kira, Bashir & Garak. God I fucking love DS9.
Nick Valentine was absolutely my buddy in fallout 4.
I merc’d the entire BoS blimp because they hurt nick’s feelings
Honestly, the companions are easily the best part about Fallout 4. They help out in different ways that are specific to each character, actually make comments and interject when you're talking to NPCs, and you don't have to spam them with gifts to get them to like you. It feels like they put the level up system from Skyrim as their friendship system so that you gradually become better friends through in-game actions rather then just gifts and dialog prompts at certain plot or quest points. Sure, you can game it if you wanted to, but it feels more like a natural progression then most other friendship systems. I wish Bethesda had kept this system when developing other games.
One gameplay mechanic that I don’t think has received enough attention in recent years is the Skyrim mechanic, where you gain more levels purely in the things you do. Like being a stealth archer? You naturally get better at stealth archering. It does eventually become a matter of sunk costs, of course-perk points being the “you must sink resources into this character build” option. But I wonder why friendship mechanics aren’t simply Skyrim mechanics-become closer friends with the people you’re friends with. Take people on a lot of missions? Now they’re better at going on missions with you! Seems intuitive enough, which means it must be hard as hell to implement.
Fire Emblem Awakening kinda does this, and you can feel how important the NUMBER of occurrences is to make the progression feel natural - if you try to get everyone to a usable level, you'll often end up taking one underlevelled character to a random skirmish battle with a bunch of zombies, team them up with one of your strongest characters for passive stat boosts, and have them reap massive gains from singlehandedly killing things they're not supposed to be able to fight properly yet. And then after that one skirmish, they're immediately ready to advance their friendship level with the supporting character, because they just got dozens of "helping each other out" friendship points.
Presumably the devs balanced the friendship growth to the expected number of turns to clear X amount of missions, but when you use the "overlevelled moral support buddy" trick you end up with two characters spending dozens more turns together than they're supposed to.
There are a few games that build friendship points this way, but it tends to suck for the player.
As much sense as it makes to do it that way (spend more mission time together = better chance of friendship), it can be a real pain if narrative and gameplay clash. We want to be friends with X and Y, but A and B are much more helpful party members? We'll have to pick our poison, and that's unsatisfying.
The Bioware method may rub Yahtzee the wrong way, but it's a lot better than he gives it credit for. Shepard can bring anyone they want on most missions, but what matters most is which crew they spend time with between the action: having a drink, working out, calibrating the weapons, etc. That can make a lot of sense as well, as friendship-making convos are often had in a relaxed atmosphere when the people can open up to each other.
That's not to say the Bioware method is perfect though, as anyone who is playing anything but an unfeeling ponce can't have Morrigan in their party, because she hates everything.
As others have said (and Yahtzee mentions), that way means that you're dragging whomever you want to increase friendship with on your missions, regardless of if they actually make a coherent party or not.
I do think we need more of a blend of it though, where doing stuff with people naturally increases friendship, while making an effort outside of natural gameplay and/or things that increase the friendship while you're off adventuring with your party.
The most important part though is that the writers for it make it feel natural instead of forced, transactional, or arbitrary while also having the characters feel human.
Part of it might be because Skyrim doesn't have compelling characters as squadmates.
@@adamcetinkent Not all of us like having to trade story for gameplay.
I really like these semi-ramblomatic eps that cover a topic and then use games as examples to illustrate the point. That feels like a good framework, I hope it can keep going!
I would mark Pyre as the most successful in making me care about the NPCs, especially how the main game objective affects said relationships
Pyre is severely underrated
Hell yeah pyre is real good and the companions in that game are about as good as it gets
I feel like when you ask people who their favorite member of the team is, the answer is almost always the last one to be sent home, either out of some kind if gameplay necessity, or the genuine desire to have them around as much as you can in your time which is ultimately fleeting.
It was kind of both for Fae the Grey. She was the last high speed character on the team besides Bertrude's pounce.
@@Rehteal Pyre worked so well because of how it tightly integrated the player with the character that we're playing as. I didn't have to abstract or think 'in universe' about the consequences, my ability as a player to play and take on challenges directly tied to the characters i would be freeing. The entire game you're basically making it /harder/ for yourself per se by always kicking away your best/most comfortable to play characters. That tight connection between gameplay and story is the real juice that fuelled some of my fondest gaming memories.
In Dragon Age Origins, Morrigan was my cold mage which CCd stuff and i could not imagine myself playing the game without her. My main character was entirely secondary to her in combat. I also liked her as a character and we had max friendship/romance. So you can imagine my surprise when she pulls the whole demon baby thing at the end, and if you decline.. she... just goes away. She's not there for the final huge battle. The main character i've been relying on for the entire game. It broke my little mind back then and i stuck to my guns. Made the final battle much harder but i heavily indentified and emotionally connected with my character i was roleplaying. It's not that /he/ was feeling betrayed, ME, the player, was feeling betrayed.
main story spoilers for Pyre:
I don't think any game has made me cry multiple times in a single playthrough like Pyre does every time we get to the finals and I know the only thing victory gets me is saying goodbye to one of my teammates forever. Every time that fucking song started I'd *weep.*
The BioWare thing of friendships only progressing via gated conversations has always been deeply odd; Bethesda tried to rectify that a bit with the affinity system that allowed friendships to evolve simply by spending time together exploring and in combat. It's a model that I think works pretty well, and would likely sing if handled by a skilled writing team.
I think the problem is most players tend to use the same team for every mission. So out of 12 party members only 2 of them become friends. So bioware dialog friendship solutions made more sense for mass effect at least.
I don't think I've enjoyed the friendship system in any bioware game I've played that had it. I wouldn't call it deeply odd, so much as a deeply disturbing "buy your friends" kind of thing.
I've never been able to really get into any bethesda games. They always look like something I want to play, but they always lose me rather quickly. The only one I played for much more than a few hours was Starfield, and it did feel less disturbing than a bioware game, but it still felt like the same "push the right button to receive naughty bacon" system in the end.
Also, I love how you imply that bethesda lacks skilled writing teams :)
@@FlesHBoXI liked dragon age 2s approach. You are in one city with a gossipy population. Word of what you did is going to get back to your compatriots you didn't drag along for the ride.
If they liked it they grew closer to you and would advance their story in a yeah we have shared morals let's celebrate your actions.
If they didn't like it It the tone would be much more hostile. But notice I said hostile and not worse. Some characters had frankly better arcs if they did low key hate you and felt like you were sabotaging their plans and goals.
The one who comes most readily to mind is myrel who as much as it pains me to say it cause she's adorable and probably my favorite companion in that game, she has a much happier and healthier resolution to her arc if you constantly fight with her and she hates your guts.
Their stories will progress with or without you and by the end depending on how their stories played out they might even be against you for the final fight.
And you know, maybe that makes it a bit linear if they are going to do what they are going to do regardless and it's mostly how you influence them that changes the outcome. But I find that better than most games I will only find the courage to confront my past once ive trusted you enough to talk about my obsession with shoes *coughLilianacough*Too bad about the rest of that game being so garbage that they never tried any of the ideas from it again.
You actually did it . . . You suggested the concept of fucking Bethesda doing something better than BioWare . . . . . . Bruh
@@siegfread9683 Honestly, I think this is the first time I've ever heard anyone say ANYTHING positive about Dragon Age 2. Like, not here to say your subjective taste in things is wrong AT ALL, but man Myrel might be my least favorite character in ANY game. Everyone she knows and loves tells her repeatedly not to summon a demon. Then she summons a demon that kills everyone she knows and loves.
Fair enough as a backstory, but then she's 100% unrepentant and blames it on them. You can kind of work against that for her story, and that IS the better version of it, but she barely changes. And if you don't push against her she becomes an even bigger asshole. Not to mention she does literally the same thing again in the story TO YOU, and if you survive she is again wholly unrepentant for it.
Man. If the game seemed like it was trying to get you to hate Myrel, I would have applauded it, but no she's intended to be one of the main love interests. I'm glad it worked for you, but man she was difficult for me not to hate. I try to love everybody, but she's fictional and awful. Either way, you have fun out there Sieg.
Channeling C. S. Lewis's definition of friendship vs. romance there in the beginning, nice and succinct. Speaking of which, anyone looking to better understand the contrast between forms of relationships should read/listen to Lewis's "The Four Loves". He shows how (the natural loves) each manifest both positively and negatively.
It’s pretty old game, but I find how they handle Elizabeth pretty compelling in Bioshock Infinite.
As you progress through the game, you unlock mechanics for her, which is presented as interactions between her and the protagonist.
The story also does a good job pacing it, as it really wants you to become invested in her for the big reveal at the end.
It doesn’t feel that old…
I especially like that she's helpful. When you run out of ammo, she will sometimes throw you a freshly-loaded rifle etc. She doesn't always do that I think, but often enough that when you're in a pinch there's a likelihood that Elizabeth will save you, making her your partner and making you appreciate her.
@@zachdude4284 Reletively old. Really its because the studio shut down before they could finish the DLC.
Crosscode does a great job at making the main cast feel like friends that you just made in a online game
I'll always recommend CrossCode. I think the dialogue is pretty naturalistic and I love the dynamic Lea has with her friends; her being mute and everyone else trying their best to communicate with her and not just talk her ear off. I think it's great when the game has to *show* her love for her friends instead of having her outright say she loves friendship and stuff.
I just started last week. I have a mighty need to punch Apollo, so I'm expecting to love him by the end of the game xD
Also Toby rattling off animal facts just gives me life
Oh my goooods, Crosscode was good at that. And they manage to leverage those friendships for drama in phenomenal ways.
Godsdammit, I almost wanna replay it for a third time now! XD
Spiritfarer broke my heart spectacularly several times in a row and I’m grateful for it
Sorry Yahtzee but you are wrong...........The best friendship in DS9 is between Odo and Quark.
Garak and Bashir is pretty up there too, I feel.
@@twistsnakeanklesvids261 Winner
funny how no one ever wants to mention the Twovix's when it comes to StarTrek buddies 😋
Quark and Morn? Sisko and Dax? Jake and Nog?
I'd say it definitely speaks to DS9's strengths how it's got so many iconic friendships between different characters.
I've got to nominate Karlach as best video game friend. She's arguably the most useful party member, your relationship score goes up organically for being heroic, helping the innocent and usual protagonist stuff and she has one line late in the game that hit me in the feels harder than any Bioware romance ever did.
*spoilers*
Something close to: "Will you stay with me? When it's time for me to go? Because with you around I feel like I can do anything. Even die."
Definitely agree with you here! I've never done her romance yet, but her platonic route felt nearly as important to my run as any of the romantic stuff! Very affecting!
Marcus, Dom, Baird, and Cole from the Gears of War series. I had a blast listening to everyone bantering back and forth - even in the middle of a firefight - and watching their stories play out really hit me in that part of the body I don't think I have.
The example that immediately springs to mind is Solaire from Dark Souls, in an extremely gritty world of violence, death and despair, early on you meet an extremely sincere knight in shining armour who offers to help you with difficult boss fights at your request. After hours of laboriously forcing your way through castles of monsters, you find a bonfire and a moment of calm and you see Solaire again and he might make a lighthearted comment that allows you to believe everything is going to be ok, if only for a moment. From a game mechanic perspective, he's unobtrusive and only talks to you if you strike up a conversation, and you have to go out of your way to request his help. From a story perspective, to me Solaire is the emotional heart of the story, he's the reason you'd even want to try and prolong this dying world at all, it's a gut punch moment in the story even if you know how to save him, if he dies to the Sunlight Bug you can imagine that he perhaps dies happy, if he survives he falls into a depression, but Miyazaki has suggested that if Solaire survives and you summon him to fight Gwyn then he links the fire in his own world like he wanted.
I remember playing through DS1 with a friend, doing every boss we could together, I was his summon through Gwyn first but we were sad to find out the game wouldn't let me summon him as he had finished, I had followed the saving solaire quest line but had forgotten about it until I saw that golden sign. Sun bro had my back
I'm reminded of Xcom. They aren't friends, exactly, but there's a helluvan impact when they die.
I don't think it even needs a mechanic - just some good cutscenes and immersive dialogue could really bring out the blubbering when your Colonel Assault gets crushed by a Muton Beserker
Xcom is proof of the "does their job" rule lol. Only the ones that follow that rule get the good armour.
While being a mod, the best example I have to an npc that feels like a friend is Inigo from Skyrim. It was always a delight to talk to him
Yeah he was great. I especially liked that they made it so he felt like he was a part of the world and not just a voice that talks about the world. Him asking Lydia a question and her giving answer will never cease being great.
The first mod I always install in a new Skyrim game
Oh Inigo is the only mod that I consider a requirement for anyone wanting any companion experience. My boy has been through hell and back in so many of my games and I love him to bits
I was hoping to find mention of Inigo, given the topic. Such an essential mod, every time I play.
Sometimes I feel him a bit "trying too hard" but otherwise a well written character. Probably his best trait is to react to the surrounding world and events make him more alive. I don't think that a developer team could write ALL of the NPCs this well, you can't task a writer to work on only one NPC but yeah, Inigo as one of the best companion for sure.
There's no Shepard without Vakarian
The best bro in all of scifi, hands down. Fem shep or Male shep, Garrus was always number 1 companion.
When Jennifer Hale recorded that line, she said legitimately choked up a little. If the VAs feel it, you know the player will too.
Garrus "Calibrations" Vakarian
Actually there can be : you can finish the 1st game without Turian Dirty Harry or get Turian Batman killed during the suicide mission. But Garrus really comes into his own in the 3rd game so that would be a real shame
Shepard + Garrus + Tali. No other trio.
Of course, Undertale told us one of the only real answers to making friends with an NPC, you write them well. It's an easy answer to give and difficult to actually practice, but I'll remember my time with Papyrus and Undyne a lot longer than the token 'friend' characters thrown into most games.
This vid explained why Sans is actually my favorite character in that game. It's essentially Yahtzee's "rival to friend" arc in reverse, where the only way to proceed is to betray the character you spent all this time making friends with. Also the music o/c.
People say "marry your best friend"
but then I'd have to pick one..
No, polyamory
@@youtubeuniversity3638 I like my waifu harems as much as the next anime nerd, but in reality that just ends up with the "Child wives and roving bands of young men with no prospects" situation that you may have heard works out so well in certain sandy countries.
We don't do that. It's important that we don't do that. Really important.
@@ActuatedGearI did not expect to encounter someone doing racist stereotypes of sexism in this comment section
@@Wertsdsf It happens in Utah too. Get over yourself. It has nothing to do with race. It's a religious doctrine about polygamy. Polygamy results in child brides and roving bands of young men with no prospects.
There are two Religions of current prominence which feature polygamy. They both have these same problems. One has a population of 17 million. The other is about 1.9 billion. Same problem for the same doctrine.
Honestly, my ideal type of romance (both irl and in media) basically _is_ an upgraded friendship- both/all parties involved already regarded each other with affection, and it eventually became something deeper. It's a mistake to _assume_ friendship will lead to romance, but it _can_ happen, so in that sense I see no inherent issue with romance being the endpoint of a friendship mechanic, at least for some NPCs. (Indeed, variance is exactly what might help- not everyone has a romance option, so it might help make it more special when someone does.)
In any case, well-written dialogue honestly seems like a necessity, both for friendship and romance. I would argue that's why games like Fable fall short (characters give stock deliveries of stock phrases and behaviors, so it's harder to see them as anything but NPCs unless you're actively filling in the gaps), while a game like, say, Hades pulls it off incredibly well.
This is an extension of the thing he said at the start. Friendships are a lot more stable. So building a romantic relationship on a platonic one feels a lot more stable, secure. You already know the others quirks and if you're close enough friends taking things in a romantic direction might feel like a relatively minor advancement.
At least in theory. I've never even romantically held hands with anyone so what do I know.
Here's the 500th comment about Kim Kitsuragi while also mentioning Jackie from Cyberpunk 2077 and also Johnny Silverhand. I only knew Jackie for about an hour or so in the prologue but it actually bummed me out when he died cause he was cool as fuck and him dying on tne job in our arm sucked
It's an interesting contrast with Goro Takemura, who I also started thinking of as a friend. The humanizing touches like him accidentally sending his sushi and ramen search terms to V went a long way to making him more than the guy who fished us out of the landfill.
It may be cliché, and it's certainly not perfect (being points based for a start), but Fallout: New Vegas did friend/companion relationships really well imo. Many different levels to the relationship, more personal background stories only relayed after building that relationship, multiple "red lines" that will end the relationship which are believable, and none of them are "romanceable". The player character has real impact on the friend/companion's life, both in-game and post-game (end-slides). Companion perks change based on the player choices for the relationship, and are very useful.
Again: far from perfect. Being able to speech-check your way out of a heinous act the friend/companion obviously objects to, there is a definite "end" to the level of progression of the relationship where there is nothing to do, some companions are objectively more useful than others, suffers from "I'm joining you and there's nothing you can do about it" that many games have, etc.
It's an interesting topic. I honestly can't think of a single time I've felt much for a narrative based friendship. Maybe the protag of oneshot counts? She isn't really a friend though, so much a thing to protect. The real friendship and attachment tends to come from ludonarrative. Your pokemon in a nuzlocke, your random NPC guard that happened to have survived 3 fights that killed the rest, etc. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I realize how much defying the odds helps.
If you give me a village with 10 random NPCs, they mean nothing, but if the village gets invaded and they all die...they still meant nothing, but if the village gets invaded and 1 lives, now I've got some attachment. If that villager survives a second time though, thats where I get really attached.
I remember back to my first time playing ark, which is an evil game with some good stuff in it. I tamed a sabertooth tiger fairly early on and it survived several different incredibly unlikely scenarios by the skin of it's teeth. At one point I died in a battle against other players, and it killed the person that killed me, then chased wild dinos that attacked it like a mile away, meaning other enemy players didn't find it. I eventually found it myself when it was on the brink of starvation. Another time I died when I was with it in the middle of the ocean and had to make my way across the whole map to get back to it. I was sure it'd die but it hung on against some megalodons and drowning until I made it back and it lived with single digit hp (fortunately the chunk must have been unloaded when I died, really lucky no other players were nearby). Finally, our entire base got wiped out while I was offline but somehow it survived, having chased something away from the base. All other 33 of our dinos died, our tribe quit except me, but it lived.
That's by far the most attached I've been to the character. Hell, I kept playing the stupid game for like 3 more weeks cause I didn't want to leave it to die. Eventually when I did quit, I left it in a hidden cave loaded up with as much food as it could hold and said goodbye.
If you want to make a truly great friendship system, I think it NEEDS to react to what happens with the player. Having it fondly recall important gameplay moments would be great. The only system that sorta but not really comes to mind here is the nemesis system from shadow of mordor/war. It has the random events and reacts and changes based on how they go. There's enough of them that some can afford to be killed off giving you that attachment to the survivors.
Talk about friend back story reminded me of Silverhand "reveal" in Cyberpunk 2077. You start with clearly sociopathic, violent entity in your head. But you can do his story reveal bit by bit. And you start to get where he is coming from. CD Project Red narrative team is amazing in what they do here with his character story. They have very similar approach to some of NPCs for side story lines in Witcher series. There is always secret with your "friends".
Also while it might give people unhealthy expectations about friendship progression, idea of romance being as end game of friendship is alluring and very human one.
Sometimes when I play through a game a second time, I'll make different choices to try and experience all of the content. But I just can't be a jerk to some of the characters in Cyberpunk 2077. Johnny has such a good character arc when you help him come to terms with his past, and it leads to a chain of side quests that is probably my favorite in a game, ever.
The entire squad of the Nightwings in Pyre.
It's not perfect, but I think _Recettear_ has some good ideas on this front. For one, it can embrace the transactional elements of many video game friendships because it's specifically about being a merchant. You're encouraged to sell good weapons and armor to your adventurer friends because it helps you in dungeons while also letting you pay your mounting bills.
Recette's other friendships are similarly complicated. Tear is your friend and guide, but she also represents the agency that may foreclose on your house. Alouette presents herself as a rival, but she's actually one of your best customers.
And the nicest adventurers are also the poorest, meaning you've likely got to go out of your way to undercharge them if you want them to have better gear.
A good trick is to not make it so obvious you are supposed to like them. A lot of games over-characterize their NPC these days, and it always feels super manipulative. Keep the characterization light, but give us some intrigue. It's a lot better than just saying this character is your best friend
Honestly I'd like for simulated relationships to not be entirely linear: Not a scale from indifferent/antagonistic to either 100% completion, whether that is platonic or romantic. Relationships can have mixed emotions tied to them and I want a NPC who, depending on what you do and how the game just kinda goes, can say "I'd march with you to hell if necessary but, Sweet Pazuzu, you have a punchable face and I sure as fuck will not be loaning you money." There are a lot of different ways a relationship can go. Do they enjoy spending time with you or do they find you insufferable and prefer respecting you from a distance? Do they like you and find you sympathetic while also not trusting you because you are a murderhobo guile hero who requires they put locks on the liquor cabinet? Are they happy being led or do they want to stand out in front to protect you without being asked? Are they a loveable mooch or a poisonous friend who ends up helping you in ways that make you a worse person?
People are complicated, relationships multiply the complications of the first person with the complications of the second, and I want as much of that shoved into my face as technology and production levels allow.
Doesn't Dragon Age 2 kinda do that, with "Rivalry" and "Friendship" being two separate stats?
The absolute, undisputed best and most well-written supporting character friend in any game ever is still Kim from Disco Elysium. He's remarkably understanding of your needs, very competent to the point where he can pick up your slack, but doesn't trivialize things, and does really weird friend-like inside jokes with you, along with a few spoilery things
Absolutely, I still think back to Shadow of War and my favored bodyguard Pushkrimp the Raven. He saved my bacon more times than I remember and was an absolute unit in battle; I made it a point to redeploy him to whatever zone I was going to be in for long periods of time.
You mention Navi and Fi being constant nagging presences, yet Midna also is a constant presence who initially, and openly, uses Link for her own means and then grows on the player to the point where when she gets sick, teenage me is hauling ass across the map in order to save her because nobody is taking my Midna from me.
Christ it's not like you played a lot of footage from bioware games but ever since you mentioned bioware face I can't unsee it
I agree with everything in this video; however, it also serves as further evidence that Yahtz didn’t really get enough time with Baldur’s Gate 3 because to my mind there’s no better friendship simulator than that game
I dont remember the last time i cried harder than I did with Spiritfarer.
I like Fi, and I got sad when she said goodbye. It was like making friends with someone severely autistic and seeing her develop to express emotion at the end hit hard for me.
@@howizee She doesn't say 'goodbye', though. She announces that "our necessary companionship has come to an end" and asks us to "dissolve our relationship as Master and Servant."
My jaw hit the floor at that moment. Her mannerisms are weird, she doesn't know how to respect boundaries, and this meeting could have been an email, but... Is *that* what you think about our relationship? I thought we were past that: I thought we were friends.
She has another go at actually articulating her feelings later, but what a moment that was.
@seancoleman3850 that is precisely how someone that is severely autistic and struggles to process and express emotions behaves. And that final attempt to do it is sweet, especially when you have family and have worked with people with those struggles.
Regarding friends produced through gameplay, Shadow of Mordor / War did such a great job with this concept through the Nemesis system. I had this one orc archer who I thought was just gonna be a throw away captain turn out to be one of my most reliable body guards throughout the game. He was a true friend.
@4:38 That's where Owlcat's games do a great job: having people in the party who make a bad first impression makes those you like immediately better too, because working with both people you like and people you don't because circumstances are forcing your hand feels quite natural.
That's also where something like Starfield fails: you have sort-of antagonistic relations with people at the start, but they do nothing that makes you value them, so the entire experience is just one long sour note.
Yeah, Regill is a grand example of that I'd say.
That’s a really good point he makes about making the character unlikable at first. I never thought about that.
It’s a good way of immediately getting some kind of emotion out of the audience which keeps them from feeling indifferent.
Plus, it compliments the humility that will be instilled in the character during the hardships they’re faced with over the course of a typical story.
Our hatred turns to satisfaction when the character is humbled which can then turn to admiration as the character learns and grows as a person.
It's that saying, the oppossite of love isn't hate, it's apathy. You can do something with any emotion, it's engaging. Apathy, the thing that doens't give you anything to work with, is the worst.
I think one of the best examples of a best friend in a video game is Joe Barbaro from Mafia 2.
He swings between genuinely comical and barely likeable while being relentlessly on your team, even when it seems suicidal.
One of the standout missions from that game was him accidentally whacking somebody and needing your help to get rid of them, you have to drive out into the middle of nowhere and dig a big hole with him while he's cracking wise.
By the end of the game you really get the impression this idiot would take a bullet for you.
@@AdventureAlbert genuinely finished replaying it couple days ago and he absolutely is a friend. Makes total sense why Vito and Joe make decisions which make little sense outside of their brother-like love (including the many many insults)
I quite like the Last of us 1 way of getting us to interact and bond with a character through little QuickTime events like high fives or something similar which you can fully miss and ignore and the characters respond to that or thank you for taking the time to interact with them which adds a bit of attachment
Wait, hold on. That first part about breaking down a key difference between romance and friendship was actually pretty amazing.
Cyberpunk by the end genuinely made feel like I lost actual friends. It isn't just the mechanics. It's their stories being simultaneously relevant to the plot and irrelevant in the big picture. They were stories realistic to the setting where you could actually understand and feel for them while also being part of the plot in a smaller way.
The NPC I've ever been most fond of is Delilah in Firewatch.
And you NEVER EVEN SEE HER
Ohh dear this brings back memories. One of perfect examples of incredible voice acting. You can fall in love with her despite not seeing her at all.
100%. Shows the power of good voice acting
I like Malroth from Dragon Quest Builders 2. From the moment you meet him, he helps out by hitting enemies harder and collecting materials faster than the player can. When you're in a base, he wanders around the area where you're building - almost like he's patrolling the area for you. He even hi-fives you when you complete certain projects! Having him there as a core part of the gameplay makes it super easy to get attached to him (and since the story of the game depends on the friendship between him and the player character, it's pretty important that you do).
Theres a aimilar mechanic in the Visual Novel game "I Was A Teenage Exocolonist" where you passively gain friendship just by apending time with people as you build up your stats.
(Great Indie game by the way, 100% reccommend.)
As I am currently playing Destroy all humans 2 ... My favourite friendship/romance arc is between crypto and Nataliya
The bickering, fun convos they are amazing
Weirdly the character I feel I’ve connected to as a friend the most is the previous ranch owner from Slime Rancher, a character you never interact with or actually see
The best example I've ever seen was actually a mod, the Vilja companion for Oblivion and Skyrim. (The one Terry Pratchett helped make.) She had SO many interactions and functions that she truly felt like a *companion* and not just a lackey. She can even take control of the party and lead you to a dungeon that she wants to explore, which makes her feel so much more real.
On top of that, she does have her own stories to tell, which advance in parallel to the main game, as well as talking about her past adventures when you come upon familiar locations. Hell, in Oblivion (not sure about Skyrim) when you buy a home she even acquires a dog on her own, and you start to feel like a little family. I've never had another NPC companion who felt even half as alive as her.
Garrus in mass effect was the best bro any man could want
Heck yes. He is ultimate space bro.
6:08 I wonder if at least tacking on a small chunk of randomness and making it also so there isn't a readily identifiable best path to friendship up could help sell the illusion?
Like, even if a best path is calculated, if a new run has new math that changes what that best route is with no player facing indication that makes it EXPLICITLY clear, then at bare minimum maybe players will feel more inclined to up the friend stat in ways thag "feel right" rather than ways that are simply "optimal".
Also, the idea of you making friends by just accountong for their input with stuff you'd do anyways seems neat. Like, you'll need to do a supply run no exceptions, so it's not too bad to buy X brand instead of the exact same cost and quality Y brand for the only person on the whole ship who is able to tell the difference.
And repairs can't be avoided, but doing them in a specific order for the comfort of one crew member when the order is otherwise irrelevant seems fine enough.
And, sure buddy, I'll pick orange next time the ship needs a repaint to cover up all the flaking.
Heck, maybe have someone who simply asks you for a hug.
So the lesson is make your characters hateable and then proceed to make their life miserable, no, wait...
Some would say that's just writing fiction in general.
A wise person once said that good characters are like geodes. In order to see how beautiful they are you have to _break them_
I think the first ratchet and Clank on PS2 is a great example of this concept played out. Ratchet and Clank really bond and you feel that bond stress, grow, and almost break at points in the story.
The Travelers from Outer Wilds
Great friend in a video game? Murray the Demonic Skull from Curse of Monkey Island. You start out antagonistic, but by the end there is a pretty enjoyable interplay between him and Guybrush.
yes, ED-E from fallout new vegas, next question
The end of Lonesome road really tugged at my heartstrings
First thought on seeing this title: "A smile better suits a hero."
For those who know, you either think I'm a moron or are nodding in agreement. For those who don't, that's the final quote from an npc in a goddamn mmorpg of all things, and that character's arc and death have stuck with me in a way few other characters have.
I'm a level 100 Paladin main and I still carry the haurchefant house shield that I was gifted after his death - I keep glamouring whatever one I switch to so as to keep his memory alive. Such a great character and I completely agree - love that they've called back to him a few times in later expansions and story events as well.
Interesting on several levels.
I’ve seen the best romances being between people who were already friends in some capacity, or else whose romance took on friendship elements later. “Partner” isn’t just a polite euphemism for queer SO’s.
I didn’t realize Allison was supposed to be hatable? Like, she wasn’t obnoxious and she wasn’t rude to her classmates; I can see how she might not make friends but while I can see her being invisible to most and hated by a few… She just seemed to be an awkward nerdy type who cared more about getting a headpat from the teacher than much else.
The hateable trait is so true.
Apart from that, would love to see a game which gave you extra voice lines or backstory based on favorite loadout or approach. Would be hilarious to troll cheaters or speed runners with it as well.
"loading coins into a person-shaped vending machine so that we can press the button that makes sex come out"
Two NPCs in _Planescape: Torment_ who are aiming for a "friend" role are Morte and Dak'kon Blackblade. That's oversimplifying - both relationships are complex - but that's certainly part of it. Note that you have to become a Wizard to see a lot of Dak'kon's story.
Morte is the kinda.... Skull... That I would want on this crazy roadtrip called life
I think the main thing about friendship in games is that it should be about how much you interact with the NPC and generally be a good pal to them, rather than present stuffing. It felt weird in Hades that to become closer with the other characters, it wasn't enough to just spend time talking and listening to them, I needed to resource manage nectar to maybe perhaps possibly unlock the next stage. Friendship should not be about resource management unless that resource is time!
This very much. I also hate 'feeding' anything for progression. Yathzee nailed it, make me do the things i do already. Have challenges that tie into the mechanics i'm already engaged with. Blacksmith friend liking me more because i crafted a few daggers? Makes perfect sense. We get to talk about blacksmithing stuff together.
Absolutely, Garrus from Mass Effect was one of the driving factors of my playthroughs, even if it was sub-optimal I always picked him as one of my squadmates if I could.
Paradoxically the "friendship" system I've been most invested in was the one in Dragon age 2, because you could become close to your companions without actually becoming their chums and liking every single thing they did.
For npc friendships that felt very genuine I can't help but think of "In Stars and Time" and "Small Saga", both games I played recently.
In Stars and Time you get to very intimately get a feel of every character's personality and how they'd react to certain situations and in Small Saga your main character at times gets utterly side-lined and has to be pulled back into the fight by his companions, they become just as much a driving force in the plot as he does.
Garrus is my best friend. He’s my pal. He’s my home-boy, my rotten soldier. He’s my sweet cheese, my good-time boy.
Gothic 1 and 2 was extremly good at this. You meet a few very friendly faces over the course of the game and 2. fun was partially finding them again and seeing what they have been up to since 1.
Diego stands out here as a friend and early mentor.
I was looking for this comment.
The early titles did a really good job at making you grow those loose ties you have with Diego, Lester, Lares etc. by going on quests with them and slowly integrating you in the group. I like that there's some nuance , you're never best buddies from the start (except maybe Lester?) and at least in G1 you never completely lose the feeling of being an outsider.
2:21 And yet people wondered what happened to Navi, somehow missing the fact she flew off at the end of the game and the entire point of the starting plot of Majora's Mask was Link going to find her.
I think potential lost content can hand holding are two potential. Problems with both is most dev/publishers don't want to put in the effort.
For hand holding I mean some older JRPG represent it best along with the mass effect. Where something like BG3 got closer but made everyone player focused. I mean where the player is the support character in a NPC story. Where that NPC is truly independent and you want to hold them hand to the final act of their story. Carry them up the mountain for them to destroy the thing before You go and beat the Evil lord
The other is you never feel like pissing off a NPC will honestly effect stuff. Thus they can't be your friend because they are bound to you by the power of plot. Very few times do you say have to make a choice between say BFF and Love interest. Star field attempted is and broke itself trying to make that work and failed for it.
In Dark Cloud 2 there was a few characters where you didn't want to continue the game because the moment you did, they'd be gone for good. Usually they weren't exactly friends, and some of the related characters did hang around as people you could move into towns you built, but to improve on the theme I'd have liked to see town objects like statues and so on that represented the characters who were now gone for good, and maybe including the characters in later parts of the story could have given it more of a feeling of friendship. There was villain characters you end up wishing could have joined on the journey at a few points too.
Dark cloud 1 was better
Dark Cloud 2 has such good villains. It had a good variety of everything from pure evil monsters to sympathetic anti-villains. I like how the game makes you absolutely DESPISE certain characters...only to make you cry for them later.
The question of how to make relationship progress feel less mechanical in games is a topic that I return to over and over. It was nice to hear your take on it.
2:00 "Legion the answer to your question is yes"
"I know Tali, keelah salai"
o7 robot Jesus!
What enamoured me so much to Kim in Disco Elysium was how he was always amazingly uncritical of you, even when you were doing the most bizarre or downright deranged things possible. Turns out what I want in a friend is someone who is patient and accepts me no matter what
Well yes. Back when Bioware used to be good. The best DLC for an RPG was released back in the day for Mass Effect 3 and if that didn't make you feel like your friends with your crew then no game will.
Even without the Citadel DLC, Garrus is one of the best "buddy" NPCs in videogames.
5:22 This "So I gave it some thought" strategy as illustrated is hilarious if not very true.
I always kinda liked the NPC Serana in Skyrim. She started cold and a bit distrustful of you, but opened up towards the end. She also wasn't a romance target (because romance doesn't make narrative sense) so it never felt like I was putting coins into a vampire shaped vending machine until the sex came out.
If we're talking about "Skyrim" NPCs, then Erandur is hands down my favorite companion in the entire game. You get to know him through the "Waking Nightmare"-quest, which is one of the more interesting quests of the game, imho. You learn a great deal about Erandurs troubled past, and that even though he has done some bad things, he is going out of his way to right those wrongs. There is an option to kill Erandur, but if you let him live you can ask him to follow you after completing the quest. He's not essential in any way, but I like his voice and his battle quips.
Erandur doesn't have plot-armor, so he can die. I found this out the hard way after yet another fight at Valtheim Towers, where I suddenly lost sight of him. After looking everywhere, I found his body outside, covered in arrows. It was a hard moment for me, and I still leave flowers when I pass that spot. His mace won't despawn, so I know where he fell.
Serana was, at one point, planned to be romanceable, but her voice actress, Laura Bailey, suggested that it would be weird and Bethesda cancelled those plans. You can still ask her to marry you, but she refuses, saying that she's uneasy around temples, and that she has a complicated history. Look up "Daughter of Coldharbour" if you don't know what that's about. (CW: implied sexual assault)
Appreciated the DS9 comparison a lot, I really need to re-watch that show. Honestly the GOAT
NPC's? Friends? Haha silly Yahtzee, whoever could consider an NPC a friend..
*cant bring himself to play the ME trilogy in Renegade style at all*
I do think a big part of what makes a friendship work in a game is that the character has to be someone that you want around for more than just gameplay purposes. Namely, the writing behind them has to give me a reason to care about them as a character outside of just combat.
Using Mass Effect as an example, (and not going with the obvious Garrus or Tali), I almost never used Mordin in actual combat, and he wasn't my favorite character, but due to the various conversations with him throughout, you learn more about him and build up a sense of comradery as you see that there's more to him than just a scientist for the sake of a couple of plot points. You learn he has stared in musicals and deeply regret the necessity of unleashing the genophage. He has depth to him that makes him feel "alive". This in turn makes it all the harder for the player when, (depending on your choices), in the third game you have to let him sacrifice himself to cure the genophage, and while doing so he's quietly singing the musical to himself.
Compare this to any number of NPC allies who show up in various games that might be quippy or do a lot more from a gameplay perspective, but don't really have a personality beyond whatever their quick archetype is. Characters like most Bethesda NPCs, or allies in FPS games. They tend to be characters you tend to barely think about in the moment, much less after the game is over. Sure, they might do something every now and then that's cool, or have a good moment as a quirk of the AI that will last with you, but most of the time if you replaced them with any other random NPC, nothing would have changed much.
With well written characters like Mordin, or quite a few others from classic Bioware games or other games that develop their characters, if you take the time to get to know them, they leave you with a sense of "who" they are long after you've stopped playing. That in turn leads them to feeling like friends, rather than just "allies".
"Had to be me. Someone else might have gotten it wrong."
How are y'all doing over at Second Wind?
Kingdom Come: Deliverance does this well, too. Hans Capon. He seems like a GIANT asshole at first. After a few of his quests, I thought to myself "he's just an entitled, dumb kid.. I actually like him."
The medieval ryuji
Can we please read that monologue at gunpoint to every Lord of the Rings reader/viewer who ever came away with "Sam is gay for Frodo"
"Have them stick around for a while"
This is 1 of the main reasons why I didn't care a single bit about Jackie's death in Cyberpunk.
The comparison between Navi and Midna was RIGHT THERE. Cuz Midna is friend. Navi is the worst.
@@melimsah Fr... The fact that he would rather talk about Fay instead of Midna. We don't even need to go there, Tatl from Majora's Mask is already a stark contrast to Navi and fits his narrative of "enemies to friends" well.
@@julianuribe9734I maintain that Fi was designed by someone who was tired of his creation Navi getting shit on, and resolved to give us something worse.
I'll be honest, I never minded Navi that much. That fucking owl with his "Are you disinclined to not want to see my unskippable wall of text again?" bit was a lot worse.
@@bificommander7472Oh god did the owl have ANY purpose other than giving Rarou something to do?
@@BJGvideos It's especially evil that sometimes you need to say Yes and sometimes No to not have him repeat. Good news though, there's one quick way to tell: Whatever the cursor is on by default is the repeat-everything options. Which you will find out when you're mashing B to get through the text slightly faster one time too many.
It's more he could have used Midna as an example of friend instead of that cryptmaster guy, but I guess Midna could have had more. She was definitely friend by the end to me