You'reThatMantis “I’m the only character that’s not entirely on board with your murderhobo playstyle.” Every player in existence: “So... it’s treason then.”
I suddenly need a story from the mentor's perspective. Where he's the one trying to keep the dumb young punk chosen one alive and constantly cheating death in the process.
I love how undertale keep pop up all the time in the episode but never get mention by speech xD Yes undertale surely haves some of the most lively npcs
Kind of unfair to compare underdale to skyrim in this context. Skyrim is all about the player fulfilling a powerfantasy in fighting dragons and exploration. Undertale is built in an entirely different way with a greater focus on characters. It would be like comparing the total gross income of banana companies in a random South American country to say Germany or France. Obviously a random South American country is going to have better rates of banana sales due to their environments and their market is tailored for selling produce suited to those environments. But to then use this comparison as some kind of stick to hammer Germany and France as worse countries to live in is pretty dishonest.
LOL ya, this is basically the other of TobyFox's talents (main one is being a ZUN-level composer); populating his games with NPCs so unique and special they could all be protagonists on their own
said character has won what was basically a popularity poll of the franchise. granted that many other popular characters have already been removed due to winning previous rounds, but still
You: the dragon born, head mage at the college in winter hold, leader of the thieves guild, thane of the jarl, etc. Etc. ETC. Guard in whiterun: who are you?
@@sabbathjackal They make an effort, actually. "Psst - I know who you are. Hail Sithis!" Admittedly there aren't _too_ many lines like that, and by your 80th hour or so you've probably heard them all to death.
@@DragoniteSpam "Is that... fur? Coming out of your ears?" heard seconds before the guard was arrested for public indecency, swearing up and down he was JUST wearing his armor a second ago.
Strange that you didn't discuss another character that are very often in need of depth: *love interests.* I've lost count the love interest characters who are just kinda "there". You're told the protagonist cares very much about them, but you hardly see why. What made this person special? What are their backstory? What are their beliefs? We often don't see that because the love interest is just either the eye candy, the damsel in distress, the satellite, the motivator, the character the protagonist arbitrarily hooked up and then proceeds to forget about, just a proof the protagonist isn't a "loser loner" or just there to die so the protagonist can be sad. I mean I swear 90% of action movie and anime love interests are one dimensional.
I think one good example of love interest well made would be zelda in breath of the wild. Through her journal and flashback you really get to learn how she was has a person. You get to see motivation, fear, jealousy, a full person.
A great example of this is the gatekeeper from fire emblem three houses. He literally does nothing but stand and ask you about your day. But it's done with such earnest that everyone loves him and he got into the fire emblem stage in smash bros.
Overheard in Horizon Zero Dawn during a party: NPC: It's bad enough that you're drunk! Why do you have to climb houses!? It's lines like this that add life to your world.
Undertale is one of the best games I have ever played, because of how I got attached to them, because they had enough depth for me to see them as real.
One of my favorite moments in Breath of the Wild was a line from a generic NPC. There's a girl staying at one of the stables, and every night, she goes out to look at a nearby river, where she gets attacked by a bokoblin. One time, I saved her, and she started going back to the stable. So I walked her back, and when we got back to the stable I talked to her again and she said something like, "Thanks, I feel so much safer with you around!" That made me happy, because it felt like the game was acknowledging what I did even though it wasn't an official action assigned to a button or menu.
On the other hand the 2D or even 1D character is often good for game readability. Just like you, the player, know that you don't have to care about any door where the knob or handle is part of the door texture and can instead focus on the important parts of the battlefield and the doors with modeled opening devices you know that the barkeep who polished his counter and tells you his hotel is as clean as an elven arse is a health recovery point and not important to the political intrigue game that is the focus of your quest. They also make other characters, who are important to what is going on, stand out in comparison. So while you shouldn't skimp out on fleshing out NPCs it's also important to know when a balnd one note character is good enough. If by the further away from the main characters of the story you get the less developed the NPCs become that can also be a way to tell players that they are on the wrong track. A bit of hot and cold leading them back to where the meat of the game is.
^This. Characters are tools in a narrative, a different characters serve different functions. While it is absolutely a good idea to flesh out some characters, others not only can be allowed to go less developed, but it would be detrimental to do so. In traditional media, how well a character is developed directly affects pacing and length; you don't have _time_ to flesh them all out, while also serving the goals of the narrative as a whole. Of course, the most effective storytelling is often that which can convey a great deal in a small package. The tavern keeper who hangs a broken sword over the bar. The villain's henchman who never touches things with his bare hands. An elder statesman whose mansion is quiet and empty, save for vases full of long dead flowers and faded portraits of the man with a woman the audience never sees. A mentor who says, "I've seen more than my fair share of students who went on to tragic success; sadly, you, too, have the look of potential in you".
That is actually great advice. I was wondering whether there was a benefit from trying to make every character three-dimensional but this is a good argument against it.
The number of Baldur's Gate NPC's I talked to because having a name instead of "Shopkeep" or "Noble" made me think there might be a quest or important info in their dialogue...
@@pianoguy222 Yeah, got kingdom come on the free sale, and lots of the npc's has actual names, which so far seems to imply there is at the very least a minor side-quest starring them. Though it is to the point where I think they would do better to lower the number and make more npc's star in multiple quests instead, as with this many, even named ones start feeling unpersonal. Also, makes me scared of killing a quest-giver by mistake, even though they snubbed me unknowingly when they didn't accept my stolen goods, or started calling for a guard because I accidentally pickpocketed them when trying to initiate a trade. Or worse, got mad at me for something I couldn't have known (like I wanted to talk to them so I intruded in their private space or trespassed, but they disliked that. Or that time some quest-npc decided sleeping during the night was acceptable (killed some of his coworkers, then googled and found out shooting an arrow at the ground near them wakes them up).
Memorable Npcs you say? He was the very model of a scientist salarian. I still cry to this day. Godspeed Mordin, someone else might have gottent it wrong.
I can't remember names of fonts, or combinations of parents' names to their son that sounds like the angel of death. I can remember just simple names like Jerry
3:40 obligatory "everyone's the hero of their own story," etc, etc, etc. For what it's worth, I think we've all played and watched and read a few things where the NPCs / side characters either vomit their life story all over you as soon as you walk up to them, or feel like someone was just checking off random boxes for character traits (big military he-man commander, plays the accordion for the opera or visits the skee-ball arcade in his free time, has lunch with his grandma every other tuesday, and none of these things are ever mentioned again after the first time) and in some of these cases I think I'd actually rather have a 1D character. Flat caricatures don't add anything to the world, but randomly discombobulated ones who feel like they're just trying to grab your attention can be outright jarring.
Yes, this video is missing a side note on "how to communicate the lore" (though I think they already treated something similar a long time ago). Secondary lore is better when discovered by curious players than when force feeded to every player.
@@MoiMagnus1er They did Three Pillars of Game Writing a year or so ago, which had a lot to do with stories with an emphasis on characters vs emphasis on plot vs emphasis on worldbuilding and the art of distinguishing between them, I don't remember if there was one specifically for lore delivery though. If not, that would be a fun one to discuss some time, surely.
The best NPCs I have ever experienced are those of the Witcher 3. Everyone is interesting, real, 3D even the dwarf blacksmith who is married to a human girl who is actually the real smith.
Trails in the Sky is a JRPG that basically makes the NPCs in just random towns all have their own backstory if you're willing to pay attention, it's simply brilliant.
I agree. Not only Trails in the Sky, but every Trails games always have interesting NPCs. From Anton and Ricky, members of the Vipers and Testaments, and every students from Thors Millitary Academy.
Ahah, someone mentioned Trails! You don't have to put the depth of every single NPC straight into the players face, and this game shows just enough of everyone to hint that there's more, while leaving actual treasure to find if you dig deeper into every individual trying to live their lives. ....you are also creating a monumental script to write and translate, but what can ya do?
I think you've more or less covered what everyone else has already covered. Here's something I've never seen anyone cover: brevity. Arguably the most important characteristic because most background NPCs are barely around for more than a single screen. 'Undertale' gets a lot of mileage out of single NPCs with heart and humour. One example in particular is that house-dweller who only ever says they love the sound of the fallen child's knock. It's so bizarre yet funny that it's memorable. So how can you convey enough of an NPC to make them memorable while not forcing the player to suffer textbox after textbox about the character?
I like to mention Stardew Valley here. All the characters are so well done, with their unique stories, backstories, relationships to other NPCs and some have struggles you can help them to overcome.
0:18 ...Jerry. In seriousness, while IMPORTANT characters should be three dimensional, it's unrealistic for a game like Skyrim to populate itself entirely with unique individuals who all have their own backstory; and on top of that, the player might not even care what the blacksmith or innkeep does on their downtime, which means a lot of that effort will likely go unseen. This goes for writing as well; if the waitress isn't going to play an integral part in the story, or even the scene for that matter, then we don't need to know that she's a single mother desperately trying to keep herself afloat while studying for the bar exam or whatever.
I think the point he may be trying to make there is that there's too many faceless npcs running around, heck they even share lines and voice actors with one another. They could use a bit more quality over quantity in their open worlds.
Check out Kingdom Come Deliverance. It's a masterpiece of NPC depth and realistic behaviour. Even a completely generic villager can be seen speaking to other villagers about interesting aspects of their life and relations, and every minor character that is somewhat important to the plot (even if you only encounter them once) feels unique in their personalities and motivations. And nothing of that is intrusive, you can easily ignore that information, but if you're curious you can find that the store owner is a drunkard and addicted to gambling, and has very unpopular political opinions. The world just feels very vivid, they don't throw unnecessary information at your face.
Except the old merchant who hides in the merchant screen. You explicitly cannot murder him. It's part of what I believe to be Undertale's attempt to make the Genocide route as miserable and unfulfilling for the player as possible. Even if your goal is to kill every character in the game, you are outright denied that possibility and the game taunts you with that knowledge.
It's nice to see how much characters have evolved tho. Compared to the topics you discussed maybe 7, 8 years ago, the industry has come a long way in creating more impactful and lively characters. I can't wait to see how much we will evolve in terms of technology and storytelling to produce even more meaningful character interactions in the future.
The example of Undertale is great to show that we don't need to rely on fancy technology to make characters feel alive. You just need to find ways to use what's available to you in order to make them believable in the worlds you create. No matter how much better graphics become I still find more personality in many of these old sprite based games then a lot of modern, realistic games. I have even found connections with characters that don't speak at all. We already have what we need to make these characters we just have to make an effort to actually make them.
I totally agree. I want more characterization, except weirdly in Breath of the Wild. In that game I wanted about everyone to shut up and let me get back to that beautiful landscape to explore.
3:34 what makes a villain likeable is the one you can respect and relate to Take joker in his latest movie, when he was on the Murray show, he made some compelling points for a man who was at his lowest and we've all been their before What makes a good villain is one you can respect, understand, but still have the common sense to put a bullet through their head and then cry later because you know they are just an unfortunate victim. As for one movie called face swap, I believe it's called that, the villain is a cruel fucked up man on a whole nother level. This guy killed so many in cruel and unfair ways and did it all with a smile on his face, and what's more he came from rather humble beginnings for the most part and yet still acted like a dick the entire time. He is so cruel and pathetic that you will not get any satisfaction out of his death later in the movie. That is not a villain......that is a mistake.
2:36 Heck, I always thought "three dimensional character" was a metaphorical comparison, contrasting against e.g. "cartoon" or "cardboard cut-out." Having three actual dimensions to examine gives the phrase so much more weight and value!
If you’re interested, the Spyro franchise (NOT counting Enter the Dragonfly) does a great job of making NPC’s really lively and fun to chat with The Skylanders franchise dose to... but the characters unless they’re one of the main 8 NPC’s (Eon, Hugo, Flynn, Cali, Mags, and Buzz in terms of good guys and in terms of bad guys Kaos and Glumshaks) they’ll rarely be seen outside of one level / game out of the 6...
@@jorgegutierrez8588 Perhaps, but they sell that one note very well. For example, the fauns from Magma Cone. Sure, they're basically just people trying to have a party, but even just before Reignited came out I could remember that delightful sociopath kicking his oh-so-recently-deceased dance partner's party hat into the lava.
Another game with great npcs a Is Ghost of Tushima. For example, one of the main npc questlines follows a archery master who slowly becomes more and more 3d until you feel his pain as you own, or you resent him. Other npcs are also good
One of the reasons I love The Legend of Heroes Trails series is how much effort they placed on nearly every NPC in the game. Most of them have their own parallel stories running in the background of the game.
Good Mentor Character - Sully from Uncharted and David Anderson from Mass Effect. Good Side Kick Character - Luigi (Super Mario Bros.), Potato GlaDos (Portal 2) and Cole and Varric from Dragon Age Inquisiton. Good NPC's - Anyone from Undertale and Deltarune, Sheogorath from the Elder Scrolls series and Liam & Damien from Monster Prom xD
once there was a moment in legend of Zelda breath of the wild there was a quest where a character that was a guard problely walked past a 1000 times ends up being forced to steal something and in the process you learn a lot about them and it made me pause for a moment and think that maybe all the characters were like this with their own personal history
Ever played the Trails saga? (Trails in the Sky, Trails of Cold Steel...). They're awesome games. And what I like the most about them is that EVERY FRIGGIN' NPC has their own micro story you can follow by repeatedly talking to them. From shopkeepers to random dudes walking on the street, everyone has a name, a personality and a life of their own you can follow. Obviously they're not the deepest characters ever, but it gives a lot of depth to the world itself and some of those characters are really memorable.
I think super mario galaxy did this brilliantly, maybe its just me but I actually felt like I knew rosalina and I just wanted to stay on the space base, the game dev team gave her depth with the short visual storys in a special room where u learnt about her life.
One great example of this are the NPCs in Trails in the Sky. All of them have their own little stories, and you can always revisit previous towns after each major story point and you'll know more about them. In fact, as you traipse through the continent, you have this newlywed couple who is going through the same cities, and they will always have some funny dialogue between them. It was pretty much one of the things I was looking forward to when reaching the next town :-D.
always nice to see well rounded and fleshed out characters in anything but especially video games it can't always be done but when it is done it is appreciated
Epic NPC Man videos do a wonderful job pointing out how game designers don't put any effort in their NPCs, especially their current video "Stealth Escort Quests."
For me Wandersong, a really beutiful, (srsly magical filled with music) brought me the most fun npcs and s interesting ones. Like how you can connect them with music. Also the story is great but the npcs in that game are wholesome and I really want to learn about them more. They grow and it feels so great to recognise them when you meet them again. I literally happy screamed once or twice. NPCs are great tool for story telling, in certain games. But not everyone tends to be interested in npcs which I find a little bummer, but everyone has tastes. I peronally love good deep npcs, getting to know them, damn even befriending them if possible!
Whenever I'm making any kind of characters for anything, it helps me to think about building a character's personality in Dungeons and Dragons. Starting with a base line of things like Alignment - moral compass, Ideals - what they stand for and believe in, Bonds - who, where or what is important to them, and Flaws - a vice, fear, or weakness, really helps as a building block. Then you can tie all these things together in a Background. Heck I've even used the example tables provided in the D&D players handbook to create characters for writing or get ideas.
Bioshock's Elizabeth: Still has me thinking of her today, years after we last met. Elder Scrolls NPC: "Of you course you haven't been to the Cloud District."
You mention Elizabeth, just when I've finished another play of Infinite this week...and I still cant just breeze through Battleship Bay or its arcade without letting her see and do everything possible, or even stop her dancing right at the beginning; so engaging and endearing is she.
Another interesting thing you can do with the sidekick is flesh them out after death. Make the player feel guilty for writing them off as unimportant and not caring.
I was just thinking about Morte (from Planescape Torment) the whole time. Definitively one of my favorite video game characters ever. I am not sure if it counts as an npc (given that you control him in combat and stuff) but still amazing
The Trails series is really good at having almost every random NPC have their own lives going on in the background, that don’t require the main characters to be involved. The Protagonists aren’t the centre of the world, other stuff is going on, that may be very important to a lot or just a few people in the places you visit. And a lot of NPCs are just memorable. It helps that the worldbuilding itself is strong and every game builds off of the last with an interconnected plot, 9 games long at this point.
If you want to go back, I highly recommend playing Ultima 5. You'll need DOSBox and it is only EGA, but this old game actually implemented NPC schedules and had a keyword-based conversation system. The schedules in particular really gave the world life. When the shopkeep was on break eating dinner, he would refuse to sell you anything, telling you to come back when the shop was open.
For me, my mind immediately went to Mass Effect, and characters like Garrus and Tali, Anderson, even Saren. These characters felt alive to me, to the point when I go back and play the games, it’s like catching up with friends I haven’t seen since high school.
currently playing crusader kings 2 and having fun both role playing and experiencing surprisingly interesting characters. Giving the NPC's traits and motivations makes them interesting and often feeling unique. Having a neighboring king invade you and curse your father because your parents had a war over the territory that is once again in dispute. Having your nephew rebel because you assassinated your brother. Many of the most memorable moments in the game is when the other characters do something interesting that fits their personality or links to something you or another character has done in the past.
LEE FREAKING SHELDON! My masters thesis was on gamification in education and Lee’s book was one of my primary sources. My copy is all marked up and highlighted. So cool to have him on the show.
Thanks for the episode ^^ All these advices work as well for tabletop RPG games, although as a GM you probably only have a few seconds to build an NPC on the fly when you play, trying to fill up some points on a note helps a lot to interpret interesting NPCs for your players to enjoy ^^
You guys really need to play the Legend of Heroes Trails series from Falcom. They give every NPC in the towns you travel to dialogue that changes as the story progresses, changes in relationships and some even travel the world and meet characters from other games in the series.
5:13 I was really into Wing Commander. When Spirit sacrificed herself in WC2 I actually cried out at the screen, and I still don't remember how I beat the mission. When I was reading the novelization of WC3, when Angel died I had to put the book down for a few days.
On the subject of Sidekicks I think one major factor that can help make the player care about them is simply to make them useful, as there is nothing more annoying than a sidekick who doesn't seem to do anything. For instance we have Clank from the Ratchet and Clank games, on top of being a well written character who's personality bounces off of Ratchet's very well there is the aspect that it is through Clank that some of your biggest movement options are possible. This creates a feeling that he is more than pulling his own weight during the gameplay and better yet during those sequences where you don't have him the absence is acutely felt in a way that I think emulates what the player character is feeling in the narrative.
I haven't played any other game in the series, but 'Assassins Creed: Origins' makes each character you only meet up with for a side quest feel like they are important. It helps that these characters live in our world - as much as any game character can, so we can superimpose what we know of that time to fit with the character. But, if your world building is done right, what is true for ACO can be true for your characters too.
GotG had this all over (except inits villain, ironically). there's a scene with a one note character in the prison that's threatening Gamora, and later has his knife taken by Drax and sadly reacts with "that was my favorite knife....". it's hilarious and turns a one note character to 2 notes, that hit well.
You should do a video on the other side of the spectrum: Pillars of Eternity backer's NPCs where they all have so much backstory and personality, you just ignore all.
From the very little I've played of The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky I can say that in the first few hours, if you talk to the various NPC's across town after main story segments, that they have more life than in most RPGs out there.
I instantly think of Mila from Legend of Zelda, Wind Waker. I was legit sad for her and searched extensively for some way to restore her wealth. And the flute kid from LttP, when I found the npc that mentions him as her son it did a lot to make the people of that world seem more real and give importance to my quest. I also think of copy cat girl from pokemon red/blue. With so many other NPCs having very generic dialogue, even many of the important quest characters... she stood out for having very in-character dialogue. And the fact that she remembers Red in Gold/Silver. When I was young I couldn't get it out of my head that she was 'main' character some how. That she was meant to be a love interest for red.
Personally speaking, I think a decent example of good mentor characters given depth were the Class trainers (not necessarily the job trainers) in Final Fantasy 14 A Realm Reborn. Barring some notable exceptions, namely the Marauder and Lancer class trainers/guildmasters, almost all of the stories relating to the class quests in 14 are notable and have both a lot of lore and feelings involved within. From the Pugilists Guild's Guildmaster Hamon Holyfist rediscovering his ability alongside the player character after age has taken its toll to your journey of discovery alongside the young and talented Conjurer Sylphie as you show her the importance of communicating with nature while using our power to working alongside Captain Jacke and the Rogues Guild to uphold the code that holds together the pirate-created city state of Limsa Lominsa all the way through an adventure that culminates in thwarting an attempted detonation of one of the main structures of the city in order to harm the Admiral in charge, the sheer variety and weight to the stories is quite nice, and all can be experienced on a singular character. Unfortunately, not all class or job quests are created equally, and some are at least partially lackluster, but Final Fantasy 14 still sets a high standard for NPC depth, even with some more minor aspects.
nice episode! i just wanted to point out, that Lajos Egri was born as a Hungarian, so his name is Hungarian, and even though he lived and died mostly in LA, his first name is not supposed to be pronounced with a j as in Spanish, but with a y as in "yeah".
I think Hollow Knight is a very good example NPs, I can literally remember the name of almost every character (and I don't have a very good memory mind you.) Characters like Conifer, Sly, Hornet, Sheo the Painter, The Nailsmith, Grimm, Tiso, Elder Bug and that's just scratching the surface of all the characters in that game. They're all just so memorable for all the right reasons and I love them all for that!
You know who I think is an amazing NPC? Captain Avery Quinn from Subnautica. I don't think I've ever had an NPC death hit me that hard with that little establishing interaction, especially when it was so obvious that they were going to die.
one more example of interesting characters: i find that no straight roads' bosses are all hyped up to be these "evil edm artists who are selfish and cruel!" up until their boss fight (with the exception of subatomic supernova, who i think was built up to have less notable traits than the rest to make the subversion more impactful). by the time you fight yinu, you may start to realize that you may actually be evil, and by the time you fight the final boss you may feel like you actually want her to win against you
One aspect exclusive to games is the gameplay. Sidekicks are good to teach through play either them being a tool to progress, a tool to know a gameplay mechanic or a narrative device to inform the player, there's more than just narrative in a gameplay sense. One criticism I have with narrative villains in games is that in terms of confrontation several are dealt with on cutscenes, a quick time event, off screen or are a dull fight that doesn't communicate the same as the narrative has. I think a narrative villain needs to make the player make a choice, have a great boss fight or be a reflection of the player's character in terms of skills. To be fair maybe these are the 4th dimention games have over other mediums in terms of conveying character through play.
Rucks in Bastion. A snarky narrator, trying to rebuild his vision of the world, was a warrior in his youth favoring rifle and hammer, and still liked a kid's alphabet book.
A perfect example you see in Borderlands 3: how to fail with this topic: (SPOILER FOR BORDERLANDS 3 STORY AFTER FIRST PARAGRAPH) 1 Killing the good new characters 2 ignoring the interesting old characters 3 making good old characters boring 4 only focus on the horribly written new characters) In detail 1: Killing Maya (to early) Killing Typhon DeLeon 2: Ignoring Brick Ignoring Mordecai Ignoring tiny tina Forgetting Axton and Salvador completely Marcus only sell things, not a single mission. ... 3: Removing Lilith siren powers makes her complete useless, so she is just commanding us and at she end she just dies, with we have any sympathy. 4: Making Ava to the main Character (But in my opinion Ava isn't a boring character, she is just getting a little to much attention and a little more backstory) The Calypso twins are just unfunny (Mainly Tyren). The only Part in the game I really like is eden-6. There the characters have backstory and u have fun to play even the story mission, because the Calypsos do closely nothing there and the meet only with troy is the only interesting with him in all story.
One pair of mentor/sidekick characters that really impressed me were Mia and Maya Fey from the first Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney trilogy. I quickly ended up caring a lot about Maya and the possibility of hurting her feelings just felt terrifying. Not Maya! And even when she had nothing to say, you sort of felt like you could count on her. She was perfect as a game NPC companion. And because of her, Mia was never too far away to guide Phoenix when he really needed help.
So since we discussed ensemble casts of NPCs, have you considered doing an episode on Sonic the Hedgehog's friends, how they fill out the Sonic universe the same way as NPCs in other games, just badly, and what mistakes we could learn from Sonic's friends when creating a much more compelling cast of characters than them? Because when I look at that episode on NPCs, it makes me think about Sonic the Hedgehog's friends, and why they are so despised by so many people compared to the series' own title character, or even Mario's friends.
I'm currently playing Kingdom Come Deliverance, and it's a masterpiece of NPC depth and realistic behaviour. Even a completely generic villager can be seen speaking to other villagers about interesting aspects of their life and relations, every minor character that is somewhat important to the plot (even if you only encounter them once) feels unique in their personalities and motivations.
I find it funny that Toriel is the thumbnail character, because people often forget her character beyond "goat mom." People forget that she's rash, quick to detach any blame from herself, and more than motherly, _possessive._
"I'm the mentor character"
Every writer ever: " I see you have chosen... death"
You'reThatMantis
“I’m the only character that’s not entirely on board with your murderhobo playstyle.”
Every player in existence: “So... it’s treason then.”
I suddenly need a story from the mentor's perspective. Where he's the one trying to keep the dumb young punk chosen one alive and constantly cheating death in the process.
@@CrescentGuard Princess Maker
Eichiro Oda:I'm gonna stop you right there.
Mentor: hold up
I love how undertale keep pop up all the time in the episode but never get mention by speech xD
Yes undertale surely haves some of the most lively npcs
Kind of unfair to compare underdale to skyrim in this context.
Skyrim is all about the player fulfilling a powerfantasy in fighting dragons and exploration. Undertale is built in an entirely different way with a greater focus on characters.
It would be like comparing the total gross income of banana companies in a random South American country to say Germany or France. Obviously a random South American country is going to have better rates of banana sales due to their environments and their market is tailored for selling produce suited to those environments.
But to then use this comparison as some kind of stick to hammer Germany and France as worse countries to live in is pretty dishonest.
I was just about to comment about that
yes
yes it does
LOL ya, this is basically the other of TobyFox's talents (main one is being a ZUN-level composer); populating his games with NPCs so unique and special they could all be protagonists on their own
@@blake-81 totally!!
and i wish to see more of his work because they are soo great
Heats Flamesman will never forget that you remembered.
H... Hot Fire... guy?
how could he be so easily defeeeeaaateeeed?
* _I'll always remember that you remembered!_
* _I'll never forget that you forgot!_
@SleepyWolf Hotman? Hotman!
FLAMES HEATSMAN
"Greetings professor! Nothing to report!"
You know you've written a minor character well when they become a meme.
"Go for the eyes, Boo! Go for the eyes!"
@@Bill_Garthright i lost boo and boo's boo. I would leave him wherever I found him. Played Balder's Gate 1 with out him and did not miss him one bit.
Another settlement need your help
You know you've written a minor character when they're not allowed to drink or they spend their days extracting ore.
said character has won what was basically a popularity poll of the franchise. granted that many other popular characters have already been removed due to winning previous rounds, but still
It's so cute he thinks Zoey is the sidekick lol.
Correct
Wait... I don't think Zoey is the sidekick...
@@epauletshark3793 That was the point I was trying to make.
@@Vicky_1995_ I am aware, I was continuing the joke.
@@epauletshark3793 okay.
you know you could really improve skyrim merchants by having them rememer the last transaction, then they could say "back for more arrows?"
Now I'm thinking of the poor vendor in Diablo 3 that I have destroy endless amounts of loot mostly just as a trash bin...
You: the dragon born, head mage at the college in winter hold, leader of the thieves guild, thane of the jarl, etc. Etc. ETC.
Guard in whiterun: who are you?
@@sabbathjackal They make an effort, actually. "Psst - I know who you are. Hail Sithis!"
Admittedly there aren't _too_ many lines like that, and by your 80th hour or so you've probably heard them all to death.
@@DragoniteSpam "Is that... fur? Coming out of your ears?"
heard seconds before the guard was arrested for public indecency, swearing up and down he was JUST wearing his armor a second ago.
@@sabbathjackal At least the guards have reactions to your faction affiliation, skill and gear.
Strange that you didn't discuss another character that are very often in need of depth: *love interests.*
I've lost count the love interest characters who are just kinda "there". You're told the protagonist cares very much about them, but you hardly see why. What made this person special? What are their backstory? What are their beliefs? We often don't see that because the love interest is just either the eye candy, the damsel in distress, the satellite, the motivator, the character the protagonist arbitrarily hooked up and then proceeds to forget about, just a proof the protagonist isn't a "loser loner" or just there to die so the protagonist can be sad. I mean I swear 90% of action movie and anime love interests are one dimensional.
I think love interests fall into the "sidekick" category
@@coyraig8332 When they get to hang out at all.
that might be a separate topic in it's own right
I think one good example of love interest well made would be zelda in breath of the wild. Through her journal and flashback you really get to learn how she was has a person. You get to see motivation, fear, jealousy, a full person.
@@Player-si5rx I wouldn't call Zelda a love interest. I see more Mipha or Paya.
A great example of this is the gatekeeper from fire emblem three houses. He literally does nothing but stand and ask you about your day. But it's done with such earnest that everyone loves him and he got into the fire emblem stage in smash bros.
gatekeeper in smash! hell yeah!
and now he won CYL5
a popularity contest with most of the relevant fire emblem characters including marth himself
00:03 Terrible, thank you for asking.
.........
*cries in a corner*
F
F
F
F
Thank you all, I'm honored
Overheard in Horizon Zero Dawn during a party:
NPC: It's bad enough that you're drunk! Why do you have to climb houses!?
It's lines like this that add life to your world.
Undertale is one of the best games I have ever played, because of how I got attached to them, because they had enough depth for me to see them as real.
Same for me
One of my favorite moments in Breath of the Wild was a line from a generic NPC.
There's a girl staying at one of the stables, and every night, she goes out to look at a nearby river, where she gets attacked by a bokoblin. One time, I saved her, and she started going back to the stable. So I walked her back, and when we got back to the stable I talked to her again and she said something like, "Thanks, I feel so much safer with you around!" That made me happy, because it felt like the game was acknowledging what I did even though it wasn't an official action assigned to a button or menu.
“Or are they tying to love up to their father’s expectations?” *Shows Bowser Jr stealing Princess Peach* I mean... that’s accurate.
On the other hand the 2D or even 1D character is often good for game readability. Just like you, the player, know that you don't have to care about any door where the knob or handle is part of the door texture and can instead focus on the important parts of the battlefield and the doors with modeled opening devices you know that the barkeep who polished his counter and tells you his hotel is as clean as an elven arse is a health recovery point and not important to the political intrigue game that is the focus of your quest.
They also make other characters, who are important to what is going on, stand out in comparison. So while you shouldn't skimp out on fleshing out NPCs it's also important to know when a balnd one note character is good enough. If by the further away from the main characters of the story you get the less developed the NPCs become that can also be a way to tell players that they are on the wrong track. A bit of hot and cold leading them back to where the meat of the game is.
^This. Characters are tools in a narrative, a different characters serve different functions. While it is absolutely a good idea to flesh out some characters, others not only can be allowed to go less developed, but it would be detrimental to do so. In traditional media, how well a character is developed directly affects pacing and length; you don't have _time_ to flesh them all out, while also serving the goals of the narrative as a whole.
Of course, the most effective storytelling is often that which can convey a great deal in a small package. The tavern keeper who hangs a broken sword over the bar. The villain's henchman who never touches things with his bare hands. An elder statesman whose mansion is quiet and empty, save for vases full of long dead flowers and faded portraits of the man with a woman the audience never sees. A mentor who says, "I've seen more than my fair share of students who went on to tragic success; sadly, you, too, have the look of potential in you".
That is actually great advice. I was wondering whether there was a benefit from trying to make every character three-dimensional but this is a good argument against it.
The number of Baldur's Gate NPC's I talked to because having a name instead of "Shopkeep" or "Noble" made me think there might be a quest or important info in their dialogue...
@@pianoguy222 Yeah, got kingdom come on the free sale, and lots of the npc's has actual names, which so far seems to imply there is at the very least a minor side-quest starring them. Though it is to the point where I think they would do better to lower the number and make more npc's star in multiple quests instead, as with this many, even named ones start feeling unpersonal.
Also, makes me scared of killing a quest-giver by mistake, even though they snubbed me unknowingly when they didn't accept my stolen goods, or started calling for a guard because I accidentally pickpocketed them when trying to initiate a trade. Or worse, got mad at me for something I couldn't have known (like I wanted to talk to them so I intruded in their private space or trespassed, but they disliked that. Or that time some quest-npc decided sleeping during the night was acceptable (killed some of his coworkers, then googled and found out shooting an arrow at the ground near them wakes them up).
@@pianoguy222 and you were disappointed to find none. i know I played it to.
Memorable Npcs you say?
He was the very model of a scientist salarian. I still cry to this day.
Godspeed Mordin, someone else might have gottent it wrong.
The Mass Effect Trilogy (haven't played Andromeda yet) had a lot of those NPCs, but Mordin was definitely special.
5:48 "The arrow to the knee fills you with determination!"
fireaza hey you, your finally awake... to receive my friendliness pellets.
0:18 hey jerry is the most memerable character of undertale
I completley forgott that game every exsisted...
Eh back to the Sims 3.
I can't remember names of fonts, or combinations of parents' names to their son that sounds like the angel of death. I can remember just simple names like Jerry
Who?
I WISH I could forget jerry...
Jerry is the worst
3:40 obligatory "everyone's the hero of their own story," etc, etc, etc.
For what it's worth, I think we've all played and watched and read a few things where the NPCs / side characters either vomit their life story all over you as soon as you walk up to them, or feel like someone was just checking off random boxes for character traits (big military he-man commander, plays the accordion for the opera or visits the skee-ball arcade in his free time, has lunch with his grandma every other tuesday, and none of these things are ever mentioned again after the first time) and in some of these cases I think I'd actually rather have a 1D character. Flat caricatures don't add anything to the world, but randomly discombobulated ones who feel like they're just trying to grab your attention can be outright jarring.
DragoniteSpam how did you comment yesterady when this was only uploaded today or is it just because I’m in England?
Yes, this video is missing a side note on "how to communicate the lore" (though I think they already treated something similar a long time ago). Secondary lore is better when discovered by curious players than when force feeded to every player.
@@MoiMagnus1er They did Three Pillars of Game Writing a year or so ago, which had a lot to do with stories with an emphasis on characters vs emphasis on plot vs emphasis on worldbuilding and the art of distinguishing between them, I don't remember if there was one specifically for lore delivery though. If not, that would be a fun one to discuss some time, surely.
I’d prefer maleficent to malakith any day of the week. One has a complex motivation, and one is actually fun.
The best NPCs I have ever experienced are those of the Witcher 3. Everyone is interesting, real, 3D even the dwarf blacksmith who is married to a human girl who is actually the real smith.
Trails in the Sky is a JRPG that basically makes the NPCs in just random towns all have their own backstory if you're willing to pay attention, it's simply brilliant.
I agree. Not only Trails in the Sky, but every Trails games always have interesting NPCs. From Anton and Ricky, members of the Vipers and Testaments, and every students from Thors Millitary Academy.
Kind of a thing for all Falcom games
Ahah, someone mentioned Trails!
You don't have to put the depth of every single NPC straight into the players face, and this game shows just enough of everyone to hint that there's more, while leaving actual treasure to find if you dig deeper into every individual trying to live their lives.
....you are also creating a monumental script to write and translate, but what can ya do?
benedict co considering the fact that I’m oart of translating FC into French, I feel that script size
One of the reasons it's my favourite game series.
I think you've more or less covered what everyone else has already covered. Here's something I've never seen anyone cover: brevity. Arguably the most important characteristic because most background NPCs are barely around for more than a single screen. 'Undertale' gets a lot of mileage out of single NPCs with heart and humour. One example in particular is that house-dweller who only ever says they love the sound of the fallen child's knock. It's so bizarre yet funny that it's memorable.
So how can you convey enough of an NPC to make them memorable while not forcing the player to suffer textbox after textbox about the character?
Where is Solaire of Astora or Siegmeyer of Catarina?
Onion knight and Sun bros forever!
I like to mention Stardew Valley here. All the characters are so well done, with their unique stories, backstories, relationships to other NPCs and some have struggles you can help them to overcome.
0:18 ...Jerry.
In seriousness, while IMPORTANT characters should be three dimensional, it's unrealistic for a game like Skyrim to populate itself entirely with unique individuals who all have their own backstory; and on top of that, the player might not even care what the blacksmith or innkeep does on their downtime, which means a lot of that effort will likely go unseen. This goes for writing as well; if the waitress isn't going to play an integral part in the story, or even the scene for that matter, then we don't need to know that she's a single mother desperately trying to keep herself afloat while studying for the bar exam or whatever.
I think the point he may be trying to make there is that there's too many faceless npcs running around, heck they even share lines and voice actors with one another. They could use a bit more quality over quantity in their open worlds.
Check out Kingdom Come Deliverance. It's a masterpiece of NPC depth and realistic behaviour. Even a completely generic villager can be seen speaking to other villagers about interesting aspects of their life and relations, and every minor character that is somewhat important to the plot (even if you only encounter them once) feels unique in their personalities and motivations. And nothing of that is intrusive, you can easily ignore that information, but if you're curious you can find that the store owner is a drunkard and addicted to gambling, and has very unpopular political opinions. The world just feels very vivid, they don't throw unnecessary information at your face.
5:33 treating npc's with respect
undertale genocide route: murders all the npc's
Except the old merchant who hides in the merchant screen. You explicitly cannot murder him. It's part of what I believe to be Undertale's attempt to make the Genocide route as miserable and unfulfilling for the player as possible. Even if your goal is to kill every character in the game, you are outright denied that possibility and the game taunts you with that knowledge.
Your profile picture is a goat plant with 6 children’s souls in it. *also murders flowey*
Damn that old merchant to heck. I killed sans I can kill him too.
Md. Abdul Latif
Megaman X: You called?
It's nice to see how much characters have evolved tho. Compared to the topics you discussed maybe 7, 8 years ago, the industry has come a long way in creating more impactful and lively characters. I can't wait to see how much we will evolve in terms of technology and storytelling to produce even more meaningful character interactions in the future.
The example of Undertale is great to show that we don't need to rely on fancy technology to make characters feel alive. You just need to find ways to use what's available to you in order to make them believable in the worlds you create. No matter how much better graphics become I still find more personality in many of these old sprite based games then a lot of modern, realistic games. I have even found connections with characters that don't speak at all. We already have what we need to make these characters we just have to make an effort to actually make them.
But on the other hand, we still have a lot of battlefront/field/cage/whatsoevers that seem to be totally devoid of those kind of characters.
I totally agree. I want more characterization, except weirdly in Breath of the Wild. In that game I wanted about everyone to shut up and let me get back to that beautiful landscape to explore.
Andrew Rockwell especially the annoying ones.
It's almost like those characters you didnt care about werent very complex or interesting...
lol
3:34 what makes a villain likeable is the one you can respect and relate to
Take joker in his latest movie, when he was on the Murray show, he made some compelling points for a man who was at his lowest and we've all been their before
What makes a good villain is one you can respect, understand, but still have the common sense to put a bullet through their head and then cry later because you know they are just an unfortunate victim.
As for one movie called face swap, I believe it's called that, the villain is a cruel fucked up man on a whole nother level. This guy killed so many in cruel and unfair ways and did it all with a smile on his face, and what's more he came from rather humble beginnings for the most part and yet still acted like a dick the entire time. He is so cruel and pathetic that you will not get any satisfaction out of his death later in the movie.
That is not a villain......that is a mistake.
2:36 Heck, I always thought "three dimensional character" was a metaphorical comparison, contrasting against e.g. "cartoon" or "cardboard cut-out." Having three actual dimensions to examine gives the phrase so much more weight and value!
“I heard a rumor that monsters are coming back.”
"Oh? Do tell."
"Expositional yet pointless dialogue!"
If you’re interested, the Spyro franchise (NOT counting Enter the Dragonfly) does a great job of making NPC’s really lively and fun to chat with
The Skylanders franchise dose to... but the characters unless they’re one of the main 8 NPC’s (Eon, Hugo, Flynn, Cali, Mags, and Buzz in terms of good guys and in terms of bad guys Kaos and Glumshaks) they’ll rarely be seen outside of one level / game out of the 6...
Ehhhh, most of the NPC's in spyro are kinda one note, say for like 2 or 3 of them.
@@jorgegutierrez8588 Perhaps, but they sell that one note very well. For example, the fauns from Magma Cone. Sure, they're basically just people trying to have a party, but even just before Reignited came out I could remember that delightful sociopath kicking his oh-so-recently-deceased dance partner's party hat into the lava.
Another game with great npcs a
Is Ghost of Tushima. For example, one of the main npc questlines follows a archery master who slowly becomes more and more 3d until you feel his pain as you own, or you resent him. Other npcs are also good
the thumbnail made me think of the creepy Toriel 3d renders Toby Fox puts in all the ads for undertale
_"Toby, where is this footage even coming from??"_
One of the reasons I love The Legend of Heroes Trails series is how much effort they placed on nearly every NPC in the game. Most of them have their own parallel stories running in the background of the game.
Good Mentor Character - Sully from Uncharted and David Anderson from Mass Effect.
Good Side Kick Character - Luigi (Super Mario Bros.), Potato GlaDos (Portal 2) and Cole and Varric from Dragon Age Inquisiton.
Good NPC's - Anyone from Undertale and Deltarune, Sheogorath from the Elder Scrolls series and Liam & Damien from Monster Prom xD
The shear amount of Undertale imagery fills me with determination!!
once there was a moment in legend of Zelda breath of the wild there was a quest where a character that was a guard problely walked past a 1000 times ends up being forced to steal something and in the process you learn a lot about them and it made me pause for a moment and think that maybe all the characters were like this with their own personal history
Ever played the Trails saga? (Trails in the Sky, Trails of Cold Steel...). They're awesome games. And what I like the most about them is that EVERY FRIGGIN' NPC has their own micro story you can follow by repeatedly talking to them. From shopkeepers to random dudes walking on the street, everyone has a name, a personality and a life of their own you can follow. Obviously they're not the deepest characters ever, but it gives a lot of depth to the world itself and some of those characters are really memorable.
you: talk about video game characters
Undertale: hey
I think super mario galaxy did this brilliantly, maybe its just me but I actually felt like I knew rosalina and I just wanted to stay on the space base, the game dev team gave her depth with the short visual storys in a special room where u learnt about her life.
Nice Jak&Daxter and Ratchet&Clank mentions, it's sad to see these series starting to be forgotten nowadays.
One great example of this are the NPCs in Trails in the Sky. All of them have their own little stories, and you can always revisit previous towns after each major story point and you'll know more about them. In fact, as you traipse through the continent, you have this newlywed couple who is going through the same cities, and they will always have some funny dialogue between them. It was pretty much one of the things I was looking forward to when reaching the next town :-D.
always nice to see well rounded and fleshed out characters in anything but especially video games it can't always be done but when it is done it is appreciated
“Do you visit the cloud district often” like I you know how this is
I refuse.
Oh what am I saying... Of course you don't.
words yes order to i in right the know how
@@NotASovietSpy1 I thought I was having a stroke there for a moment...
Epic NPC Man videos do a wonderful job pointing out how game designers don't put any effort in their NPCs, especially their current video "Stealth Escort Quests."
For me Wandersong, a really beutiful, (srsly magical filled with music) brought me the most fun npcs and s interesting ones. Like how you can connect them with music. Also the story is great but the npcs in that game are wholesome and I really want to learn about them more. They grow and it feels so great to recognise them when you meet them again. I literally happy screamed once or twice.
NPCs are great tool for story telling, in certain games. But not everyone tends to be interested in npcs which I find a little bummer, but everyone has tastes. I peronally love good deep npcs, getting to know them, damn even befriending them if possible!
Whenever I'm making any kind of characters for anything, it helps me to think about building a character's personality in Dungeons and Dragons.
Starting with a base line of things like Alignment - moral compass,
Ideals - what they stand for and believe in,
Bonds - who, where or what is important to them,
and Flaws - a vice, fear, or weakness,
really helps as a building block. Then you can tie all these things together in a Background. Heck I've even used the example tables provided in the D&D players handbook to create characters for writing or get ideas.
0:03 slightly better than Shinji ika- oh my relations with NPCs
Sonic the Hedgehog's Dilemma?
Bioshock's Elizabeth: Still has me thinking of her today, years after we last met.
Elder Scrolls NPC: "Of you course you haven't been to the Cloud District."
You mention Elizabeth, just when I've finished another play of Infinite this week...and I still cant just breeze through Battleship Bay or its arcade without letting her see and do everything possible, or even stop her dancing right at the beginning; so engaging and endearing is she.
but by saying that it shows you still remember nazeem as well
@@NotASovietSpy1 remembering something for being terrible is not the same as remembering something for being good.
Another interesting thing you can do with the sidekick is flesh them out after death. Make the player feel guilty for writing them off as unimportant and not caring.
I'm fine, I'm fine,..... *looks at his tail* AAAAAUUUUUGGGGHHHHH
-Daxter, the best sidekick ever
Daxter: "I'm here because you couldn't do anything without me"
Me on Google: mentor characters that don't die
Google: I see your only interested in the exceptionally rare.
I was just thinking about Morte (from Planescape Torment) the whole time. Definitively one of my favorite video game characters ever. I am not sure if it counts as an npc (given that you control him in combat and stuff) but still amazing
The Trails series is really good at having almost every random NPC have their own lives going on in the background, that don’t require the main characters to be involved. The Protagonists aren’t the centre of the world, other stuff is going on, that may be very important to a lot or just a few people in the places you visit. And a lot of NPCs are just memorable. It helps that the worldbuilding itself is strong and every game builds off of the last with an interconnected plot, 9 games long at this point.
If you want to go back, I highly recommend playing Ultima 5. You'll need DOSBox and it is only EGA, but this old game actually implemented NPC schedules and had a keyword-based conversation system. The schedules in particular really gave the world life. When the shopkeep was on break eating dinner, he would refuse to sell you anything, telling you to come back when the shop was open.
Star Trek TNG, Game Development, Extra Credits. All my favourite things!
@@Isnogood12 It's a Kurtzmann show, I just turn my brain off and hide the tears until showertime.
For me, my mind immediately went to Mass Effect, and characters like Garrus and Tali, Anderson, even Saren. These characters felt alive to me, to the point when I go back and play the games, it’s like catching up with friends I haven’t seen since high school.
3:04 Agent 47 blending with its natural habitat.
currently playing crusader kings 2 and having fun both role playing and experiencing surprisingly interesting characters. Giving the NPC's traits and motivations makes them interesting and often feeling unique. Having a neighboring king invade you and curse your father because your parents had a war over the territory that is once again in dispute. Having your nephew rebel because you assassinated your brother. Many of the most memorable moments in the game is when the other characters do something interesting that fits their personality or links to something you or another character has done in the past.
LEE FREAKING SHELDON! My masters thesis was on gamification in education and Lee’s book was one of my primary sources. My copy is all marked up and highlighted. So cool to have him on the show.
Wait, Zoey's a sidekick? I thought she was the host! XP
I'm like 85% sure Zoey's the dungeon master who keeps shutting down Matt whenever he starts to become too self-aware.
big shout-out to the trails series, jrpgs that really put the effort in giving NPCs evolving personalities the progress alongside the main story
Casual reminder that you can have pure evil villains. Just have to make sure you know what you're doing and stick to it.
Thanks for the episode ^^
All these advices work as well for tabletop RPG games, although as a GM you probably only have a few seconds to build an NPC on the fly when you play, trying to fill up some points on a note helps a lot to interpret interesting NPCs for your players to enjoy ^^
No mention of Doki Doki Literature Club's Monika? And how even the game creator didn't expect players to fall for the villain?
Also...
Just Monika.
Obligatory "Just Monica" is obligatory.
Lol.
Some say "just Monica", others say "just Yuri". But, heh, I've never heard/seen "just Sayori" or "just Natsuki"
@@Jfk2Mr just Sayori
Wait, they DIDN'T expect?
I just love little things like Andre in Dark Souls 3 saying: "be careful out there, I don't want to see my work squandered."
You guys really need to play the Legend of Heroes Trails series from Falcom. They give every NPC in the towns you travel to dialogue that changes as the story progresses, changes in relationships and some even travel the world and meet characters from other games in the series.
*sees goat mama*
Me: yes
I'm glad they put Frisk and toriel for the opening title💗👍😎
5:13 I was really into Wing Commander. When Spirit sacrificed herself in WC2 I actually cried out at the screen, and I still don't remember how I beat the mission. When I was reading the novelization of WC3, when Angel died I had to put the book down for a few days.
On the subject of Sidekicks I think one major factor that can help make the player care about them is simply to make them useful, as there is nothing more annoying than a sidekick who doesn't seem to do anything. For instance we have Clank from the Ratchet and Clank games, on top of being a well written character who's personality bounces off of Ratchet's very well there is the aspect that it is through Clank that some of your biggest movement options are possible. This creates a feeling that he is more than pulling his own weight during the gameplay and better yet during those sequences where you don't have him the absence is acutely felt in a way that I think emulates what the player character is feeling in the narrative.
"Do you get to the cloud district very often? Oh, what am I saying?- of course you don't."
Great episode as usual. Love their work and can’t wait for the next one.
The "Trails of" series, does a pretty good job with giving NPCs more depth than most games.
1:32 "Without much effort"
OBJECTION!
If it didn't take much effort, it would be industry standard by now.
side kicks who become evil?
WHEATLEY I LOVED YOU!
I haven't played any other game in the series, but 'Assassins Creed: Origins' makes each character you only meet up with for a side quest feel like they are important. It helps that these characters live in our world - as much as any game character can, so we can superimpose what we know of that time to fit with the character. But, if your world building is done right, what is true for ACO can be true for your characters too.
GotG had this all over (except inits villain, ironically). there's a scene with a one note character in the prison that's threatening Gamora, and later has his knife taken by Drax and sadly reacts with "that was my favorite knife....". it's hilarious and turns a one note character to 2 notes, that hit well.
You should do a video on the other side of the spectrum: Pillars of Eternity backer's NPCs where they all have so much backstory and personality, you just ignore all.
From the very little I've played of The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky I can say that in the first few hours, if you talk to the various NPC's across town after main story segments, that they have more life than in most RPGs out there.
I instantly think of Mila from Legend of Zelda, Wind Waker. I was legit sad for her and searched extensively for some way to restore her wealth.
And the flute kid from LttP, when I found the npc that mentions him as her son it did a lot to make the people of that world seem more real and give importance to my quest.
I also think of copy cat girl from pokemon red/blue. With so many other NPCs having very generic dialogue, even many of the important quest characters... she stood out for having very in-character dialogue. And the fact that she remembers Red in Gold/Silver. When I was young I couldn't get it out of my head that she was 'main' character some how. That she was meant to be a love interest for red.
Oh this is also great advice for making table top RPG characters a lot more memorable and interesting! Thanks for the great video!
Personally speaking, I think a decent example of good mentor characters given depth were the Class trainers (not necessarily the job trainers) in Final Fantasy 14 A Realm Reborn. Barring some notable exceptions, namely the Marauder and Lancer class trainers/guildmasters, almost all of the stories relating to the class quests in 14 are notable and have both a lot of lore and feelings involved within. From the Pugilists Guild's Guildmaster Hamon Holyfist rediscovering his ability alongside the player character after age has taken its toll to your journey of discovery alongside the young and talented Conjurer Sylphie as you show her the importance of communicating with nature while using our power to working alongside Captain Jacke and the Rogues Guild to uphold the code that holds together the pirate-created city state of Limsa Lominsa all the way through an adventure that culminates in thwarting an attempted detonation of one of the main structures of the city in order to harm the Admiral in charge, the sheer variety and weight to the stories is quite nice, and all can be experienced on a singular character. Unfortunately, not all class or job quests are created equally, and some are at least partially lackluster, but Final Fantasy 14 still sets a high standard for NPC depth, even with some more minor aspects.
"How are your relationships?"
Me: wait what, what's that?
Societal expectations of your interactions with other sentient beings.
@@Soumein sounds like it'll get in the way of my studies, hobbies, and work out routine.
_"My.. what now?"_
All mentors are just bearded old men!
Sans: *Hold up right there-*
sans is not a mentor
nice episode!
i just wanted to point out, that Lajos Egri was born as a Hungarian, so his name is Hungarian, and even though he lived and died mostly in LA, his first name is not supposed to be pronounced with a j as in Spanish, but with a y as in "yeah".
I think Hollow Knight is a very good example NPs, I can literally remember the name of almost every character (and I don't have a very good memory mind you.) Characters like Conifer, Sly, Hornet, Sheo the Painter, The Nailsmith, Grimm, Tiso, Elder Bug and that's just scratching the surface of all the characters in that game. They're all just so memorable for all the right reasons and I love them all for that!
You know who I think is an amazing NPC? Captain Avery Quinn from Subnautica. I don't think I've ever had an NPC death hit me that hard with that little establishing interaction, especially when it was so obvious that they were going to die.
one more example of interesting characters: i find that no straight roads' bosses are all hyped up to be these "evil edm artists who are selfish and cruel!" up until their boss fight (with the exception of subatomic supernova, who i think was built up to have less notable traits than the rest to make the subversion more impactful). by the time you fight yinu, you may start to realize that you may actually be evil, and by the time you fight the final boss you may feel like you actually want her to win against you
One aspect exclusive to games is the gameplay. Sidekicks are good to teach through play either them being a tool to progress, a tool to know a gameplay mechanic or a narrative device to inform the player, there's more than just narrative in a gameplay sense. One criticism I have with narrative villains in games is that in terms of confrontation several are dealt with on cutscenes, a quick time event, off screen or are a dull fight that doesn't communicate the same as the narrative has. I think a narrative villain needs to make the player make a choice, have a great boss fight or be a reflection of the player's character in terms of skills.
To be fair maybe these are the 4th dimention games have over other mediums in terms of conveying character through play.
♡♡♡ *OMG ITS TORIEL!!!* ♡♡♡
Ugh, it's *Jerry*
Rucks in Bastion. A snarky narrator, trying to rebuild his vision of the world, was a warrior in his youth favoring rifle and hammer, and still liked a kid's alphabet book.
can we get a "get em" T-shirt?
I remember playing the neutral route in Undertale and resetting because I didn’t want to kill Asgore.
When he showed the villain playing golf, I thought of Andrew Ryan, and how BioShock made you think he was a villain and how great that game was.
A perfect example you see in Borderlands 3: how to fail with this topic:
(SPOILER FOR BORDERLANDS 3 STORY AFTER FIRST PARAGRAPH)
1 Killing the good new characters
2 ignoring the interesting old characters
3 making good old characters boring
4 only focus on the horribly written new characters)
In detail
1:
Killing Maya (to early)
Killing Typhon DeLeon
2:
Ignoring Brick
Ignoring Mordecai
Ignoring tiny tina
Forgetting Axton and Salvador completely
Marcus only sell things, not a single mission.
...
3:
Removing Lilith siren powers makes her complete useless, so she is just commanding us and at she end she just dies, with we have any sympathy.
4:
Making Ava to the main Character (But in my opinion Ava isn't a boring character, she is just getting a little to much attention and a little more backstory)
The Calypso twins are just unfunny (Mainly Tyren).
The only Part in the game I really like is eden-6. There the characters have backstory and u have fun to play even the story mission, because the Calypsos do closely nothing there and the meet only with troy is the only interesting with him in all story.
One of the reasons I love the work of Supergiant Games is that their characters feel real and I consider them true friends.
One pair of mentor/sidekick characters that really impressed me were Mia and Maya Fey from the first Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney trilogy. I quickly ended up caring a lot about Maya and the possibility of hurting her feelings just felt terrifying. Not Maya! And even when she had nothing to say, you sort of felt like you could count on her. She was perfect as a game NPC companion. And because of her, Mia was never too far away to guide Phoenix when he really needed help.
So since we discussed ensemble casts of NPCs, have you considered doing an episode on Sonic the Hedgehog's friends, how they fill out the Sonic universe the same way as NPCs in other games, just badly, and what mistakes we could learn from Sonic's friends when creating a much more compelling cast of characters than them? Because when I look at that episode on NPCs, it makes me think about Sonic the Hedgehog's friends, and why they are so despised by so many people compared to the series' own title character, or even Mario's friends.
I'm currently playing Kingdom Come Deliverance, and it's a masterpiece of NPC depth and realistic behaviour. Even a completely generic villager can be seen speaking to other villagers about interesting aspects of their life and relations, every minor character that is somewhat important to the plot (even if you only encounter them once) feels unique in their personalities and motivations.
I find it funny that Toriel is the thumbnail character, because people often forget her character beyond "goat mom." People forget that she's rash, quick to detach any blame from herself, and more than motherly, _possessive._