SweetieGames

I’ve been wanting to put together a listicle of my all time favourite video game characters for a while; for me, characters are what make a game more than anything else. I want a character to live in my brain rent free.

As I was putting my list together, I realised there’s plenty of video game characters from my favourite genres that I love dearly, but aren’t necessarily top favourites. This list is going to shine a spotlight on them; a few characters I just think are neat! Think of this as the honourable mentions.

1) Baizhu, Genshin Impact

I’ve brought up Genshin a few times on this blog. I’m currently on an indefinite hiatus from the game, but that doesn’t mean that the characters I love are forgotten about! One character I particularly love is Baizhu. When I was playing Genshin Impact in the early days, Baizhu wasn’t a playable character and I felt like a lot of fans forgot about him, but he stuck with me for some reason. I liked that he kept his cards close to his chest, and was portrayed almost like a villain keeping Qiqi against her will by some characters. When his story eventually dropped, you found he wasn’t trying to cure his illness for selfish reasons, but the opposite; he was making sure nobody was cursed the same way he was. By living forever, he could make sure nobody else suffered. His design is beautiful and I love his relationship with his snake familiar Changsheng, who he often has banter back and forth with as I explore around Teyvat. He may not be the most popular Genshin character, but he’s got a loyal fan in me!

2) Kiryl, Dragon Quest IV

Dragon Quest IV is one of my favourite Dragon Quest games. I really like that you switch between the characters in different areas of the world before they come together to defeat the villain that you hear about in passing so many times. I especially like Chapter 2, which follows the rebellious Princess Alena of Zamoksva and her two loyal companions as she aspires to compete in a fighting tournament. I found myself really Alena’s companion and healer Kiryl, and he ended up becoming my favourite Dragon Quest franchise character. Despite the fact there’s not all that much to him. His main character trait is that he is in love with Alena, terrible at hiding it and is a bit of a scaredy cat. Oh, and he notoriously had terrible AI in the original DQ4 game, to the point where Dragon Quest Heroes made fun of him. I just think there’s something endearing about Kiryl that I can’t put my finger on. He tries his best, he’s always there for his companions and just wants to catch a break. Don’t give up, Kiryl! She’ll notice you some day!

3) Yusuke Kitagawa, Persona 5

Where do I even start with Persona 5, one of my special interests? It may have its flaws, but it’ll always have a special place in my heart. And it’ll live in my brain rent free every day, probably for the rest of my life. One character I really love in Persona 5 is Yusuke, the eccentric artist that the group meet not far into their adventure. They save him from his abusive household and allow him to take his life back, and his story shows his struggle coming to terms with his past and why he creates art in the first place. For me, there was laughter and there was tears while completing his social link. His social ineptitude is always played for laughs, but I found myself relating to him a lot as an autistic person. He takes things literally, he can come across blunt and/or rude and he often fixates on random things, but that made him feel so much more real to me. It may not be canon, but to me he’s autistic rep!

4) Rantaro Amami, Danganronpa V3

It’s been a while since I revisited Danganronpa, but there’s a reason I enjoyed the games so much; I love that every game has an eclectic cast of characters that you get attached to as you uncover the mystery. My favourite character in the whole franchise is Rantaro Amami, the guy who dies literally at the beginning of the final game. He has barely any screentime. Let me explain. I liked the fact that Rantaro clearly knew things that the rest of the group didn’t, and that he was fighting an internal battle as to who to trust with the information he had. We find out about his past and winning a previous killing game at the end of V3, at a point where we all forgot that he was super mysterious and clearly hiding something. What I particularly liked about Rantaro was how willing he was to risk it all to find a way to save everyone, demonstrating how deeply caring he is. You really see this side of him in his social events and the weird love hotel area, where he is one of the only characters whose “love” scene is more caring and familial than romantic. I’d do anything to see more content of him.

These are a few of my honourable mentions! Now I need to narrow down my list of favourites for another list. It’s hard work enjoying so many characters!