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[Samanosuke Akechi]

Princess Ruto from ocarina of time.

 

[Astral Dog]

Fire Emblem FATES

 

[kunonabi]

The Witch and the Hundred Knight does an amazing job of this. By the end of the game you feel totally committed to Metalica. Its surprisingly moving and engaging how they pull it off.

 

[Giga Man]

What about Titanfall 2's story campaign? Never played it myself, but watched a bit of a playthrough and saw the ending. The main character and his titan are best bros for life.

 

[DecoReturns]

Fire Emblem 7.

You have a Avatar character and they sometimes talk directly at you. Hell you'll get to be God father to a main character child or named them. I forgot which

 

[Opto]

If you romanced Liara in ME1 and played the shadow broker DLC, it felt like one of the most honest relationships you could build in video games. Messy, complicated feelings.

 

[Count of Monte Sawed-Off]

Persona games are good at this. Aside from that The Last of Us did an incredible job getting me attached to Joel and Ellie with its much shorter playtime. Also Baldurs's Gate 1 and 2. Especially surprising for BG1 since there isn't much character work, but I spent so much time with those characters that it's hard to go adventuring with anyone else.

 

[Wikzo]

Life is Strange and Majora's Mask immediately came to my mind.

 

[Crayon]

FFXV
For all its flaws the one thing it absolutely managed to do: making me care for Noctis, Gladio, Prompto and Ignis.

I agree. I personally find FF15 to be a colossal wreck but the poor characters, writing, and voice acting somehow convey the sincerity of their relationships... better than most games imo.

 

[MCD250]

BioWare games, yep.

 

[Crayon]

Nier Automata has to take this for me.

There's a very long spoiler thread, where the three main characters are discussed in great detail. I have been mostly absent from it. With the game being a few months back, I still think about the characters. And my thoughts still evolve. The game has a literary quality in the way is says shit about life. And It's all in the characters. I turn it over and I find these thoughts to feel personal so I don't participate in the spoiler thread. I feel like I know the characters well.

 

[ZBR]

I always felt some kind of attachment to the Master Chief from Halo. Also Trico in The Last Guardian.

 

[Crayon]

Now that I think of it more: Many fighting game characters due to repetition and familiarity. In fact they can come alive a bit.

 

[BouncyFrag]

Dragon Age: Origins is the tops for me. When I first played it, life wasn't going so well and it helped in its own way. It cant be overstated that the game's soundtrack played a huge role in my love for the game. A few seconds of the camp theme is all I need to remember how I felt when playing this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXNvDzlXqSA

 

[epeternally]

Mass Effect Andromeda is hands down the most attached I've gotten to a video game cast. Even the minor characters like Suvi feel like they're my buddies. The Tempest creates a wonderfully strong sense of home. The Normandy had that effect as well, definitely, but everything in Andromeda feels more immediate and personal. All the characters are deliciously real. Cora may be insufferable, but she's insufferable in exactly the ways that actual people are apt to be. Having characters be ordinary people who are awkward, dorky, and ramble about their obsessions is infinitely more interesting (and better writing) than trying to give everyone a Tragic Flaw™. Any one of those people could fit right in with my friends. Life is Strange also means a lot to me, the main characters feel similarly real (even if they're a decade younger than me).