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Who are the most uninteresting and bland characters in video games?

levyjl1988

Banned
Like characters who for some reason have a lot of screen time, but they just aren't compelling or interesting. Characters that feel bland and feel more like wasted potential.
Not hating on the voice actors and performance actors who lend their talents. I mostly blame the people who wrote these characters and made them 2 dimensional.
Gamers would often do their side quests or whatever and still not feel connected.

Anyway which video game characters do you feel are the most uninteresting and bland?


Here are my pics.

James Vega from Mass Effect 3
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John Carver from Dead Space 3
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Locke from Halo 5
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Kaiden Alenko from Mass Effect
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Ashley from Mass Effect
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Jacob from Mass Effect
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Which characters do you feel bland and uninteresting?
 
I see a lot of people online say that 2B from Nier Automata is this, aside from her design, and that A2 is better. But I am go more for the "suffer in silence" stoic types because there is usually hints that they want to act out of that character or that one moment comes when they finally do break and react to something.

I'm more interested in those characters than I am characters that I already far out there with their mouths and emotions like A2 and Kaine.

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TheInfamousKira

Reseterror Resettler
Sheva Alomar from Resident Evil 5. In development, she was a side character Chris would meet up with several times when it was still a solo game, and she was a member of a resistance. They instead changed her into a BSAA agent and partnered her with you from the beginning and entirety of the game, relegating her original role (and entire storyline) to a (well written) unlockable file. You essentially start the game with a character who has already completed her arc and has nowhere to go except to reinforce Chris and Jill's arc.

Kimahri Ronso from Final Fantasy X. His story is he was bruhs with Yuna's dad and said he'd be a guardian for her. He's also small and got bullied. Both of these traits get revealed and resolved in no less than three scenes over a 40+ hour JRPG, and otherwise, his role is the tough stoic, fighting with the much more interesting Auron who does the same thing. Square realized this, and their solution was to not have to him speak at all for half of the game, until randomly he decides to, for no reason, and does for so the rest of the title.

Paine from Final Fantasy X-2. Admittedly she has a little more going in in the story department, but she's basically just a fusion of Auron and Lulu, because Lulu wears a dress and she can't do jumpy flippy YRP stuff.

Henry Townshend from Silent Hill 4: The Room. He's a photographer. Who lives in room 302. He went to Silent Hill once and the weather was shitty. Apparently these are the only noteworthy things that happened in his entire life, but he could be a WWII vet for all you know, because his reaction to the beasts of Walter Sullivan's Otherworld range from "what the hell?" to "what...the hell?"

The Beauty and the Beast unit in Metal Gear Solid 4. Kojima has always had a gift for very interesting, aesthetically striking characters and fantastic bosses. This time, he missed the character part. They all have word salad back stories that don't really stick with you, and they all have the same general personality, with the key difference being one laughs, one screams, one cries and one screams...but less angrily, I guess.
 
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Husky

THE Prey 2 fanatic
I liked John Carver... you gotta play co-op for him to really be a character though, otherwise he's just that strange fellow who teleports into cutscenes.

Kaiden and Ashley are dull.

There's this character in Fallout 4 called "Dogmeat" or something like that, he never has anything interesting to say.

Raiden.
 

Silvawuff

Member
Oliver from Ni no Kuni. I understand why they designed him the way they did, but I feel it really dragged down the game. I put down the game about halfway through, so I have no idea if he gets better. I just found him a very boring protagonist with a plot that heavily focused on him.
 
Rex from Xenoblade Chronicles 2

Lara Croft in Shadow Of The Tomb Raider

Sam Fisher in Splinter Cell Blacklist

Nero from DMC 5

Damn near everyone in TLOU 2

Just some off the top of my head
 
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jufonuk

not tag worthy
Link
Mario
Master Chief
Kirby
Samus
Cortana
Marcus Fenix
Luigi is the more charismatic of the bros, Nintendo are too afraid to do anything to Mario’s personality. He is bland.

also maybe link is mute ??

Samus isn’t bland because she likes babies too much.
 
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Kokoloko85

Member
Everyone from the Uncharted franchise.

Discount The Mummy series

Which was a discount Indiana Jones series

So someone ate a shit and took a shit, and that's the cast/writing of Uncharted

Apart from its probably some of the best voice acting and face animations in gaming.
Much more memorable than alot of games and much better writing than most games out there
 
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Kokoloko85

Member
Still more interested than Master Chief and I love Halo games.
He’s one of the more interesting characters. Every character can be criticised like above, from Cloud, Snake, Dante, Chris Redfield, Mass Effect’s Sheppard lol.
Plus, whoever made the above must be crying for not having a Playstation haha
 
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What was the name of <any FPS protagonist>?

You know who I’m talking about, the bald white guy on the game’s cover walking toward or away from the viewer’s perspective.
Doom Guy?
B.J Blaskowitz (spelling?)
Nathan Hale
Joseph Capelli
Samus Aran in the Prime Games
Turok
Adam Jensen
Amanda Ripley
Corvo Attano
Emily Kaldwin
The protagonist in elder scrolls and fallout games


Not all of them male or bald.
 

Guilty_AI

Member
Still more interested than Master Chief and I love Halo games.
He’s one of the more interesting characters. Every character can be criticised like above, from Cloud, Snake, Dante, Chris Redfield, Mass Effect’s Sheppard lol.
Plus, whoever made the above must be crying for not having a Playstation haha
I'm crying for the $15 i wasted on this boring ass game
 

Kokoloko85

Member
I'm crying for the $15 i wasted on this boring ass game
I loved it. Great combat, epic fights, good story.

Some games just arent for everyone.

Considering you don’t like the stories in most Playstation exclusives, what games do you consider with good stories and characters?
 
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I can't add whether the original TR was better as I can vaguely recall the games since I was such a small boy when I played them, but I find the reboot Lara very absolutely bland and boring.

It's either that, or I can't stand her constant minging, continues taking of deep breathes in her lines, and this constant bambi-like personality she has.

Idk, something about how this Lara was written irks me and I can't finish the second game because of it.

Apparently shes the same in the third game? Like, what, when the hell does Lara Croft become the badass Tomb Raider we know and love and not the girl trying to be Tomb Raider?

I can accept in the original reboot, but...in the second and third? Nah, I'm good.
 

Guilty_AI

Member
I loved it. Great combat, epic fights, good story.

Some games just arent for everyone.

Considering you don’t like the stories in most Playstation exclusives, what games do you consider with good stories and characters?
eh, RDR2 had good story and writing, despite the god awful mechanics.

Though the actual quality of each varies, many JRPGs and VNs at least try to tell interesting stories instead of being a desperate attempt at being perceived as "serious" or "mature" like most modern sony games.

There's also original Deus Ex, though half of the reason is because how memeable each every line is.

EDIT: Oh, The Talos Principle was also pretty good.
 
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xrnzaaas

Member
I'd pick Cortez from ME3 instead of Vega. I feel like Cortez was only added so you'd have an easy gay romance option in the game. I haven't bothered talking to the guy after the initial introductions during my recent playthrough of the remaster.

Just Cause
Rico Rodriguez is a great pick. For me he's just a tool of destruction in Just Cause games. He's a super bland character and I think the studio didn't even bother making him more interesting.
 
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Aion002

Member
I guess every Call of Duty, Halo, Killzone and Battlefield characters...

Call of Duty: I can only remember Mason, the dog and Kevin Spacey.

Halo: I only remember Master Chief and Cortana because they're basically (in my mind): a Doom main character and a smurf cosplayers.

Killzone: There is that Rico douche...

Battlefield: Well... I can't. They're all completely unremarkable.
 
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M1chl

Currently Gif and Meme Champion
Ethan Winters, worst character in universe, I am glad about the end of VILLAGE.

Capcom please make another resident Evil in a normal fashion, playing currently Revelations 2 in co-op and it's a great fun.
 

junguler

Banned
ellie and abby from tlou2, two retarded weirdos fighting over a random doctor and some fucking asshole who decided to overshare to total strangers.
 
The vast majority of characters and party members in rpgs.
you could say that out of humans in the real world. No different than a future version of GPT with limited data. Many even seem to take most of what they see as pure nonsense, and don't see the relevant deep meaning in many works of art and how they reflect the world and even the very story of their real world lives.

Pointless and endless debate like speaking to a bunch of rocks.
 
Still more interested than Master Chief and I love Halo games.
He’s one of the more interesting characters. Every character can be criticised like above, from Cloud, Snake, Dante, Chris Redfield, Mass Effect’s Sheppard lol.
Plus, whoever made the above must be crying for not having a Playstation haha
Only if you don't know the Master Chief's story lol.
 

Kokoloko85

Member
eh, RDR2 had good story and writing, despite the god awful mechanics.

Though the actual quality of each varies, many JRPGs and VNs at least try to tell interesting stories instead of being a desperate attempt at being perceived as "serious" or "mature" like most modern sony games.

There's also original Deus Ex, though half of the reason is because how memeable each every line is.

EDIT: Oh, The Talos Principle was also pretty good.

I really liked RDR2 and all the complaints it gets. Sets the mood and attention to detail. I don’t understand all the hate it gets. GTA V on the other hand Im not a fan of.

Dues Ex original was awesome Back in the day, Havent played any of the others after that. Just didnt look the same. Same for Max Payne 1&2.

Lumping Sony IP’s is like lumping all JRPG’s the same.

I dont feel like Uncharted, Ratchet and Clank or Spiderman are too serious or mature at all Or Gravity Rush. Horizon had an really interesting and unique lore but the main story and NPC’s were totally forgettable and kinda crap.

Returnal is different and I really like the openess of the story and how you have to figure it out.

Ghost of Tsushima was serious but you can’t really do a Samurai vs Mongol story not seriously lol. Its a samurai movie, I enjoyed the story and game altogether.

The only ones Id count as serious/mature ones are TLOU, God of War and Ghost of Tsushima. Its like people saying all Sony does is 3rd person story games. But God of War, Returnal, Bloodborne, Horizon, Ghosts of Tsushima are all different and play differently.

Bloodborne is amazing too and my favourite.

As for JRPG’s, too many to name. Suikoden 1&2, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Final Fantasy 4—12, Shining Force 3, Chrono Trigger. Xenogears are amongst my favourites and Ive missed out loads.
 
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