Are these characters the most relatable of all time? Photos / Supplied
Are these characters the most relatable of all time? Photos / Supplied
Opinion by
Game characters get under your skin in a way TV and movie characters can’t. So who are the most relatable of all time? Siobhan Keogh makes her picks.
A strange thing occurs when you alternate between playing two games which couldn't be more different from one another. On one hand, you've got Life is Strange, a character-driven adventure game where you play as a teenager with superpowers. On the other hand, there's Metal Gear Solid V: The PhantomPain, a gritty, open-world shooter.
You can't help but compare the two, even though they're apples and oranges. So over the last week or so I've been thinking about characters, and how relatable they are. Life is Strange is full of relatable characters, from the main character Max, to her best friend Chloe, and even the local drug dealer Frank. Metal Gear? Not so much. Snake is a straight badass, but you're not really supposed to deeply understand his feelings.
That's fairly common. Relatability hasn't been given a lot of importance in video games, because in most cases you're supposed to instead imprint your own feelings on the character. Nonetheless, Life is Strange got me thinking - who are the most relatable game characters of all time?
You probably learned in primary school that good characters should be flawed. The Walking Dead: Season One's main character, Lee Everett, exemplifies this idea. you would be forgiven for forgetting, as you play through, that Lee is a murderer who killed a senator. That's because Lee is freed, both literally and figuratively, by the zombie apocalypse, and by meeting a little girl called Clementine.
Lee becomes human through his relationship with Clementine, and even though you make a lot of his decisions for him he seems to become his own person. At some point, you begin making decisions based on what you think he would do, rather than what you would like to do.
Watch: Lee Everett gameplay in The Walking Dead (warning: graphic content)
Nathan Drake - Uncharted
The Uncharted series has a bunch of great characters, but it's the humour of its main character, treasure hunter Nathan Drake, which puts him on top. In a lot of ways he's like your funny friend - the one who's sarcastic most of the time but will always try to help you out if you're in trouble. At the same time, he's not perfect - often selfish, romantically troubled, and possibly even a pathological liar. But a lovable one.
Nathan Drake from the Uncharted series. Photo / Supplied
Red XIII - Final Fantasy VII
This one will surprise some people, mostly because Red XIII - also known as Nanaki - isn't human. He's the last member of his species, which looks something like a cross between a fox and a wolf.
But he's a fox-wolf with the mind of a teenager, and something of a tragic backstory. He believes he's been abandoned by his father at a young age and was raised by a human, who he loves dearly. But like many of us, what he thinks he knows about his life and his childhood is wrong. Over the course of the game, Red XIII learns about his culture and reevaluates what he knows and who he is - something we all go through several times throughout our lives. It also mirrors the major villain's character arc.
The entire Final Fantasy series is full of relatable characters, but Red XIII's story has always stood out to me as being particularly on-point.
Watch: A scene from Final Fantasy VII featuring Nanaki/Red XIII
Mass Effect is another series with many, many great characters, but the growth of Mordin Solus over Mass Effect 2 and 3 is gut wrenching. The salarian starts off as an awkward but clever guy with a prejudice against krogans, and over time - as he gets to know you and your krogan buddies - he begins to see his alien companions differently. He grows to understand the universe around him in a more profound way. And haven't we all had that gradual revelation?
He's also a lot of fun to get to know - funny, inquisitive, and guided by his moral compass even when you aren't.
Watch: Meeting Mordin Solus in Mass Effect 2
Ellie - The Last of Us
The Last of Us has a lot in common with two of the games on this list already - The Walking Dead and Uncharted. It was created by the same game studio as Uncharted, Naughty Dog, and shares similar themes with The Walking Dead - an adult man of questionable morals tries to defend a girl against the zombie horde.
This time, though, it's the girl who steals the show. The Last of Us's Ellie is a survivor in the truest sense. She's not the strongest person in the world, or the smartest - she's an ordinary teenage girl born into a world that's not-so-ordinary. She's a regular person who's trying to do what she thinks is right.
