I think they're both Mass Effect dudes. Liara and Garrus. Because the arc on those characters has been incredible. Characters in video games don't often have arcs. They're mostly exactly who they are for the entire series.
Spoilers for the Mass Effect series.
Liara when you meet her in Mass Effect 1 to the end of Mass Effect 3 is ... I'm borderline thinking it about female empowerment. She starts off needing to be rescued from a trap she foolishly stumbled into, cowering during the boss fight, and then fainting on the Normandy a half-dozen times like a Southern belle. She's shy, naive and infatuated with the main character for no good reason. She's a prototypical ingenue. What's worse; her actions are for herself in the game. She joins because her goals are similar to Shepard's, to study the Protheans further and to confront her mother. She helps Shepard to help herself. Compare to the second; in the two years between the games, she makes Mass Effect 2 even possible by recovering Shepard's body. And she does it for Shepard. Not because it helps her, she goes through hell to do it. She does to help Shepard, not to help herself. She's much more independent, opinionated, and in control of her own destiny independent of Shepard. Move on to the third game; compare how you meet her to the original. You once again see her under hostile attack, but this time it appears that she sets the trap. She crawls through vents with more agility than Cerberus, and turns the tables on them and kills them without remorse. She then informs you that with you being out of commission, she's continued working towards stopping the Reapers. Once again important; she's now not working to help herself or Shepard in particular, she's working for everyone. She isn't gushing over the Prothean archives like she would have in the original, they're a tool for her to stop the Reapers. There's some other great sequences, when she makes the time capsule in full knowledge that they will probably die and need to pass on gifts to the next victims of the cycle, when she tells Shepard that if the Crucible doesn't work, her lifespan means she will experience centuries and centuries of the Reapers harvesting civilization, but carrying on. That's a great arc for a character.
Garrus is excellent as well, but actually the opposite in terms of indepdence. Garrus gets that love from everyone because he takes on the role as Shepard's support. He starts off as independent and unsure of Shepard, still struggling with his own issues regarding C-Sec, Spectres, his father. He's struggling with the concept of duty, and who precisely deserves it... wanting to fire on the ship violates his duty as a C-Sec officer, allowing Saleon and his victims to flee violates his duty to those victims. He's standoffish towards Shepard, and conflicted about what he should do. But without a better alternative, he followed Shepard. In Mass Effect 2, he gave himself a duty as Archangel, along with his vigilante group. But for all his 'good deeds' he still felt like he ultimately failed; Omega was still Omega, and his team was dead. Once again, without a better alternative he follows Shepard, to a suicide mission no less. Skip to Mass Effect 3, and Garrus has been given a duty, one that he performs. But he chooses another, he chooses to go with Shepard. It's not a matter of no better alternative, he has an alternative but he chooses you. That's why people take such a shine to Garrus. He is there for him,for you. No matter what, he is ready to support you in whatever way you require. That last speech is the kind of brothers-in-arms camraderie shit that can't help but make someone mist up. Consider his arc throughout that series, from a plain and standoffish character to Shepard's most loyal man at arms. Great character.
Assassin's Creed spoilers after here.
Non-Mass Effect, I'll definitely add Ezio. They made a big mistake in having Ezio die in a comic book instead of at the end of Revelations. Do you remember the first time you see Ezio in AC2? He's a baby. You're there when he's born. You're there when he's a spoiled pussyhound teenager. You're there at the worst moment in his life. You're there when he first puts on the robes, with no idea of the decades of service to come. All the insanity that comes after, the triumphs and failures, all the love he loses and gains throughout his life. His transformation from a fierce hothead to wizened old master, it's something you don't get to do in games. They should've had him lay down to die at the end of Revelations. After all his service, after saving so many, after getting to know him over the last three years, he deserved to do it on-screen.
That worst moment of his life, his family... when it happened I recognized it as a setup for him to become an Assassin. I recognized the feathers 'in memory of Petruccio' to be a decent narrative cover for silly collectible gathering. It was in Brotherhood, when he still would pick up a feather... that's when that hit me. As a 45 year old man, still heartbroken about the death of his 14 year old brother decades before, but carrying on. Picking up that first feather twenty years later had so much more impact that picking up the hundredth feather originally. Petruccio was there, and then he was gone. Twenty years later, Petruccio was there, and he's still gone. Strangely powerful moment.
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