NPCs who ruined entire games for you?

This thread may or may not just be an excuse for me to complain about Pokemon Sword. I finished it this week, my first time seriously playing a Pokemon game since Platinum. Despite having a generally pleasant time catching 'em all, I wound up really disliking the game on balance, partially because of how braindead the story was (sure, it's meant to be kids' game, but kids deserve better than this tripe) and partially because of how utterly detestable I found Hop. Every time that guy opened his mouth to talk about how great he was or did his stupid winky face and spouted the same quip about type matchups literally every single time I used a super effective move, a part of me wanted to snap my Switch in half. Dude is a distilled essence of smug condescension that wished on a star to become a real boy and I hate his stupid stupid face.

Anyway, what NPCs have y'all found to be so terrible that they ruined or came close to ruining a game for you?

I loved Persona 5 but I found Morgana insufferable. Think Fi, Navi & Cubert Farnsworth rolled into one being, that's Morgana. You also have to carry it around everywhere you go. The internet also loves him/her because he/she is a cat.

The weird talking doll thing in Tales of Xillia comes to mind. It's the game's take on a mascot character, which is a character archetype that doesn't usually bother me (I love Teddie and Morgana in P4 and P5, for example), but as soon as this thing started talking I quickly realized it was one of the most annoying characters I've ever encountered and I knew couldn't take a whole game of that. As soon as the cutscene ended I quit the game and never went back.

I have never noped out of game so hard so fast in my life. (It probably wouldn't have been THAT bad if I had kept playing, but I wasn't that invested in the game anyway.)

It has to be something that takes a mechanical turn, really, I'm pretty patient with most of the usual suspects in games that annoy people. That sort of thing just doesn't phase me much on its own.

But if you turn a character thats already sort of annoying into a lousy gameplay segment? That'll take a turn real fast.

The historical example for GB is Rico from Killzone, the most useless partner.

Tough question. It usually boils down to characters from Japanese games, since they almost always fit in a very defined archetype mold. Their one- or two-dimensional presentations are evident in Japanese, but come to full bear when translated, having to stand alongside English language counterparts.

I'll do a sharp turn and say Sylvanas Windrunner from the World of Warcraft franchise. Their latest story turn for this character made it evident no conclusion to her villainous storyline was to be had for a number of years. I was a staunch Horde player during my 'career' and already disliked having to run errands for the raging warchief, Garrosh Hellscream, during Mists of Pandaria. To now run errands and powerlessly witness another major Horde character seemingly serve her own selfish needs, and to an overt degree as to easily kill off a very beloved Horde NPC, completed the one-two-punch.

Kids do deserve better. I was 12 when Blue & Red came out and was enthralled. That story still holds up just fine.

I have two from the same game: Miranda Lawson and the Illusive Man (I assume that someone who can be in your party but you can't control is still an NPC). Also, the removal of my favorite NPC Liara T'soni.

I don't know if this counts as it's not about a character but...

What's that? Your most powerful unit has been mind controlled within the first turn of this asshole appearing on screen? And is shooting all his team mates in the back and ruining your life? Cool.
Ruined the game for me, that's not something i want to deal with.

Roman from GTA IV. It's a massively overrated game for a lot of reasons, but he was insanely annoying.

Oh, also that meme DJ in Watch_Dogs. Again, not a great game, but I viscerally hated that character.

The fairy thing in World of Final Fantasy. I was ready to love that game, but their speech was absolutely the worst I've heard in almost 30 years of gaming.

The kicker? There was an alternate voice pack!...if you pre-ordered the game. If you didn't, it was blacked out, forever. You couldn't even buy it

@boozak said:

I'm one of those people who basically melts with joy whenever I see a cat, real or fictional. Morgana was so obnoxious they made me hate a cat for the first time in my life.

Maybe that horrendously racist homeless woman from Deus Ex Human Revolution. Good God, who thought that was okay?

I don't know that I fully understand the dislike for Morgana, honestly.

If it's a character thing then sure okay I disagree but whatever, but mostly I remember seeing the meme version of complaining about how he is always reminding you to go to bed or whatever and that's just giving those messages that were always in the games a face which...is not a great move but it's kinda harmless.

The Lotus in Warframe is one of the main reasons I don't enjoy that game. Terrible voice acting and she never stops talking throughout every mission. Even turning off the voice doesn't help since her face keeps popping up on the screen.

Hugo from A Plague Tale: Innocence. He was fine at first, though I enjoyed the missions in the middle of the game where he wasn't present more than the earlier ones that involve him. But he makes a decision that kicks off the final third of the game that I found idiotic. And the game is linear, which means I had no choice but to forgive him later on. I didn't want to forgive him, bad things happened that were entirely his fault. I hated the conclusion of the game, and it was entirely due to him.

On my first playthrough of Firewatch I absolutely detested Delilah. She was like my worst nightmare, constantly trying to be funny, one-up you, and ask personal questions with this "I'm so laid back and above it all" tone. My ears couldn't take more than 30 minutes of her at a time. Even when you try not to humour her or respond at all, it was painful to me.

I replayed it quite some time later and ended up loving it, but that initial reaction still floats to the top of my mind when thinking about this topic.

@blackichigo: No one character has ruined a game for me. Even Sophia Coppola in Godfather Part 3 didn’t RUIN that movie (there’s a lot wrong with it, but it’s totally fine and Pacino is great).

I’d be lying if I didn’t come into this thread scanning for the words “Deus Ex,” though. ;)

I'm struggling to go back to Death Stranding because everything to do with Amelie is so cringy and dumb.

Rose from Metal Gear Solid 2 takes the cake.

Conrad Verner... I spent three games being mean to this tortured soul and then he died. I still feel guilty.

Trevor and everyone associated with his character. If GTA5 was about Michael and Franklin, new school old school, etc it wouldve been better. Game goes downhill from his introduction and Franklin takes a backseat and is pointless remaining in the story because of him

The thing about Morgana is that, even though the character was fine (although there are story issues there too) they was used as a crutch by the game to, in my opinion, obviously hide the fact it was missing features.

I actually really liked Hop, but then I'm weird and I like that archetype in general.

Echo (The Helghan Agent) from Killzone: Shadowfall, and I know you asked for NPCs, but fuck it: the protagonist (Lucas Kellen) from that game as well. Echo might be a real piece of shit, but the protag is just as bad, if not worse for buying into her shit so readily. You know, I really enjoyed what I played of that game as an FPS (about three-quarters of it, I believe), but the story of that game just got me angry.

Oh, our citizens are suffering because of your government. You don't know what it's like to have your planet ravaged by war. Both sides are responsible.

Oh, we're responsible for your citizens poverty? Not your insane authoritarian government that openly murders people on a regular basis? We don't know what it's like to have our planet ravaged by war? The planet you fucked up in the first game? The planet that has only one city left at this point? Both fucking sides, are you kidding me?

They try and couch it in an anti-war message, but there's nothing you can do to hide that horseshit. Man alive, I'm still angry about that. Fuck those characters.

WEEELL SHEEEEEYIT, IF IT AIN'T THE CAP'N HISSELF.

@mikachops: Morgana really just filled in for the voice in your head in P3 and P4 that would tell you to go to bed early, or where you would have normally been forced into a plot train. (Let us not forget the P4:ER and Jeff infamously yelling "IT WOULD BE BEST IF YOU WENT TO BED EARLY TODAY.")

I can kinda understand why people found it more annoying for a character to force you to do that instead of your own character or the game itself, even if it didn't bother me, but the other games did the same thing. It wasn't due to a lack of features over previous games.

Couple months ago I played through Far Cry 4 and the fact that they kept pushing me towards picking Sabal or Amita in the Golden Path, even though they were both clearly dirtbags and at the end "revealed" their true nature like it wasn't fucking obvious from the beginning really left a bad taste in my mouth. Fuck those characters and fuck the game for not letting me forge my own path and offering 2 bullshit "choices."

@zeik: @efesell: It wasnt just being told what to do and when to do it (filling the void of the game doing the same) it was everything. He was abrasive, obnoxious, pervy, selfish, had a very annoying voice and the worst part is you couldnt escape him. Teddie by comparison, as bad as some of his dialog is, was just a joyous dofus.

Anyway, this is obviously all my opinion and I dont mean to troll the fans of his but the only redeeming quality I can think of is his character design, which is decent enough, divourced from everything else. (Oh and he can turn into a bus... Anime!)

I always tremendously hated the sidekick in Alan Wake. Just relentlessly unbearable!

B Fresh from the My Career mode in NBA 2K18. Just the absolute worst.

Final Fantasy 13's Hope was quite annoying.

Take what you said about Hop and apply it to the entire world of Pokémon for the past few generations... everyone exists just to say how awesome you are and how your level 13 Bidoof or whatever is the best thing they've ever seen. I miss when there was actual conflict with the rival and the bad guys. The whole thing hammers home that this is a capital K Kid's game. Kids deserve better, indeed.

I don't hate Morgana in Persona 5, but here is a list of reasons why he gets hate on:

1. Always telling you to sleep. At this point it is meme-ish, and of course more of hating on the gameplay mechanics more than Morgana himself.

2. Shitting on Ryuji, and then fawning over Ann.

3. ...yet can't take getting clown on. Remember the Haru arc? I will try to keep it as spoiler free as possible: the self realization story was going somewhere but then came to a grinding halt because of Morgana...and for what? Essentially a cutscene moment that amounts to just wasted game day with minimal inputs. The reasoning behind the scene isn't bad, but it lacks impact.

As for the actual topic, the first thing that came to mind is Caius in FF13-2. There are a lot of things wrong with the game, but he is probably the worst of them all, which is quite an amazing feat. It isn't necessarily the character is too insufferable nor is he playing the villain design to be hated role well, but rather the game needs or wants him to be many different things at the same time that causes everything to collapse into a jumble mess.

The game wants you to feel for him, wants to make him into a sympathetic character, wants to make him to be this "cool" edgelord dude, needs him to be this badass that is powerful, and always one step ahead...but they just don't work all at once. They are then stuck with needing to figure out what to do with him and had to literally retcon and ass pull some bullshit to keep his "character" up.

I'm pretty immune to being annoyed by voice acting of any kind in a game unless it's just a flat out bad performance. Most recent example of that would be Sonya in MK11 but she's both a playable character and didn't ruin the whole game for me. Barring something of that ilk, I've got skin like a rhinoceros when it comes to even the most shrill voice performances. I'm trying to think of characters who maybe mechanically and/or narratively ruin a game entirely for me.

Maybe Zobek in Lords of Shadow? I love Patrick Stewart but his pre-level narrations make Zobek sound like he's creeping on Gabriel the whole game. On paper the story twists around him are pretty intriguing but in context they're just lame. I'd say the level designs ruin the game far more than he does.

Maybe E.E. in MGS2? You have some of the more annoying bits of gameplay escorting her plus some awkward and problematic story bits involving her. It's ironic that she is the character who introduces some of Kojima's most interesting prescient ideas in his entire career considering most of the actual content surrounding her ends up being so frustrating. I know most people would say Rose which is understandable but at least she leads to a few interesting revelations about Raiden whereas Emma leads us to revelations about Otacon that I really wish she hadn't. When the game was new I remember finding the Rose drama kind of hilarious for how over the top and out of place it is, nowadays I just think "Jeez you two, get some counseling or something".

How about all of the friends in Far Cry 3? The game is fun for much of the time you're playing it but then you have to come to grips with the fact that the friends you have to save are complete dipshits.

I was struggling to think of one then I saw this, Rose is definitely the correct answer for this question, but Rose in MGS4 is pretty cool.

Yennefer in The Witcher 3 is one of the worst people i've ever seen in a video game. Exacerbated by the fact that you're supposed to think that Geralt fell in love with this miserable hypocritical sociopath.

Most of the AI in Borderlands 2 were fucking insufferable.

Hell is having to hear Claptrap and Tiny Tina for an eternity.

The teenager from Borderlands 3 tanked the game for me the moment she was introduced. Did they aim for every fucking awful teenager trope or just stumble into all of them accidentally? You know what? I'm going to change this to every character in Borderlands 3 that isn't Ice-T. All of them. Godawful. Especially that teenager. And Rhys, who up until that game was one of my characters of the console generation. But oh no, let's make him insufferable, useless, and have him whine about his mustache endlessly for the duration of the game, instead of focusing on the goofy geek makes good story of Tales.

Also, while I don't think she ruins the game, I will forever hear Navi's "Hey! Listen!" in the worst of my nightmares right alongside Fran Drescher and whoever the hell sang North to Alaska. You are a nightmare hellscape of a character, Navi, and whoever invented you deserves to have rocks served to them in all their cups of coffee.

I hope the dog from Duck Hunt is chasing ducks forever in Satan's kennels.

Any time you have to guide a child around in a game and there isn't the option to turn them into long pork for your lunch later is going to make me miserable. Children are, at best, reminders I still need to schedule a vasectomy. I sure as hell don't want to have to run around in a digital world and have to deal with their bullshit when I should be punching zombies in the taint.

LYMLE. How the holy balls did I forget the Worst Character of All Time? If you've never played Star Ocean: The Last Hope and plan to, do yourself a favor and just shoot your console when you get to the point where Lymle's introduced. Save yourself from hearing an eight-year-old catgirl saying "mkay?" for seventy two billion hours of JRPG mediocrity. An eight year old catgirl is already a dumb fucking idea for a party member by itself, but giving her an annoying vocal tic to boot? Yeah. Joy.

I will gleefully say it again. Kids are the WORST. Jail them until they're eighteen.

I would say everyone in the latest GTA's. Between the first many hours feeling like a tutorial and hating literally every character in the latest GTA's I have never made it past fourish hours.

Morgana was cool because it could transform into a bus. I guess it cause I’m not sure what gender Morgana is supposed to be but all you haters need to loosen up on that poor demon bus cat trying to get you a good 8 hours of sleep!

Surprised I haven’t seen a lot more mentions of Ashley from Resident Evil 4.

@humanity: I think it's mainly just me, most of GB are unsurprisingly pro Morgana. I should of known better than to vent here. Personally I find characters that are supposed to suck more tolerable so Ashley never bothered me.

@fezrock said:

I havent completed the game yet but I think i'm at the point you mean and I agree completely. I have a fairly high amount of patience for babysitting simulators. I've enjoyed The Walking Dead, The Last of Us, Life is Strange 2, God of War & Death Stranding. All of those games had some moment where i've felt at least some amount of kinship towards the child I was taking care of but i'm pretty far into this game and I feel nothing but rage for this damn kid. (The idea that this moron is able to stealth past all these guards in chapter 14 is probably the most unrealistic thing in the game so far, hes more likely to die chasing a bird off a cliff)

I have a history of wishing ill upon almost the entire cast of a Final Fantasy game, FF8 being the first. Then X, then XIII. It's come to a point where I quit playing the franchise altogether. So I don't know about XV but from what I've seen, I'm pretty sure I'll hate them too.

I hated everything about Carth Onasi from Knights of the Old Republic. Every word out of his mouth, the annoying voice he used to spew them, his dumb jacket, the two stupid spikes of hair hanging from his ugly forehead, the pathetic excuse for facial hair glued to his boring face. It didn't ruin the game for me. But ugh. Carth.

Also just about everyone in every Borderlands game past the first. I am a man who reads every bit of conversation and lore and never skips a cutscene when I play games. When I play MMOs, half the subscription money is spent reading item descriptions. But I straight up don't want to hear anything anyone has to say in those games. Handsome Jack is the worst offender, but only because they clearly think they created something brilliant and shove him anywhere they can.

He didn't ruin the game for me but i just couldn't stand him. Knights of The Old Republics own whiny Carth Onasi and his constant yapping quote "Pure Pazak".

@luchalma:

lol didn't ruin it for me either but I certainly feel you. Bioware always includes a lame Carth type too, from Alistair to Kaiden (and now that I'm typing them out they have super annoying names too)

@stephen_von_cloud: I didn't mind Alistair, but Kaiden is almost a carbon copy of Carth. At least he is easy to avoid in that game.

Everybody in the Half-Life universe. "OH, YOU DO THE HONOURS, GORDON. PRESS THIS BUTTON. TAKE CHARGE OF THIS SITUATION MANY HANDS WOULD BE BETTER SUITED TO. OR SOMETHING ANYONE ELSE COULD HAVE DONE BEFORE YOUR ARRIVAL."

@humanity said:

I started RE4 for the first time last year and I was solidly enjoying it. Then I rescued Ashley and realized what the foreseeable rest of the game was going to be like. I have not touched it since.

@banefirelord: It's been a while since I last played Resi 4 but I don't recall Ashley ever being that bad. Still a great game and worth finishing. She's a cakewalk compared to dealing with AI Sheva from 5.

Pure Pazak is Atton from Kotor 2, Carth is not interesting enough to develop a catchphrase.

With the exception of Varric, pretty much any of the companions in Dragon Age 2. They are all incredibly one note, walking bags of cliches.