5 Characters in Video Games that has Character Development

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In every story there are characters that makes up the cast. They come in all kinds of different appearances and behaviors that try to copy real people, by having personalities, motivations, morals, and interests.

Trying to feel like actual human beings is what gets our attention and causes us to care about them in a story. What can make a character better, is to see them face something called “Character Development”.

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Here are five examples with an honorable mention of video game characters that show character development. I will do this list with a Start section (how the character was in the beginning of the game) and an End section (how the character is near the end of the game.)

WARNING

I guess……., do not read the end sections of these characters, if you are playing the games and have not finished them. The characters are in no rank order.

5 Video Game Characters with Character Development

Honorable Mention

Neku (The World Ends With You)

Start

The story starts off with Neku being an introverted teenager, who likes to be alone and do whatever he wants. He tries to stay away from people and don’t care about them at all. In his character design he wears headphones as a way to shun the world from his mind and to avoid communication. One of his lines that describes his character is “I don’t understand people. Never have, never will”.

The gameplay displays his loner personality too, by the player having to work with Neku’s partners. In this game everyone is paired up with someone, in order to fight back and survive in the Reaper’s Game. To perform better attacks, you have to work well and be in sync with them.

This is a cool way to present a character’s personality into gameplay. Its like you are experiencing Neku’s social issue with him and understand how he feels.

End

Neku does have someone who he likes and admires. It’s a graffiti artist named Cat, who does art all over Shibuya. Neku says he is the only person that he feels who understands him. He goes around the city to check out Cat’s work all of the time. One part of the game, he meets Cat (undercover) in a cafe shop. This man tells him a quote (from Cat) that Neku always knows and believes. That is

From this motto, Neku experience what that really means. From all of the challenges and witnessing the loss of players, Neku learns that it’s good to rely on people and to give them a chance. He looks at the world in a different way and starts to see that people do matter. When the Reaper’s Game ended, Neku partners become his friends. Now he is open to people and enjoys spending time with others.

Miles “Tails” Prower (Sonic Adventure)

Start

Tails has always been Sonic’s best friend and is viewed as the sidekick. His role is to help Sonic out with his inventions and to be transportation, using his plane or himself. In the classic games, Tails follows Sonic as the player moves at high speed. In the current games, he acts more of a support role and rely on him more often.

In Sonic Adventure, the game is broken into six playable characters, with their own story and gameplay style. Tail’s story starts with him being next to Sonic and they try to stop Dr.Eggman. This is what we expect for Tail’s part of the game.

During the middle of Tail’s campaign, he is separated from Sonic by an attack from Eggman in the sky. After having a flashback, he ventures off on his own to build a new plane. Later he finds Sonic, and they confront Eggman again.

End

Eggman and Chaos fails to defeat Sonic, so he had a plan B of destroying the city with a giant missile. Sonic is nowhere to be seen, and Tails is the only one present. The missile was going to go off in a matter of minutes.

Then Miles Tails Prower started to think about himself, and how he always relies on Sonic to save the day. He says “I’ve changed a lot since I started hanging with Sonic, but I can’t depend on him forever. I know I can do this by myself. Ok, Eggman Bring it on!” Tails faces his fears and stops Eggman and the missile alone.

In the end Tails is shocked and happy that he was the hero this time and saved the city. This was really cool to see scared, helpless Tails who rely too much on his friend, to stand up and become independent. As the player you can feel the alone moments with Tails because Sonic is not there in the story and gameplay.

This changed Tails as a character and it continued on in Sonic Adventure Two, where he became more confident in his actions and took a little of a leadership role. I like that this version of him is coming back. Tails looks up to Sonic, and he wants to be like him someday in bravery and self-confidence. If you want to know more about Tail’s character, listen to his theme song “Believe In Myself” from either one of the Adventure games.

Sonic Adventure Tails Theme Song music video “Believe In Myself”

Sonic Adventure 2 Tails Theme Song music video “Believe In Myself”

X (Mega Man X Series)

Start

Mega Man X is a new generation of a robot called “Reploids”, which are able to think, feel, and make decisions. He works for a base (Mavrick Hunter HQ) to prevent any reploids from going Maverick (losing their human nature to a violent mode in their AI) and cause destruction to the world. His role in taking necessary actions that involves killing or harming someone is difficult for X.

He cares for others and wants to solve his missions with peace before committing to violence. Sometimes he hesitates, but deep down he knows it’s the only option to solve the situation. In the games he discovers that this is his purpose, from listening to the Dr.Light hologram recordings (not to mention he gives X an upgrade to make him stronger every time).

Everyone in the HQ thinks X is a great Mavrick Hunter and is even ranked S class. He has a partner named Zero and they mostly do missions together on the field. His friend personality is the opposite by being cool, tough, and not afraid of making harsh decisions.

Zero is more vigilant and better in combat than X. In the first game, Zero saves X’s life and he tells him “Remember, you have not reached full power yet. If you use all the abilities you were designed with, you may even become as powerful as I am”.

It’s not in the games, but I think X looks up to Zero as a friend and comrade. He believes in X and thinks he can become a better hunter and relpoid.

End

From the experiences that X faced in all of the games, he improves in everything as a hunter and character. He starts off as someone who doesn’t believe in himself, to a reploid that has great strength. That potential everyone sees slowly grows every game. There are intense moments where X has to fight his best friend to save him from becoming a maverick. I think facing Zero helped X to deal with resulting to violence, especially after X5.

In Mega Man X6 he is caring Zero’s saber and stepped up as a character. By the time of X8 and Command Mission, he has a more leadership mentality and is more mature in his job. X becomes bolder, confident, vigilant, strong, and looks out for his teammates.

I like that X still has his old personality and improves in his weaknesses. Mega Man X is an example of taking a character and giving them development over time, as the series moves forward.

Midna (The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princes)

Start

Link starts off having a typical day in Ordon Village, until his childhood friend is captured. After passing out, Link wakes up and goes after the one who kidnapped Illia. When he enters the mysterious wall of the twilight realm, he transforms into a wolf and is taken to the dungeon of Hyrule Castle.

Link meets an imp named Midna, who was looking for him. She understands what Link possess and takes advantage of it, by setting him free and making him do whatever she wants in return.

Midna’s personality is this heartless sassy person who only does things that will benefit her. She has this I don’t care attitude in her dialog, and speaks mean with her insults and sarcasm. After meeting Princess Zelda, Midna taunts Link about rescuing Illia and says “Well, you’d have to be my servant… and like a servant, you’d have to do exactly as I say!”

Link as a wolf, shows how powerless and helpless he is at the moment. Going back to the village in this form just made it worse for him and Midna knows that. When Link changes back to a human, he is still being used by Midna in secret. She harasses him, by following Link in his shadow and giving him orders. This shows that Midna is really clever and manipulative.

End

Link and Midna encounters Zant and he attacks them by transforming Link back into a wolf and closely killing Midna. Wolf Link’s job is to sneak into Hyrule Castle and meet princess Zelda to save Midna’s life. The game does a good job with the situation because the song “Midna’s Lament” is played, and you can hear her breathing hard during a storming night.

As a wolf, he faces humans again, but it’s different this time. The feeling it gives is trying to find help when you see someone really injured and its an emergency. Princess Zelda sacrifice herself to save Midna and she won’t let it go in vain. After Link pulls the master sword, Midna asks him a favor.

Now Midna’s attitude starts to change into becoming nice and caring. I like the role switch, from Link needing Midna’s help to Midna being the helpless one. She saw that in spite of how bad she treated Link and Zelda; they still wanted to rescue her.

The bond between Link and Midna gets better from now on to where they become companions instead of a master and servant. Link sees Midna in a desperate situation, and he wants to help her save the kingdom of twilight. As the player you want to see them work together more.

By the end of the game, they become close friends looking out for each other. The final boss and ending really shows how much their relationship grew. As a Zelda game, you are close to this because Link is silent.

Riku (Kingdom Hearts Series)

Start

Kingdom Hearts starts with three friends with a desire to leave their home island to discover other worlds. Riku is the oldest from the kids, and the most mature. To them he is the big brother figure and is a friend and rival to the main protagonist Sora. Riku is diligent in getting things done, less open, and makes sure his friends are not slacking off. He messes around with Sora and Kairi, but they know he cares about them and is a nice guy.

The trio gets separated, and the goal is to be reunited again. Sora and Riku both find individuals that could help them on the search for Kairi. The boys run into each other and Riku starts to look for Kairi on his own. They both had the same goal but doing it differently. Riku was doing villainous actions, but in his mind, he thought it was necessary. Sora was performing heroic deeds, and this started to show they’re on opposite sides of good and evil.

End

During their encounters, Sora and Riku friendship became worse and started questioning each other motives. Riku was being used by Maleficent and started to feel rejected from Sora and cared less about him. She used the darkness in his heart to make him stronger, so Riku can do his task. He didn’t care or know about Maleficent goals, all he wanted was to find and rescue Kairi. After losing to Sora, Riku wanted to become stronger and Ansem gave him this power, not knowing he was taking advantage of again.

When Sora defeats Ansem, Riku became separated from his friends and went on a solo journey. He decides to be strong without using the power of darkness to help him. Throughout the game’s Riku struggles with the darkness and spends most of his time alone or with King Mickey. Mickey knows Riku wants to change, and he tells him to stay true to himself and stay focused on the light.

Riku feels bad inside to what he has become and confronts his fears to become a better person. He gets more involved with the narrative during the games and sometimes works with Sora. His heart changes so much, that his keyblade appearance is different. Riku’s character development is an example of what people call a redemption arc. Now Sora, Riku and Kairi can fully trust each other, and their bond is closer than ever.

I like that one of his kyeblades shows Riku’s development. It has a dark appearance, but the wings represent him trying to become better.

Melia Antiqua (Xenoblade Chronicles without Future Connected)

Start

Melia is a princess of the High Entia race, in the Capital city of Alcamoth. The High Entia are prideful and look down on other races on Bionis and is the only place that has a monarchy. They are the most highly advanced race in technology and most abundant in their economy and military strength.

As the princess, Melia behaves like a noblewomen and treated Shulk and the group like outcast when meeting the first time. Besides that, her personality is tough, hides her feelings, elegant, introverted, and sometimes a little intimidating. She is willing to do her best for her people by taking initiative.

End

As Melia travels with the team, she realizes there is more to non-entia and learns about them. She learns that it’s okay to receive help from others and to be open with herself. This is the first time she is social because her whole life, Melia wears a mask in public and have a hard time with the royal family. Turns out Melia is a half-human and half-high entia, which caused an issue to some of the noble classmen and affected her life.

Melia questions and does not believe she’s worth to be fit as princess and taking the throne. In the game she experiences lost, not just from close family members, but also the loss of more than fifty percent of her people. Many years ago, the high Entia were beings called “Telethia” created to eliminate anything that would not live up to their creator. There are other half-entia in the world and what is left of the race. This gave Melia thoughts of anxiety on what will happen with the Entia’s future because everyone at home has transformed, and she is barely a princess.

Melia has a conversation with Fiora about her condition and ask her to take care of Shulk. From seeing why everyone was devoted to rescue Fiora, and understanding more of her, Melia says “I’m nothing compared to her”. This line means a lot because Melia had always saw herself better from others. This conversation also shows Meila cares, by asking Fiora questions. From everything that is going on, Melia is realizing that she is just a person, like the rest of them.

Before her brother died, Melia had a talk with him. She feels sorrowful and blames herself for what happened to the High Entia. Her brother corrects Melia and says “You are the hope of the High Entia. You can still succeed the imperial line”. This gave Melia hope and the courage to step up to be the next ruler. Melia became more expressive as the story progressed and gained confidence in her upcoming responsibility. She is understanding what it means to rule a kingdom and made friends that are reliable.

These are six video game characters I believe shows character development. The examples show the different effects of a character changing, from their experience. I feel characters do not need to have character development to be good. Screen time can make it hard for characters to be fleshed out however, always having growth can make a character better.

What video game characters do you see character development, either in one game or throughout an entire series? And am I overthinking all of this; because I wanted to give plot points to help you understand the characters more. Lastly, check out the games these characters are from, to see their experience. Some of them have other alternatives like an anime and manga to tell the story.

Part One

How are Characters and Narrative Presented in Video Games

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