What Makes A Good Game Companion?

Game sidekicks all live on a spectrum, from a well-realized three-dimensional character, to a cardboard cutout. Sidekicks can be designed in games to fill all kinds of functions, mechanical and narrative, but they all need to be designed carefully to stay out of the contempt zone. More Midna, less Kersti. Let's talk about what you can do with a sidekick!

Featuring:
Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Majora's Mask
Skyward Sword
Paper Mario Sticker Star
HiFi Rush
Spyro
Phantom Hourglass
Super Mario Sunshine
Super Mario Odyssey
Banjo-Kazooie
Jak and Daxter
And The Sequel
Ace Attorney series
Horizon: Forbidden West
God of War (2018)
Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Portal

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#twilightprincess #marioodyssey #godofwar

[Kafaldsbylur]

Were you in a coma for 40 days? I don't see any other way the Sticker Star cursing counter could go so high

[__dane__]

Sidekicks exist solely so we could experience Midna in Twilight Princess. Even if all other Zelda companions were bad, Midna would make companions worth it

[FemboyLevi]

"that no one could possibly love .. turn on save search" had me choking on my food 💀

[wouterW]

What also helps with Midna is that her development is so gradual even before the sacrifice. During the castle escape and getting weapons she's hostile to Link and pretty much everything,
By the time you enter the forest temple she's used to Link being reliable and dials down the contant jabs.
She's more impressed by Link's resolve to protect the kids then she lets on, and after clearing the second dungeon she finally drops the icy act and tells Link Zants name and makes it clear she's come to respect Link. Up until the post third dungeon ambush she's starting to be kind of pleasant and does not question Links other objectives. Her near death experience has a deep impact, but it final step in the process. By the time it happens players also will be attached to Midna too because she has been changing so the drama is very effective.

[buezer]

In regards to the bear and the bird duo, I don't think their seemingly lopsided contributions is really all that detrimental. In fact, I think that the contrast is actually quite good and is really what makes Banjo Kazooie a timeless collecta-thon nigh unmatched. While Kazooie may be the "tool, " Banjo is the one who enables her. You can really see this in Banjo Tooie with the split up mechanic. Without Banjo's heft and leverage, Kazooie's firepower is actually quite low, in addition to not having honey covered grippers or the health pool to take hits. Likewise, Banjo no longer has a swath of movement options provided by his feathered companion. Honestly, making such a strong, deliberate distinction between the two and how they should function is what makes their abilities near seamless throughout the whole game. They balance each other out in a more dynamic way than Yooka-Laylee, by keeping the overlap minimal and really pushing the idea that they need each other to fulfill their quest.

[sub-zero]

So moral of the story: Don't think of your side-kicks as side-kicks but as full on characters

[frogace]

The partner poke in the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series are some good companions imo. In each game, your PC's goal is more or less "Figure our why I'm here as a Poke", but it's your partner's goal that pushes you towards finding the answer and getting to whatever the threat is. This is especially notable in the Explorers games, where while you are the protag and leader of the rescue team, the character arc is more about your partner growing up from a timid scarey cat to the hero of the world. . . but they wouldn't be able to do that without your presence.

[Camkitsune]

Ralsei from Deltarune immediately comes to mind.
He's a similar riff on the idea of the 'Overly Handholding Tutorial Character' that Toriel handled in Undertale - he will explain things to you like its your first time playing any videogame ever.
And this is both completely the intent of the guy who wrote him and used to do a lot of heavy lifting for his character - everything about the manual he gives you, as an example.

[hariman]

The best sidekicks provide a contrast to the main character and are part of the plot.

Ratchet and Clank/Jak & Daxter, Amaterasu and Issun, Link and Midna, Wander & Aggro.

They're all hero/sidekick pairs that stick with you.

[sofer]

Goombella in Paper Mario TTYD gave exposition & enemy tattle a snarky personal touch that Goombario was sorely missing. Had strong "Legally Blonde" vibes with how she talks like a Valley Girl while being one of the smartest characters in the cast.
Also she's an absolute *beast* in combat, which is always a plus.

[DragoSmash]

how about The World Ends With You companions?
you really get to understand each of them, giving each of them their own arc
and they are as important in combat if you really want to get the rarest rewards in the game, you have to learn to use both of them (in the DS version)
the plot twist that one of them bring into story is just the cherry on the top for the awesome written game

[eddycabreja]

Speaking of Hi-fi Rush, we can also consider Peppermint, Macaron and Korsica as great companions. Not only are they a nice way to further develop the story, they're really useful in combat. Each one has a special ability (destroying blue panels, breaking shields and putting out fire), can attack and weaken the enemies and might follow up on your combos, dealing even more damage.

[FraldariAce]

Midna, Morgana, and Sothis weirdly have a lot of similarities: starts out where you don't really know what they are, says they're using the protagonist for their own gain, gradually learns to care about the goal and protagonist, (voiced by Cassandra Lee Morris and has amnesia). But Midna's always been my favorite just because of how genuinely important she felt as a character and that the focus could be more on her, whereas the other games had so many characters that they had to stretch the characterization across more people.

[jasonreed]

You showed a couple clips of him but Oatchi in pikmin 4 is a really well done sidekick. He may be silent (he is a space dog) but he's very expressive, and most importantly he is incredibly useful without feeling completely overpowered.

You could argue that in pikmin 2 and 3 that the other captains are sidekicks, but since they are mechanically identical it feels more accurate to just call them multiple main characters in the party. (The way you wouldn't call Batman Superman's sidekick in the Justice League)

[valiensr]

“Turn on safe search, ” lmao! That got me 🤣

[Lorraine]

Zelda in Spirit Tracks was my first time in a Zelda game having a character as a sidekick rather than a battery detector. She has personality and breaks expectations of what a Princess should be. She’s stubborn and entitled which is a great contrast to Mr. Silent Link “I’ll do whatever anyone tells me without hesitation”. Her goal is beyond her role as Princess, it’s personal as the bad guy is planning to “use her body”. She has anger and panic and emotions. She’s definitely imo the best Zelda, and one of the best Zelda sidekicks.

[demonic_banshee]

Midna remains one of my favorite sidekicks ever and because of her, Twilight Princess remains my favorite Zelda title.

[E_Fig]

I think Tippi was a pretty good sidekick. Maybe even as good as Midna. I haven't played Super Paper Mario in a while, but if I remember correctly Tippi did a great job being connected to the story. Maybe not the hints and gameplay mechanics, but the story is the most important part of Super Paper Mario.

[thantus]

The AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES series has these great titular A.I. sidekicks that exist as an artificial eye in the protagonists’ left eye socket. They act as the ingame framework of the game’s HUD and UI, displaying a cursor to point, menus to click, and special side views to provide contextual images. They have multiple gameplay mechanics such as a Zoom view, X-ray vision, night vision, predictive calculations, and (for more specific story convenience) can emulate voices. In instances where the AI runs out of battery, or is forcibly removed from your eye socket, you lose these abilities and the special sideview window (the HUD remains the same tho).

The main gimmick of the game is diving into people’s dreams to hunt for clues, and the AI acts as your avatar in them. You give orders, they execute them, but sometimes with a little pushback, and occasionally they will reject orders if it does something unpleasant, giving the AI more agency and personality through these puzzle segments.

In the first game, the sidekick acts as a straight man to the protagonist’s antics. She provides clues and information needed to proceed, and due to her semi-robotic and stoic personality, she shuts down the MC when he’s getting out of hand. The sequel adds a new companion for a new protagonist. Here, the roles are reversed, with the new companion being the one bringing jokes and getting out of hand, while the protagonist has to keep her in check. The AI becomes the comedian while the human becomes the straight man.

And these sidekicks feel integral to the plot and world of the series. Not so much in the first game, but for the second game, the returning companion is introduced with a bit of an intriguing mystery: she was on a top secret mission during the first half of the game, but a backup memory saving error gives her partial amnesia and no longer remembers what her secret mission was; as such, the second half of the game uncovers new clues as to what she was doing during the first half of the game. The new companion, meanwhile, brings in the heart and emotional investment, providing conflict and tension to an unstable matchup, and forming the basis for the protagonist’s core motivation in helping her AI companion, driving several elements of the plot forward. The new pair are set up in a way where they proved dramatic/narrative irony to the story; he doesn’t know what the AI knows, the AI doesnt know what he knows, and the player occasionally doesnt know what either of them know. This makes for a fascinating story writing for the game and a way to invest in the characters in unique ways.

[Ariamaki]

The World Ends With You is a game entirely defined by its companions: The structure of the game literally changes and revolves around them, breaking up what initially seems like a short adventure into something sprawling and layered. They've all got mechanical nuance in gameplay and their own preferences for food, clothing, music, and how to resolve fights and non-physical conflicts. The way your main character associates with them develops along with the story, and you can see and feel in everything they say and do how they're spending time with (Character 3) but wish they could be applying what they'd learned to doing things better with (Character 1) who is no longer accessible in the story. It's a fantastic way to use partners and sidekicks to elevate the entire message, one of the dozens of factors that make TWEWY the single-greatest DS game of all time.