General Gaming Top 10 Greatest RPG Characters Of All Time

[Brian]

Kiryu > Ichiban - not even close. 

[Mr.Vic20]

I don’t see Morte, Minsc or Boo on this list, and so by law it is invalid. 

[Jason]

[Kamusha]

Link isn't a character, he's a stand-in for the player.  In earlier games you could name him whatever you wanted. That's also why they gave him a more androgynous look for Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom so all genders could see themselves in him.

[Kal-El814]

2 hours ago, Kamusha said:

Link isn't a character, he's a stand-in for the player.  In earlier games you could name him whatever you wanted. That's also why they gave him a more androgynous look for Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom so all genders could see themselves in him.

 

Link in BotW and TotK is probably more of his own character than he has been in any other Zelda game. Yeah there are response options so it's not like he has a "set" personality per se, but there's much more of a personality implied in a lot of your response options than there ever has been before. A low bar to be sure, but the notion that you can't rename him anymore and recovering his memories is a big part of the plot makes him less of an avatar to me.

 

As for the list in the OP...

 

Not having anyone from Planescape: Torment is fucking bananas.

 

Cloud isn't even the most interesting character in his own game, so that's a choice  

 

Morrigan is probably the most interesting part of Dragon Age Origins and therefore the franchise, at this point, no beef there.

 

Not a bad list per se, just an odd one.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

11 minutes ago, Kal-El814 said:

Not having anyone from Planescape: Torment is fucking bananas.

 

It absolutely staggers the mind, doesn't it?

[Biggie]

2 hours ago, Kamusha said:

Link isn't a character, he's a stand-in for the player.  In earlier games you could name him whatever you wanted. That's also why they gave him a more androgynous look for Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom so all genders could see themselves in him.

Right?  That’s the very definition of a Role Playing Game. 

[Mr.Vic20]

6 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

It absolutely staggers the mind, doesn't it?

As you alluded to earlier in this thread, I think it speaks more to the age of the content creator than anything else. We're old. 

[BloodyHell]

On 4/28/2024 at 6:58 PM, skillzdadirecta said:

Another one of my top something list posts  This is her personal list and I don't agree with it but it's worth discussing.

 

 

 

10. Garrus Vakarian - Mass Effect

9. Ichiban Kasuga - Yakuza Like a Dragon

8. Geralt -The Witcher

7. Kim Kitsuragi -Disco Elysium

6. Morrigan - Dragon Age

5. Cloud - Final Fantasy VII (?!)

4. Kassandra - Assasain's Creed Odyssey

3. Astarion - Baldur's Gate 3

2. Makoto Nijima -Persona 5

1.  Johnny Silverhand - Cyberpunk 2077 (?????!!!)

 

I get this is her personal list but... man. Also she limited herself to one character per franchise. Even with that, I would not have picked Cloud from FFVII (Sephiroth or Tifa) or ANYONE from Cyberpunk 2077. Maybe my mind will change once I finish Phantom Liberty. I'll have to think about my own list. 

Yeah, that’s definitely not any list I would make, and I think Ive played all those games. 
 

Really though, what a hard list to make. I’ve played hundreds of RPG’s since I started playing games almost 38 years ago. Across how many platforms, Im not even sure? 
 

Kefka is definitely in there. Citan from Xenogears was an incredibly interesting character. Geralt Ill give him. Yotsuyu and Ardbert from FFXIV are favourites. Ramza in FFT. 
Theres persona characters I love whose names I can’t remember. 
 

Astarion is the worst character in BG3. I was kinda glad when I finally had to slaughter him, even though I then had to turn my girl Karlach into a thief. Im a big fan of Alphen and Shionne from Tales of Arise. Shep is one of the greatest characters BECAUSE you can make him whoever you want him to be, and he still gets an incredible story to go with it, dying a hero at the end of the greatest trilogy ever made. 
 

and theres a bunch of other series I haven’t even thought through. Breath of the Wild, Suikoden, Kotor. So many. It’s a difficult list to make. 
 

 

[BloodyHell]

8 hours ago, Kamusha said:

Link isn't a character, he's a stand-in for the player.  In earlier games you could name him whatever you wanted. That's also why they gave him a more androgynous look for Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom so all genders could see themselves in him.

That really hasn’t been true since the NES. Link very much became a character with a Link to the Past and beyond. 
But it’s also not an RPG. 

[best3444]

Ok. I now put Johnny Silverhand in my top 10 RPG characters of all-time. He is so well written and funny as hell. He makes Cyberpunk that much better. And I'm glad to hear he is even better in PL. 

[XxEvil AshxX]

Sounds like a crush list, imo.

[Paperclyp]

On 4/29/2024 at 11:08 AM, Biggie said:

Right?  That’s the very definition of a Role Playing Game. 

 

We all know that term is barely to be taken at face value. 

[Biggie]

27 minutes ago, Paperclyp said:

 

We all know that term is barely to be taken at face value. 

Do we? Maybe you do. I don’t. 

[Paperclyp]

1 hour ago, Biggie said:

Do we? Maybe you do. I don’t. 

we do