Games need to stop forcing me to play some side character

A pet gripe that I’ve been meaning to bring up for a while.

Games need to stop making me play these little vignettes with side characters.

I’m looking at Witcher 3 with Ciri. Assassin’s Creed: Origins with Aya (and whatever the hell that animus shit is). Now Spider-Man with Mary Jane and Miles.

I do not know who thinks they’re a good idea, but they’re not. They completely disrupt the flow of the game. Most of the time, the moveset that you’ve worked so hard to develop is painfully neutered in a clumsy and awkward way. They’re almost always stupid little puzzles, where the key is how to sneak past stuff or something.

I really hate them, and yet they seem to be occurring in more and more games. I’m playing Spider-Man to play Spider-Man, not to play the Mary Jane stealth puzzle.

Hey remember when Halo 2 had us play several chapters as the Arbiter, and we were all, yay now I get to be a freaky-jawed Alien and not a badass space marine!

This is some outrage I can totally get behind.

Has there been a game where you play as multiple characters through the game that worked well? Not “side characters” but where you play as - Oh, I just thought of one that did work, Banner Saga. That’s sort of like a shifting POV for the entire story, and that stuff I don’t mind at all. But forcing me to play as some side character does bug me, too. Not “QTE” levels of annoyance of course, but it’s up there. Especially when the side character fundamentally changes the gameplay up. Ugh.

I was just walking to work today thinking how cool it was of Insomniac to let me play as Miles while he is searching for his mom and dad, how much more it made me emphasize with him and his family and how it made that bombing event much more impactful, and figured they got inspired by Witcher 3 to do that precisely for that reason, since in Witcher 3 it was also brilliant narrative touch to actually let me play as Ciri instead of just hearing about it or showing it via cutscene.

And now I come here and you shit all over it. Not nice, Mr. SlyFrog, not nice at all.

I’m going to take this opportunity once again to toot my own horn and invoke Pogue’s Law: there is no {thing} this is so wonderful that someone else doesn’t despise it. And as you can see, the inverse also holds true.

Somebody liked Desmond???

I agree it completely interrupts the flow of the game. Sometimes that can be good if things got a bit monotonous. In the Witcher, I actually liked being Ciri. They do an amazing job building the story, so when you switch to her you have an amazing connection to her character and it is sue thing substantial.

In books they do switching all the time to build intensity and stress. A lot of fantasy series do this well. It can feel a little frustrating at tines to be at a high point then switch to a different party as opposed to finishing out the segment.

I’m with you. I really like it when games do this. I can think of another great example, but it’s a spoiler, and brilliant moment that I don’t want to spoil for people, so I won’t mention it here.

Halo games don’t count. Each time you play as different characters who are not Master Chief (Halo 2, Halo 3: ODST, Halo Reach, Halo 5), there is no real difference in gameplay terms between them and the Master Chief.

Not necessarily Desmond himself, but the idea that you were someone else, and going into his genetic memories? Yeah I loved that. So going back to being Desmond was great and helped me in my immersion when I was Altair.

My problem with Ciri in The Witcher 3 is that you spend the whole game building out your Geralt with just the right weapon and armor loadout, skills that suit you, even hair and beard to your liking. Then you get plopped into Ciri’s storyline and she has no options, she’s just Ciri. Now I thought she was interesting and ultimately I didn’t mind her little segues, but it was a little jarring.

Ha ha ha, looks like someone wasn’t hanging out on Halo message boards about 15 years ago!

Agree, and I would add to this list, party based games that force me to use party members that suck, and that I haven’t developed all game long. FF7, Dragon Age: Origins, so many. Hey…you know that fighter that still has his starting sword and leather jerkin as his only equipment?..yah…that guy is now going to halt your entire progress if you can’t win some end game encounters with him.

I would also extend this same problem to 1st person /3rd person, at least for me. Anything that takes me from being the character, to watching “a” character just tends to remove me from my suspension of disbelief.

Max Payne 2 was pretty good in that regard. And I’m not sure if it counts, but GTA5 is the obvious answer.

Aw man, even worse than that is when they take your worst party member and force you to play them solo. Like in KOTOR 2 when that rogue character is stuck in a bar or something and gets ambushed by a few guys? That sucked. Then in, Rogue Galaxy I think it’s called? You have a one-on-one right with a character who’s way tougher than you. I quit the game there.

Preach! I really hate them too.

Blanket statements won’t keep you warm.

(Okay, I just wanted to say that – not contributing)

I can’t think of a game, offhand, that had side characters I wasn’t annoyed to at least start playing. Cuz flow, and such. In ARPGS and MMOs on the other hand, I am a pathological alt-oholic. I just want to choose my pace with a character.

Yes, this is 100% the game I was trying to think of. Very well done.

I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not lol.

No, not at all - I knew there was an example of this done right but I couldn’t come up with it (the best I could come up with as I typed was Banner Saga). You nailed it.

Who?


Doesn’t matter who. Have you ever met Moore? Or Sturgeon? Or Newton? No, but they’re absolute giants in their fields and know a lot about things, and made very good laws that are totally true. And so did this Pogue guy.