Least/Most Cliched Protagonists

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Midnight Crossroads

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-Drifter- said:
Midnight Crossroads said:
-Drifter- said:
godofallu said:
Oh and I disagree with your least cliched pick, she DOES dress slutty and she IS white. At least based on the picture you posted.
I fail to see how she dresses slutty. Because her shirt shows her midriff? Perhaps you're just a prude.

As for her being white, there's not much I can say aside from "no, not really."
Jade was left ambiguously brown on purpose. No one can say what race she is because it's never said and her name gives no real hints. I know plenty of girls darker than Jade that are white.
I think it has to do with facial features too, though. Maybe it's just me, but I think she has a very asian look about her.

Also, as far as Heather not being slutty...

-snip-

Just sayin'
I also always thought Jade was Asian, but I've found out later down the road it was meant to be unknown. Maybe they wanted people to see her how they wanted.

To be fair, she's never dressed like that in game. >.>
 

Dfskelleton

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Midnight Crossroads said:
-Drifter- said:
godofallu said:
Oh and I disagree with your least cliched pick, she DOES dress slutty and she IS white. At least based on the picture you posted.
I fail to see how she dresses slutty. Because her shirt shows her midriff? Perhaps you're just a prude.

As for her being white, there's not much I can say aside from "no, not really."
Jade was left ambiguously brown on purpose. No one can say what race she is because it's never said and her name gives no real hints. I know plenty of girls darker than Jade that are white.


Now, if you're going for a female lead that's neither slutty or some writer's fantasy, look no further than Heather Mason.


As for least cliched, I would go with James Sunderland. The first four Silent Hill games in general did a good job with this. They're not superheroes or badass marines. They're regular people off the street thrown into some dimension of horror.
Thanks man! Now I don't have to write anything myself!
Although Marcus is a huge clich'e, I don't care for some reason. In my oppinion, he's so cliche'd that he's not. Does that make sense?
As you've all posted the least cliche'd female support character, I'll point out the most:

Elle Holloway from Silent Hill: Homecoming. SIlent hill has been known for non cliche'd females (look up!), Elle takes the cake for most cliche'd. She's white, got perfect skin, blonde hair, medium/large breasts, has cheesy cliche dialogue, and cowers in a corner and screams when a monster shows up.
 

diasravenguard

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Most cliched - Duke Nukem
He was basically a walking cliche from the drawing board... Still wish Duke Nukem : forever was finished...

Least cliched - Vault Dweller (the main protagonist on fallout 3)
I only say this one because really it's not a heavily worked field and the character is based off what you want them to be rather than a cliche.
 

Clueless Hero

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Most: Hell, just play any modern-day shooter.
Least: Er...I can't even think of one. I suppose the characters from Heavy Rain were a lot less cliche than the average game, but they still fell into certain archetypes.
 

-Drifter-

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Dfskelleton said:
[picture]Ellehiresartyl7.png[/picture]
Could you use some help, there?

You need to use the tag {*img*][*/img*](subtract the *, obviously) and paste the image url in between.

Like so:

 

Blue Musician

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Least cliche:
James Sunderland from Silent Hill 2
Heather Mason from Silent Hill 3
Jade from Beyond Good and Evil
Alice from American McGee's Alice
Jack from Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines
Sam and Max from Sam and Max

Most cliche
Basically most other characters.
 

Dapper Ninja

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Dannyboy1186 said:
The most cliched character I can think of is Cloud from FF7. (Although was he the first of his kind?)
He pretty much was, yeah. He seems cliched now because of how many times he's been ripped off. He's also much more complex than most people think - for most of the game he was just fairly apathetic rather than the emo everyone thinks he is, he only got mopey after Aeris died and when he found out his entire life was a lie, and he learned to get over himself both times, becoming more of an optimistic, strong-willed character in the process.

Then Advent Children came along and fucked up his whole character.

OT:

Least cliched: Wander from Shadow of the Colossus or any given Silent Hill protagonist, particularly James and Heather.

Most cliched: Marcus Fenix. Big surprise.
 

Fenra

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most: pretty much any male lead in a shooter with that old "troubled past" and "emotional baggage" stuff that has like zero relevance to the story, oy....

least: well imma go with amaterasu from okami, wolf godess, come to earth to revitalise it and paints spells with a brush on the end of her tail, thats pretty unique to me
 

Magnifitacular

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IMO

Least: Travis Touchdown(a vigilant geek), Alan Wake(c'mon he's an author).
Most: Surprisingly difficult. Um, Cole McGrath first comes to mind because of his grim attitude, lack of hair, and his gravelly voice. Maybe Kratos also because of his hyper-masculinity.
 

-Drifter-

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Proverbial Jon said:


There we go, fixed that for you! Yeah well she's not a protagonist I KNOW but damn that picture of Jade reminded me of her and the description seemed to fit Alyx better. Plus... she freakin' rocks! Gotta get credit for at least being the least cliched supporting character, no?
I always did think they looked strangely similar. Maybe Alyx's look was inspired by Jade?
 

Not-here-anymore

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Breaker deGodot said:
Most: Probably Master Chief, or Serious Sam

Least: Raz from Psychonauts
What? Poor kid grudgingly allowed in against better judgement of some of the staff, turns out to be the top student/most powerful one there and then saves everyone. This is your least clichéd main character? Replace Raz with Harry, and psychic summer camp with wizard school, and look at the result!

OT: I don't know about most clichéd, but I'll go with Faith, from Mirror's Edge, for least. Fits the OP's description of Jade, prefers running to fighting, and at no point fulfils the 'damsel in distress' sterotype.
 

Proverbial Jon

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Nov 10, 2009
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Midnight Crossroads said:
Now, if you're going for a female lead that's neither slutty or some writer's fantasy, look no further than Heather Mason.


As for least cliched, I would go with James Sunderland. The first four Silent Hill games in general did a good job with this. They're not superheroes or badass marines. They're regular people off the street thrown into some dimension of horror.
Damn, I'm ashamed I didn't think of Heather first! Good choice.

Dfskelleton said:
Elle Holloway from Silent Hill: Homecoming. SIlent hill has been known for non cliche'd females (look up!), Elle takes the cake for most cliche'd. She's white, got perfect skin, blonde hair, medium/large breasts, has cheesy cliche dialogue, and cowers in a corner and screams when a monster shows up.
Urgh! Homecoming wins the prize for game with biggest amount of cliched characters in it. Pathetic whiney damsel in distress love interest, comic relief black guy, villain that you thought was on your side, protagonist with a terrible childhood the memories repressed by a more recent trauma. Also wins prize for being an awful game, but that's another story.
 
Sep 14, 2009
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Dannyboy1186 said:
Not sure if I thought this through but I think Alister from Dragon Age is not a cliched male character.

The most cliched character I can think of is Cloud from FF7. (Although was he the first of his kind?)
i also thought of that, people pick on him so fucking much..but really how many video games had a character like him before that was actually developed beyond your basic shooter.

and alistair is a good pick for least cliched..alot of his traits dont usually get matched up together that often when you learn his backstory, so all in all he is a decently non cliched character.

I am Omega said:
Most: While I agree with the guy who said every FF lead for the past decade, seeing the OPs description of Marcus Pheonix makes me wonder; is this guy supposed to be a parody of the cliched action hero? Honestly, he fits SO perfectly into the mold I can't help but think he's a parody of the archtype. That's why I pick you, Marcus, as my most cliched character.

Least: Mario. Let's face it, after the 80s, people just stopped trying to copy this guy, 'cause it COULDN'T BE DONE. What archtype would you classify this guy as? Sure, he doesn't have a lot of talking parts, but he's far from the silent protagonist. That's about the closest one I could think for him. (prepares flame sheild.)
thats exactly what i think too about him, some people scream " CLICHED!!!! BAH I HATE IT BECAUSE ITS SO CLICHED!!!! while im thinking "well no fucking duh, of course it is, im pretty sure thats what they were going for in the first place"

mario is probably the most ideal pick for least cliched ever....i swear they put his name into a random weed generator on high and saw what popped out...
 

Extraintrovert

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I think I'll try to be clever and nominate a character to qualify for both of these categories at the same time (dun dun duuun!), namely Gordon Freeman of the Half-Life series.

On the one side, he never speaks, never does anything without the player's input and mercilessly slaughters everything in his path. He seemingly has no character beyond that of a typical shooting and gunning player insert and could be replaced by anyone else without any change.

On the other side however, he clearly has a personality of his own, a quiet, friendly, dedicated and most importantly unassuming researcher who one day had the entire universe out to get him due to his superiors' mess, decided to fight back instead of cower and hide and one way or the other managed to stumble his way into saving the world. Then entirely against his will he becomes a messiah and has to save the world again, at the same time cleaning someone elses' mess.

Was that coherent? I think it was...
 

Julianking93

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Least cliched...probably JAAAAaaaaaaAAAMMMEEESSS Sunderland! since he's just really an average guy with some awful demons.

And for most...probably any nameless or faceless protagonist.
 

Breaker deGodot

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J03bot said:
Breaker deGodot said:
Most: Probably Master Chief, or Serious Sam

Least: Raz from Psychonauts
What? Poor kid grudgingly allowed in against better judgement of some of the staff, turns out to be the top student/most powerful one there and then saves everyone. This is your least clichéd main character? Replace Raz with Harry, and psychic summer camp with wizard school, and look at the result!

OT: I don't know about most clichéd, but I'll go with Faith, from Mirror's Edge, for least. Fits the OP's description of Jade, prefers running to fighting, and at no point fulfils the 'damsel in distress' sterotype.
That should show you how unoriginal I think the game industry has gotten.
 

ALuckyChance

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The main character from the Gothic games wasn't that cliche, in my opinion. All the main character (who goes unnamed) is is a random guy plopped into a morally ambiguous and dangerous area, and vents his frustration with sarcasm. That might not be original in and of itself, but in the Gothic games, you really felt weak once you started. The developers almost made him a blank slate, due to the multitude of good/gray/evil choices you can make. Gothic 3 made him a bit more of a tough guy though, which was disappointing.

I don't know about most cliche, but I'll go out on the limb here and say that it really should be the characters who started the cliche (in video games, anyway) instead of anyone modern. I mean, look at Princess Peach. She's the epitome of a damsell in distress.