Happy Monday, folks! It’s me, Wolfman Jew! It’s the calm before the Switch 2 storm, I’ve got some bodily pain, and with an article publishing at the same time as this thread, it’s clearly time for me to take it easy and not do an overlong prompt no one cares about.
NEVER! No, it’s time I use a screenshot I took this year that replaced a screenshot I took in 2023 and talk about something: video game sidekicks. Elizabeth, Ellie, Atreus, Clementine, Morgana, Susie and Raslei, the Rotom Dex, Donald and Goofy, Cappy, and basically all the friends Mario has in his RPGs. Hell, in most RPGs your friends really are just your sidekicks. I mentioned Morgana earlier, but is Yusuke any more on your level? I think not.
Anyway, these characters are interesting. Some of them are out in the field, some you have to escort, some help you out over the headphone or secret government communication device as the voice in your ear. If you ever took a Codec call in Metal Gear Solid or talked over the phone in Firewatch, you had a sidekick. Many, particularly the ones made by mechanics-focused studios like Nintendo, are manifestations of gameplay mechanics meant to remove an element of abstraction. And when it comes to quality, eesh are they all over the place. They can be grating or eloquent, additive to gameplay or an obnoxious guide, and in fact some of them can be all of those! I mentioned Atreus, and those God of War helpers are both incredibly well written characters and unbelievable pains.
But because of its history of memorable sidekicks, and also its being the greatest of game series, The Legend of Zelda is perhaps the most useful case study. Many of its best games have no sidekick of any kind to let you run around with abandon. At the same time, many of its best games do have one, and Midna, Tatl, and the King of Red Lions are some of Nintendo’s stronger characters and help make those stories as strong as they are. But they also share space with the less likable types, your Linebecks and Navis (even though I don’t hate Navi. She’s functional and fully ignorable if you tune out the “hey, listen!”). Within this latter group, there’s Fi, perhaps the worst one in the series. Hell, maybe the worst sidekick in Nintendo’s ouvre. She’s unfunny, way too talkative, and goes out of her way to force you on the path. In that sense, she represents the nadir of the trope in both narrative and gameplay. But as much as I dislike Fi every time I play Skyward Sword, she always makes me think of the good examples of the trope, not just pine for the beautiful loneliness of quieter games.
This is why the prompt is NOT “do you like sidekicks or don’t you.” It’s which are your favorite and least video game sidekicks. The Alpha and the Omega. The rooftop and the drain. I want to hear you talk about sidekicks who held up the stories of their games like Atlas, just as much as the ones who dragged their plots down. I want to see how other games use them for unique or additive gameplay purposes. I want the best and the worst.
While you’re mulling over that, what did you play this weekend? And make sure to read Lily Bones’ Game News Roundup! I never miss it!