Happy Monday, folks, and welcome to the Weekly Video Games Thread!
Like many of you, I’ve been neck-deep in Hollow Knight: Silksong this past weekend. Hoo boy, this is some kinda game, folks. There’s a lot to it, but when it comes to making prompts and themes, I gotta go with the main character. Hornet, the spider warrior princess who bedeviled you again (and again and again) in Hollow Knight, has gone from being an iconic boss and NPC into a full-blown protagonist. She’s different from the Knight, several staples and the overall aesthetics of her fight are part of her moveset, and she has an actual, well, personality. This is a great move, and a lot of what makes Silksong fun is in the ways Hornet upends or tweaks the formula.
Of course, this is far from the only time a character has been, in the parlance of the times, promoted to playable. Think of how Princess Peach and Toad bolstered Super Mario Bros. 2, or Atreus becoming a co-lead in God of War: Ragnarök, or Mumbo Jumbo being a largely extraneous hero in Banjo-Tooie. Maybe they even get to lead their own sub-series; that’s what happened in Mega Man Zero. Plus, there are the crossovers or spinoffs that let you play as several characters who are otherwise nonplayable. For a series, especially one with a long tail or a big cast, this is a fun trope that allows characters who weren’t made for the role of protagonist to take up the position. And in cases like SIlksong‘s, it can actually generate new ideas that might not work with the original hero.
Because of that, today’s prompt is a two-parter: what’s your favorite example of this phenomenon, and which characters would you like to become playable in their series? Feel free to answer both, or either, or neither, to your hearts content. And, as always, what did you play this weekend—Silksong and otherwise?