Companions in Video Games
Within games, especially RPGs, you will inevitably come across companion characters for your protagonist to interact with or have a starting party that you are with or will gather. These side characters all have different aspects to them and add stuff to the gameplay experience over all. How this has changed over time is interesting. Going back as far as the fourth generation of games on the SNES there is Secret of Mana that comes to mind. Next I’ll just jump ahead and across platforms to Kingdom Hearts for the PS2, and finally we round this out with two more modern titles: Diablo 3 and Persona 5. There are countless games I could have chosen, but for this these are the ones I’ll use.
With Secret of Mana the player character—Randy— starts off alone after getting kicked out of his village. Then after the first few quests he gains Primm—the female warrior— and Popoi—the sprite child— as companions. Along the way the party characters do have some plot relevance here and there but from then on, that’s who are in Randy’s party through the conclusion of the game (Secret of Mana). The companions are given their own motivations as they adventure with Randy helping him on his quest, and they tie in, but much of what is done is story mandated and the companions are there.
This is similar to how companions are handled with Kingdom Hearts. This time player character—Sora—not only starts off alone but ends up having to fight a major boss alone and then ends up on a new world before he is paired up with Mickey Mouses’s sidekicks: Donald Duck and Goofy. They do have interactions throughout the game, and there are guest party members that can be swapped out for one of the pair since the party is limited to three characters. However, a lot like Secret of Mana the interactions between Sora, Donald, and Goofy doesn’t have much impact on the game that the characters can really affect. They’re just there, as friends because the game says so (Kingdom Hearts).
Whenever we jump ahead to the modern games I’ve selected —one a Western RPG and one a JRPG—things are a little different with the JRPG than the Western One but not by too much. With Diablo 3 you still gain companions when the game dictates that you will, especially those that will accompany you into battle. Another departure between Diablo 3 and the prior games is (unless you’re playing online in a multiplayer mode) you are limited to only one companion character. Each of these characters have an initial quest that is played with them and afterwards they are free to be chosen. They even have other specific side quests related to them depending on what part of the game the player is in. Also given time are the three artisans that can be recruited to the hero’s cause. Covetous Shen, Miriam the Vechin, and Haedrig the Blacksmith. Not only are these three also quest activated (through the first play-through that is) but as artisans they can be leveled up and occasionally there will be side quests that can be undertaken to expand more about them. e.g. Haedrig’s apprentice disappeared with his hammer, if one explores one of the first maps enough, they’ll find his apprentice met a sticky end. Speaking with the companions can also reveal more about them and unlock new bits of dialogue if one had been a bit lax in doing so prior (Diablo 3). However, as interesting as all of this is, beyond the initial things, none of these are mandatory. The player is given a choice on whether or not they want to continue grinding through the side character dialogue that isn’t banter whenever they’re with whatever hero the player’s chosen to play (in my case, I’m always a female wizard). You can unlock an achievement for taking the time to talk to them, but beyond completionists seeking achievements, the game leaves it up to your choice. Whereas with the prior games mentioned the companions’ stories really don’t go beyond whatever the main plot demands but you also were sort of given an easy way to resolve most of the pertinent threads to these characters. Which leads to the most recent game Persona 5. Like Diablo 3, the party member companions are unlock able through story based missions from which they’re permanent members of the party afterwards. Certain other companions (or confidants as they are in Persona 5) are also unlocked by story events—e.g. Sae Nijima. However, beyond that, the player has to go out and make the choice to find all the other confidantes that they can unlock and level up certain abilities to even start on that confidant bond. For instance, the character of Haru Okumura is one of the last party members to join the party in the main story of the game. Yet, in order to even start her confidant bond the player character needs to have specific levels of Charm and Knowledge to even start with her. Now, the player doesn’t have bother with these but it will severely hamper their game later on as the stronger the bonds between the protagonist and the other characters he can have relationships is, the more abilities cheaters can unlock—especially those in the main party (Persona 5).
Persona 5 is not the first game to have this be an option by a long shot, but it’s become more common as of Persona 5’s release to have a system where the player has to recruit characters to be friends or even recruit party members in some cases of games within the prior generations, e.g. Star Ocean. However it has become more common and understandably more complex in how you go about interacting with companions and/or recruiting them. See BioWare’s two most popular RPG franchises for instance: Mass Effect and Dragon Age. I think this evolution in party member recruitment is partly due to technology growing to allow this and a way to make games more immersive as well as add some variability to game play. e.g. In Persona 5 my first play through I had the protagonist romance Ann but in my second play through I had him romance Haru. I also, in my first play through, missed out on a lot of the companions because I didn’t know to look for them and the five social stats—knowledge, charm, guts, proficiency, kindness— had areas that were lacking for those relationships. It gave me something to work on to open up new options for companions and later new side quests. Same could be said for Diablo 3’s companions. The difference between them is in Diablo 3, the companion quests were added by Blizzard to occur after merely talking to the companions as opposed to grinding out the relationship in different outings like in Persona 5. When looking back to the past and to the present, companion relationships are getting more sophisticated in RPG games because it is both a trend that players seem to like this, and it adds more depth to the games. “Do you think an RPG do without these relationship aspects and still be fun” one might ask me and the answer is: yes. Not all games have to do this, take the most recent Kingdom Hearts title for instance. It’s certainly an RPG but it does not do any of that and is still a very well received game (Persona 5, Diablo III, Kingdom Hearts III) . In short, as games change and evolve, so do many aspects of game play. The companion systems are just one of those.
Diablo III. Blizzard, Windows, 2012.
Kingdom Hearts 1.5 + 2.5 Collection. Square Enix, PS4, 2017.
Kingdom Hearts III. Square Enix, PS4, 2019.
Persona 5. Atlus, PS4, 2016.
Secret of Mana. Square Enix, SNES Classic, 2017.
Dragon Age: Origins. BioWare, Windows, 2009.
Dragon Age II. BioWare, Windows, 2011.
Dragon Age: Inquisition. BioWare, Windows, 2014
Mass Effect. BioWare, Windows, 2007
Mass Effect 2. BioWare, Windows, 2010.
Mass Effect 3. BioWare, Windows, 2012.
Star Ocean: The Second Story. Square Enix, 2009.