The Party Members We Complained About And The Ones We Still Miss
RPG companions can make a long game feel sharper, warmer, and way more alive. They're the people standing next to you in a boss fight, traveling alongside you, or turning a routine quest into your favorite part of the game. But some of them get on your nerves. Whether they keep repeating the same line, drag every scene in the same direction, or make dialogue feel longer than it is, a lot of games would feel much better without them.
1. Preston Garvey
Preston starts out fine in Fallout 4, especially if you want the Minutemen to feel like a real faction worth rebuilding. Then another settlement needs help, then another one does, and he feels less like a companion and more like a quest alarm.
Philip Terry Graham on Wikimedia
2. Hope Estheim
Hope has his reasons to be scared and overwhelmed in Final Fantasy XIII, so the problem was never that he had emotions. The early hours lean so hard on his grief and resentment that plenty of players remember his complaining first and his growth second.
Antonio Fucito from Terni, Italia on Wikimedia
3. Cait Sith
Final Fantasy VII already has Cloud, Tifa, Aerith, Barret, Red XIII, and Cid in the same orbit, which is rough company for anybody. Cait Sith feels especially awkward, with the toy-cat design, the slot-style limit break, and a messy betrayal turn.
4. Jacob Taylor
Jacob's issue in Mass Effect 2 isn't that he's written or useless in a fight. It's that he's standing next to Garrus, Mordin, Thane, Jack, Miranda, and Legion. In that crowd, his steadier military energy comes off a little flat.
5. Oghren
Dragon Age: Origins gives Oghren plenty of history and dwarven baggage, though a lot of his humor still wears thin. The drinking jokes, the coarseness, the same rough edges cycling through again. His character can start to feel like the game is asking for more patience than the character earns.
6. Skadge
Skadge has never been the companion people point to when they want to praise Star Wars: The Old Republic's crew writing. He's hostile and hard to warm to, and because he joins the Bounty Hunter's lineup late, he doesn't get much time to build any trust before he starts demanding it.
7. Carth Onasi
Carth has his fans, and fair enough, because Knights of the Old Republic gives him a pretty decent backstory. Still, there's a reason his name keeps coming up in these conversations. He spends so much of the game sounding wary and tense that some players never stop bracing for the next lecture.
8. Teddie
Persona 4 gets a lot of mileage out of Teddie's mascot energy early on, especially once the investigation team starts clicking. Then the jokes keep coming, the voice keeps bouncing off the walls, and if his comic timing doesn't land for you, he can have a very long year in Inaba.
Shuichi Aizawa from New York, USA on Wikimedia
9. Paimon
Genshin Impact's Paimon is more of a travel companion than a standard party slot. Even so, she's one of the first names players bring up in this kind of conversation, because the game gives her so much explanatory chatter.
10. Minsc
Minsc is iconic, and some players'd defend him forever, miniature giant space hamsters and all. Some players hear the battle cries, the full-volume chaos, the nonstop goofiness, and think that his character was a lot drop into the Baldur's Gate party.
1. Serana
Serana joins Skyrim with some serious story weight and enough personality that she never feels like another silent body. The Dawnguard questline is better once she's in it, and that's a big part of why players still talk about her like she's more than a follower.
2. Garrus Vakarian
Mass Effect's Garrus starts strong and only gets better as the game goes on, which is rare for companions. By the end of the trilogy, he's not just a favorite squadmate; he's part of the emotional shape of Shepard's story.
Alex from Calgary, Canada on Wikimedia
3. Alistair
Alistair has that very useful Dragon Age: Origins mix of self-deprecating humor, competence, and buried hurt. He can joke through bad weather, bad odds, and bad politics, and the game gives him enough personal stakes that we never feel forced to care about him.
4. HK-47
HK-47 could've been a one-note killer droid, and Knights of the Old Republic somehow turned him into one of the funniest companions in the genre. The meatbag routine, the smug violence, the way he keeps sharpening the mood instead of flattening it still holds up today.
5. Fawkes
Fallout 3's wasteland is full of fear and people barely hanging on, so Fawkes stands out immediately. He's huge, composed, polite, and loyal. That powerful combination gives him a dignity that players don't forget once he's fighting beside them.
Derek Springer from Los Angeles, CA, USA on Wikimedia
6. Lydia
Lydia became a meme because Skyrim players spent so much time with her that she started feeling like a permanent part of the game. She shows up early on in your quest, surviving dragon attacks with a straight face. Her composure earns her our affection for the rest of the game.
7. Aerith Gainsborough
Aerith works as an NPC because she's never the soft one people tend to reduce her to. She's funny, sharp, brave, and central to why Final Fantasy VII still emotionally hurts people decades later.
8. Daeran
Daeran looks like he's only there to be cruel, but there's so much more to his character. Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous keeps peeling him open, and the banter that made you laugh starts coexisting with sadness, fear, and the sense that he knows exactly how bad he can be.
9. Morte
A floating skull sounds like a joke character, and Planescape: Torment knows that going in. What makes Morte so good is that he gets to stay funny while still carrying loyalty, guilt, and some of the game's bigger ideas about identity and memory.
10. Kim Kitsuragi
Kim is one of the clearest reminders that a companion doesn't need flashy powers or a giant loyalty mission to become unforgettable. He's steady, observant, dry in exactly the right way, and Disco Elysium gets a huge amount of emotional force out of how much his respect comes to matter.
