You rolled your eyes at their first line, considered leaving them at camp, and now you can’t imagine the party without them. Every RPG has one: the companion whose first impression is a red flag, and whose second, third, and fiftieth impressions are the reason you keep playing. Often, you’ll find that even the most gruff or off-putting companion has a heart of gold somewhere deep down.
Sometimes very deep down, but still. You might realize that a krogan mercenary’s temper comes from a plague that is killing off his whole race. (Or you might just decide to kill these brusque companion candidates on sight and call it a day.) These nine companions, ranked from merely irritating to the worst of the bunch, are your field guides to the red flags that you might, with time, learn to ignore. Red flag: He’s a grizzled, cynical krogan grump who’s rarely happy to see you.
At least, at first In BioWare’s iconic sci-fi RPG, Commander Shepard chases a rogue agent across the galaxy with a squad of lovable weirdos. That includes Wrex, a krogan mercenary who always looks like he’d rather be shooting something. He’s got a perpetual chip on his shoulder, but he’s got a reason for being that way: He just wants what’s best for his race, and that race is dying. (A plague that keeps most of our species pregnancies from surviving would put many of us in a bad mood.) On one particular mission, he can turn on Shepard outright, which means you will need to either talk him down or take drastic, if unfortunate, measures.
If he lives, he will become one of Shepard’s most loyal allies by Mass Effect 3. He grumbles quite a bit, but Wrex will eventually follow you anywhere you point him. Red flag: He meets stressful situations with a snide quip Tales of the Abyss is a 2006 JRPG about a sheltered noble named Luke fon Fabre who stumbles into a war.
Along the way, Luke meets Jade Curtiss, a colonel from rival Malkuth. Jade is a brilliant scientist in his thirties, making him the oldest member of your party. He answers even the most serious subjects with a snide quip.
His sarcasm can sometimes tip into cruelty, and an overwhelming percentage of his dialogue is snarky jabs at the rest of the party. This can be fun the first time you hear it, but after a while, it gets a bit stale. Ask him if he’s joking, and he’ll tell you he’s “always serious.” Okay, Jade.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
