The Unappreciated Heroes of Video Games

In video games, quite often or not your character is pegged as the one who saved the world. You stopped the bomb going off or you saved rescued the people or you even might have correctly navigated the complexities of building a city winning the over the people. Although a lot of the time, the real heroes were the ones who stepped up, and supported your character through there time of hardship. The put everything on the line and ensured that the hero of our game could achieve their great victory. In this article we want to explore a handful of those unappreciated heroes and call out their successes. If you think I missed any from this article, be sure to post your thoughts in the comments sections on our social media pages.

At first Morrigan comes across as a scheming companion with a hidden agenda, and across all of her appearances in Dragon Age, she never stops giving off that ‘vibe’. Being the daughter of the ‘Legendary Witch of the Wilds’, Flemeth, also helps you kind of not trust this character. However, in both Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age: Inquisition it is Morrigan who actually moves the story forwards directing both protagonists and ALSO offers them solutions to their problems (at a cost of course).

The example ill primarily draw on is during the events of Dragon Age: Origins, where the epic grey wardens are heading towards their final battle in which, once the Archdemon is slayed, the warden that killed it will die. This option can be used, forcing players to chose whether their hero dies, or their best mate Alister dies. Although, before these moments, Morrigan offers the players an ominous alternative, in which the player needs to ‘court’ Morrigan to conceive a baby. If they do this, she will cast a spell which will removes the effect of ‘suddenly dying’ when they slay the Archdemon. The cost however is that she will leave with the baby, and never see the wardens again. If you took this path, later in the games, you find out that the child survived the spell, taking in the soul of an old god and is being looked after well. It comes across that Morrigan did this entirely for her commitment to the Warden, saving his and Allister’s lives and had no real hidden agenda.

I know Barret is a playable character in Final Fantasy 7, but he in his own way, had just as much of an impact on saving the world as Cloud did, yet everyone seems to only cheer for Cloud. I wont get to much into the detail on this, but ultimately Cloud saved the world from Sephiroth destroying the world with a huge meteorite to I suppose ‘reset the world?’. Although, the world was already creaking at the seams, as the worlds “life-force” was being drained from it and harvested to make power. This practise was spreading destruction of fauna and flora across the land. Although it was not a more imminent threat as Sephiroth was, it would have done Sephiroth’s work for him.

Barret took it in his own hand to join Avalanche and take some drastic actions to slow down this destruction. He made it is mission to fight against the corrupt Shinra company, who were harvesting the lifeforce, and bring down their capability to do so. The issue is with this approach is, it has collateral, but its kind of one of those ‘Greater Good’ scenarios. In the end Shinra is all but destroyed and their destruction of the land mantle is passed over the antagonist Sephiroth. But, without Barratt hiring Cloud, taking down the reactors and ultimately antagonising Shinra, Cloud might not have even stumbled across Sephiroth’s plan, therefore being way too late, and underprepared to bear him.

Yuna from Ghost of Tsushima was an easy pick for this article because, literally without her in the story Tsushima Island would have been completely dominated by the Khan and the Japanese Shogunate might have given up the Island or had to have had an extensive war. Lets think about all the things that Yuna did for the Island.

First of all she saved Jin Sakai’s life, by dragging his injured body from the battlefield and tended his wounds to ensure he survived. She then inspired Jin to take another path, showing him that the Khan has found the way to use the Samurais honour against them. She taught him how to be stealthy and use less ‘respected’ tactics. She then inspired and re-invigorated the people of Tsushima by telling them about the Ghost who was fighting for them, giving them confidence to rebel against the Khan. She then spread the word of the Ghosts actions across the lands to scare the Mongolian forces, bringing down their confidence, making them easier to conquer. This list doesn’t include all the battles she fought in, the actions she took and the sacrifices she made along the way.

For someone who was only looking out for their brother, she certainly did A LOT more than most of the other characters – Lord Shimura, I’m looking at you sir!

Martin Septim is an illegitimate child that was cast away by his father, although strangely his father did get updates on his son, even though he never visited him… but I digress! When you stumble across this character, known as Brother Septim at the time, he comes across as just being a priest from Kvatch. Although as you adventure with Martin, you establish his lineage and establish that he is fated to battle Mehrunes Dagon, one of the seven Deadric Princes, the antagonist of Oblivion.

Like all great heroes Martin agrees with his fate and takes on Dagon, vanquishing him, and himself. The awesome thing about this story is that you (the player) were just simply a pawn in the events, you weren’t the real hero. It was this simple little priest who was the one to seal the evil gates of Oblivion which tormented the people of the lands. I mean, no matter how many clans you join, how many brotherhoods you destroy, you will never live up to the epic ending that Martin Septim gave to the Elder Scrolls lore.

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