10 Most Unreliable Video Game Companions Ever
Sometimes it feels like it'd be much easier to go it alone...
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00:00 When the odds are stacked against you in a video game, you really want somebody reliable in your
00:04 corner. Someone to carry your burdens, even the score and help you live another day.
00:09 For every Marcus there's a Dom, for every Ratchet his Clank. Sadly though, not every pairing shares
00:15 that special connection. Players need someone who's got their back in a firefight, not standing
00:20 in front of them playing catch each shot with their face. Whether it be down to some misread
00:24 programming or just good intentions gone wrong, companions can sometimes be more hindrance than
00:29 help. I'm Jess from WhatCulture and here are the 10 most unreliable video game companions ever.
00:35 Number 10, Aery. Bravely Default. Fairies or some kind of pixie companion that joins you on
00:42 your journey feel like part of the framework for a lot of eastern RPGs. I could list examples but
00:48 chances are you've already thought of one. You know, the annoying squeaky voice companions that
00:52 get more insufferable as time goes on, much like Navi from Ocarina of Time. When it comes to Aery
00:58 from 3DS hit Bravely Default however, she's not just an unreliable companion, she's also an
01:05 unreliable narrator. In short, the fairy guides players to light crystal pillars throughout the
01:10 land, apparently saving the world. Yet this creates a sort of parallel world/time loop scenario,
01:17 bringing you no closer to saving the proverbial day. Across the parallel worlds and as time goes
01:23 on, characters will start to hint that the little fairy may not be all she appears. Which becomes
01:29 apparent when our heroes break the cycle and a crystal, halting the schemes of Aery's master,
01:34 Ouroboros. She's far from a sweet and innocent fairy when that happens, revealing her true nature
01:40 in shocking form. Even the title screen alludes to this deception as time goes on,
01:45 if players aren't getting it. Number 9, Any Survivor. Dead Rising. Frank West may have
01:51 covered wars, you know, but nothing could prepare him for this. Not the zombie outbreak,
01:56 he handles that quite well, surprisingly. No, I refer to the arduous task of making sure the
02:01 people that he rescues actually make it to the rescue point. Now, it'd be fair to think that
02:06 someone in need of rescuing would adhere to their saviour and follow their commands. Alright,
02:11 some disarray and panic may ensue, yet in Dead Rising, where Frank can yell "follow me" and
02:16 some will indeed follow, not all will. Some players might think, "Right, let's arm them,
02:22 give them a fighting chance" whilst they follow Frank. Turns out that's an even worse idea,
02:26 as for some reason, a plank of wood turns them into a would-be Conan the Barbarian. Weird about
02:31 the self-preservation instinct of a lemming. Like unsupervised kids in a playpen, taking your eyes
02:37 off what a survivor's doing is lethal. Lose that focus and you'll be seeing "Sophie has died"
02:43 before you know it. At least the Pied Piper had it easy, the rats didn't mutiny or refuse to follow
02:48 him to apparent safety. Number 8, Tails. Sonic 3/Sonic and Knuckles. In terms of companionship
02:56 throughout the ages, Tails has proven most of his worth behind the scenes. The two-tailed tinkerer
03:01 of a fox has helped Sonic and friends with aircrafts and ingenuity. It's when he's in the
03:06 fray that he becomes a right little sh*t. Sonic the Hedgehog games are largely about precision
03:12 platforming, not to the controller-crushing degree of Super Meat Boy, but it can be tricky enough in
03:17 places that demand attention. So imagine the dismay on players' faces when you're soaring
03:22 through the air, having nailed the timing, and Tails plucks you out of thin air in a vain attempt
03:27 at helping. It kills the trajectory of the jump, and if you try to jump again, you may end up
03:32 plummeting to your death. There's also the occasions when the AI fox hits a switch at the wrong time,
03:37 resulting in a hedgehog pancake, because Tails has gone on without you. When a friend is playing,
03:42 it's not so bad, as you can coordinate, but much like another example later on, when the AI is in
03:48 charge, all logic goes out the window. Stick to aircrafts and tinkering, Tails. Number 7,
03:54 Dogmeat/Fallout 4. Dogs are generally considered to be man's best friend. You've got unwavering
04:00 loyalty, a constant companion. You can't fault them. You can fault their digital counterparts,
04:06 though, when they cause players to die umpteen times. Dogmeat, the stray that the player adopts
04:11 early on in Fallout 4, is a prime example of this, prioritising willful obedience over something as
04:18 integral as longevity. You can't blame him, really. He's not going to know the difference
04:22 between loyalty and suicidal tendencies, is he? At least that's the only reason I can think of
04:27 as to why he'll charge into proximity mines if you accidentally direct him that way.
04:32 Or while he'll wander into your line of fire/explosion in a valiant effort to defend
04:37 you. Good thing there's no morality meter in this game, or players would seem like ripe bastards.
04:42 It's not the end of the world if Dogmeat does catch some friendly fire or accidental blast radius.
04:48 It's just a constant pain in the butt for players who have to wait until the battle is over to go
04:52 pick his little fuzzy butt up. Immortal? Maybe. Annoying? Absolutely. Number 6, Trip/Enslaved
05:00 Odyssey to the West. In this loose adaptation of the Chinese fable, the relationship between
05:05 Tripitaka and Monkey is already strained from the start. Well, putting an explosive proximity
05:10 control device on someone and enslaving them tends to do that. But as the unlikely pair start to bond,
05:17 Trip trusts Monkey to do the grunt work and scout out safe passage. Which is fine,
05:22 except for when she decides not to follow and Monkey goes one step too far and explodes.
05:26 It breaks the flow of the gameplay when players want to push forward and the fickle Tripitaka
05:31 decides she won't climb that ledge and sets off the proximity popper on Monkey's braincase. Or
05:36 when players are off exploring when the game allows some extra length, only to be cut short
05:41 by Trip startling some enemies and getting herself kidnapped and taken out of range. Sure, there are
05:46 times when the game calls for it, but at other times it's a ripe pain when your companion literally
05:51 brings your progress to a halt. Why Monkey doesn't just carry her and chuck her in a bush when he
05:56 needs to fight is beyond me. Number 5. Maria. Silent Hill 2. When it comes to survival horror,
06:03 it's usually hard enough trying to keep the protagonist from meeting a terrible fate,
06:07 let alone somebody else. If they can handle themselves, then it's the more the merrier,
06:12 but as you've probably gathered from this list so far, it's not really the case here.
06:16 James Sunderland is already having a right time of it in Silent Hill already. You know,
06:21 what with that whole "letter from a dead wife" geometric-headed relentless fiend in pursuit
06:25 shtick going on. What he doesn't need is a survivor with a death wish bigger than James'
06:30 guilt complex. That'll make sense if you finished it. Escort missions are a burden most of the time
06:35 anyway, but this one goes the extra mile. Should Maria take too much damage from either James or
06:40 the manifestations that the titular town has conjured up, it can and will affect an ending.
06:46 Which wouldn't be so bad if Maria didn't have an obnoxious habit of getting right in the way of
06:51 James' flailing about in a fight. In a game like this, with such sticky combat, it can be an extra
06:56 contrivance to keep an eye on her. Number 4. Jung. Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2. In the world of
07:03 highly trained special operatives sent into dangerous locales and volatile situations,
07:08 you can expect your team to work as a well-oiled machine. But all that it takes is one loose cog
07:14 to disrupt that flow, and that's where Jung Park comes in. When your team works well in the R6
07:19 Vegas games, it's great. The level of precision and tactics required to clear missions room by
07:24 room is some of the slickest around, for its time. But keeping the protagonist alive isn't
07:29 the player's only concern. They have to look after their team, too. Your other companion,
07:34 Walker, is self-sufficient and has the common sense to not get shot. Much. Not Jung, though.
07:40 No, no. Take your eye off him, though, or leave him to what you'd think is taking out the enemy
07:45 shooting at him, and you'll hear "Jung down" more often than you'd like to. Which is a good dozen
07:50 more times than necessary. What makes it worse is if players have to risk themselves to pick the
07:55 daft spod back up again. Repeatedly. Seriously, Jung could incapacitate himself in a room with
08:01 a folding chair if you left him there. Number 3. Sheeva. Resident Evil 5. Ashley Graham gets a load
08:08 of flack in Resi 4, what with the annoying voice and the kidnaps. But that could be tolerated,
08:13 mostly. What she didn't do, however, was waste all of your precious ammo and healing items at
08:18 every opportunity. No, that honour goes to Sheeva Alamar, BSAA agent, Chris Redfield's partner,
08:25 and all-round inconvenience when being handled by the AI. In human-controlled co-op, it's amazing
08:31 to have another helping hand. It's when she's controlled by the AI that we run into problems.
08:36 Normally, you'd think rationing out the firepower accordingly would be fair. And it would,
08:40 but Sheeva doesn't do normal. She'll waste a few magnum rounds on a standard enemy rather than the
08:46 surplus handgun ammo she's carrying. But worse than wasting ammo is wasting your high-strength
08:52 healing items instead. For example, if Chris takes a tiny bump or throwing axe to the head,
08:57 that's nothing a little green herb can't fix. Yet if Sheeva's got a full health-filling first
09:01 aid spray in her hands, she won't hesitate to use it. You literally have to run away and heal
09:07 quicker than it takes your AI partner to catch up to you. Which is worrying when there are bigger
09:12 threats in the game. Number 2. Natalia, GoldenEye. In Pierce Brosnan's first outing in GoldenEye,
09:18 Natalia Simonova broke away from the Bond Girl trope. Well, a bit. She still becomes a love
09:23 interest by the end, but for the majority is a savvy foil to Brosnan's bond. A survivor throughout,
09:29 Natalia becomes integral to the spy's plan to thwart Trevelyan and the titular weaponised
09:34 satellite device. In the video game tie-in on Nintendo 64, however, that logic didn't carry over.
09:40 Rather than accepting that she's not a battle-trained agent, the polygonal counterpart
09:45 would do her best to eat every bullet. It's almost like she took national patriotism too far,
09:51 taking the bullet for each of her fellow countrymen over this English pig dog killing them
09:55 all. Or at least that's what it felt like, as you attempt to clear the room of enemies intent on
09:59 killing you both. You had to pick your shots carefully on these escort missions, as Natalia
10:05 has an annoying habit of running in the way of fire, friendly or otherwise. It wasn't at all
10:11 uncommon to see the words "Natalia has died", which is pretty darn frustrating when you were
10:15 all the way at the end of the mission. Number 1. Roach. The Witcher 3, The Wild Hunt.
10:21 When you start a Witcher game, it may seem odd that Geralt has a disconnect with his horses.
10:25 Calling each one "Roach", our hero seems to bear no significant attachment to his mares,
10:30 unlike say Wanda from Shadow of the Colossus. Then as you come out of a tavern and find your
10:35 horse atop the adjacent roof, you begin to see why. I'm personally playing through The Witcher 3
10:41 right now for the very first time, and whilst I appreciate Roach and I think she's gotten a lot
10:46 better, boy does this horse love to jam itself on a small fence midway through a really important
10:51 race. Whilst it's unreasonable to expect your horse to stick to you every step of the way,
10:56 when you summon them and they're in what seems like the next county, it can be a pain to wait.
11:01 Or better still, when a player summons their trusty steed and finds her stuck on a branch,
11:05 or a fence post, or something that may not even be real, yet still enough to hinder them from
11:10 coming to you. Over time, Set Aproach Red did fix up some bits and pieces with Roach's AI,
11:15 but not all of them. Plenty of players like me are still finding frustration with her puzzling
11:21 programming. Whilst the world of Temeria and the Bordering Lands is beautiful to take in,
11:25 when your horse decides that it wants to be a scaffolder when you summon it,
11:29 it somewhat ruins the illusion. That's the end of our list of the most unreliable video game
11:34 companions ever, but if you can think of any more, be sure to write them in that comment section
11:38 below. As always, I've been Jess from WhatCulture, thank you so much for hanging out with me.
11:44 If you like, you can come say hi to me on my Twitter account, where I'm @JessMcDonald,
11:48 but make sure you stay tuned to us here for plenty more great gaming content.