BioWare - The Best & Worst Companions

PC Gamer has a new article from Andy Kelly who writes about the best, and worst companion in Bioware games. Here is a small sample.

Warning! The following article contains MASSIVE SPOILERS for the Mass Effect, Baldur’s Gate, Knights of the Old Republic, and Dragon Age series.

With a new Dragon Age on the way, we've been reminiscing about our favourite, and least favourite, BioWare companions. Interesting buddies, and sometimes enemies, have been a staple of BioWare games since Baldur's Gate, and the studio is famous for creating people you actually care about. So I decided to ask the entire PC Gamer team who among the vast pantheon of BioWare NPCs they hate, and who they love. Some of the answers may surprise you. Especially Chris Thursten's.

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More information.

To me the list shows that Bioware has made some pretty decent companions, even ones they don't like. I think it's one of the company's core strengths. Just look--the reasons listed for disliking the characters is because they disliked the actual characters, rather than because (for the most part) they were poor representations of a real, living person. They have also created some very likeable characters. Even poor old, misunderstood Tali.

But I'm sure the Bioware-haters will disagree...

I'm not Bioware-hater… The truth is I'm EA hater and can't hate hands, only the head.

Anyway, let's see, a random one…
Tom Senior loves whiny Alistair, hates butt/tits badass Samara.

Um… What?
I'll pretend I didn't see it. Let's pick another random one…

Ben Griffin adores massmurderer crapredemption packed with religious whatnot Thane Krios, but can't stand asskicking in any party combined with anyone one person that won't hesitate to kill a councilor to save Shepard's sorry arse, besides Garrus the second true friend that got experimented on with bad tech biotics implant series Kaidan Alenko.



Won't even bother to read the rest.
I don't know who are those people on PC Gamer with their love/hate lists, but it does look they got a list of names and blindly picked random ones to put as great/worst sidekick.
Or they never played Bioware games. Wouldn't surprise me.

There is no discussion, everyone knows Deekin is the best ever NPC companion...

I hate to say it, but most of the Dragon Age universe companions to me are forgettable, so I'd have to go further back in the Bio fantasy genre to find some I liked (Minsc, probably, Aribeth). Mass Effect is a different story… Only one I didn't like at all was Jersey Shore, but he was obviously for the ladies, which I get. Otherwise Ashley, Tali, Jack and Garrus were far and away my favorite characters in any game I've ever played.

I like most BioWare companions, but some get on my nerves, like Khalid and Anders (DA2). Anders is a strange case, as I really liked him in Awakening, but in DA2 he is worthy of the title "Worst BioWare Companion".

As for the best one? Not sure. Jolee Bindo, Wrex, Mordin Solus, Shale, Isabela and so on. Like I said, I like a lot of them.

Really, Bioware should just focus on their strengths and start creating interactive soap operas.

I don't know if my steady, uncomplicated dislike of Sten throughout his storyline makes him my least favorite, or if my fury at what was done in DA2 with Anders, a character I had previously liked a lot, wins him the most-hated slot.

faves:

From BG, Jaheira
From NWN, Kaelyn the Dove (not really Bioware I guess)
From DA, Avelline
From ME, Samara and Dr Chakwas

... hm, I might have a type.

Simply put, I loved most of characters in BG2 and ME1-2, hated most of characters in KotOR1, DA2.

Favs:

BG: Anomen
NWN: Deekin
KotOR: HK 47
DA: Anders from Awakening
ME: Garrus

Hates:

BG: Cernd
NWN: no one stood out enough for me to hate
KotOR: Carth
DA: Anders from DA2
ME: Mordin in ME3

Alistair, Morrigan, Mabari, Minsc.

Thrasher said:

Really, Bioware should just focus on their strengths and start creating interactive soap operas.

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Dragon Age: Santa Barbara

Dallas Effect? :lol:

best:

kotor: Jolee bindo, hk-47, Canderous Ordo
bg2: Jaheira, vicconia, Mazzy, Minsc, yoshimo
Dragon age orgins: Leliana (So adorable and funny), Sten (likely one of the most unexpectedly cool characters bioware has ever writen!) and Morrigan (evil bitch no doubt, but Claudia Black does this role perfectly)
Mass effect series: Garrus (bros till death), Wrex, Mordin, Liara and Miranda

While I know I liked a lot of the NPCs, none of them stand out as particular favorites. Terrible. Well, except for maybe Samara.

I enjoyed this article. I enjoy in one way or the other almost all of Bioware's characters they have created, even the "whiny" ones because that to me is realistic.

It is tough to pick a favorite but I would list HK-47 because he was so damn funny. Oh wait, that'd have to be a tie with Minsc (including Boo!).

The Dragon Age characters, though, were not nearly as enjoyable to me as the characters in most of the other games.

I tend to dislike any teenage girl thief, making the tentacled thief of Kotor the most annyoing companion as far as I'm concerned. EDIT: IIRC her name was Mission Vao. I dislike the BG1 Imoen for the same reason.

My favourite Bioware companions are probably

From BG2: Korgan, Jan Janssen, Edwin
From Kotor: HK 47 (for the personality, I found him fairly useless in combat)
From NWN: Deekin
From Mass Effect: Mordin Solus.

The Dragon Age companions were a fairly forgettable lot. On the whole I find Bioware's writing a bit suburbian. Their strength is rather putting decent companions together with a balanced game and a decent story. It is much easier for me to come up with cool Obsidian (Steven Heck, any character in Kotor2), CDPR (Zoltan), or even Piranha Bytes (the four friends of the first Gothics) NPCs.

I don't remember anyone from Dragon Age: Origins, except maybe Morrigan, who I thought was cool. She had some interesting quests involving her mother, I believe, and that made her an interesting character.

As for Baldur's Gate series (my favorite BioWare games thus far), I really liked Aerie in BG2. Yeah, she's kind of annoying, but she was also innocent and a little confused. I found her past to be very sad.

Minsc is awesome. I love him. His one-liners are pretty funny and he's a loyal defender of goodness in the world.

I also like Jan Janssen a lot. It's cool to have a technologically-gifted Gnome in the party.

Mazzy seemed cool, too, but I didn't get far enough in the game yet to get her to join. I think I will be replacing someone when I get that far to have her join.

I also liked Yoshimo a lot, but there was just not enough room in my party for him. Too bad you can't have parties of 8 characters or so.

Oh, one character I really don't like is Valygar. For some reason he is just off-putting to me. I don't like how his back story is developed and his voice acting left something to be desired. He just didn't resonate too much with me.

Can't say I really disliked any other characters in Baldur's Gate.

Best: Sten
Worst: Liara

Naturally, these are more "my favourite" as opposed to "the best", which isn't exactly something quickly measurable.

From BG: Xan, Edwin, Safana (I was quite annoyed when I experienced what Bioware did to her in the sequel…) Branwen, Kagain was fun too though underdeveloped/under utilised.
BG2:
Edwin, Korgan. (Hilarious characters; love hearing the horrified responses by some npcs to their presence.)
ME: No real favourites, maybe Liara or Garrus.
ME2: None really stand out from memory; it's been too long since I played it.
NWN: I was always annoyed that there was no proper party; so probably have an inherent bias against most NWN companions.
DA: Wynne. (What can I say? I like strong matriarchal types)
DA2: Aveline.

Deekin for sure.

I'm a bit surprised there's no love for shale from DAO, she was a must have in my party.