Banter Makes The Games Go 'Round
Games with compelling characters are always fun, but add some incidental dialogue and that's the seasoning that spices things up.
Story and compelling characters are probably the main reason I've stayed into video games for so long. While it's nice once in a while to have a fairly straightforward background story and mostly action (I'm looking at you, Super Mario games), part of why I like playing them is to find out what's next, what unravels as part of the plot, how characters evolve and change as you get further.
A lot of games tend to save these sorts of story beats for major plot points or when you complete goals or make progress in some meaningful way. There's nothing wrong with that - heck, it's probably big motivation to keep playing if you find something compelling and want to find out what the characters will go through next once you clear that stage, beat that quest, solve that puzzle, or whatever else gets you from point A to point B.
But I really think that games that have banter take that to the next level, and I love them for it.
Banter is the incidental dialogue in games that you hear during downtime, during certain scenes, or otherwise not during a main plot point or story. In my experience, I saw banter popularized with the "Tales of" JRPG games series, where the game inserted, at certain points or under particular conditions, optional skits you could watch to see the characters interact with one another. I loved this concept - not only did it motivate me to go looking around in every little corner to find a skit trigger, but also to see some funny stuff I wouldn't have imagined I'd see. In a game genre where saving the world, killing god(s), and triumphing at the last moment are predictable moments, having banter in skits was much less so.
A lot of other JRPGs took banter to the next level by having it happen during normal playtime, without the need to discover them or have prompts to do so. Mementos is a multi-level dungeon in Persona 5 Royal, and I probably spent a good chunk of the 125+ hours that I spent in the game rolling around Mementos listening to the characters go back and forth on everything from pancakes to social media to the nature of the enemies they were facing. Such dialogue felt natural to be having, removing the need for the characters to be silent most of the time unless something was triggered by the player.
JRPGs tend to be a little trope-ish (and frankly lots of us who play them know this and even prefer it), so filling the little gaps in characterization with a little back-and-forth between characters, especially as they changed or experienced new story events, was (and still is) fun for me. One of the best examples in P5R was an ex-antagonist character who joins you, and who subsequently comments on the plot point that messed up their nefarious plans - one which the cast was all too happy to point out. These little half-meta, half-character-driven banter moments continue to make me smile.
Of course when non-JRPG games pick up the banter bug, that makes playing them so much better for me. I was recently late to the party with God of War: Ragnarok, and one of my favorite characters by far is the character Mimir, a wise character who's restricted to being just a head you carry hooked onto your belt (it'd take too long to explain, so go with it). Thing is, Mimir has been anywhere and everywhere, and has a lot to say, whether it's myths, tales, talk with other character accompanying main characters Kratos and Atreus, and more. Even if I hadn't been pre-disposed to liking these insights since I studied classical Greek language and mythology in school, I'd probably still be intrigued by the break in monotony of exploration and completion that Mimir provides his companions.
And while the idea of character banter is probably not the main driver of why some games, like Uncharted, became successful by turning into multi-title franchises, it can't be dismissed, either. Nathan Drake and his self-effacing wit seemed to be topped with every subsequent title. I don't know that I would have kept playing if not for the fact that Nathan's ability to crack wise at any opportunity made even the moments when I was stuck on a puzzle fun. It's probably part of the secret sauce that keeps some games with multiple titles in the series going, and I hope it never goes away when it comes to the new titles that become popular.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go re-watch one of the true OG masters of character banter:
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