Recurring Traveller: Difference between revisions

In mild cases, this is just a travelling salesman or [[NPC]] who shows up with no logical regard to how they could be there. In dramatic cases, this is obviously an important character who plays [[The Ditz|the idiot]] as a disguise, so you aren't suspicious of them following you.

 

 

 

{{examples}}

* This seems to happen a lot in ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' games:

** Namingway from ''[[Final Fantasy IV]]''.

*** You encounter two Galbadian soldiers, [[Shout-Out|Biggs]] and [[Star Wars|Wedge]], [[Rule of Three|three times]] throughout the game.

** You'll meet several of these in ''[[Final Fantasy X]]'', including the merchants O'aka and Rin, the [[Exposition Fairy]] Maechen, and other summoners who are engaged in their own pilgrimages, such as Isaaru and Dona.

*** Several of the Moogles - Montblanc's brothers and sister especially - also recur in various places across the game.

** Gilgamesh is believed to be the same guy each time in each of the games he appears, as opposed to being one of many characters that sports a recurring name (like Cid, Biggs, and Wedge). He even references the events in other games - mentioning [[Final Fantasy V|Bartz]] in ''[[Final Fantasy IV: The After Years]]'' and carrying various famous Final Fantasy (replica) swords in his ''[[Final Fantasy XII]]'' appearance.

** They're actually [[Inexplicably Identical Individuals]], as they're actually different people. Some of them are actually infected with Las Plagas, and in different stages of the infection too, if you look at their eyes.

** How identical they actually are is debatable, since we never get to see their actual faces, they DO sound exactly the same tough.

** Mother 3 has the Item Guy, who appears in locations that are so obviously inaccessible ( {{spoiler|including the final area, which is thousands of feet underground with the only way to get to it being a one-way elevator controlled by the [[Big Bad]]}})it could practically be considered a [[Lampshade Hanging]] in its own right, even though it's played more or less straight.

* The Wonder Chef in ''[[Tales of Symphonia]]'' disguised himself as a random object in every town (even though they were in two different worlds almost no one knows about or can travel to). He even had a dark counterpart.

** Old Man HoHo from ''[[The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker|Wind Waker]]''

* Similarly, an unnamed Travelling Salesman always shows up at each new city you need to go to in ''[[Valkyrie Profile]] 2'', including destroyed castles only accessible through deadly caverns full of monsters... even going so far as to show up in Asgard ahead of you. Though, admittedly, this turns out to be the dead spirit of the merchant's ancestor, he still carries the exact same inventory as the living version.

* The weird stalker who appears at the front of every Gym in the [[Pokémon]] series to give you advice, later, Scott in Emerald as well.

** In the anime, a character known only as "Magikarp Salesman" who pops up every now and again.

* The G-man in ''[[Half Life]]'' starts out this way, but eventually becomes part of the story.

* The old man from ''[[Final Fantasy Mystic Quest]]'', but this justified as {{spoiler|he is a thing, the Light Crystral.}}

** It IS fairly odd, though, when you find Bottles inside a giant mechanical shark floating in the sewers.

* ''[[Shining Force]]'' contains a character named Boken who is apparently on a personal quest, which happens to take him to many of the same locations as you. He even has his own character sprite; oddly, though, he's never recruitable as a Force member, not even in the GBA remake.

* This is the case for all named, recruitable NPCs you meet in taverns in ''[[Mount & Blade]]'', in addition to a handful of [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|human traffickers, slave traders, and booksellers]]. There are too many of these NPCs to keep up with, and so one of the dialogue options is, "What's your story again?"

* Raddle the Traveler and his sometime companion Rumina appear in the first three ''[[Star Ocean]]'' games, always hopelessly lost, and in fact giving them correct directions will get you prizes of some sort.

* There are several of these in ''[[Okami]]''. There's Waka, who follows you through the entire game {{spoiler|including your fight with the Big Bad}}, and is the most reasonable, because he has magic powers. In the last chapter, you have Oki, who manages to follow you {{spoiler|through a magic gateway to 100 years into the past}}. And in the first chapter, you have Susano, the [[Fake Ultimate Hero|inept, stupid, useless fool]] who, despite being completely incompetent, manages to get past the puzzles it takes you hours to solve in a few minutes. How the hell ''did'' he get into {{spoiler|the Moon Cave}}, anyway? {{spoiler|[[Crowning Moment of Awesome|Not that we're complaining, mind]].}}

* Little Timmy shows up several times in ''[[Warcraft]] 3''. At one point he's even selling powerful magic items, ''after he's been killed''.

** There is also the Smuggler, Slim Cognito, and, to a lesser degree, the Shady Salesman.

* Many kids who give you challenges in ''[[Backyard Sports|Backyard Skateboarding]]''.

* Wentos the Travelling Salesman from ''[[Sonic Unleashed]]''. Every once and a while you'll see him in a town (the places he visits are random) where he will sell you goods at randomly-generated prices. Sometimes you can buy a product from him at [[Game Breaker|less than the selling price]]. So basically, you can buy something from him and then [[Good Bad Bugs|sell it back immediately for a profit]].

* Not one, but ''three'' characters in ''[[Professor Layton]]''. We have Granny Riddle, who picks up lost puzzles for you, Pavel the guy who keeps getting lost, and Stachenscarfen. {{spoiler|Out of the three though, the first game revealed everyone as robots, and the second game revealed everyone as a ''hallucination'', so it's debatable about Granny Riddle and Stachenscarfen. Pavel has absolutely no excuse though.}}

* Martel from ''[[Legend of Dragoon]]''.

 

* Naturally, this is played for laughs with the shopkeeper in ''[[Press Start]]''.

* The [[Cirque Du Soleil]] limited series ''Solstrom'' had a well-dressed matron appear somewhere in each of the first 12 episodes, even though each story took place in a different city (and several different countries in all). At the end of the 13th and final episode, {{spoiler|it is revealed she is the mother of the astronomer who was tracking the sun creatures all along and narrating what he saw}}.

* The cabbage merchant in ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]''.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Video Game Characters]]