Establishing Character Moment/Video Games: Difference between revisions

** Nathyrra's collected and somewhat amused attitude is cemented from her very first words of dialogue in Hordes of the Underdark.

** In ''[[Pokémon Ranger]]'', we have Purple Eyes, who, ''before we even know he exists'', has beaten the crap out of Rand, of all people, and kidnapped his wife and daughter, Leanne and Nema. But when we meet him, {{spoiler|you can tell he's bad news. Just look at his Ranger pose. That 'the world is mine' one...it's quite creepy. But then again, he is a [[Complete Monster]]...}}

* ''[[Neverwinter Nights 2]]'' has many of these.

** Neeshka is introduced snapping at a band of guards to display her temper.

** [[Fiery Redhead|Quara]] is introduced getting into an argument with a pair of apprentice wizards and (depending on your actions) maybe even starting a fight.

** [[Cloudcuckoolander|Grobnar]] is introduced singing a rather silly song to a bush and then seizing on the slightest excuse to tell a long story about a [[Noodle Implements|spring-mounted shield and a codpiece]].

*** Kaelyn is introduced examining carvings in the temple of Myrkul, establishing her obsession with re-launching the Betrayer's Crusade.

*** Okku is introduced sticking to his duty, regardless of the cost.

* Auron in ''[[Final Fantasy X]]'' is introduced in a way that officially sets up his "[[Cool Old Guy]] who knows a lot more about what's going than he tells people" credentials: He [[I Have the High Ground|climbs up to a high place]] and seems to welcome Sin as it comes closer to Zanarkand without a word. He then walks calmly through the street as a wave of water approaches the city and begins to ''disintegrate it'', and when he shows up later to help fight off monsters, once again without losing the cool head, he's officially established as the resident [[Deadpan Snarker]] / [[Samurai]].

** He has another one when he actually joins the party. He stares down a lizard the size of a horse and then proceeds to kill it in a single turn.

* Zero of ''[[Mega Man X]]'' establishes himself as a badass on his first appearance during the prologue stage when he blows the arm off Vile's mech as Vile is [[Hopeless Boss Fight|preparing to finish off X]].

* Ashe's introduction scene/stage in ''[[Mega Man ZX]] Advent'' shows her credentials as an [[Action Girl]] ''before'' becoming Mega Man Model A, and how far she'll go to get what she wants. She ''jumps off the side of an airship'' and lands unscathed after ''at least'' a kilometer's fall, for starters, fights her way through a force of mavericks and a ''boss'' with a simple blaster pistol, you know, the kind that only [[Red Shirt|Red Shirts]] in the series would use, and the series' resident [[Psycho for Hire]] is the only one who manages to stop her. Then it's implied that she survived a ''multi-kilometer fall'' after that. No, she's not a robot, she's ''human''. ''[[Mega Man ZX/Awesome|Oh, man]]''.

* ''[[Gears of War]]'': You know the Cole Train means business when his first appearance is taking on about 10 Locust on his own, not even bothering to take cover. In the second game, he first appears coming to your rescue - ''while making an entire squad of Locust about to kill you run away scared.''

* Fawkes from ''[[Fallout 3]]'' is first introduced by talking to [[Word of God|him]] through a speaker. He seems nice and polite, despite the fact that he is a super mutant. He helps you for a while, then politely departs. His establishing character moment is later on when you find him jumping out of the side of an aircraft with a giant laser minigun screaming various battle cries...and he's ''still'' polite to you when you talk to him.

** Franziska's entrance into the plot involves whipping Gumshoe.

** Matt Engarde's {{spoiler|real}} appearance.

* Our first sight of Erol in ''[[Jak II Renegade]]'' has him telling a shackled, chained-down Jak on a Dark Eco injector slash torture device, "I'll be back later," after being told to finish Jak off that night. Daxter's first appearance in any game features him making the wisecracks. Ashelin enters the games by [[Action Girl|dropping from a tree and holding a gun to Jak's head]]. {{spoiler|Gol and Maia}} enter the picture telling a Lurker army to destroy a village. Yeah.

* In ''[[Tsukihime]]'', Nero/Nrvnqsr Chaos's first scene is meeting Shiki late at night while dogs howl and it's made ''very'' clear that Shiki is about four seconds from death. The next time we see him, he's just eaten every single person inside a hotel before attacking Shiki and Arcueid. The manga skips the first scene and [[Moral Event Horizon|shows Chaos' entrance into the motel, where he brutally murders everyone including a pair of cowering children.]] Apart from Makihasa Tohno (who's already dead) he's the easily the least sympathetic character introduced in the entire game because everyone else is a gigantic woobie. <s>Even</s> Especially the next baddie, SHIKI.

* The very first thing we see [[Armies Are Evil|Blackwatch]] do in ''[[Prototype (video game)|Prototype]]'' is save an innocent woman from a horde of Infected...only to kill the woman immediately afterwards. This is arguably meant to show that Blackwatch is willing to kill ''anyone'' with any contact with [[The Virus]], ''even if they're not even infected themselves.''

** The opening gameplay segment features Alex raging against Blackwatch, carving tanks and men apart, fighting giant infected behemoths, taking out helicopters, then tracking down an officer, slamming him to the ground, and pounding his skull into paste.

* ''[[Transformers: War for Cybertron]]'': Most people know Megatron as a megalomaniac, and as someone not to mess with. In the very first stage, he commands his flagship to ram into a space station, [[Bad Boss|casually shoots a subordinate decrying the plan]], then as the ship and the station section it crashed into collapses, he simply charges out of the wreckage with two lieutenants and starts massacring Autobot [[Mooks]] left and right while he lets Soundwave organize any survivors strong enough to live.

** Similarly, when you start the Autobot campaign, the first you see of Optimus is him being a [[Big Damn Heroes]] and saving Bumblebee from a group of Decepticon mooks.

** In the various ''Origins'', Duncan appears to be almost preternaturally self-possessed, afraid of nothing and able to make people feel either threatened or comfortable, as he chooses, with nothing more than polite small talk.

** Alistair's first appearance has him honestly trying to fulfill his duties as a messenger, and quickly falling back on snark in response to the hostility of the mage he's talking to.

** Imran Zakhaev is introduced at the same time as Khaled al-Asad at President al-Fulani's execution. However, the scene makes it quite clear who is in charge with a remarkably subtle gesture: when al-Asad appears, Zakhaev points a pistol at him, in the middle of a courtyard filled with al-Asad's soldiers - and ''al-Asad'' is the one who stops in his tracks, obviously surprised and worried. ''Then'' Zakhaev hands him the gun, and al-Asad executes al-Fulani, establishing who is in charge, and who is the subordinate.

** Vladimir Makarov in the second game has an ''entire mission'' serve as his establishing character moment. It starts with him and his cronies machinegunning an entire airport (and you have to follow and help him). It ends with Makarov casually turning and shooting you in the head, revealing he knew you were a spy the whole time.

** In [[He-Man Woman Hater|Kenji]]'s second scene, he starts theorizing that Yamaku having mostly female students is proof of a feminist conspiracy trying to take over the world. He even suggests that Hisao is a possibly psychic spy based on him saying "It's me".

** [[Yamato Nadeshiko|Lilly]] is introduced sitting in a disused classroom, having a [[Spot of Tea]], and politely greeting Hisao.

* In ''[[Kid Icarus: Uprising]]'', moments after Dark Pit's creation, Pandora introduces him as her newest minion. He responds with an [[Offhand Backhand]], and joins you in the second half of her boss fight. Meet the [[Wild Card]].

* Very early into ''[[Prototype 2]]'', when James Heller first catches sight of Alex Mercer, he slits the latter's throat. [[Healing Factor|It doesn't take, of course,]] but it and the subsequent dogged pursuit firmly show that if anyone can take Alex down, it'll be James and his depleted uranium balls.

 

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