Something about taking the guy that started the conflict in Chrono trigger with you to save the world and redeem him is so beautiful

Missed Cloud in Final Fantasy Tactics, he’s missable though the window to do so is much more forgiving than the ones shown here

Honestly, I'm impressed and amazed to see Arcanum in a list as it was an amazing yet often overlooked game.

You could probably make this list several times over just using Suikoden characters if you wanted to. Given that each game has 108 recruitable characters (though this number does include the player character and those scripted to join you as part of story progression), it's easy to miss out on a few if you don't know how to get them, or when they become available. The first installment wasn't that bad with this (with a few exceptions), but later ones really dialed this up.

I can't believe you included Dog!!!!! That warms my heart... I need an Arcanum remake

In suikoden 1 there is Gremio. A powerful character in the early game that sacrifices themselves for the team about 1/4 of the way through the story. If by the time you launch the final battle you have recruited all 107 other stars of destiny(the games name for certain characters) a powerful time mage appears and brings Gremio back by plucking them from the timestream just before they died.

Adoring fan even has the same voice as the adoring fan in oblivion

I hate when you go though loops to unlock someone and they suck 😂

Tir McDohl in Suikoden 2, available only if you load your saved game from Suikoden 1 at the start and recruitable after a few criteria are met.

Remember Shining Force 3 having several missable characters. One being a werewolf that you had to push across town into your base. Fun game that needs a remaster.

The original star Ocean game had so many you could miss

You could basically fill the list just with Fire Emblem characters. But the most random recruit I can think of is Stefan (Radiant Dawn).

These kinds of details in games are always so cool, adding layers of depth and immersion. Its typical when RPG's include these things, but I was most impressed with Dishonored 2's Stilton storyline, because the game does NOT outright tell you about the option to save him from the ritual in the past, it's something the creators TRUSTED gamers to be intelligent enough to figure it out or try out of curiosity, and then rewarded us with an extensive storyline and character development that is so rewarding and adds so much to the narrative and ending. That's how good games are made, devs who actually care about those details and put in that extra effort, knowing full well that it may not even be seen by a majority of players, and trusting us rather than holding our hands and spoon-feeding us.

In KOTOR, you can reject Juhani as a companion.

If there's a follow up, Reiji/Chris from Persona 1. Not only do you have to go to certain places and talk to specific people but you also need to talk to his mom in the convenience store and agree to be Reiji's friend. But only talk to her once, because if you talk to her more than that you won't get him. Then you have to reject other potential members as they ask to join your group, go through the 2nd dungeon of the game with only 4 party members instead of 5 and finally, you get Reiji once you get to the other world. Talk about a journey. But it's worth it. Reiji is strong. Also, there are certain persona that only he can equip. Yeah, if you miss Reiji, you're permanently locked out from acquiring certain personas. So, he definitely can carry his own weight when he joins the party a bit late.

Never killed him in Dragon age. Dead men tell no tales so knew already he was worth more alive for information alone.

Unlockable characters was always such an awesome hidden mechanic, especially if you earned something like that without knowing it was possible. I miss games doing that

Roo the kangaroo in Streets of Rage 3 comes to mind. He was one of the mini-bosses alongside Bruce. The idea was Bruce would stand back most of the fight and Roo would be much more aggressive, but if you defeated Bruce before Roo then Roo would run away and could be selected as a character from then on after a continue.

Sten from dragon age origins. If you leave lothering without releasing him from the cage, he disappears forever.

I would add Leena from Chrono Cross also since you have to turn down letting Kid join you multiple times in order for Leena to join you. If you accept Kid when she first asks to join, Leena will get jealous of her and subsequently not join you at all because of it. If you deny Kid at first (which you have to tell her no multiple times for her to leave you alone) she will ask to join again later after Leena has already joined you and there is no problem between the two then.

The suikoden series was filled with missable characters

The Shadow entry is actually worse because you're wrong about the choice. You're not given the choice to "wait for Shadow", you're given the choice to "Jump" or "Wait", the latter of which is to any seasoned RPG veteran code for "there's something about yo happen, make sure you're equipped and healed". At no point does the game make it clear that saving him is an option.

the characters you can recruit during major battles in Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes would fill up a whole list or two if they were counted separately, basically most, if not all, of the major battles has a character from the enemy faction you can recruit, however you must dedicate strategic resources to the strategy to do so as well as activate said strategy when the prompt comes up, otherwise when you defeat the character in question without the recruitment active that's it: they're dead

Vincent from FF7 and Cloud from FF Tactics

Every time this list comes back, Donnel from Fire Emblem Awakening is always my favorite pick. My 90s kid paranoia helped me know there was more to him than a weak farm hand with a bucket on his head

Unicorn overlord: almost all of the companions

A great game for this list is Radiata Stories because there are so many characters to get but depending on choices and other things you can miss some entirely or lose them forever

I got several on the first try As a rule of thumb if a game asks if you want to let someone live you should do it at least the first time Mercy is the mark of a great man AND provides a late game bonus nine times out of ten

Never knew about dog til today. I always love it when I see Arcanum in lists like these because I almost always learn something new. What a fantastic game.

I love hidden stuff like this.

Ogre Battle could fill this entire list

I'm kinda surprised HK-47 and/or Juhani from Kotor didn't make the list

In Chrono Cross a few characters you only had one chance to gain. Now in the Radical Dreamers you can gain them in a 2nd gameplay with the ones you already did from the 1st playthrough.

Gale, Baldur’s Gate 3, did my first play-through without him because I didn’t walk past his portal in the opening stage of the game so didn’t realise he was even a character until I started another game 😂

Gong and Yogurt in Shining Force!

Never seen Arcanum mentioned like anywhere before, and I LOVE the game so damned much. I still poke around with it from time to time, and while I have 0 hope that it would ever get a modern Baldur's Gate treatment, I can damn well dream.

Arcanum is a blast, and the Worthless Mutt becomes an absolute whirling dervish of death.

You could make a entire 3 lists of just suikoden characters

Played Chrono Trigger on my SNES back in the day, but I didn't know I could play as Magus. I think I finished that game (or was about to) without him.

How about Ash's transformation from vandal hearts. The vandilier is very hard to get but insanely overpowered

Donel is one of the two characters in Awakening that can use the skill Armsthrift to it's full extent. If the character reaches luck 50 or over, it's weapon will never degrade. Making him a powerhouse.

Why is donnell on this list? The game actually TELLS YOU how to unlock him... still one shot, but it's not hard. Now, back in Path of radiance on GameCube, THATS a tough one... There's a sword master guy. In a desert. And you have to stand on a CERTAIN Tile, before a certain turn, to unlock the guy.... you don't get a do-over.

On my first playthrough of "Dragon Age Origins", I was able to recruit Zevran, and even kept his loyalty later in the game. But... I did miss out on recruiting Leliana. I didn't even know she existed on my first run, cuz I never went into the tavern in Lothering. I did eventually recruit her, but not until my second playthrough... whoops?

Ogre Battle: A Person of Lordly Caliber had several (at least) characters where you had to do weirdly specific things in order to recruit them. That game desperately needs a remaster!

Correct me if I'm wrong (Because I've never tried this), but I believe you can (In some sense) recruit Yurgir from Baulder's Gate to your team. I think he's a summon though. Similar to those three trolls.

Ravness. Not only do you have one chance to proc her trigger on the path to join you, you have four more times where you can mess it up but only after you proc the first trigger. And given she's only available on one route of Tactics Ogre, there're so many times you can mess it up by not listening to battle conversation, not doing a mission before another required mission, and missing the newspaper report that opens up saving it. These are all missable AFTER the first time, and have to be done in order.

It's my vague recollection that Final Fantasy 6 had at least three or four missable characters, the others being Mog, Umaro, and Gogo. Can't say whether they were one-chance characters or if they all just had obscure requirements to recruit them, like Yuffie and Vincent in Final Fantasy 7.

Magus is fun, cuz hes not hard to get, but super easy to miss!

In Cyberpunk, if you have the charged-jump implant, a fully charged jump can easily get you back to the room Takemura is fighting in, straight through the hole in the floor/ceiling. When I first ran into the mission, I didn't even think about leaving alone, I just jumped back up through the fire and flames, and used the apartment's entry door as a bottleneck, very useful for clearing out the enemies that assault you...

I actually didn't find out Cloud Strife was in Final Fantasy Tactics until a few years ago when I saw a video like this :D

Missed the 3 other ppl in Persona 1. If you take Brown into your party at the beginning, you’ll never be able to recruit the other 3 ppl.

To heck with Takemura, he's a corpo through and through.

what about the hidden characters in Gauntlet Legends/Dark Legacy? yeah the were basically palate swaps of the main ones but they still count

There's a character in Persona 1 that requires very specific steps to add them to your party, they should've been on the list.

The Adoring Fan is a JOY! and he doesn't CARE one way or another of anything you do. He's like a constant Hype Man.

Zevran is a valued member of the team, until he decides to stab you in the back should you not necessarily bond with him too much.

I dunno. I think the gnome kicking the dog to death is kinda responsible. Lol😂

Anyone know the background music of the list?

Ahhh … Dog. I remember having him in Arcanum. LoL, he hit like nuke by the end game. Such a good boy.

While I LIKE the leap of logic connecting Fallout and Arcanum... and you could have noted Sierra was also around back in those days... not the same dog. Just same premise.

Great UBP last week. Great to hear other voices. Congrats to Scott More non Scott podcasts + female voices please!

Out of the ones on I played I didn't miss any of these

Even if you save Shadow, he choses to not escape and let himself die for no reason during the end cutscenes. 😭

I had Chrom carry Donnel through that mission, and then had him marry the bunny lady. Their son got his extra growth ability, so it wasn't long before he could pretty much solo encounters.

You missed the entire suidoken series, where there were quite a few chars throughout the entire series that were chars that could only be recruited at once.

I love Arcanum! Such an epic game ❤️

I did not know goro was saveable till my second playthrough

Roo from streets of rage 3 you only had one chance to get as a playable character

Honestly, recruiting Donnel isn't too hard. He just needs to land three killing blows and one more hit. Pair him with Kellam for the big defense boost, and he should be able to survive at least two hits. If you use both Lissa and Maribelle, or at least have one with a Mend staff, he won't die if you play smart, unless the enemy gets a BS, single-digit percent crit.

Even though he's 1,000% always with the Corp, I usually let Goro live in every playthrough I do

One trick I found in cyberpunk is to use the double jump to get to him immediately

Missed Cicero from Skyrim

What about Sin rhe Aeon in Final Fantasy 10. Can only get him at 1 point during the game and is significant in the end againt dark aeons.

'Shining Force' games coudl have there own set alone them and 'Phantasy star'

Shout out to Donnel, who is a pain to recruit, but an absolute OP beast once leveled, as opposed to Cloud in FF tactics…

Should have had Ravness from tactics ogre.

The adoring fan is great for morale support lol. And he won't judge you for your less than honorable actions

Because of this video I have an excuse to go back and play cyberpunk and dishonored 2 🙏🏾

11:01 Too bad most video games end up killing the dog for dramatic purposes. DANG U A PLAGUE TALE INNOCENCE DANG U!

Have you done a video on 10 late bloomer party members? If not, can y'all think about doing one? I really like Donny is all lol

The dog from Dragon Age Origins.

4:10 non-playable character characters?

I missed Cloud in my first through of FFT! : (

Castlevania 3: Dracula's curse; Sypha, Alucard, or Grant can be found and recruited, you can only choose one.

Cloud in Final Fantasy Tactics

When you said Shadow from FF6, I thought you meant Shadow for Sonic 06. Then was really confused when you called it a great game. 🤣

I never understood the adoring fan hate. I thought he was nice to have arround

None of these are as frustratingly missable as the Space Marine in the recent WH40K Rogue Trader. He's central on the box art, but the window to recruit him may as well not exist. It's ridiculous.

In Final Fantasy 7, there’s only one chance to get Yuffie, which I find surprising considering how famous she is. If you get her answers wrong, she just runs off after robbing you.

Minthara in BG3 I killed her on my first play through only to find out she’s a companion if you knock her unconscious instead and find her later in Moonrise Towers (in her underwear if you loot everything…which I did) 😂

Jess is awesome! 😊

R. I. P The Real-life Dog 🐕

Surprised that not a single one was from Crono Cross.

jeah, this list could just be filled with Chrono Cross alone :D

Wasn't there another one in Witcher 3?

The real life dog

Arcanum❤

summoning solaire makes gwyn lord of cinder a joke

do a video about games that 1 moment saved a bad story

Marry Donnel to Sully for a Kjelle that's actually the amazon she always claims to be.