We’re like the USA Network over here at Scanline Media: characters welcome. In fact, characters practically required: it’s very hard to get in the door around here without some figures for us to invest in. That said, we also like very different things in characters, so it’s sometimes hard to decide winners. Here are 2020’s best characters.
The Winner
Henry Division (Paradise Killer)
God. God. Have you ever had a character in a game tell you to go fuck yourself, and you thought, “yeah that’s fair”? That’s Henry Division in a nutshell. A kid who made a rash choice when trapped in a hellish system that doesn’t treat him like a human, and has been used as a scapegoat ever since. This is one angry guy, and you can’t argue with his anger. He’s RIGHT. And as Lady Love Dies, you and the society you represent are just wrong.
What can you do to make it up to him? Nothing. He’s going to die when the island ends, even if he isn’t found guilty of the murders. He has been screwed from the moment he was born. Island 24 was anything but paradise for him.
The Runners-Up
Flick (Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Close your eyes. Can you hear it? The rhythm of the planet. Cicadas. Crickets. Even the buzz of mosquitos. Flick hears the beauty in all of these things. I see so much of my indie artist friends in the emo horned lizard, and his pursuit of creepy beauty. Plus, you can make a KILLING off of him. Which suggests that his art is doing well for him financially, and I really like to see that.
Whisk (Cook Serve Delicious 3)
Your two robot rescuers and assistants Whisk and Cleaver make CSD3 a trip worth taking. Incredible voice performances by Negaoryx and HavanaRama bring to life the dynamic of these two best friends who give each other grief, act as supportive or disapproving parents to the player, and through their conversations paint the setting’s devastated wasteland as charming and quirky. Honestly, the premise is fun- former medic robots turned cooking staff- but they have NO business being as charming as they are. It’s all down to fantastic voicework.
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We have two categories left, and then the Gimmick Awards 2020 are OVER! It’s been a hell of a ride, and if I have one takeaway, it’s that next year I want to have it all edited and written up in advance rather than this mad dash XD Thank you so much for journeying through this with us. If you haven’t given it a listen, the discussion of this category is on the Scanline Talks podcast feed!
A big thank you to Zwimmy (@zwimmy on Twitter) for our Game of the Year art!
