Kendal from Kingdom Under Fire - Simply because he's one of the rare heroes whose motivation isn't for love, gold or simply just saving the world from some impending doom to save himself or the one he loves. His motivation for the good he does is because of his religion and nothing more and you get to play as him. Awesome.
Gerald from Kingdom Under Fire - Simply because he's a nice average guy who can get angry or simply have a laugh with his friends. Unlike other character in KUF, he comes across as your average soldier and that's depicted well when he mourns over his loved ones when they die, gets angry in battle or has a laugh with his friends. However, he's a bit of a rebel and will often act as his heart tells him to do and will defy orders if he feels that his heart tells him too. He's justice loving and will often go against orders just to bring justice to someone. So there's more depth to him than him just being an average man.
Duncan - The badassery of Dragon Age. What's not to like about this guy? He's calm, experienced and wise. He doesn't care about saving a few people and will even kill innocents for the greater good. He cares about saving the world and even when he's dead, his character is still developed throughout the game. He also has a colorful background and is presented as a flawed hero IMO.
Alistair - Just because he's a dick and because he whines alot but he's a good man with good intentions and I can't hate him. He's one of the few characters that you can have a bromance with and he's never short on jokes but he can get serious when he wants to.
Zandalor from Divine Divinity - Think Gandalf but more badass. This wizard even has a deeper and darker voice than his Divinity 2 counterpart and unlike Gandalf or his Divinity 2 counterpart, he houses doubts in his heart and while he's presented as being the guy you could rely on or the guy who knows everything, later on, this is proved untrue because even he has fears in his heart (despite being over 1000 years old and seeing much victory for the good side) and you basically save him when he gets in trouble, though he rescues you later in the game too to make the score even. He's badass though because when he means business, he means business. In Divinity 2 though, he's not as good as he was in the original simply because of the change in voice and clothing. He also seems more like your mentor than your friend as he was in Divine Divinity and everything about him in Divinity 2 is rather generic.
Carlo from Arx Fatalis - I don't know why but this guy just cracks me up. He's Gaurd Captain of the city but he looks like a tramp but he're presented as a formidable warrior and tactician...so looks can be deceptive?
Kaltar from Arx Fatalis - A bald guy who has the
voice of the rabbit hunter from Bugs Bunny. Why does he make the list? Because I killed him at the start of the game just for laughs and he returned near the end and helped me, my character replied to him when he saw him "Kaltar!" in shock and Kaltar replied "I bet you thought you had killed me didn't you!? When I heard that these guys were planning to kill you, I knew I couldn't let them....because I'd much rather prefer to kill you myself!" He got killed again sadly for him but due to the surprise, he made the list for one of my best characters. If you don't decide to kill him for lulz, he still returns at the end of the game but doesn't attack you. Arx Fatalis also presented many choices with consequences later on in the game and there were actually several ways to complete a quest and some quests even had consequences where certain NPCs could die. For a 2002 game, it was WAY ahead of its time.