Siansonea II wrote...
Garrus Vakarian is a fine character, but "greatest"? No. For one thing, Garrus' actions in the games mean NOTHING in the larger course of events. In ME1, if you recruit Garrus, he goes with you and helps you stop Saren. If you don't recruit him, you still stop Saren, and it plays out in the exact same way. So Garrus' participation makes no difference, anyone with a gun can do what he would have done. In ME2, you find Garrus in a sticky situation, after he foolishly kicked over the biggest hornet's nest in the galaxy. You have to save him from his own folly. Then he joins your mission to stop the Collectors, which we now know was a colossal waste of time. The Baby Reaper was never going to be a galaxy-wide threat, like the actual big Reapers are, and the Collectors are just Prothean husks, and husks are husks. Killing Prothean husks is no different from killing human, turian, batarian, or asari husks. Stopping the Collectors SO could have waited. Not to mention there's nothing that Garrus does during the Collector mission that couldn't be done by anyone else. And in ME3, we hear that Garrus had been working night and day to help the turians prepare for the Reapers, hardening communication lines, etc. Making a difference, right? Wrong, in ME3, if Garrus is dead, is there any noticeable difference in the way things play out? None whatsoever. Not. One. Thing. The only difference is that you don't talk to Garrus on Palaven's moon, and you don't have a guide to help you find Victus, but you still find Victus. And nothing any of the squadmates do in ME3 matters, except for Tali, Legion/Fake Legion, Liara and EDI, so it's not like there's any reason to trumpet Garrus' accomplishments in ME3 either.
So yeah, Garrus is a bro, he's a fun character, and all that good stuff, but he's just a hired gun, someone who will drop whatever he's doing to follow the main character around. That's nice from a character standpoint, but for a character to be truly great, his or her actions in the game should amount to more than just being a friend to the main character. Just my opinion, naturally.
This is true, but it does not change my view on Garrus in anyway. He's still my favorite NPC in any video game ever.