History IdiotHero / VideoGames

* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2'': Rex comes across this way. It's not for a lack of intelligence or personal skills (he's an accomplished Salvager respected by this older peers), but from being very sheltered and a HorribleJudgeOfCharacter. His own party members admit at points they're only following/supporting him because he's being escorted around by a sentient, continent-destroying superweapon and letting a staggeringly naive boy from the middle of nowhere lead that charge unsupervised is asking for trouble. He does [[CharacterDevelopment start to mature out of it]], though.

* ''VideoGame/HonkaiImpact3rd'' has Kiana Kaslana, the game's main protagonist. She's simple-minded, stubborn and very emotionally-driven, all of which make her come across as childish. She's also [[BookDumb neglectful of her studies]] (though later chapters imply that it's a case of just not being interested in said studies rather than incompetence) and regularly fails her exams at St. Freya Academy. Her overly excitable nature puts her at odds with the more serious characters, and as a result is one of two characters who get called "idiotka" [[note]]Russian for "female idiot"[[/note]].

* The Avatar in ''VideoGame/UltimaIX'' comes off as this, being told "Your knowledge of the land shall be great", but he has to be reminded of stuff that had already happened. Taken to {{Memetic|Mutation}} levels when he asks, "What's a Paladin?"

* ''VideoGame/TheAdventuresOfMassmouth'': Massmouth doesn't seem to be very bright. Especially visible in ''Massmouth 2'', where most of his lines are basically variations of "what?" or "uh?"

* ''Videogame/DieReiseInsAll'': Leutnant von Mackwitz may be a good figther (kind of a bit more modern version of a barbarian) and very smart when it is about weapons and military. But beside that,e has no big udnerstanding for anything. He's even handled at one pont, as some kind of missing link between great apes and the modern humans.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Skullgirls}}'', Beowulf is a [[ProWrestling professional wrestler]] who is in way, ''way'' over his head. The idiot part is in how easily his shady manager, Zane, [[spoiler:actually a disguise of the {{shapeshifter}} Double]] manipulates him into doing his dirty work. Zane tells him that he's set up a fight with somebody, Beowulf fights them while only barely contemplating the lack of cameras to record the match and the very confused bystanders and "opponents". The hero part? [[spoiler:When he finds out his greatest match, which was supposed to be a [[ProWrestlingIsReal real fight]], was secretly rigged in his favor, he puts his entire career at risk by publicly announcing the truth, before setting off for a death-or-glory battle with [[HumanoidAbomination Marie]].]]

* Matt, Natalie, and Lance of the ''VideoGame/EpicBattleFantasy'' series are all dense to varying degrees, sometimes to TooDumbToLive levels. For example, the first two temporarily died from eating an obviously poisonous sandworm and the third believes there's nothing dangerous about radiation. They admit this in the third game, where they agree that they're too stupid to solve a lever puzzle. Their new party member in the fourth game, Anna, seems to avert this by at least [[NatureHero knowing more about surviving in the wild]].

* Crash from ''Franchise/CrashBandicoot''.

** Bartz is written like this in ''VideoGame/DissidiaFinalFantasy'', where he is portrayed as a guy that can find the fun in any situation, and gleefully does. This doesn't make him take a given situation any less seriously, he just likes to put a positive spin on it. Sometimes to the point of idiocy. (Apparently the writers took Ghido's insults as gospel.)

** Laguna from VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII is an Idiot Hero compared to a serious and stoic Squall. At least his story is served as a LighterAndSofter chapters and {{foil}} to the main story. How bad is he? His two buddies [[DeadpanSnarker snark him all the time for his idiocy.]]

** Bartz is written like this in [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyDissidia Dissidia]], where he is portrayed as a guy that can find the fun in any situation, and gleefully does. This doesn't make him take a given situation any less seriously, he just likes to put a positive spin on it. Sometimes to the point of idiocy. (Apparently the writers took Ghido's insults as gospel.)

* All playable characters in ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'' are some degree of this, but most are not full-blown idiots. Youmu would be a fairly archetypal example except she's not the main character. Reimu ''is'' the main character, but lacks most of the positive qualities associated with the trope. Marisa has the basic personality, but is actually fairly clever and knowledgeable (despite openly claiming to be stupid). And Sanae is an airhead. Cirno acts the part fairly well (even getting a whole memetic fansong about how stupid she is in ''Cirno's Math Class''), but she's only good at combat relative to [[{{Mooks}} other fairies]]. Aya is very determined to get her photos and acts like a ditz a lot otherwise, but in regards to canon she's actually scarily smart as the still-canon spinoffs show (She manages to take advantage of Reimu's general neutrality in Forbidden Scrollery). Even Sakuya has her moments of this, like failing to understand what the word 'mastermind' means, mistaking ordinary crows for crow tengu or most notably, opening a window '''in space.'''

* Spinoffs aside, the only playable character from ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'' not to have some degree of this is Sakuya. Youmu would be a fairly archetypal example except she's not the main character. Reimu ''is'' the main character, but lacks most of the positive qualities associated with the trope. Marisa has the basic personality, but is actually fairly clever and knowledgeable (despite openly claiming to be stupid). And Sanae is an airhead. Including spinoffs, Cirno acts the part fairly well (even getting a whole memetic fansong about how stupid she is in ''Cirno's Math Class''), but she's only good at combat relative to [[{{Mooks}} other fairies]].

** In ''New Vegas'', having an extremely low Intelligence score causes your character to be barely mentally functioning, unable to speak proper English ("[[FunnyMoments I is scientistic.]]") and it actually makes the game easier at some points (for instance, Arcade Gannon will join you, since he feels sorry for you). While possible in the earlier Fallout games, your character will not be able to do the majority of side quests.

** Lastly, there's [[LittleBitBeastly Ma]][[CuteBruiser ko]][[MsFanservice to]], who is probably a {{subver|tedTrope}}sion. While she appears to be a simple-minded ManChild at first, it's implied several times over the course of the games that [[GeniusDitz she's actually quite intelligent]], [[ObfuscatingStupidity but for some reason she just acts like she isn't]]. For example, she's the only person in the NOL who doesn't trust [[BigBad Haz]][[ObviouslyEvil ama]].

* ''VideoGame/{{Drakengard}} 2'' gives us Nowe. He's clearly ''meant'' to [[InvokedTrope fill this archetype]], at least in the sense that he has a childhood friend [[UnluckyChildhoodFriend who is clearly into him but whose feelings he doesn't notice]], which is fair enough. What isn't is that the writers also used him as TheWatson in asking who's who and does what in regards to everything that's gone on in the eighteen years between the first game and this one - which has the end result that Nowe, who has been with the Knights of the Seal for about five years, acts essentially as though he's never heard anything beyond their name before the exact point the player takes control of him. He takes pity on Imperial prisoners because of some shady practices the Knights are doing to keep the new set of seals active... but never changes his tune even when they immediately take advantage of a prison break and attack him. Then when a treacherous general among the Knights poisons him, and he reacts by pulling out a hitherto-unknown SuperMode and lopping off the guy's arm, he makes [[PoorCommunicationKills zero effort to explain to anyone what exactly happened]] and ends up labeled a traitor; this ends up with him following one of the aforementioned Imperial prisoners, Manah, in destroying the rest of the seals. Even late in the game, when it explained without a shadow of a doubt that A) Manah is more or less directly responsible for a previous attempt at destroying the seals eighteen years ago, and B) destroying the seals will '''destroy the world''', he takes maybe two minutes to contemplate things before deciding, nah, he's gonna keep destroying the seals. Making it worse is that most of this is just [[TheDulcineaEffect following Manah's whims for ill-defined reasons]]. He makes exactly two decisions on his own, and... both of them are incredibly, unbelievably stupid. First, after Manah's first attempt at destroying the world 18 years ago is outed to him, he decides after she disappears to just keep destroying the seals like she wants until he meets up with her again. Later is in regards to their other partner, Urick, who reveals himself as the guardian of one of the last seals. He tells them he's [[DeathSeeker perfectly willing to die for Nowe to continue his quest]]. Caim, the protagonist from the previous game, shows up and has the same goal of breaking the seals. Faced with a willing sacrifice and incredibly powerful character sharing Nowe's immediate goal, what does he decide to do? '''''Fight Caim for no reason whatsoever!'''''

* Lyner Barsett of ''ArTonelico'', in both general intelligence and [[ChasteHero romance]]. In an early part of the game, upon being told by a companion that he will have to learn ItemCrafting to defeat enemies immune to physical attacks, he protests, "But I can do it if I just put my spirit into it!" In keeping with the trope, he becomes a AllLovingHero by the end of the game, [[spoiler:having united the world's various divided factions he's met throughout his journey and convincing [[BigBad Mir]] to give up her plans to KillAllHumans]].

* But before that, Franchise/TalesSeries has its own first Idiot Hero in form of country-bumpkin [[VideoGame/TalesOfDestiny Stahn Aileron]]. His genes of Idiot Hero is passed down to his son Kyle Dunamis.

* Dekar from the ''Franchise/{{Lufia}}'' series. Forget his skill in battle—this is a man who cannot remember ''how to leave a room he just entered''. (And that's just the least of it.)

* Yuri from ''VideoGame/ShadowHearts'' and its sequel. Deviates from the norm in that he's a {{Badass}} who also serves as a LampshadeHanging StraightMan to the inherent weirdness of the ''Shadow Hearts'' universe.

* Ladies and gentlemen, we have the reigning queen of stupidity: surprisingly enough, Spiritia Rosenberg of ''{{Rosenkreuzstilette}}''. She has quite the long list ahead of her. For starters, being an {{Expy}} of VideoGame/MegaMan, she is naive, as pointed out by her colleagues (some of them even think her naivete could be her fatal flaw) - naive enough to believe that Iris really is a kind, innocent girl who wouldn't even hurt a flea. When her friends at RKS start a war against the [[HolyRomanEmpire Holy Empire]], she does the whole "SwiperNoSwiping" deal with everyone without knowing that [[spoiler:Iris actually started the war between both factions just ForTheEvulz]] and without snooping around to get to the bottom of the madness (at least she [[RightForTheWrongReasons does what she thinks is right]]). And then there's the moment in Rosenkreuzstilette Grollschwert where Tia tries to stop Grolla from killing [[spoiler:Iris herself]] believing that she was a sweetheart. Grolla knows otherwise from her own personal experience. And, to top it all off, she is quite clumsy and is a TERRIBLE swimmer. Yes, you heard us. A TERRIBLE SWIMMER.

* Spinoffs aside, the only playable character from ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'' not to have some degree of this is Sakuya. Youmu would be a fairly archetypal example except she's not the main character. Reimu ''is'' the main character, but lacks most of the positive qualities associated with the trope. Marisa has the basic personality, but is actually fairly clever and knowledgeable (despite openly claiming to be stupid). And Sanae is an airhead. Including spinoffs, Cirno acts the part fairly well, but she's only good at combat relative to [[{{Mooks}} other fairies]].