History Main / OptionalCharacterScene

* ''VideoGame/GoldenSun1'': If you didn't get the Force gem in an earlier dungeon, your path will remain blocked in the Altin mines by a boulder barely held back by a log... so Garet takes it upon himself to give the log a good kick, which causes the boulder to crash down and through the floor, letting you reach the boss (Garet's IdiotHero status otherwise remains an InformedAbility throughout the game).

* Since units can be KilledOffForReal in the ''Franchise/FireEmblem'' series, oftentimes [[DevelopersForesight the dev team will think of everything]] and change dialogue according to which characters are present and which characters aren't.

* In ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'', most characters get variations on the same line, but there's quite a bit of this as well. Most notably, after [[spoiler:Crono's death is reversed]], [[LoveInterest Marle]] or [[LikeBrotherAndSister Lucca]] will hug Crono and relay how much they missed him; if you have both Marle and Lucca, Marle is given top priority and you miss out on Lucca's scene; and if neither character is in the active party, Frog or Robo will simply welcome him back. The next most notable incident is during the FinalBoss battle, where each character you bring gets their own NoMoreHoldingBackSpeech ([[HeroicMime except Crono]]).

* ''VideoGame/LiveALive'' will only show a scene (continuing a RunningGag) in the Martial Arts chapter if you picked Sammo as the martial arts inheritor.

[[caption-width-right:350:"[[TVTropesWillRuinYourLife Prepare to have your life ruined, Troper. Have at you!]]"]]

** ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'': Bringing Legion to Tali's Missions or the Overlord DLC, taking Garrus and/or Grunt into Mordin's recruitment mission and Tali to his Loyalty Mission, bringing Jacob or Miranda to Jack's Loyalty Mission. There are also points where specific characters voice their opinions in the hub worlds that are expanded by having another squad mate, such as Thane and Garrus in the C-Sec hallway on the Citadel.
*** Of note is this a conversation between Garrus and Tali on a specific staircase in the Citadel, in a CallBack to the ScrappyMechanic:

* ''VideoGame/MassEffect1'': Bringing Liara with you to Noveria triggers some extra dialogue between her and Matriarch Benezia. If you had Wrex and chose to save the Rachni, he would demand an explanation. Also, bringing Ashley and Kaidan to the Citadel triggers the "oceans, beautiful women, this emotion called love" scene.
** The sequel has quite a few small, optional, easily missable scenes like this. Of note is this, triggered by bringing Garrus and Tali to a specific staircase on the Citadel, in a CallBack to the ScrappyMechanic:
--->'''Garrus''': You ever miss those talks we had on the elevators?\\
'''Tali''': No.\\
'''Garrus''': Come on, remember how we'd all ask you about life on the flotilla? It was an opportunity to share!\\
'''Tali''': This conversation is ''over''.\\
'''Garrus''': Tell me again about your immune system!\\
'''Tali''': ''I have a shotgun.''\\
'''Garrus''': ...Maybe we'll talk later.
*** There are quite a few of these if you bring Legion with you on Tali's loyalty mission. The best example from the third game would be bringing [[spoiler:Javik, last of the protheans]] on the Thessia mission - you'll get the same reveal with any lineup, but he has a lot more detail to add.

* Since FinalDeath is present throughout the ''Franchise/FireEmblem'' series, oftentimes [[DevelopersForesight the dev team will think of everything]] and change dialogue according to which characters are present and which characters aren't. ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemPathOfRadiance Path of Radiance]]'' goes to particular lengths with this trope, with many scenes having a ''huge'' amount of variations depending on character survival. Even some Support Conversations change to reflect specific character deaths!
** But by far the biggest example in the game, and possibly the entire series, is [[http://serenesforest.net/wiki/index.php/Chapter_20:_Defending_Talrega_%28Script%29 Chapter 20.]] Previously, it was possible to recruit Jill, a Wyvern Rider from the country you're fighting. The enemy commander in this chapter is her father. Dialogue here changes depending on:

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' - Multiple for example Bringing Cyan to the [[spoiler: Dinner in Vector]] will make General Leo address him specifically and [[spoiler: apologize for Doma.]]
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' has another rather odd one: the optional scene where Gau confronts his father has to be triggered by Sabin for some reason, though Gau must be there too. The dialogue changes depending on the other characters in the active party, but some only get lines if they're ''not'' active.

** If Edgar and Sabin are in the party during the opera sequence, a significant twist is revealed about the coin used for Setzer's coin flip... which was used once before.
** The first time the game let you form a team, if you have Sabin in your party, he is going to leave you as soon as you set a foot on Figaro's Castle, rejoining you when you leave. However, if you have both, Sabin and Edgar, a cutscene will be triggered if you sleep in the castle, and after this Sabin will not leave you party anymore when you wander Figaro. Also, for this same trip, if Locke is with you, when you go to Kohlingen you get to see some scenes of Rachel. Now, if Celes is with you here, and she saw Locke reminiscing about Rachel, she (Celes) will linger a little bit more after the party leaves, staring at Rachel's corpse and wondering about Locke's pain.
** Before the fight with Kefka, most party members will make a speech. Depending on how many and which characters you brought along, the result can range from moving, to narmy, to surreal.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'':
** Upon entering Nibelheim in the present day for the first time, the scene is slightly extended if you have brought Tifa, the other Nibelheim native, along with you.
** [[spoiler:Aeris' death]] has the whoever came with Cloud showing their own reaction.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'':
** During the Galbadian occupation of Zell's hometown, the party gets a chance to rest up in his room. Depending on which optional party member you bring along, the scene changes drastically. Selphie messes up Zell's bed, Quistis tells an embarrassing anecdote, Irvine tests out Zell's antique gun collection, and Rinoa asks about Zell's grandfather.
** At the Deep Sea Research Facility, if Zell is in your party prior to entering the ruins, he'll solve a puzzle for you, and allow you to reach Ultima Weapon more easily.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'' - Quan's Dwelling in has an extra scene if you return there with Vivi and Quina in your party at a certain point of the game.
** In fact, ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'''s main conceit is the ability to view scenes with characters you don't have with you. All of these are optional, but can sometimes net the player a nice item or piece of equipment via the offscreen characters actions.

* In the first three ''VideoGame/PaperMario'' games, every party member has a set of dialogue for any event they're taking place in.

** Heartgold and Soulsilver have even more of these. You can again receive the Gracidea, this time by showing a Shaymin to a girl in the Goldenrod Flower Shop. Then you can receive a peculiar Pichu (one with a fluff of fur over its right ear, properly called the Spiky-Eared Pichu) by examining the shrine in Ilex Forest while having a Nintendo event shiny Pichu in the first slot of the party. You can unlock a new place, the Sinjoh Ruins, by having an Arceus (itself obtainable only through a Nintendo event, again) in the first slot of the party and talking to a person in the Ruins of Alph. This way, you can watch one weird ritual of summoning and receive either a Dialga, Palkia or Giratina at level 1, each holding its signature Orb. Finally, you can unlock a rather important story cutscene (and battle) if you bring a Nintendo event Celebi to the Ilex Shrine.
** In Black and White, you can transfer four Nintendo event Pokémon - the three shiny beasts Entei, Suicune and Raikou, and Celebi - from a Generation IV game through the Transfer Machine (they're the only 4 Pokémon that can be ported in this way). Transferring one of the shiny beasts unlocks the Illusion Forest where Zoroark can be caught, while if you show the Celebi to a girl in one of the Castelia City gates you'll receive a Zorua.

* The ''[[VideoGame/TalesSeries Tales]]'' series has featured these since the second game in the form of skits.
* VideoGame/{{Xenogears}} has an optional dungeon near the end where you not only get an extra scene for having Emeralda in group, [[spoiler: she grows up, or at least takes an adult looking form.]] The main gameplay benefit this has is giving her vastly improved stat gains when she levels up. The developers seem to have expected you to view this scene, because Emeralda [[spoiler: appears grown-up in the ending]].
* In the ''Shadowbringers'' expansion of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'', a new Trust system is introduced which allows the player to bring along NPC party members into dungeons. You have to choose three to bring along, which usually leaves one or two behind, and depending on who you bring you can see them interact differently to each other or react to things happening in the dungeon.

** Heartgold and Soulsilver have even more of these. You can again receive the Gracidea, this time by showing a Shaymin to a girl in the Goldenrod Flower Shop. Then you can receive a peculiar Pichu (one with a fluff of fur over its right ear, properly called the Spiky-Eared Pichu) by examining the shrine in Ilex Forest while having a Nintendo event shiny Pichu in the first slot of the party. You can unlock a new place, the Sinjoh Ruins, by having an Arceus (itself obtainable only through a Nintendo event, again) in the first slot of the party and talking to a person in the Ruins of Alph. This way, you can watch one weird ritual of summoning and receive either a Dialga, Palkia or Giratina at level 1, each holding its signature Orb. Finally, you can unlock a rather important story cutscene (and battle) if you bring a Nintendo evet Celebi to the Ilex Shrine.

* ''VideoGame/GoldenSun'': If you didn't get the Force gem in an earlier dungeon, your path will remain blocked in the Altin mines by a boulder barely held back by a log... so Garet takes it upon himself to give the log a good kick, which causes the boulder to crash down and through the floor, letting you reach the boss (Garet's IdiotHero status otherwise remains an InformedAbility throughout the game).

* Starting from a character's second chapter in ''VideoGame/OctopathTraveler'', the player may be able to activate one-on-one events depending on their party's composition during key events. For example, during Tressa's second chapter, Cyrus can tell her how actually seeing rare stones is different from merely reading about them, Primrose gives Tressa a pep talk when a rival merchant takes her customers, and Therion can suggest [[spoiler:just leaving Ali to die when Mr. Morlock captures him]].

* In the ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}'' series, ''[[VideoGame/BorderlandsThePreSequel The Pre-Sequel]]'' and ''VideoGame/Borderlands3'' features the selected Vault Hunter with their own given dialogue for all events they are taking part in.

* In ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'', most characters get variations on the same line, but there's quite a bit of this as well. Most notably, after [[spoiler:Crono's death is reversed]], [[LoveInterest Marle]] or [[LikeBrotherAndSister Lucca]] will hug Crono and relay how much they missed him; if you have both Marle and Lucca, Marle is given top priority and you miss out on Lucca's scene; and if neither character is in the active party, Frog or Robo will simply welcome him back. The next most notable incident is during the FinalBoss battle, where each character you bring gets their own WorldOfCardboardSpeech ([[HeroicMime except Crono]]).

* In the ''VideoGame/PaperMario'' series, every party member has a set of dialogue for any event they're taking place in. This format was dropped in ''[[VideoGame/PaperMarioStickerStar Sticker Star]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/PaperMarioColorSplash Color Splash]]'' along with the party members.

* In the ''VideoGame/PaperMario'' series, every party member has a set of dialogue for any event they're taking place in. This format was dropped in ''Sticker Star'' and ''Color Splash''.

** The sequel has quite a few small, optional, easily missable scenes like this. Of note is this, triggered by bringing Garrus and Tali to a specific staircase on the Citadel:
--->'''Garrus''': [[CallBack You ever miss those talks we had on the]] [[ScrappyMechanic elevators]]?
--->'''Tali''': No.
--->'''Garrus''': Come on, remember how we'd all ask you about life on the flotilla? It was an opportunity to share!
--->'''Tali''': This conversation is ''over''.
--->'''Garrus''': Tell me again about your immune system!
--->'''Tali''': ''I have a shotgun.''
--->'''Garrus''': ...Maybe we'll talk later.
*** There are quite a few of these if you bring Legion with you on Tali's loyalty mission. The best example from the third game would be bringing [[spoiler: Javik, last of the protheans]] on the Thessia mission - you'll get the same reveal with any lineup, but he has a lot more detail to add.

** If you don't have both Tifa and Aeris (especially Aeris) in your party the first time you talk to Zack's parents in Gongaga, you'll miss out on finding out that Zack was Aeris's boyfriend, an important detail merely implied elsewhere. It doesn't help that there's nothing suggesting you should have those party members, or that it's entirely possible to accidentally skip Gongaga altogether until after Aeris has run away at the end of Disc 1. There are two later scenes which hint at Zack and Aeris's involvement, but both of those are also easy to miss.
** Costa Del Sol is full of funny character development scenes of the party members causing chaos in a holiday resort, but only if you ''don't'' have them in your party (and the last time you could change party members was before a boss battle). This is obviously unappealing if the reason you had those characters in your party is because they were your favourites...

* Since FinalDeath is present throughout the ''Franchise/FireEmblem'' series, oftentimes [[DevelopersForesight the dev team will think of everything]] and change dialogue according to which characters are present and which characters aren't. [[VideoGame/FireEmblemPathOfRadiance Path of Radiance]] goes to particular lengths with this trope, with many scenes having a ''huge'' amount of variations depending on character survival. Even some Support Conversations change to reflect specific character deaths!

* ''[[VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic Knights of the Old Republic 2]]'' - bringing certain party members to the tomb of Freedon Nadd will bring up a scene where they are tempted by the dark energy there.
* The ''[[VideoGame/KisekiSeries Legend of Heroes - Trails]]'' franchise gives ''every'' playable character a unique optional scene dependent on whether they are currently in the party. This also extends to conversations for example in ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsInTheSkySecondChapter Sky - Second Chapter]]'' after the group escape the LotusEaterMachine, the player can ask whoever was in the party to learn what they experienced during that time.

[[folder:Third Person Shooter]]

* Since FinalDeath is present throughout the ''Franchise/FireEmblem'' series, oftentimes [[DevelopersForesight the dev team will think of everything]] and change dialogue according to which characters are present and which characters aren't. [[VideoGame/FireEmblemTellius Path of Radiance]] goes to particular lengths with this trope, with many scenes having a ''huge'' amount of variations depending on character survival. Even some Support Conversations change to reflect specific character deaths!

[[caption-width-right:350:"[[TVTropesWillRuinYourLife Prepare to have your life ruined, Troper. Have at you!"]]]]

[[caption-width-right:350:"[[TVTropesWillRuinYourLife Prepare to have your life ruined, Troper. Have at you!"]]

%%[[caption-width-right:350:"[[TVTropesWillRuinYourLife Prepare to have your life ruined, Troper. Have at you!"]]

%%[[caption-width-right:350:]]

A video game trope in which a scene only plays out if a certain character or characters is brought along with the main characters (though usually it depends on being in the party). Mostly used for CharacterDevelopment but may also be used for humor or to make an otherwise flat location more important.

* VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl require you to have Registeel, Regice and Regirock in order to awaken (and fight) Regigigas in Snowpoint Temple.

** The support/base conversations of the later ''FireEmblem'' games fill this role quite nicely, and are a large part of the series's appeal.