Fire Forged Friends / Video Games

---

• Ace Attorney: Phoenix Wright and Maya Fey were introduced to each other under some pretty awful circumstances: Maya had been accused of murdering her older sister, and Phoenix was the only attorney willing to defend her. Though they became best friends pretty quickly following Maya's acquittal, that was only the first of many times they would fight by each others' side.
  • Perhaps more fitting of this trope are Phoenix Wright and Miles Edgeworth. Childhood friends turned bitter courtroom rivals, these two spend the first game doing little but insulting and arguing with each other. It isn't until the end of the second game when Edgeworth returns from faking his own suicide/finding himself, that he and Wright finally begin to cooperate.
• Banjo-Kazooie: The titular duo may get on each other's nerves, but their many years of working together had ended up with them becoming the best of friends.
• Beyond Good & Evil has Jade and her second partner, Double H. Initially, they work together simply because they're both on the same side and there's really no one else around; while they don't actively dislike each other, Double H's mania is mostly one-sided. They start to become friends in earnest after Jade saves Double H's life yet again, with their bond ultimately cemented during a Take My Hand! moment.
• BioShock Infinite gives us the Booker DeWitt and Elizabeth, the two main characters. Oddly enough, their relationship starts out rough but all right, then deteriorates when Booker lies about taking Elizabeth to Paris, and Elizabeth states the only reason she trusts Booker is because he's the only way out of Columbia. Their relationship becomes a lot better when Booker consoles Elizabeth about her tears causing Chen Lin's death, and after Elizabeth kills Daisy.
• Garlot and Leon in Blaze Union, a pair of knights who have both been screwed over by the corrupt political system — Garlot growing up as one of the country's much-abused peasants, and Leon having his face scarred and losing his job and standing as an Imperial guard after his parents were executed as scapegoats to prevent a national crisis. The two of them meet, Leon picks a fight, and his shock and humiliation after losing cause him to become positively obsessed with defeating Garlot. One offer of employment from another of Garlot's enemies, many more battles, a realization that Leon is being used, an emotional final confrontation in a burning city, boatloads of Foe Romance Subtext, and a race against time on Garlot's part to save Leon later, they are steadfast friends and teammates.
• Bug Fables: Kabbu and Vi originally partnered up mostly because nobody else would team up with them, and even after Leif joins them, they spend a lot of the early chapters squabbling and having their different goals conflict. It's even lampshaded by the first chapter's title: "A Dysfunctional Trio". Over time, they truly learn to work together and by the final chapters are a true team. This even gets worked into the gameplay as they unlock dual and triple skills that feature multiple members working together for a very damaging attack.
• By the end of Chicory: A Colorful Tale, Pizza and Chicory form a strong bond from all the things they've been through together, from Pizza risking their life to save Chicory from the corruption at Chapter 5 to Chicory and Pizza fighting the original brush side by side in the game's finale.
• In Class of Heroes, The more your team fights and preforms gambits together, the higher their affinity (bond) becomes.
• Don't Starve: Don't Starve Together features various characters from the original game and its DLCs joining forces to survive.
• Dragon Quest:
  • Dragon Quest IV: In one way or another, all members of the Chosen "team" have a stake in the larger plot. Ragnar wants to find the mastermind behind the villain of his chapter, Alena and her retainers are hunting down the same guy, Taloon is looking for the weapon that the Hero will need, and Maya and Meena are looking for the same higher power Ragnar is. As for the Hero (who had their village torched and their adoptive parents and village murdered), all of the above are aware of his/her existence to some greater or lesser extent, and they band together to accomplish all of their above goals.
  • Dragon Quest V: As children, Prince Harry does nothing but bully the main character but after the latter's father's death the two are forced to spend the next ten years working as slaves. This, combined with his guilt over Pankraz's death causes Harry to act much kinder to the main character and the two proceed to pull a prison break and travel the world together. Even after they go their separate ways, the bond of friendship between them runs strong to the point where Harry makes his entire kingdom go searching for the main character when he goes missing.
• Caim and Angelus in Drakengard. They hated each other before and after they made their pact, but as they fought together, they started actually caring about each other. The fight against the Wyrm cements this, as Angelus starts feeling "strange new emotions" for Caim, and thanks him for making her stronger than she was before. Afterwards, Angelus tells Caim to not die during their fight with Manah, and becomes the Seal due to her wanting to protect Caim.
• Dyztopia: Post-Human RPG:
  • Akira and Runi start out hostile to each other, since Runi is paranoid of Akira while Akira doesn't appreciate Runi reading their mind. However, they're forced to team up when Barbados/Aries destroys Pon Pon Village and kills most of the residents. Whether or not they become friends depends on the player's choice in Bone Town.
  • If Akira rejects friendship with Runi, but chooses to intervene when Gemini tries to convince Runi to mind wipe herself, Gemini tries to kill Akira. Runi then kills Gemini to save Akira, leading to the two reconciling. Gameplay-wise, this raises Runi's link level and restores the player's ability to have bonding events with Runi.
• In The Elder Scrolls Backstory, most prominently seen in Morrowind, the ancient Chimeri/Dunmeri hero Lord Indoril Nerevar had one of these with Dumac Dwarfking, leader of the rival Dwemer. The two formed an Enemy Mine when Morrowind was threatened by the invading Nords, and the two became close friends after. Dumac even attended Nerevar's wedding and gave True Flame as a gift to Nerevar. It wouldn't last though, as the Naytheistic Dwemer discovered and attempted to tap into the Heart of Lorkhan, which the devout Daedra-worshipping Chimer saw as blasphemy. The two went to war and, while exactly what happened next is recounted differently by the surviving parties, the Dwemer disappeared and Nerevar was slain.
• The companion affinity system in Fallout 4 works this way. Some are strangers you meet who agree to travel with (MacCready, Hancock, and Dogmeat) while others are people who you saved from a dangerous situation (Piper, Nick Valentine, Paladin Danse, Preston, Cait, and Strong), and others still are assigned to work with you and don't have much of a choice in the matter (Deacon, X6-88, Old Longfellow, and Gage). But through picking the right choices, it's possible to become their fastest friend and most staunch ally (and in most cases, begin a relationship with them). In addition, most will open up to the Sole Survivor about their deepest secret, shame, or unfinished business - for example, Cait's drug addiction, Preston's depression, Piper's fear for her kid sister Nat, or MacCready's family.
• At the beginning of most Final Fantasy games, the team are people thrust together but eventually become this over the course of their hardships.
  • Final Fantasy II has the party meet a rotating cast of strangers who meet to help them oppose the Evil Empire, become close through shared hardship to the point of heroically sacrificing themselves so that La Résistance can succeed.
  • In Final Fantasy IV, most of Cecil's new relationships are formed due to this trope: he (accidentally) caused the destruction of Rydia's Doomed Hometown (and effectively killed her mother) and originally took her in out of guilt, Palom and Porom were originally sent to spy on him, and so on.
  • In Final Fantasy V, not only Bartz, Lenna, Galuf, Faris, and Cara become this, but one generation earlier, the Dawn Warriors (Bartz's father Dorgann, Galuf, Xezat, and Kelgar) were implied to have ended up this way, especially Galuf and Xezat.
  • In Final Fantasy VI, the first time Cyan meets Celes, he has to be talked out of killing her. After a number of things happen (including an apocalypse-level event that kills most of the population on the planet) he is glad to see her after they have been parted for a while.
  • Final Fantasy VII has a cold-hearted mercenary, an eco terrorist, a buxom bartender, a flower seller, an animal who accompanies the team because they're going the same way, a fortune-telling robot riding a stuffed teddy, a pilot who joins because he has nothing better to do, (possibly) an immortal gunman and a perky ninja chick (...What a crew).The sequel even has Cloud call them nakama (Japanese word for "friends"). In the remake, Cloud attempts to hold his companions in AVALANCHE at arms distance but after a few missions with them he’s completely invested and willing to kill a guy for ratting one of his friends (Jessie) out to Shinra.
    • Cloud and Barret in particular can barely stand each other in their initial interactions but soon become Bash Brothers together. In the original game Barret was even the Gay Option (their relationsihp has zero impact on the plot and his date is largely Played for Laughs, but still).
  • Final Fantasy VIII has the cold team leader, the cheerful guy he can't stand, their former teacher, the unpopular transfer student, a freedom fighting-princess like girl and a cocky gunman. In the end, Squall falls for Rinoa, warms up to the others, and shows signs of trusting Zell as a completely competent second, regardless of difficulty.
  • Final Fantasy IX has one of these moments with General Beatrix after she defeats you for the third time. She then realizes she was being used and buys the party time to escape. General Steiner and Freya remain behind with her to cover the party's escape. These were two of the characters in your party when she stomped you not five minutes ago. Freya had both of her hometowns destroyed by her in the last 48 hours.
    • Zidane says that they're "more than friends - we're a team"), even though most of the characters (namely Zidane & Steiner) don't get along with each other at first. When Zidane discovers his disturbing origin, he tries to leave the gang. Garnet/Dagger, however, convinces him that they'll stay with him no matter what.
    • Hell, at that time, even Steiner flat-out declares that he will not abandon Zidane, no matter what.
  • Final Fantasy X has members of the party Lulu and Kimahri who actively dislike the protagonist Tidus to point of insulting and spurning him and in Kimahri’s case getting physically violent with him. Throughout the game though Lulu and Kimahri grow to genuinely care about Tidus to the point of getting emotional at his fading away in the end. Tidus also had hostile first encounter with Rikku but quickly became friends with her.
    • Played with in regards to Wakka and Rikku, they liked each other at first but when Wakka learns she’s an Al-Bhed he snubs her. However when his opinion of Al-Bhed changes over the course of the story Wakka start treating Rikku better and eventually apologises.
    • As flashbacks show Auron (not without reason) loathed Jecht and couldn’t fathom why his master Braska made him a Guardian on his Power Trio pilgrimage. Eventually Auron formed a brotherly bond with Jecht and even raised Jecht’s son Tidus upon the man’s request.
  • Final Fantasy XIII has everyone at each other's throats from the start. Hope wants Snow dead because Snow caused his mother's death, Sazh tries to shoot Vanille (at her own request) before turning the gun on himself, Lightning hates Snow for threatening to take Serah away from her, and Fang demonstrates that so long as it would guarantee Vanille's safety, she'd set the world on fire and watch it burn.
• Fire Emblem:
  • This is the entire basis of the idea behind support conversations. By having two units stand near each other (and in modern games, engage in battle with each other) causes them to gain some affinity for each other and eventually support, possibly even leading to romance and/or marriage.
  • One of the major tragedies of Fire Emblem: Three Houses is that the fire-forged friendships formed at Garreg Mach Monastery are not enough to keep them from pointing their weapons at one another in all of the routes. In some cases the friendship can be saved (if the friends in question are on the same team, usually achieved by poaching one or both of them to the House chosen in the beginning), but in some others nothing really can be done to amend it, adding to the tragic factor.
• Dom and Marcus of Gears of War were already good friends at the start of the Pendulum Wars, and it escalated to the point that they consider themselves brothers by Gears of War 3. However, this pales in comparison to their friendship with, Anya, Baird, Cole, then Sam, then... it's a lot of people. Surviving a war against Absolute Xenophobes will do that to you.
• Guardians of the Galaxy (2021) is set in its own Marvel continuity, though it takes nods from the MCU and seems to start with the team being relatively recently organized with Rocket and Groot joining with Peter first and then Drax and later Gamora joining a bit later. As such, Drax heavily distrusts Gamora (as she is the adopted daughter and former assassin for the man who murdered his family) and Rocket and Peter have a major falling out midway through the plot. By the end, the team is fully together, with Rocket having found new respect for Peter and Drax fully accepting and even bonding with Gamora.
• Halo:
  • Halo 3 had the most recent Arbiter, Thel 'Vadam, join forces with Master Chief John-117. At first they start out quite hostile towards each other — Chief even shoved a gun right in Arbiter's mandibles, but by the end, they trust each other enough to pull a Back-to-Back Badasses, and frequently save each other in battle. That and Arbiter is the only one who believes John has not died at end of the game—who is, in fact, stuck floating in space, with no way to get home, and his AI Cortana quickly approaching rampancy.
  • Humanity and the Forerunners, who had historically been at each others' throats (respectfully for the most part, but still), become this following the firing of the Halos. After spending the entire Forerunner Saga being Fantastic Racists towards each other (humans being "primitive, bloodthirsty animals" and Forerunners "meddling, high-and-mighty Abusive Precursors), both come together to mourn the unimaginable losses they've suffered.
• In Fleeing the Complex from the Henry Stickmin Series, Henry and Ellie become this on the path to the convict allies ending. They start off as complete strangers to each other who only share the fact that they're convicts who happen to be in the same holding area. After starting full scale a prison riot and getting to the surface, they get on a motorcycle to escape, but the warden tackles Henry off of the motorcycle. At this point, Ellie could've just left Henry to his fate, but she decides to turn back to save Henry by whacking the warden with a stop sign.
• In Might and Magic: Heroes VI Duke Slava forms an Enemy Mine alliance with Kraal, an orc warrior, against Toghrul, a shaman who betrayed Kraal's people and has a grudge against Slava's family. One short military campaign and several debates about religion and philosophy later, Slava considers Kraal enough of a friend to offer him several hundred acres of his own land for Kraal's people to settle on.
• In Jade Empire, Dawn Star and Silk Fox often argue, but gain respect for each other after fighting together while Kang blows up a bridge.
• In Jak II: Renegade, the original group of four (Jak, Daxter, Keira and Samos) was expanded to eleven when they meet Torn, Ashelin, Sig, Tess, Pecker, Onin, and Brutter throughout the course of their stop-the-Baron fight.
• Applies to Pit and Dark Pit in Kid Icarus: Uprising. Dark Pit is the Evil Counterpart of Pit and has no sympathy for him. However as the story progresses Dark Pit comes out to help Pit on several occasions (facekicking the Underword Guardian and blasting open the portal to the Chaos Vortex come to mind), they save each other's lives on specific occasions and even do a perfectly executed pre-asskicking speech on Dark Pit's own invitation. All in all, it seems they have come to like each other.
• In the first Kingdom Hearts game, Donald is more or less a Jerkass who doesn't give a care about helping Sora find his missing friends, and only tells him that they'll find them to make him comply. By Deep Jungle, the two are at each other's throats when Sora finally realizes that he was only being used. Fortunately, the two start to get along as the game continues on, and by Hollow Bastion, Donald chooses to stay by Sora's side to protect him despite the King's orders to follow the one with the Key, which is Rival Turned Evil Riku at this point.
  • In Kingdom Hearts II, Axel decides to abduct Kairi if it means bringing Roxas back, but it's clear he's doing it as a last resort, and when Saix captures her for his own agenda, Axel tries to save her, but fails. When they meet again, she's not happy to see him, let alone having to train alongside him, but by the events of Kingdom Hearts III, Kairi and Axel/Lea are shown to have become friends.
• Kirby: The titular character and his Arch-Enemy King Dedede were on negative terms with each other during the first few games of the series, with some of the most notable being Dedede robbing his kingdom of his food without any reason and breaking apart the Star Rod to keep the citizens of Dream Land from dreaming (though he had a very good reason for doing so). However, Dedede took multiple levels in kindness over the course of the later games, and it culminated with the two abandoning their rivalry and becoming true allies (though Dedede still proclaims themselves to be destined rivals on his end). It's also what led to Meta Knight warming up to Kirby and what also led to Bandana Waddle Dee to also becoming his most trusted ally and sidekick.
• The Last of Us: Joel and Ellie start off their journey being very cold to each other, but after spending over a year together traveling across the country fighting off Infected and Hunters/scavengers who want to kill them, they become fire-forged-surrogate-father-and-daughter.
• Left 4 Dead has the Survivors that happen to be immune to The Virus that produced the Infected and caused the Zombie Apocalypse. In order for them to survive and reach safety, they must work together as a team, fighting through the zombie hordes and sharing their limited medical supplies. By the second game, you can actually watch their friendship unfold through the journey.
• It's common in The Legend of Zelda for Link to to ally with someone who doesn't think much of him, but of course, draws closer to him throughout the game—Tatl in Majora's Mask, Tetra in The Wind Waker, Ezlo in The Minish Cap, Midna in Twilight Princess, Linebeck in Phantom Hourglass, Groose in Skyward Sword, and Zelda herself in Breath of the Wild.
• Love of Magic: Downplayed. After Mitburgh, MC and Kitsune come to respect each other more, although they still don't much like each other.
• The party in Mass Effect 2 is pretty much this trope. The members are very different from each other, from very diverse walks of life. Heck, there are even a few disagreements that threaten to tear them apart. But in the end, if Shepard is a good (and consistent) leader, the entire party will make it out alive, thanks in no small part to watching each others' backs during the Suicide Mission.
  • The most blatant example of this is Joker and EDI. They spend almost the entire game bickering at each other until The Collectors take over the Normandy while Shepard and the rest of the party are away leaving them the only ones to stop them. After that incident, they treat each other as equals (most noticeably, while prior to the incident they referred to each other as "Mr. Moreau" and "It", afterwards they switch to "she" and "Jeff"). In the third game, thanks to EDI acquiring a new robot body they can possibly have a Relationship Upgrade.
  • Mass Effect 2 plays this in an interesting way. In one team you have a human WMD wrapped up in a dangerously sadistic sociopath, a turian who manages to single-handedly become an Enemy Mine for three warring merc groups, one of the homicidal robot Mooks from the first game, a deathly (and deadly) ill drell assassin and essentially a living avatar of asari justice. If it weren't for a greater threat, most of these characters would probably never be in the same room as each other without trying to kill each other. After the suicide mission, most are on at least cordial terms (except Jack, who is still a bitch, but got a little better).
  • This carries forward to Mass Effect 3 with Tali'Zorah and Legion. Tali, a member of the race that created the geth and have been incredibly bitter about the whole affair (and whose father is killed by Geth just before her loyalty mission in 2), admits to having come to truly trust Legion and explains that they have had a great impact on her preconceptions of the geth. Tali is one of the greatest advocates for Geth-Quarian peace by the end of the Rannoch mission. All because a geth decided not to start shooting at her but at her foes.
  • The Citadel DLC in Mass Effect 3 really drives home the point that the entire Normandy crew has become this because of Shepard. It ends with a party with every surviving member of Shepard's squads across the trilogy in attendance. Even characters who never served at the same time bond over their shared experience fighting alongside Shepard. You even get a War Asset from it.
  • The krogan and turian forces during the fighting on Palaven in 3. The krogan are initially there as the price of having the genophage cured; the most important surviving turian military HQ is on the moon the krogan reached during the Krogan Rebellions that led to the genophage; they have very different fighting styles, social structures and traditions; and they don't like each other very much, to the point where Warlord Okeer's imprints for his tank-bred krogan included a shot of a krogan pulling off a dead turian's face with a crowbar; but a while after you bring them together, you get a codex report of the "Miracle of Palaven", which has both krogan and turian forces cooperating and sacrificing their lives to pull off a coordinated and devastating strike on the Reaper forces. It's possibly the largest defeat the Reapers endure before the endgame. And it's pulled off by two peoples who couldn't stand each other but have learned to get along through their shared battle against horrible space-thulhus and their armies of cyborg zombies.
  • Javik, a reawakened Prothean, has a lot of Fantastic Racism against the younger races and quite often gets into arguments with Paragon Shepard in particular about their idealism in the face of a Hopeless War. By the end of the game, it's quite clear that he has come to respect Shepard a great deal. It definitely comes across as mutual.
• Mortal Kombat:
  • Hanzo Hasashi aka. Scorpion and Kuai Liang aka. Sub-Zero 2 were naturally hostile towards each other since Scorpion had killed Kuai Liang's older brother, Bi-Han, the first Sub-Zero, in revenge for the latter seemingly killing his family and clan. Despite both working as undead minions for Quan Chi after the events of MK9 and regaining their humanity thanks to Raiden in MKX, Scorpion still hates Sub-Zero — until he learns that it wasn't Bi-Han who killed his family, but rather it was Quan Chi, allowing the ninjas to bury the hatchet. By the time of MK11, Scorpion and Sub-Zero are Bash Brothers and Heterosexual Life-Partners together, much to the disgust of Kuai Liang's ex-apprentice Frost.
  • In MK9 Johnny due to his Jerkass Awesome Ego didn't get along with Sonya, Liu Kang, Kung Lao or Jax. Only the ever patient Raiden put up with Johnny's bullshit. As the story goes on though, Johnny gets some Character Development and starts getting along with his True Companions. Sonya in particular wasted no time punching Johnny in their first meeting, but grows to care for him and evens gets pregnant with his daughter and marries him before divorcing due to Sonya being Married to the Job. Johnny also fought with Jax, but by later games they're particularly family with their daughters Cassie and Jacqui being close.
  • Sonya was suspicious and distrustful of Raiden and the Shaolin monks Liu Kang and Kung Lao at first in MK9, but she respects and looks up to them, especially Raiden, over time.
  • Kitana and Jade were hostile to the hero team at first, but after breaking free from Shao Kahn's influence, they join the Earthrealm fighters. Kitana even becomes Liu Kang's Love Interest.
  • Scorpion and Sub-Zero's alliance with Earthrealm is fraught with conflict until MKX when Raiden frees them both from Quan Chi's control at which both ninjas swear gratitude and loyalty to Raiden and the Earthrealm fighters. In particular, Scorpion's interactions with the good guys as a human are much friendlier and respectful than they were in previous titles.
  • Kotal Kahn has a very shaky relationship with the heroes and gets into conflict with Special Forces repeatedly. In the MKX comic and MK11, however, he comes to respect them and treat them as allies, in the latter example due to influence from his lover Jade who serves as his Morality Pet.
• Part of Khelgar's loyalty quest in Neverwinter Nights 2 revolves around getting him, Neeshka, and Elanee to become this.
• On a slightly minor scale in Psychonauts with Raz and Lili. Raz is friendly toward most campers, but Lili is a bit cold and belittling toward him. When the two realize that they're both having the same prophetic dream due to Oleander's psychic interference, they work together to get to the bottom of it and are a lot more tolerant of each other by the second act of the game.
• Ratchet & Clank start off on good terms before Umbris, where they are suddenly at each other's throats over Ratchet's desire for revenge against Captain Qwark, and Clank just wanting to stop Drek from tearing planets apart. The two stop fighting after Ratchet finally completes his revenge, but at the cost of them not being able to protect a city from being attacked, and eventually grow to become best friends.
• Resident Evil tend to do this, with the Main Characters coming together over a shared desire to survive and overcome monstrous hardships.
  • Resident Evil 0 starts with dangerous convict Billy pointing his gun at the heroine Rebecca, followed by bickering and general distrust. After deciding to work together and saving each lives a few times though Rebecca and Billy begin to greatly care about each other. Rebecca even lets him go free at the end, even though it’s her job to haul him in. It’s insinuated that, they develop some strong feelings for one another during their time together.
  • Resident Evil 2’s protagonists meet in a very hostile situation as Leon nearly shoots Claire in the face by accident. Thankfully he instead tells her to get down and shoots the zombie behind her and after a Take My Hand! moment they make their way to the police station, uncover the truth behind the outbreak, kill a load of monsters, find and adopt a little girl (Sherry) before escaping. Later titles such as Resident Evil: Degeneration and Resident Evil 6 show Leon’s bond with Claire and Sherry respectively remains extremely strong. Although similar to RE0, it’s implied (especially in the remake), there’s more than friendship going on with Leon and Claire at least.
  • Resident Evil 3: Nemesis has Jill and Carlos, the former of whom strongly dislikes the latter due to him working for Umbrella the organisation that killed most of her teammates and helped caused the Raccoon City outbreak. Over the course of the game Jill and Carlos begin to trust each other and grow closer, managing to escape the crisis together. Also despite Carlos flirting with Jill, their bond is platonic... at least until the the remake where their share emotions are more overtly intimate.
  • Resident Evil 4:
    • Leon finds Luis tied up in closet and roughly rips the tape off his mouth. They get tied together and almost killed, and by their third meeting they’re Bash Brothers fighting the horde and defending Ashley together. This makes Luis’s death at Saddler’s tentacle all more sad.
    • When Ashely meets Leon she’s terrified and throws stuff at him (thinking he’s one of her kidnappers). After Leon calms her down and they dodge some burning arrows together, they become close. Ashley in particular is extremely taken with him and tries asking him out in the end, but Leon politely turns her down.
    • Can’t forget Mike the unseen helicopter pilot who never meets Leon in person but after fighting the Plaga together quickly become friends. Like Luis, he dies too.
  • In Resident Evil 5 Chris over the course the game starts to open up to Sheva and express with his feelings and beliefs to her without stoicism. This contrasts to their first meeting where Chris was entirely professional and brisk with her.
  • Leon’s got a real knack for this as seen in Resident Evil The Dark Side Chronicles where despite butting heads with Krauser during Operation Javier they both start to open up to each other and become friends. Even when Krauser pulls a Heel–Face Turn, his interactions with Leon in RE4 express complete respect for his old comrade.
  • Similarly in Resident Evil: Damnation Leon’s meeting with insurgents J.D and Alexander aka Buddy is extremely hostile as they capture and threaten to kill him. Towards the end of the movie, he’s fought alongside them and become their friend. He evens saves Alexander from turning into a Ganado, giving him a new chance at life.
  • The eight survivors in Resident Evil: Outbreak despite vastly different personalities, all grow close surviving the Zombie Apocalypse together. Two of them Cindy and George are romantic as well as seen in their ending.
• In Sabres of Infinity, your fellow officers, Elson and Cazarosta, may come to view you as this if you maintain good relations with them.
• Sakura Wars 3: Is Paris Burning?: When they meet in Episode 7, both the Paris Combat Revue and the Imperial Flower Combat Troop spend quite a bit of time butting heads, even getting into a dance competition in an attempt to prove which is better. However, after they work together to stop Ciseaux and his flunkies from destroying the Eiffel Tower, they become good allies and friends (though the fact that the judges of the aforementioned dance competition decided that both groups of girls won probably also factored into it).
  • Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love gives us Shinjiro Taiga, who was treated rather harshly by Cheiron Archer and Subaru Kujo upon first joining the New York Combat Revue. As he fought alongside them and helped them overcome their personal woes, though, they became good friends, comrades-in-arms, and potential love interests.
• The Shadow Hearts series has a few of them. In the first game, the three main characters don't really get along: James tends to grate on Koudelka's nerves, and Edward can barely keep the peace, but they have each other's backs in fights. In the second game, Yuri and Zhuzhen constantly fight with each other constantly. Yuri and Margarete also have their moments, but they constantly work with each other, and Margarete even looks up to Yuri.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Sonic and Knuckles start off as enemies due to Dr. Eggman's manipulations, but after Knuckles saw through Eggman's lies, the two became close friends, yet they still clash on occasions.
  • At the beginning of Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic and Shadow were bitter rivals, no thanks to the former taking the blame for the latter's crimes. By the end, however, Shadow pulls a Heel–Face Turn, after which they grow to respect each other and become allies. Much like Knuckles, though, the two still go at it from time to time.
  • Shadow does this with Rouge to a degree. They were on the same side in Sonic Adventure 2, but Shadow then found out that Rouge wanted to find the Chaos Emeralds for herself and to get more jewels from G.U.N. after she finishes her research on Project Shadow. They don't really interact after that because of Shadow's supposed death, but Rouge holds onto one of Shadow's limiter rings, until she finds him again in Sonic Heroes. Since then, however, Rouge and Shadow have become very close to True Companions, with a little Ship Teasing involved.
  • Shadow plays this with Omega in Sonic Heroes. Even though both became teammates after Rouge encouraged them to team up with her to find Eggman, the two didn't get along well since their brief fight and only really were held together by their shared desire to get to Eggman. As time goes on, the two have become reliable allies.
  • In Sonic Rush, Blaze was determined to find the Sol Emeralds alone that she didn't want Sonic or his friends' help, to the point she engaged the hedgehog in a duel to prevent him from interfering with her objective. By the end, however, Blaze realised that friendship is what it took to make the Sol Emeralds work, and she and Sonic defeat Eggman and Eggman Nega together. This friendship isn't without some little ship teasing either.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (2006):
    • Sonic and Silver. Silver wanted to kill Sonic because he believed him to be the Iblis Trigger, but after seeing through Mephiles' lies, the two begin to work together to save Princess Elise from Dr. Eggman. Then this trope is played again due to the events of Sonic '06 being erased and Silver clashed with Sonic again in the Sonic Rivals series. It wasn't until Sonic Colors DS that the two got along again.
    • Shadow and Silver. Shadow rescues Sonic when Silver is about to kill him and fights Silver in Sonic's place. When the two accidentally create a time portal to the past with Chaos Control, they are forced to team up to lock Mephiles and Iblis away in their original seals, and thus start to get along. Like with Sonic, however, Shadow clashes with Silver again in Sonic Rivals due to the Retcon, and it takes longer for them to get along.
  • Silver and Espio in Sonic Rivals 2. Initially, their first meeting was iffy, then they teamed up, and at the end of their story, they become respectful towards each other.
• James Raynor and Horace Warfield in Starcraft II hated each other at first, because Raynor was a "pirate" and a "terrorist" and because Warfield was a Dominion general. When the two of them led their attack on Char, and Raynor pulled off a Big Damn Heroes move to save Warfield and his men, Warfield warmed up to Raynor.
  Warfield: "You may be a damned pirate, Raynor, but, whatever happens, you saved my boys today... and I won't forget that."
  • The same could be said of Tosh, although it depends on your choice in the game. All of Raynor's Raiders seems to be this too, as they're all volunteers apparently, as well (to a degree) Tychus.
  • In the first Starcraft Raynor was valuable ally to the Protoss, especially with Tassadar, Zeratul, and Fenix, and was instrumental in the Overminds destruction.
• Rainbow Mika and Ibuki in Street Fighter V, who unlike the other World Warriors cannot stand each due to their contrasting personalities and bicker constantly in the story mode. After protecting each other from some Shadaloo goons and Balrog however, they start to like each other more and are not seen apart for the rest of the story.
• In Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Marth and Meta Knight are both standing near the same giant blob of Subspace. Meta Knight assumes Marth is allied with the invading forces and attacks him, prompting a sword duel which is cut short by a couple of Primids. At this point, the two heroes realize they're on the same side and turn on the Subspace monsters. The two work together for the next leg of the game.
• Supreme Commander is about this in its expansion Forged Alliances, where the three main factions (United Earth Federation, Cybran Nation, and Aeon Illuminate) bound together to fend off an alien invasion and its allies.
• The second Tales of Fandom game seems to indicate this kind of backstory for Tales of Symphonia characters Kratos and Yuan, who started out as opposing knights of two warring countries.
• The main cast of Tales of the Abyss definitely counts. Contrast the first third of the game, when Luke destroys Akzeriuth, to the last third of the game, when Anise betrays the party and directly causes Ion's death. In the first case, the party condemns Luke's immaturity and irresponsibility, abandons Luke in Yulia City^note To be fair, Luke was more or less comatose, and the party had pressing business elsewhere and only rejoins with him once they're absolutely forced to. Then, twenty hours of gameplay later, Anise is almost instantly forgiven for her crime, and the entire party agrees to stand by her side for her duel with Arietta. Considering how much betrayal, murder, crisis and conspiracy they've all had to deal with, it's no wonder they've come to rely on each other. It says a lot that one of the party members is a borderline sociopath, and yet he still manages to learn of the Power of Friendship after all is said and done. In fact, he puts their situation best:
  Jade: I don't know about "friends," but we do have an awkward bond of sorts.
• Tales of Vesperia implies that Yuri and Flynn are Childhood Friends, but the prequel movie sets them more under this trope. They're butting heads constantly until they save each other's lives a few times and watch their beloved captain die.. In the game itself, Brave Vesperia falls under this trope — they go through a lot, but by the end, the guild is as tight as any family.
• Tears to Tiara 2: As Elissa and Daphnis blow their own cover and rise up, about to fight the slavers to the death, Hamil and the Party blow their own cover and join in the fight. The latter is the leader of La Résistance and the former are trying to form an alliance with them to resist The Empire. So it's this on two levels.
• Marisa and Reimu of Touhou Project, who have fought together (and each other) since the second game, consequently forging one of the series closest, most persistent friendships. They later form similar friendships with Sakuya in Touhou Youyoumu ~ Perfect Cherry Blossom, several youkai in Touhou Eiyashou ~ Imperishable Night and most recently Sanae in Touhou Seirensen ~ Undefined Fantastic Object.
• Mike and Sam in Until Dawn. They initially start off a little at odds, Sam understandably more cooler towards him compared to the others due to his role in the prank that humiliated Sam's best friend Hannah and resulted in her and Beth's disappearance. But by the end of the game, due to both of them surviving several incredibly dangerous situations together, they are willing to risk their lives for each other multiple times. In fact, Mike was able to wordlessly convey to Sam his plan to kill the Wendigo and together, they were able to pull it off. If the player makes the right choices, by the end of the game, they will have one of the highest relationship stats, rivaling even the romances.
• Squad 422 in Valkyria Chronicles III. Since all of them are convicted criminals, each squad member can't give half a damn if the other guy eats a whole serving of gatling gun barrage. But due to Kurt's compassionate nature and the kind of crazy situations the squad have to go through, they slowly become an example of this trope. When Kurt calls for their aid for one last job after the war is over, all of them answer.
• In The World Ends with You, due to how the mechanics of the Reaper’s Game work, many Players find themselves forming incredibly close bonds with their partners and vice-versa thanks to having to rely on one another in order to combat the Noise. Neku Sakuraba in particular starts out flat out despising his would-be partners, but thanks to the trials they endured together and learning about each other’s Hidden Depths, he eventually grows into this with all of them.

---