Kid Hero / Video Games

Kid Heroes in video games.

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• The protagonist of Among the Sleep is one of the more extreme examples; a 2-year-old who's navigating a surreal, horrifying landscape and trying to avoid a terrible monster! The game's tearjerker ending reveals the landscape is just the boy's own house, and the monster is just his inebriated mother, the fantastic elements only being the boy using his imagination to cope with the trauma of living with an abusive, alcoholic parent.
• Artery Gear: Fusion: Team Bobcat are a squad of very young Artery Gears that take on dangers regularly.
• The player character of Atmosfear is an unnamed young boy.
• Marco Van de Land from Battle Fantasia is one of the main characters, fitting the trope to a T. Following in his father's footsteps and wielding an oversized zweihander, he has a habit of crying and whining, much to the annoyance of the rest of the cast. His brother Urs may also qualify as a Kid Hero, but with different quirks.
• Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg: All the main characters are young children not more than 10-years-old, apparently.
• Thomas in Boogeyman and the little girl in Boogeyman 2 are both young kids who have to spend each night fending off the titular monster with only a flashlight.
• Wilbur Weathervane from The Book of Unwritten Tales and its sequel. He's even smaller than a regular kid due to being a gnome, yet manages to take on many imposing odds.
• Boy in A Boy and His Blob is this in both the NES and Wii version. The former is implied to be somewhere between early to mid teens, while the latter is around 6-years-old according to the unlockable sketches you find.
• Computer technician Lance Galahad of Brain Dead 13 can be this, since it is implied that he is in his teens, around 16- or 17-years-old at the most.
• Ryu from Breath of Fire III and Breath of Fire II's Ryu, who starts the game (along with Bow) as a young tyke literally equipped with a tree branch. His attacks even do a measly one damage to rub it in.
• Children of Mana has Ferrik, Poppen, and Tamber, with Poppen the youngest of them all, at 9-years-old.
• Crono from Chrono Trigger and Serge from Chrono Cross. Both still living at home with their mommies (and said home surprisingly does not blow up.)
• Kid genius Commander Keen, of The '90s video games of the same name. He even saves his own babysitter in one game, and it's discovered that the Big Bad who keeps trying to blow up the galaxy is Mortimer McMire, the kid who always bullies Keen at school because his IQ is one point lower — at 314!
• Crescent Prism: In Chapter 1, Lunita is 10 years old, Maru is 4 months old, and Amos is 15 years old. The only adult member of the party at this point is Rain at 27 years old.
• Crusader of Centy begins with the hero Corona receiving a sword on his fourteenth birthday.
• Cuphead: Although the sibling protagonists Cuphead and Mugman are adolescent boys who live under the watchful eye of their guardian Elder Kettle and end up getting in trouble in the Devil's casino, they seem to fit the bill quite nicely when they are fighting for their souls. In fact, the only way for them to be true Kid Heroes is when they can save the Inkwell Isles from the Devil himself... if they play the cards right.
• In Disney Princess: Enchanted Journey, the heroine is younger than any of the princesses.
• Donkey Kong:
  • Donkey Kong Jr starred in his self-titled game where he was on a quest to rescue his father from Mario.
  • Diddy and Dixie Kong in the Donkey Kong Country series, especially in the sequel games where Donkey Kong is kidnapped and Diddy (in 2) and Dixie (in 3) are forced to become the hero to save him. Also Kiddy Kong in 3.
• Perhaps taken to its extreme in Dragon Quest V, where the protagonist begins his heroic career at the age of five, and stores stock steel weapons and iron plate armor for children that age. In the final chapter of the game, the destined hero is not the main character, but his 8-year-old son. This includes legendary armor only the young boy can wear. Luckily it fits, despite having been worn by older heroes in chronologically earlier games.
• El Hijo - A Wild West Tale: The titular El Hijo is a 6-year-old boy braving the harsh landscape of the Wild West to find his mom.
• The playable characters of ESP Ra.De. are all adolescents: Yusuke is 17, J-B 5th is 15, Irori is 11, and the console port-exclusive Alice is 15.
• Ellia of Eternal Darkness is 16-years-old, and she was originally 13 during the game's early stages of development.
• EXTRAPOWER:
  • Extrapower Attackof Darkforce has a few. Emerald, the incredibly powerful child telepath who is only playable for a few episodes before taking a support role. Ri=Ko, Ruritia and Shura Shashu are high school aged.
  • EXTRAPOWER: Star Resistance has Ramrock, the pilot of Zanber Head. He and his sister are still children, and pilot their Humongous Mecha to prevent Dark Force from spreading more tragedy.
• Fallout has a few interesting variations.
  • In Fallout 2, it is possible to design a character as young as 16. This has no bearing on the rest of the game, though, and the character is still very capable of performing the things other characters can. These things include drinking, doing drugs, having sex for various reasons, having a shotgun wedding, and becoming a pornstar (or fluffer, if lacking in talent). Oh, and killing your way through the game by various, interesting means.
  • Children of the Wasteland, a Game Mod for Fallout 3, goes to great lengths to alter the story so that the Lone Wanderer is chased out of Vault 101 at the tender age of eleven. It's surprisingly well-done, too, with all original interactions talking about the player's age being re-worked, a model pack to expand on the inventory available for children — which includes an exclusive shop in Megaton — and even a milk crate item to allow access to interactions normally too tall for kids to reach.
• Fancy Pants Adventures: Fancy Pants Man himself. He's in his teens, after all.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Most Final Fantasy games avert the trope by usually having heroes in their early to mid 20s, exceptions being the Onion Knights in Final Fantasy III (and their representative in Dissidia, Rydia (first third of the game), Porom and Palom in Final Fantasy IV, Relm and Gau in Final Fantasy VI, and Luso and Marche from the Final Fantasy Tactics Advance.
  • Deconstructed with 17-year-old Squall Leonhart and his party in Final Fantasy VIII. Comparisons to Child Soldiers become more obvious as the game goes on.
• The lords in the Fire Emblem saga are more often than not over 18, but some are young enough to be kid heroes:
  • Marth is 16 in Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light.
  • When the characters of Fire Emblem Gaiden were given canon ages in the remake, Echoes, Alm and Celica were both said to be 17-years-old. Some of their companions are in a similar age range: the youngest is the 13-year-old Delthea, followed by Kliff, Mae and Genny at age 15.
  • On the same league, Seliph from Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War is 16-years-old when he becomes the leader of La Résistance against The Empire. In addition, almost all of his companions are around his age: his cousin Leif (also the hero in Fire Emblem: Thracia 776), his best friend and potential girlfriend Lana, the twins Ulster and Larcei, etc.
  • Roy from Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade is 15-years-old and has to command the troops after his father, Eliwood, falls gravely sick and cannot do that himself. Some of Roy's companions, like archers Wolt and Sue, Fragile Speedster Shanna, White Magician Girl Clarine, Child Mages Lugh and Ray, and Magic Knight Lilina are also around his age.
  • Lyn's original age in the Japanese version of Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade is 15 (16 after the timeskip). She was 18 going on 19 in the NA release, though. Eliwood and Hector are 17 in their own tales (16 in Lyn's tale, which took place a year earlier) as well. Wil is also 17, Serra and Priscilla are both 16, Rebecca and Erk are both 15, and Nino is 14.
  • In Fire Emblem: Awakening, while the Avatar has quite the case of Vague Age, their second build can give them the looks of a pre-teen/young teen no older than 15. Additionally Lissa, Ricken, Maribelle and Donnel are pretty much stated to be in the 13-15 age range. And the Future Children tend to be around the same age range if not a bit older (save for Lucina, Laurent and probably Gerome), with Cynthia, Nah and the Morgans as the biggest examples.
  • Fire Emblem Fates has the Avatar as either a young teen or an older one. They also have younger brothers (Leo and Takumi) and younger sisters (Sakura and Elise) on both sides of the conflict, plus potential companions of similar/younger ages like Mozu or Hayato. The Second Generation tends to be made of older teens, but some of them fit in here thoroughly: the Kanas, Percy, Midori, Kiragi and probably Selkie.
• Fortune Summoners: Stella, Arche, and Sana are all prepubescent and face a threat that attacked cities and survived. On a smaller scale, Arche and Stella also go on a medicine run for a sick girl. That's Sana.
• Frosty Nights has you playing as a child who needs to fend off kid-eating Snowlems every night.
• In the Galaxy Angel games, the player character is 21 and only one Angel is over 18. Galaxy Angel II has a 16-year-old player character and Angels from ages 11 to 21 (not counting Nano-Nano, who, as a Robot Girl of sorts, is probably about two).
• Ghoulboy stars Thulgar, son of Galdar the warrior.
• Golden Sun:
  • The heroes are another example. Isaac, Garet, Jenna and Mia are 17-years-old and Ivan only 15. They're referred to as "children" by most of Weyard's populace.
  • In the sequel, however the party still features the under-age girls Jenna (still 17) and Sheba (14), the main hero is 18-years-old and Piers might be several centuries or even millenia old.
• Both Justin and Sue from Grandia - with a surprising dose of realism thrown in towards the end of the game, when Justin is forced to realize the seriousness of his quest, and Sue is forced to leave the party and return home after becoming ill, thanks to being unable to cope with the exhausting pace of the adventure.
• Grey Area (2023) stars Hailey, an 8-year-old girl who gets Trapped in Another World and goes through one hell of an adventure to get back home and save the universe.
• The main cast of Higurashi: When They Cry consists of three (later four) high schoolers and two (later three) elementary schoolers, though Hanyuu actually died as an adult. Usually they're not heroes, and often they're Villain Protagonists, but they play this in the final two Answer arcs.
• Halflight has the player character, 7-year-old Xi-sheng who's on a mission to rescue his missing kid brother from the Chinese underworld.
• Holy Umbrella has an ordinary schoolboy Trapped in Another World who soon proves himself more competent at mounting a rescue mission than the local troopers, who are astonished that a "mere child" has outdone them.
• The hero of I Wanna Be the Guy is literally named The Kid, and the hero of the sequel is named The Lad.
• The titular protagonist of ICO is a young boy locked inside of a castle because of his horns. Ico makes it his mission to escape with Yorda in tow, using his wits and whatever weapons he can find.
• In Illusion of Gaia, Will (the hero) appears to be approximately 12- to 15-years-old, with everyone in the game referring to him as a "child". The game story spans over half a year, and naturally he does grow up quite a lot by the end of the game... but he was already fairly mature to begin with, unlike most kiddie heroes.
• The Inazuma Eleven series revolves around a group of junior-high soccer players saving the world and soccer society from wannabe gods, aliens, and invaders from the future... with soccer games.
• It's really common in visual novels, like the ones done by Key/Visual Arts and Leaf: the protagonist is his mid-teens and is an Ordinary High-School Student. His Love Interests are almost all the same, usually.
• Sora from the Kingdom Hearts series; he starts puberty between the first and second games, apparently immediately after the first one, if you go by his voice in Re: Chain of Memories. Although naturally that has to do with the fact that Haley Joel Osment only recorded it after Kingdom Hearts II.
• Kirby, from the eponymous series of games, is described as being a "little boy" (though his age is never directly given).
• Klonoa, the star of his game series, is stated to be twelve in Lunatea's Veil, therefore in its prequel he must be the same age or younger in Door to Phantomile—at least before it got remade, he looks older in the Wiimake of DtP. Though, since he's not human, the years might work differently for him.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • Link is usually being around 10- to 11-years-old (according to the Hyrule Historia, he is only 10-years-old in The Legend of Zelda) with the exceptions of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (16), A Link to the Past (he seems to be in his early- to mid-teens, and may be even younger if his high-pitched voice is anything to go by), Ocarina of Time (16 via time travel, though he starts at 9 and is back to 9 at the end), Twilight Princess (17), Skyward Sword (17 and a half), and Breath of the Wild (implied to be 17). In The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap it's even a plot point, since the Minish can only be seen by children.
  • Notably, Link and Zelda in the childhood arc of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time are deconstructions. While Zelda is very clever and knowledgeable, her plan actually ends up aiding the villain because she didn't know as much as she thought she did. And while kid Link racks up an impressive kill count, Ganondorf painfully establishes that he's still not strong enough to take down the powerful sorcerer. The kids thought they could be heroes and save the day, but they were defeated by their inability to acknowledge the gaps in their understanding. Perfectly understandable kid behavior. Zelda acknowledges all of this when she returns after the Time Skip, and Link fixes the problem properly when sent back in time to before everything started (that is, by blowing the whistle on Ganondorf to the proper authorities).
    • This specific Link's problems don't end there, either, as his adventure continues in Majora's Mask. The now-Wise Beyond Their Years Link is still an adorable kid that kicks plenty of ass, but the expanded lore that Majora's Mask brought to the table highlights just how incredibly screwed up his life really is, you just never see it in-game due to Heroic Mime (and possibly Heroic Safe Mode) being in effect as usual. Being one of the most iconic characters in gaming at the time means this did not go unnoticed by the fanbase: "Young Link"[[label-note:*]]as he was christened by Super Smash Bros. Melee[[/labelnote]] is a very popular target of the Deconstructor Fleet and the Fix Fic.
  • In Hyrule Warriors, Agitha, Young Link, Toon Link, Tetra, Toon Zelda and Medli can all join the fight despite them being noticeably preteens.
• Lightning Legend: Daigo no Daibouken has Daigo Raioh, a 14-years young martial artist, and descendant of a legendary Hero who defeated and sealed away the Demon King Dragless 450 years before the game's proper. Dragless being about to free himself, Daigo goes on a journey to defeat him for good.
• The Little Tail Bronx series seems to be fond of this trope— per external material, protagonists Waffle Ryebread and Red Savarin are 16 and 17 during their respective games of origin, although in the latter's case he's chronologically nine years old, being an artificial life form and all. However, Fuga: Melodies of Steel and its sequel firmly deconstruct this trope by being centered around a group of self-conscripted Children Forced to Kill that have no combat experience, are very prone to depression or panic, and can even die per the game's Soul Cannon mechanic.
• In the Madou Monogatari series, Arle starts her adventures while in kindergarten. This also applies to some of the Puyo Puyo games.
• Rave, the little monster boy from Math Blaster Mystery: The Great Brain Robbery establishes himself as a Badass Adorable before the game actually begins. After hearing that famous mathlete Big Brain has his brain stolen, Rave immediately deduces the person responsible was local Mad Scientist Dr. Dabble. Rave then takes it upon himself to rescue said brain, hops out his bedroom window on the second floor of his house onto his bike like it was nothing, and then heads over to Dr. Dabble's mansion.
• The original Mega Man's age is left vague, but he and his sister Roll was designed and built to look like preteen aged kids to behave as surrogate children to Dr. Light. In Mega Man 8, Mega Man is even called Just a Kid by one of the bosses.
  • Both Mega Man Battle Network and Mega Man Star Force follow this trope, with the main characters Lan and Geo being both fifth-graders (this also goes for their friends, especially in Battle Network's case).
• Tetto in Metal Walker saves his dad and the Rusted Land with the help of his robot companion.
• Every main character of all three Mother games, except Duster, Boney and possibly Teddy. Exemplified by main protagonists Ninten, Ness and Lucas.
• In Mushihime-sama, Reco is 14-years-old and turns 15 for the sequel Mushihimesama Futari. Futari also introduces Palm, who is 9-years-old.
• The Night of the Rabbit's protagonist is Jerry Hazelnut, a 12-year-old boy. The game's events take place just two days before summer vacation ends for him.
• PAGUI has a seven-year-old kid, Huo Wang-Lin, who's raised in a temple and journeying into a world of spirits to seek his deceased parents. The sequel which is set a decade later have Huo returning as a Kid Hero All Grown-Up.
• Pac-Man: Jr. in Junior Pac-Man.
• Orta in Panzer Dragoon Orta is only an early- to mid-teenager. Iva Demilcol is even younger (not even ten) and he was recruited into the Imperial army.
• The Persona series makes frequent use of this, since each game frequently has a high school as one of its major settings, and high schoolers (usually in their 1st and 2nd years) make up most of the playable cast. Persona 3 has a more obvious example in Ken Amada, who's a 10- to 11-year-old elementary schooler.
  • Persona 2: Eternal Punishment averts this with its cast being all adults and the youngest party member being 18.
• Pokémon:
  • As mentioned on the Anime & Manga subpage, most of the protagonists in Pokémon are teenagers or preteens when starting out; ranging from the 11 of Red to the (at the very most) 16 or 17 of the Pokémon X and Y protagonists. The only ones to be even in their late teens are the protagonists of the Pokémon Ranger series and Wes from Pokémon Colosseum, who are all hovering around 17.
  • Pokémon-centric spinoffs such as Pokémon Mystery Dungeon and PokéPark Wii give Pikachu and various starter Pokémon the chance to become strong enough to defeat legendary opponents without even having the opportunity to evolve first.
• Raz in Psychonauts is a prodigy at a summer camp for psychics. The adults have their competence either power dampened from the beginning, or Deus Exit Machina'd before anyone has a clue something is going wrong.
• Punky Skunk: Punky and his friends are said by Badler to be kids.
• Brian of Quest 64 is said to be 10-years-old... or 5-years-old according to the time period in which it took place.
• Cody from Robopon gets put in charge of his grandfather's company at the start of the game, and becomes the number 1 Robopon battler on Porombo Island and Majiko.
• Guybrush Threepwood can be this in The Secret of Monkey Island, since he is implied to be around 16- or 17-years-old.
• Secret of the Stars had its action divided between a group of warrior children tasked with saving the world, the Aquatallion, and a group of adults, the Kustera, whose only purpose is to provide support for them.
• The protagonists of A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004) are all children with the oldest being fourteen and the youngest being an infant. You have to help the Baudelaires escape Olaf and his plan to take their fortune.
• Sonic the Hedgehog himself is 15-years-old, with a majority of his allies being below 18 and his oldest allies are barely even in their 20's. Tails is 8 and one of the most competent characters in the entire series. Deconstructed with the youngest, Cream and Charmy (both 6) who while pretty competent in a fight, lack the emotional maturity of the others and are often treated as the Tagalong Kid.
• Splatoon: The most well-known North American commercial for the first game hammers in the fact that you're not just a squid, but you're a kid as well. Most Inklings (said squid-kids) are content with engaging in turf wars against each other, but the games' single-player campaigns have your Inkling (or Octoling) taking up the role of an agent of the New Squidbeak Splatoon, usually to stop whatever Zapfish-stealing shenanigans the Octarians are up to. Canonically, the player Inklings and Octolings are described as being "at least" 14-years-old.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time has Baby Mario and Baby Luigi as two of the heroes who you control, along with their older counterparts, Time Travel and all. Of course it has to start with a Lampshade Hanging moment with Baby Mario rescuing Baby Peach from Baby Bowser.
  • The Yoshi in the Yoshi's Island series. In Yoshi's Story the only reason they avoided Baby Bowser's curse is because they hadn't hatched yet.
• Most heroes — as well as most party members — of the Tales Series are in their mid-teens. Tales of Symphonia features two party members who're 12 physically. Tales of the Abyss takes it to new extremes with a major character who's only 7. Luke, because he's a clone. Tales of Vesperia stands out for having the party led by a 21-year-old, the youngest human member is still 12 though (there is a 4-year-old but he's a dog, so still an adult).
• Tattletail is a Survival Horror game about a kid who can't wait until Christmas to open and play with their new toy, the Furby-like Tattletail... but then Tattletail starts getting out of its box on its own, and insisting its new owner play with it...
• Teenagent: Mark Hopper is a teen secret agent trying to find the criminal behind the bank robberies.
• The Tiamat Sacrament: Az'uar is the protagonist of this game, and he's a newly hatched dragon whelp. This is deconstructed in that while he has Blood Memory to make himself intelligent, his lack of experience causes him to be reckless and his more experienced allies have to remind him to choose his battles more wisely. After his siblings are hatched, he trains in preparation for fighting Lord Nephron and Darius.
• DeMille of Tomato Adventure is 8-years-old and the protagonist of the game, who has to save his 7-year-old girlfriend Patharan from being used by King Avira and his henchman to power the Super Caracooker.
• Treasure Hunter Man 1: Marvin, the protagonist, implied by one NPC's dialogue:
  Grumpy Housewife: Shove off, filthy kid! You are every mother's nightmare! I DO NOT EVER WANT A KID IF IT TURNS OUT LIKE YOU!
• Undertale has us playing as a boy/girl/kid that most fan analyses have declared is of preteen age. That doesn't stop them from having the ability to kill (or save) the entire underground BY THEMSELVES.
  • Deltarune: The three heroes, though older than the protagonist in Undertale, are heavily implied to be in their mid-to-late teens. Their age has nothing to do with the legend that they have to save the world.
• Venture Kid has you playing as Andy, a young boy on a quest to save the world from Dr. Teklov.
• A Very Long Rope to the Top of the Sky: When 12 and 14, respectively, Mint and Ivy, with the help of their grandfather, defeat bandits that were going to kill them and others, a trained swordsman, and rescue a king from a entity from beyond the universe.
• Clementine steps into this role in Season 2 of The Walking Dead (Telltale), taking over for Season 1's Lee since his death.
• Yo-kai Watch has an Ordinary Elementary School Student 11-year-old finding a mystical watch that allows them to see youkai. They proceed to go on various adventures with their yo-kai friends, admittedly behind their parents backs.

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