It’s fair to say that it isn’t the graphics that use up most of the budget. As this is🍨 a comedic side-scrolling RPG, the writing is just as important as the graphics, and the Loathing series has never disappointed in that department.
Welcome back to a 1920s Lovecraftian nightmare, packed with all the groan-inducing gags you’ve come to expect. However, humor alone isn’t enough to sustain you through a 20-plus-hour RPG — you need to love the characters too, whether they’re fleeting one-time NPCs or continuous companions throughout your journey. 🌟Here are some of our favorites.
6 ဣ ꦕ Tony Fiasco
Our love for Tony ♏Fiasco is largely a business decision. In fairness, who doesn’t love a recurring NPC who continues to give you free stuff throughout a game? Someone you know will always be sitting in their little corner of the map, waiting for you to pop 𒊎by, so they can give you some Meat. Love that guy.
You’ll find Tony in his Hat Photo𓄧graphy shop onꦓ the Boardwalk in Ocean City. Every time you find a new hat, you can don it and pop in to see him. He’ll shower you with compliments and give you 30 Meat for your trouble. Plus, his sign changes to show you your most recent fabulous hats. What’s not to like?
5 Tꦛhe Elderly Wanderer
Every time you wander between two destinations on any of the maps in Shadows of Loathing, you will have some sort of encounter. These can be as simple as finding a rock (groovy) or starting a long conversation that inevitably ends in fisticuffs. Or, they can be daft set pieces that ꧋do nothing more than amuse whil💟e giving you a few XP or Meat.
One of our favorites of these (spoiler alert: there’s another one coming soon) is the Elderly Man you can meet while wandering around Crystaldream Lake. It’s always the same conversation and the same meager reward, but somehow it is funny every time. "Mister, I&rs🐟quo;m not a payphone," you say. "That’s what the last payphone said, and I’m not buying it!" he replies. Maybe you just have toไ be there.
4 Rufus
Rufus is a nervous guy in his late 40s who works in his secret lab beneath the SIT 𒉰University Campus. He’s a key figure in Chapter Three of Shadows Over Loathing, giving ⛎you the Fishmother side quest. He’s a former teacher, searching for his missing brother, which is about as questy as quests get in an RPG.
There is some solid dad humor weaved into his tale, and also through his lab, but what’s nice about Rufus is that he feels like a proper NPC in a proper grown-up RPG. Almost as if the devs thought 'let's put this guy and these quests in to show the players it’s not all laughs and giggles. We’re an , but we're excellent at this stuff.' Either way, we totally got into his quests.
3 💜 Johnny, The King Of The Hobos
We couldn’t have a best-side-characters-in-Shadows-Over-Loathing list without featuring a hobo. Yoജu’ll meet Johnny when you first find the Hobo Camp on the outskirts of Ocean City, and he continues to be a character you’ll speak to throughout the game, giving you side quests and unveiling all kinds of key info.
As well as being an important storyline character, he also delivers some of the biggest groaners. Learning hobo code is one of the keys to the game, and you have to work a bit to get any info f♏rom Johnny. He then tells you he’ll grant you a boon. And what is that boon? "The hobo ꧅code symbol for a boon." I’m here all week.
2
You!
It may seem a little arrogant to name yourself as one of the best side characters in Shadow of Loathing, but you can be incredibly handy. It is a very silly game, after all. Once you start messing with time, you’re kinda asking for trouble, so it’s nice when the paradoxical nature of it all t💞hrows you the occasional bone.
When you start to explore the Crystaldream Lake area, you can come across yourself as yo🐻u wander. Being nice to yourself can result in a little XP as well as some Meat. Wander more, and you may meat (ho ho) yourself some more, with incr🃏easingly productive results. Unless they’re not, of course. But that’s up to you, in more ways than one.
1 Gabby
For us though, you simply can’t get a better companion than Gabby. She is with you🤪 right from Chapter One, when you’re introduced to her in Murray’s Antiques by Jessica. While you’re wandering the map, she’ll often give you a Taffy from her purse and never expects a thing in return. She’ll also stick with you to the end if you let her, a tඣrue companion.
Gabby’s turn of phrase a💜lways raises a smile, and she’s relentlessly positive. As she says, "All is keen as a peach!" In battle, both 𝔉her attacks and heals can save the day. Her little side quests add nice (if weird) depth to her character, and in the last dance of all, Gabby will save the universe. Those that know, know.