Hey! Listen!
Hey! Listen!
Here's a top 10 of video game characters that need to die in a fire. There's lots of spoilers on this list, so if you don't want to learn about story elements in a game, don't read that entry.
#10 - The Beetle (Donkey Kong 64)
The main reason why I never beat Donkey Kong 64 is because I simply could not beat this guy. In Angry Aztec, the second world of the game, you encounter this stupid beetle, who challenges you to a race down a slide. The problem is that you have to collect 50 coins on the way down and still win, and he's so fat that he's hard to avoid. If you happen to run into him, you lose a bunch of your coins. If you dodge him, you'll likely fall off the edge of the slide. When you inevitably lose to him, he laughs at you with the most annoying laugh in all of gaming and says that "you're too slow". Yeah, one of his two lines in the entire game isn't even original.
I still can't beat the guy to this day, and if I had the game on the original N64, that N64 would most likely be destroyed as a result of my anger towards him. I hear that there's apparently more challenges with this guy, however, so maybe I'm better off not beating him.
#9 - Clyde / Blinky (The Red Ghost) (Every Pac-Man game)
I don't think anyone has a problem with Clyde. He's just one of the four main ghosts that have annoyed Pac-Man over the years. To me, however, Clyde is the bane of my gaming experience in any Pac-Man game.
Before I get into why I hate him, I should get something out of the way that might confuse all of you folks. See, Clyde is actually supposed to be the orange ghost and Blinky is supposed to be the red ghost, but in the Pac-Man World games, they made Clyde the red ghost. Since Pac-Man World 2 was the first Pac-Man game I played, I have always called the red ghost Clyde, despite his real name being Blinky. So for the sake of consistency, let me state this now. Whenever I talk about Inky, I'm referring to the blue ghost. Blinky is referring to the orange ghost, Pinky's pink, and Clyde is red. Even if that isn't technically accurate, that's what I'm going by.
Now that the confusion is out of the way, let's get into this.
Let's start with the original Pac-Man. The game is actually a lot more complicated than you may think. See, each of the ghosts have a different set of programming. Inky goes towards you but sometimes makes a few wrong turns. Pinky stalks you. Blinky moves randomly. Clyde, however, is the tricksy one. He's always the one that corners you. I can't tell you how many times Pinky chases me, I head for the power pellet, but Clyde cuts me off and kills me. It happens all the time.
Pac-Mania did the same thing. There are more ghosts in the game to compromise for your jumping ability, so what Clyde did was follow other ghosts at a distance so that if you tried to jump over a ghost, you'd land right on him. In that game the black ghost, Spunky (who I also hate, by the way) chased me into a corner. I can't jump over him because he jumps too. So I jump over the purple ghost (Sue), with the green jumping ghost - Funky - behind him. Funky doesn't jump real high, so it's not too hard to jump over him. What always happened, though, was Clyde, who was positioned just so that I'd land right on him.
Clyde's boss battle in Pac-Man World 2 is broken. Half of the time your hits don't count, and it's really hard to keep Pac-Man alive through a whole phase. He was the bane of my existence in that game too.
In Pac-Man World 3, you got to play as Clyde, but the thing was that he sucks. Whatever the boss' name is that you have to fight with Clyde is the most annoying fight in that game.
Ironically, since the redesign of the Pac-Man characters, Clyde is the orange one and is actually portrayed as the dumb one of the bunch. Blinky, who's now the red one, is the leader of the bunch, though, so I guess now I actually am enemies with Blinky.
Regardless of whether he is Blinky or Clyde, it's the red ghost that I despise and I always will hate him with a burning passion.
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#8 - Gruntilda the Witch (Banjo-Kazooie)
The thing that most people seem to neglect about Banjo-Kazooie is how well-designed a character Gruntilda actually was. So many villains, like Bowser or Donkey Kong, gained popularity just for being cool. They became playable characters in future spin-off titles and Donkey Kong got his own franchise.
Gruntilda is the villain that everyone loves to hate.
The entire time you play the game, Gruntilda taunts you with poetic insults. She wants you to get pissed off. And she definitely suceeded. I couldn't wait to go and kick her ass at the end of the game. I entered the final note door, revved up to fight and...
...I got a board game.
A board game.
And it was fun! I loved the board game, but it just made me hate her more. Not only is she doing everything she can to prevent me from pulverizing her, she taunts me the whole time with a board game and a fake credit sequence. When I was atop her lair, I beak bombed her to death.
#7 - Jojora (Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga)
Joke's End is a blemish in a masterpiece. But it's not just a blemish. It's a giant, pus-filled pimple. And who better to reside inside than Jojora, a bizzare spirit thing that taunts you the entire time. When you enter a new floor of the tower, she easily flies past obstacles that take you over 15 minutes to get past and claims that you are a failure.
The worst part about the whole thing is that you never get to fight her. In the boss battle, your main target is a giant "friend" that she "invited over". If you attack Jojora during the fight, she'll summon a giant snowstorm that heals her friend completely and kicks your ass.
Luckily, when you do beat her friend, she runs away crying like the little whiny b***h that she is.
#6 - Doopliss (Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door)
Chapter 4 of the second Paper Mario game always gives me mixed emotions. It's by far the best chapter from a writing standpoint, but it has the most repetitive and annoying gameplay ever concieved. But I think I know why.
Doopliss is a bizzare ghost thing that turned the people of Twilight Town into pigs for no reason whatsoever. When you encounter him and beat him rather easily, you think the chapter is over, but it isn't. Dooplis managed to steal your body and turn you into nothing but a shadow.
What a JERK!!!
After this, you encounter him again, and he asks you to tell him what his real name is, since you didn't know before. Unfortunately the "p" is missing from the keyboard that you are given to type his name out, so even if you knew the name, you couldn't avoid the inevitable. You have to go back and forth between Creepy Steeple and Twilight Town in order to obtain a new party member, the letter "p", and Doopliss' name.
The chapter was designed to be tedious to make you, the player, more and more pissed off at Doopliss. I really hate the design, but from a writing standpoint, it was actually really smart. It doesn't excuse the General White sidequest, but it does make Chapter 4 seem a lot more well-designed than at first glance.
#5 - Sonic the Hedgehog (the Sonic series)
I'm sorry, but I really don't like Sonic.
I plan to LP some of the old Genesis games at some point semi-blind, but it doesn't mean I like the character. In fact, it's quite the contrary.
I already made an hour-long rant on my YouTube channel about why I don't like the Sonic series and why I believe that the entire series is a rip-off of various other series, but I think it's the main character that puts the frosting on the cake.
Sonic is meant to be cool. His voice shows a huge amount of attitude and sarcasm. The problem with this is that Sonic isn't as cool as he's meant to be. In all honesty, he's quite a jerk. If you look in the TV shows and comics, you can see this a lot more prominently, especially in Sonic X. But he's a jerk in the games too. In the 3D Sonic games, Sonic always acts as if he's superior to everyone, and even though he is the main character, he shouldn't act like one.
For example, take the series that Sonic ripped off, Dragonball Z. Goku, the main character, is selfless. He died countless times for his friends and the whole world. Sonic has never died once as part of the main story. In fact, the only one who died was Shadow... but I'll get to him later.
I could talk about the games as well, but I won't. Even though Sonic is very slippery, I can't hate on something that people may like. I have to support this opinion with facts, not other opinions.
My point is that Sonic is the exact opposite of who he was intended to be. Sonic was intended to be a cool role model for kids to look up to, but instead he comes off as an arrogent, selfish prick.
#4 - Stuffwell (Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time)
This f***ing suitcase is the worst excuse for a helper in all of gaming. Everything he says irks me. Most of it is something the player can easily figure out, and when it is something useful, it's phrased so that it sounds annoying. Instead of Superstar Saga, which let NPCs and signs explain something, Stuffwell explains everything to you.
Instead of an optional tutorial led by a Toad, Stuffwell forces you to go through a 5-minute tutorial on basic platforming. In addition, when something is taught to the babies that the adults can also do, Stuffwell has to cue a tutorial for that too.
The worst part is what he says every single time he says something. Right before he lets you go back to playing the game, he has to shout "BACK TO ADVENTURE!!!". I'm sure you'd love to hear your friend say that everytime he says something to you while on a ski trip or something, right?
I hate Stuffwell, and he's the worst part about this rushed sequel.
#3 - Toad (Mario series)
I don't think people get it anymore. Toad was the most hated character of all time back in 1985. Now he's no big deal. Well I largely concur.
I think everyone knows what the problem with Toad was back in the day. You beat a world and thought that maybe you've finally saved the princess, but Toad always had to ruin your pride by saying "Thanks Mario, but the princess is in another castle!".
Peach even knows how annoying he is. She jokes about him in Super Mario Bros. 3 when you rescue her at the end of the game by mimicking what he says.
Nowadays, I hate Toad even more because of one reason, and one reason only. The f***ing Toad Brigade from Super Mario Galaxy.
Led by Toad, the Toad Brigade always wants to pull you out of the experience completely, by changing the music to the worst song in the entire game and telling you stupid unnecessary crap that we don't need to know.
Half of the time they just hand you the star, which is even more annoying. They're in a spaceship! Why can't they just fly the star over to you? Why do you always have to go to them? I hate playing through a fun mission and it ending by the Toad Brigade giving me a star. I hate it. I hate it. I hate Toad.
#2 - Bowser Jr. (Mario series)
My first Mario game was Super Mario World for the GBA. Even though I think the game is overrated, I can't deny that it's a great game. One of the better parts of the game to me was the Koopalings, who, despite being easy and unoriginal, had a lot more personality than in Mario 3. All of the Koopalings seemed to have their own quirks without having a fully fleshed-out character overshadowing Bowser.
Unfortunately, that all changed with Super Mario Sunshine.
Bowser Jr. is a spoiled brat who is a pathetic attempt at making a right-hand man to Bowser. Bowser Jr. is always found with some new toy that his daddy got for him, and he always is boasting about how great he is, even though he's pathetic. He's the definition of a spoiled brat, and I hate him for it.
To be fair, however, I had a personal experience with a spoiled brat that likely makes me hate this type of character more than most. Regardless, one can't deny that this kid is undeserving of everything he is given because he always manages to get it destroyed. He shows no respect towards Bowser, and believes that he's greater than he actually is. I hate him.
#1 - Shadow the Hedgehog (Every 3D Sonic game since Sonic Adventure 2)
The worst kind of character is a character that has no real soul. Even characters that were designed to be soulless have something to them.
Take GLaDOS. She has no soul, right? Then why does everyone like her as a character? Here's why: because she's just doing what she was programmed to do. Cave Johnson was going insane, and so his death wish was to put his daughter Caroline into a computer and have her run tests all the time, and that's exactly what GLaDOS does.
How does this connect to Shadow then?
Well, Shadow has no soul for a different reason. See, ever since he died in Sonic Adventure 2, Shadow doesn't know who he is. In fact, the Shadow we may know now might not be the Shadow from that game from what we learned in Sonic Heroes. Shadow never remembers anything, and that leaves him no room to grow. If he changes throughout a game only to forget it all, then there is no real change. Amnesia has been done right before, but Shadow is not a good execution of this tactic.
Plus, every personality aspect Shadow does have was directly ripped off from Vegeta, one of the greatest characters ever created in all of entertainment. His arrogence, pride, dark attitude, mysteriousness, and constant internal struggle are all things we see in Vegeta. His death in Sonic Adventure 2 was meant to convey the same exact emotional impact as Vegeta's death when attempting to kill Majin Buu. His pride is directly ripped off of Vegeta, who talks about pride all of the time.
Even the Super forms are ripoffs of Super Saiyans. The first Sonic game was released 6 months after Super Saiyans were designed artistically. Their use in Sonic Adventure 2 is once again a ripoff of DBZ, more specifically the fight against Imperfect Cell, who is a lizard, like the Biolizard, that was made by an insane scientist, just like the biolizard.
Shadow is a terrible character. All of his personality is ripped off from the best antihero ever created, and his amnesia is a pathetic excuse to make him more interesting than he actually is.
Shadow represents everything that I hate about a character, and I will never respect him for it.
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