Title is pretty self-explanatory. This is my personal list of the 10 worst characters to ever appear in a video game. I tried to keep it to one character per series(though I failed in one instance) and I tried to avoid all of the cheesy, bland characters that showed up on the SNES.
Without further ado...here we go.
10. Vaan - FFXII
Final Fantasy has it's share of amazing characters: Shadow, Cecil, Kain, Cid, Sephiroth, and Terra immediately come to mind. However, Final Fantasy has also had its share of terrible, terrible characters. The worst of these is Vaan from Final Fantasy XII. It really was a toss-up between him and Tidus but Vaan won because of one scene; the infamous "I'm Captain Basch" scene. If you've played the game you know exactly what I'm talking about, if you haven't played the game you should, it's actually very, very good. However, prepare yourself for a very cringe worthy scene running through town yelling to people that you are, in fact. Captain Basch Fon Ronsenberg of Dalmasca!
9. Meat - Mortal Kombat: Armageddon
I think I had blacked Meat out of my brain and tucked him into the corner where I keep all of the terrible things I've seen and can't stand remembering. I was researching this article and thought to myself "Who is the worst Mortal Kombat character?" My initial thought was one of the many cookie cutter ninjas, Rain perhaps. But then I stumbled on an article about Meat and suddenly, like a blooming flower, a part of brain opened up and suddenly I remembered this atrocity of a character. Technically he made his first appearance in MK4 but he wasn't his own person until Armageddon. In 4 he was an alternate skin for any character. Just a meaty skeleton version with the same moves as whomever you selected. In Armageddon, they decided to "flesh" him out and make him his own man. He was apparently a failed experiment from Shang Tsung's "Flesh Pits" that escaped. His design was downright awful; a skinless humanoid male in a thong that constantly oozed blood and had an eye dangling from his head. His moveset was even worse then his design. Utilizing his own body parts, Meat would do things like roll his own head at his opponent, or yank out his eye cord, which when it snapped back would rejuvenate his health a little bit.
In a franchise with as many bad characters, it is hard to stand out. Meat is impressive for not only standing out as the worst, but he absolutely destroys the competition.
8. Otis - Dead Rising
Otis stands out on this list as the only character who doesn't have a particularly bad design. He's just an old, balding black man; nothing special at all to his appearance. However, he is exceedingly annoying. He spends the entire game calling Frank West to tell him about various things he notices at the mall: maybe a clothing store, or someone who needs help, Otis let's you know with a simple call to your two-way radio. He calls at the worst times sometimes. You can be surrounded by a thousand zombies and suddenly, Otis is calling. Still, this wouldn't be so bad if you could ignore him, but Otis will not be ignored...nor will he be hung up on. If he is telling you something and you suddenly molested by zombies and have to hang up, he will call you right back and give you a lesson in phone etiquette. If you don't answer, he will let it ring, and ring, and ring, and ring, and ring....you get the idea. So, for his iron-willed persistence alone Otis makes the list as one of the worst characters ever.
7. Marumaro - Blue Dragon
Blue Dragon is an excellent game, lets get that out of the way. I spent so many hours playing it that I would slightly embarrassed to admit to just how many it was. None of the characters are particularly good in this game. It suffers from the art direction of Akira Toriyama who most people will know from Dragon Ball Z. Nothing against Toriyama but his designs are dreadfully boring. He has about 3 different characters and then throws buckles on them. Marumaro is a monster sort of looking fellow, but it isn't his design that puts him on this list. He also isn't worthless as a character. He tanks really well and can deal out some solid damage. What puts him on this list is his voice and dialogue. He's supposed to be a kid, so I suppose some of the stuff he says can be forgiven, but not all of it. Everytime he talked I wanted to shove 6 inches of steel into my ear so I wouldn't have to hear it again. It really is that bad. The worst voice I've ever heard in a game spouting out ridiculous, and childish dialogue. Marumaro...I salute you.
6. Bubsy - Multiple Bubsy Games
Bubsy wins the "Completely Generic Platformer" award. Back in the days of Sonic and Mario, people were trying to cash in on the whole platformer craze and Bubsy was a product of that attempt. To be fair, the first couple Bubsy games were actually pretty good, but as a character, Bubsy was a complete bust. An anthropomorphic bobcat wearing a long sleeved white shirt with an exclamation point on it and, as is still popular with anthropomorphic characters to this day, no pants. You know, I've never understood the no pants thing. Is it that hard to put pants on cartoon characters? Then, why do some of them wear pants and others don't? This is a discussion for another blog I suppose, but let it marinate in your brain for awhile. I needed to fill up this paragraph on Bubsy with something because I just can't talk that much about the most generic character ever. His name is Bubsy, that's all you need to know.
5. Bomberman - Bomberman: Act Zero
There isn't a lot to be said here. The original Bomberman is awesome. A Cutesy sort of fellow with black eyes and a nifty little bomberman suit. He's lovable and huggable and squeezable all at the same time. When I heard they were making a new Bomberman and they were changing the character I could immediately smell something bad...like poop left too long in the sun, but I was wrong; it was so much worse. They didn't just change Bomberman, they raped him and left him in a ditch. They took the squeezable Bomberman and turned him into some
X-TREME futuristic, hardcore, robot thing that would be terrible on it's own. However, as a recreation of an amazing and beloved character. the new Bomberman finds a place on my list as one of the ten worst characters ever. And that's all I'm going to say about that. It literally makes me sad to think about.
4. Navi - Zelda: Ocarina of Time
HEY, LISTEN! The spoken words of Navi, the fairy who guides you through Ocarina of Time. Everytime there is something to say, Navi spits out those words like poisonous venom to your ears. By the hundredth time you've heard them, you want nothing more then to kill Navi with Link's bare hands; starting with the wings then shoving them down her throat so she can never again spout out her infamous phrase. The worst part is, when you do "HEY, LISTEN" to her, she is usually telling you absolutely nothing you didn't already know. The Zelda series has always been one of my favorites and has plenty of likable characters and hilarious glitches; "I AM ERROR" It also is the only franchise to have two characters on this list, and the second on is coming up next...
3. Tingle - Multiple Zelda Games
Who is the mysterious Tingle? Is he some sort of God or immortal creature? Some sort of fairy or just a weird, possibly homosexual, dude dressed in tights that sells maps? Who the hell knows? What I do know is that he is a abomination of a character. Obnoxious to look at and listen to, Tingle is the worst of both worlds. I wonder who thought of him...who sat down and thought that this was a great character to add to the Zelda universe? I'd like to meet him and just slap his face, slap it right off. On top of the terrible everything else, Tingle also has one of the dumbest catchphrases in gaming history, "KOOLOO-LIMPAH!"
*Ok, so while looking up his catchphrase, I stumbled on some real information on Tingle that I didn't know because I can't stand the guy and didn't want to really have to research him. Apparently he is a 35 year old man skilled in cartography that is obsessed with forest fairies...I think this information actually makes him worse.
2. Big the Cat - Sonic Adventure
The Sonic series has no shortage of mediocre to terrible characters. Outside of Sonic and Dr. Eggman, it is a regular pageant of just awful character design. The one that stands out amongst all of the terrible though, is Big the Cat. If you've only ever played the fantastic side-scrolling 2D Sonic games that you've probably never encountered Big the Cat, and a heart congratulations to you! For the rest of us though, we've been forced to deal with this atrocious character several times. Besides being a big, fat, purple cat in a belt, Big the Cat's biggest crimes was breaking up a very good game with tedious and boring fishing levels. I swear, it was like whoever was designing the game thought to themselves, "This game is too good. How can we mess it up?" Well, kudos to you! You did it!
1. Waluigi - Multiple Mario Party and Sports Games
I'm very passionate in my hatred for Waluigi. As soon as I decided this would be my next top ten I already knew he would be number one. Hell, before I was born, when I was merely a twinkle in my parents' loins, I was destined to hate Waluigi. He is the epitome of terrible character design. I imagine his creation came about because Wario needed a tennis partner and since he was Mario's evil opposite, they figured they should do an evil Luigi. Now, Wario works, it is similar to Mario, but Wuigi doesn't really work at all so someone, probably while drunk, just threw a wa in front of Luigi. Then, they made him purple and lanky, and he bends in weird ways, and he is just terrible. So terrible I can't express it in words here. So terrible that he should be unmade. If he had only shown up in the one game, then his creation could almost....almost be forgiven. However, they love him so much at Nintendo that now he shows up in pretty much every party and sports game with his stupid face and grating voice.
Congratulations to Waluigi for being the worst character ever in the history of gaming. It's a feat that I pray will never be topped. He is the ultimate in bad everything.
