Top Ten Worst Fighting Game Characters
by Stephen Kelley, posted on 07 May 2011 / 16,444 Views
When one thinks of “fighting games” as a genre, a lot of character names come to mind. Names like Scorpion, Ken, Ryu, and Sub-Zero just to name a few. But with any legendary-tier character, there are about 10 bad characters in any fighting game. Whether it be unplayability, bad design, or an annoying trait, these guys scrape the barrel. Without further ado, here are the top ten worst fighting game characters, in no particular order.
Kon – Bleach DS series
Bleach DS was the little “fighting game that could” that proved that licensed video games could be awesome sometimes. I guess it helps when you’re made by a great company such as Treasure. All the fighters in the game were well balanced, and nobody played the same as another character. All was well… except for one character. For those that have seen the anime Bleach, you know of the little mascot character Kon. Kon is literally a “soul” that has been engineered by some scientists in the afterlife to act as a “puppet” soldier once placed into an empty vessel (e.g. a dead body or something.) This soul however is confined to the form of a small bear-like lion stuffed animal, making him worthless at just about everything. Now imagine this character as an option in a fighting game. Kon is that character that is picked for one of three reasons:
1) This is your first time playing the game and you don’t know any better.
2) You are a hipster and picking Kon is both funny and ironic.
3) You are a 10-year-old kid and all you do is play this game so you can beat anyone with Kon.
So why is Kon so bad? Well for starters he has basically one move, one which hurls him around the screen, and this move is neither impressive nor damaging in the slightest. Kon also dies quicker than anyone else. When one faces Kon, the only downside is that he, much like the Flea guys in Castlevania, is VERY hard to hit. Just say no to mascot characters!
Roll – Marvel Vs. Capcom series
Much like Kon above, Roll of Mega Man fame was added for the hell of it. One has to wonder why a character such as her, one with little offensive skill at all, would be picked for the game over another one that could actually fight. I guess for sheer novelty purposes she’s okay, but not a character that I can see myself using.
Rain – Mortal Kombat
Back when the guys that brought you Mortal Kombat had a boner for Ninjas dressed as Power Rangers adorning all the colors of the rainbow, all sorts of relatively worthless characters came about. In Mortal Kombat II, for instance, we had characters like Smoke and Noob Saibot, both of which were just colorized versions of Scorpion. Pretty soon they had added Chameleon, Ermac and Rain to the mix, the last of which was utterly horrible. Nothing Rain did stood out amongst the other characters – maybe that’s why he dies so quick in the second movie!
Mokap – Mortal Kombat
I had a hard time choosing between around four crap characters added into the later Mortal Kombat games as to which one was “the worst." Meat is pretty bad, as is Blaze, but one really stands out – Mokap. I bet the developers wanted everyone to say “Ha ha! It’s a motion capture guy in the game!”, but would any seriously use this guy? Just look at his bio: "Mokap is a motion capture actor with a vast knowledge of martial arts and fighting styles." UGH!
Drahmin – Mortal Kombat
The old saying is that “a giraffe is a horse made by a committee." I wonder if Drahmin was created the same way? This guy basically takes what was cool about monster characters like Goro,and craps on it. Not only isthe guy really hard to use, but he is annoying to fight and looks like a reject from a Mad Max movie.
Customizable characters
In theory, story mode characters should be fun to use, but that never happens. These are the characters that force you to learn their moves or customize them in a tedious storyline mode as seen in some of the later Mortal Kombat games, or a few Guilty Gear games. Problem is that at the beginning these guys are basically worthless and have no real abilities of their own, but then rise up to God-like proportions once said story mode is completed.
Yun – Street Fighter
Let me point out that Yun is not on the list for his fighting abilities; any Street Fighter fan could tell you that he is one of the better and more unique characters out there, problem is his design is so utterly overdone and ridiculous. The problem with Yun, and to a lesser degree his brother Yang, is that they are horrendously dated and cater too much to what was popular in the 1990s. Much like similar “in your face” Mountain Dew Swilling, Zubaz wearing, X-games watching characters, he is just plain silly looking.
ECO35-2 or "Coton" – Rise of the Robots
Honestly the entirety of the game Rise of the Robots should be on here, but I will mainly concentrate on the game’s main protagonist ECO35-2. I’m not sure who designed this game, but bad controls were the least of its worries. Gone were any sort of likeable and iconic characters, as seen in just about any popular fighting game, replaced with names that sound like model numbers for a washing machine. I mean who’s going to relate to this guy? On top of his character itself, this game had utterly terrible controls and despite the shiny graphics was a waste of everyone’s time.
Lizard Man – Soul Calibur
Lizard Man must be the most boring video game character ever made. I’d love to see the guy that labored for hours trying to name the character then settled on “Lizard Man." When speaking of reptilian characters, at least reptile does things like spit acid and scurry around on the ground, but all Lizard Man does is wander around in the beige color of mediocrity. I’m serious about this, even if a game contained a suit clad salary man/office worker it would be at least ten times more exciting than a character named “Lizard Man."
Fred Durst - Various (sadly)
Why for the sake of all that was mighty did Fred Durst appear in so many video games a decade ago? His popularity, talent, and credibility were fading about as quick as the Rap-Metal genre, but despite this a bunch of videogame execs all stood up in unison and said “you know who would be awesome in this game?”
Fred started out in the game WWF Smackdown: Just Bring it! And disappointed just about everyone who unlocked him. Here I was thinking that a true legend such as Andre the Giant would grace my screen, but instead I get a guy that named a CD “Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water." And if that wasn’t enough he later appeared in the horrendous Fight Club game. This is confusing, as no character like Mr. Durst appears in the original book Fight Club, nor is he in the movie. If I had my choice of white rappers to play as maybe we can all get playable versions of Snow instead? Remember that guy? No….?
What character do you think deserves to be on the list?
Join us again next week for another exciting top ten!
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