10 Irritating Characters From Computer Games (Part 2)
This post was a continuation of a list of the most annoying characters to appear in computer games. This list consisted of named characters, types of enemies were not included, and the list was personal to myself, so it only included games I had played and characters that I found irritating.
5. Tingle from The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker
Link rescues this strange man dressed in green, who plays an integral part of the story by translating the maps Link finds that lead to the pieces of Triforce. Tingle is useful, necessary and an extortionist. Each time Link finds a map, he has to return to Tingle’s Tower (a large wooden structure standing on an island in the middle of the sea, with Tingle’s face on the top), pay a large sum of money to him and then use the translated map to find the location of the piece of the Triforce.
It was surprising to learn that, in his quest to save the Great Sea, Link had to pay substantial sums of money to someone who prioritised profits over preventing extinction. It was also irritating that the player sometimes had to find money to pay Tingle, as it added a delay between the enjoyable parts of completing a challenge to find the treasure map and exploring the Great Sea to locate the artefact. Just to emphasise this character low morals, he appears to have enslaved two characters that resemble him, with one dressed in bright white and the other dressed in bright pink, with the sole purpose of rotating the top of his island.
Incidentally, is Tingle supposed to represent something? When he first appeared in the Majora’s Mask game, he was shown to be a grown man obsessed with finding fairies. He had no special powers (other than being able to create balloons using magic, which allowed him to float above the ground) and was always dressed in green tights. He also performed a short dance once he saw Tatl the fairy. The player could also meet Tingle’s father, who seemed a little upset that his son wanted to search for fairies, and could blackmail this character with a picture of Tingle dressed in his strange outfit. Weirdly, Tingle never appeared in Clock Town at night. Is this supposed to hint that Tingle is supposed to be an allegory for something?
4. Slippy Toad from Lylat Wars
In Lylat Wars, a team of fighter pilots embarks on a series of combat missions on planets and in areas of space to reach the enemy’s home base for a final battle with the villain. This group is made up of the brave leader Fox McCloud, the cocky Falco Lombardi, the seasoned veteran Peppy Hare and the annoying Slippy Toad.
Slippy, with his high-pitched voice and manner, always seemed like a teenage sidekick, introduced to make the game more family friendly, and always seems to need help during battles. During one mission, he could rush forward to attack the boss, but the enemy easily sent him hurtling towards another planet, which forced the player to land to rescue him. The most irritating aspect of this character is the subtle blackmail he inflicted on the player. Unlike the rest of the team, Slippy actually had a use as he could analyse each boss’ energy to display their health and, without him in the fight, the player couldn’t tell how badly damaged the boss was.
Incidentally, if Slippy was not so irritating, there seemed to be a number of other characters that would be included on the list. I could have included the sarcastic Falco, the overly paternal Peppy, the arrogant Star Wolf (who was surprised whenever the player performed a loop), the over-confident Leon, Andrew (who was blatantly only accepted onto the Star Wolf Team because his uncle was their employer) or Pigma (who constantly reminded Fox of his dead father, although he was the one who betrayed the older McCloud).
3. Child from Goemon 2
Despite the warning advice from the man who issued it to her, Yae obtains the necessary licence and begins work in a call centre. On her first day, she answers the phone to a kid asking if the thunder god can steal his belly button, followed by a plea for her to not scare them. The player now has to select a series of responses to this ridiculous question and the following conversation without making the kid hang up in terror. Following the completion of this challenge, Yae can return and discuss with another child (or the same kid, it is never explained) how they can become a computer game designer.
This challenge seemed to resemble a first day in a job in Tartarus, the Ancient Greek’s afterlife, where evil people had to complete impossible, repetitive tasks with no end. Each time the player selects the wrong response (some of which seem quite innocent), the kid will suddenly scream in fear and hang up, meaning that the player will have to start the challenge from the beginning. This made the challenge repetitive and unpredictable. The task could also be especially annoying if the player found out that none of the responses of a conversational thread were correct and they had to rediscover a new series of answers.
2. Hyper Sonic from Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Sonic and Knuckles
The player feels elated, they have accomplished the most challenging aspect of the game, obtaining all the Super Emeralds, and the game has informed them that they now possess the ability to transform Sonic into Hyper Sonic. They feel their excitement growing they collect the necessary fifty rings. Suddenly, Sonic leaps into the air and, with a shrill cry, his skin turns a blinding white, meaning he has achieved a full transition into the high speed Hyper Sonic.
The secondary player inwardly sighs as the character they are controlling, Tails, watches as Hyper Sonic runs away from them at high speed and demonstrates his ability to soar through the air. The secondary player, after using Tails’ flying ability to help Sonic reach difficult areas and his invincibility to test traps before Sonic could be harmed, knows that they are now redundant as Sonic’s new abilities means he has no use for Tails, who moves too slowly to catch up with him.
This was a strange character to add to the list because the player could complete the game without encountering Hyper Sonic (in fact, the player has to complete a lot of work to encounter the character) and he is immensely useful in completing the rest of the game. Instead, he was included on the list because of the irritation he caused anyone who played the game as Tails, as the Hyper Sonic caused the game to change from a cooperative game, with one player helping a more dominant one, to one where a single player has all the tools they need to defeat the villain alone. Because of the Hyper Sonic’s speed and the fact he needed to keep collecting rings to maintain his Hyper Sonic transformation, it means that the player had no choice, but to leave Tails behind while they raced to finish the adventure.
1. Lankey Kong from Donkey Kong 64
Following his rescue in Angry Aztec, this character joins the other members of the Kong family to defeat King K. Rool. Described as having a “funny face”, this orangutan used his comedic long arms and wacky attacks to defeat enemies.
There were so many reasons why this character was so irritating. He was reminiscent of the eccentric characters from comedies, the characters added to popular comedy shows whose most prominent personality trait was just “weird”, who used jokes that just consisted of random lines (which seemed to be an excuse for writers to add any joke they can think of in a desperate attempt to be funny) and over the top slapstick routines. As a result, Lankey seemed to be constantly making weird noises, twirling his long arms around and swinging his arms around his body, which made him extremely annoying to fight in multiplayer. The character-specific boss he fought was a potentially interesting battle ruined by bad controls and I always seemed to find his blue bananas when I was controlling another character.
In the Donkey Kong 64 game, each of the characters can obtain unique skills, a firearm and a musical instrument, which were interesting and useful, with the exception of Lankey. Lankey’s skills included handstands (which were very useful), faster handstands and a ballooning ability (which was like other character’s skills, but slower). Lankey could also purchase a blowpipe (which was useless if the enemy was too near) and a trombone (which suggests desperate comedy). He was also the character that entered the banana barrel which held the impossible “Beaver Bother” challenge.
What was your opinion of the list? Were there some characters that should have appeared on the list, but didn’t? Or did you not think some of the entrants were actually irritating? Please comment below with your thoughts.
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