Top 12 Most Annoying Types of Character

I love video game characters, and that's important for playing games. If you're playing as someone you hate, you tend not to like that game. Still, there are some characters that annoy me, whether they're stereotypes, unlikeable, or just plain douchebags. Here's my top 12 least favourite character types, and I'm also going to put in an exception for ever type, and the ultimate anti-character for them.

12) The tutorial guy

This is mainly in PC games, but there's always some idiot explaining the rules to you. Above is Age of Mythology, lost cousin of Age of Empires, and both of these are prime examples of annoying tutorials.

"To command a soldier, click once on the soldier."

"Great! Now right click on where you would like the soldier to go."

"You have moved the soldier. Continue moving him down the path until you reach the flag."

"Excellent. To move more than one unit at a time-"

SHUT UP!!!

Most PC city-building games read out plans for each city in a snooty voice, which is equally annoying.
"I expect a population of 10,000 which shouldn't be a challenge in this area, along with a prosperity rating or 75%."

Exception: Dr Wright

Dr Wright is what tutorials should be. Quick, and easy. There's no long, drawn-out process with him, he'll just tell you what to do, then shut up. Thank you, Simcity. It helps that he's an assist trophy in Brawl too, so if you don't like him, he'l raise a skyscraper underneath your feet and kill you.

Antidote: Mr Resetti

Mr Resetti doesn't just tell you the rules if you break them, but he'll chew your ear off if you disobey. Easily one of the most lovable Animal Crossing characters (to me, not everyone else) Mr Resetti is a mole who can't be bothered to tell you the rules politely, and will instead give you such amazing lines like "SCRAM!!!" and "IT'S SO BRIGHT IT HURTS MY BRAIN!"

11) The guy with a gun

This is a low entry because, although it's common, it's not the character's fault, just the fault of the gun. Guns are pretty funky weapons, and at first, we loved them. Shooting stuff, in the face... guns were cool.

Then came the tirade of FPS games. In all honesty, when games like Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto have guns, I can understand it, because they're trying to be realistic. But Halo? Set in the future where you play as a robotic-looking guy, you're still using guns? Wouldn't it be so much funner with creative weapons, like the Bionic-Commando-Arm, or the Gravity gun?

Exception: Leon Scott Kennedy

Like I said, I don't mind games that have guns when they're realistic, and Leon is too badass to be slandered in any way, shape or form. Frankly, I'm willing to overlook the fact that nearly all of his weapons are types of gun, provided that he doesn't just shoot people, he also does insanely cool stuff like the video above.

That backflip through the lasers. Coolest video game moment... ever?

Antidote: Simon Belmont

Considering how many people use guns, it's awesome to see a character like Simon Belmont. He doesn't even use a sword or a crowbar. He uses a ****ing whip. And he STILL gets the job done, beating Dracula, Death, skeletons, zombies, and more.

10) The baby

Babies. In real life, they're not the most annoying thing in the world, because although you'd have to take care of them, it would be for a good cause, raising a child. But why would anyone want to raise babies or take care of them, in a game? This is the main reason girls I know don't play games. Every time they try to get into them, people say "Wouldn't you rather try Barbie Horse Adventures" or "Imagine: Babysitters"?

Babies in games are annoying outside of reality too. Baby Mario made Yoshi's Island a huge annoyance by making us constantly hear him whining and crying every time we got hit. It doesn't matter how badly Yoshi is injured, he still has to endure the cries of the baby floating in a bubble.

Exception: Ness

I have no idea exactly how old Ness is, but we can all assume he's safely under 12, and I've heard figures as low as 9 before. Now, a lot of protagonists in games start off young, but Ness had the advantage of his game being set in a modern time, in 199X rather than 650 AD in a different universe. For this reason, he was strangely relatable on his quest through 'Eagleland' to save the world.

Antidote: Commander Keen

Being 10 years old, having a spaceship, the Neural Stunner for a weapon, and an intergalactic radio made Commander Keen instantly likeable for a young gamer... me, 12 years ago. Seeing as he only had dialogue at the end of each level, if he rescued a council member, you didn't get tired of his little quips. He even made fun of the DOS graphics (every council member looked the same) by saying "You look a lot like the last guy I rescued..."

9) (For lack of a better term) The emo

It's hard to get into a game when the character you play as looks as though he's having as little fun as possible. You just killed a boss, crack a smile dude! You don't have to look pensive and deep in emotional thought all the time!

The worst thing about these characters is that they always look so sad, when something really bad in the game actually does happen... it's tough to make them look sadder. Part of you genuinely feels sorry for them, but part of you thinks 'He deserved it for acting like something terrible was happening from the start."

Exception: Crono

Crono could have been a really emo character. He has spiky hair, he stays silent all the time, and he's in a huge quest which could easily kill him. However, it's the little things that make him awesome instead. His battle animations, the victory movement he does when he wins, and the fact that there's a button in the game that makes him dance at some points all make him look cheery.

Antidote: Viewtiful Joe

Joe's here because, if you look at the picture above, you'll see that he could have turned out to be quite an emo character, but instead, he was cool. He had original powers, awesome fighting techniques, and starred in some ridiculously hard games.
HENSHIN-AGOGO, BABY! (I have no idea how to spell what he says... I THINK that's about right...)

8) The slut

I have nothing against scantily-clad women invading my video games, but there are some games that go a tad too far. A good game has awesome gameplay, controls and graphics. An awesome game has awesome gameplay, controls, graphics, and a half-naked chick. A competely average game has a half-naked chick.

The largest a woman's breasts are in a game, the crapper the game is. It's almost the law, although it doesn't apply to Soul Calibur 4. Still, with Dead or Alive Beach Volleyball games still being sold, the important question is...

Why don't you just use the internet for this stuff? It's free!

Exception: Lara Croft

Being one of the most recognised figures in gaming, as well as having Angeline Jolie playing her in the Lara Croft movies, I have to admit, Lara Croft games might not be all about hoping that her cleavage becomes exposed due to a glitch. Still, it's not a proud moment when you realise that she's the most well-known female video game character to date. (Yes, Samus is more famous than Lara to actual gamers, but who are non-gamers more likely to have heard of?)

Antidote: Chell

Although I've never played Portal, it's good to see that there's at least one woman in a well-known game who remains dressed during gameplay. (This isn't all for the sake of ranting. It's actually pretty harmful and influential to young girls to see people like Lara Croft wherever they look.)

7) The robot

Robots, masked men, it's all the same thing; game developers being lazy and leaving the character's face a mystery so that people feel mildly intrigued. It's been happening since the NES, and when it works, it works well, but when it's overused... it doesn't.

Don't get me wrong, this isn't Master Chief's fault, it's the fault of the other copycats who insist on covering their face the entire game. If you really want a mysterious character, why not do what Bioshock did and make your character unseen until the very end of the game? We need more of that, and less of robocop.

Exception: Samus

Like I said, robot suits and masks have been happening since the NES, but in Samus' case, it worked. For starters, she was the first person to use it, and secondly, it made it more important when we actually saw her face at the end. The trend has continued in later Metroid games, where we play the game as Samus in the hope that we get to see underneath her mask once more.

Antidote: Megaman

Megaman gets bonus points here for wearing the robot suit, and NOT covering his face. If he had, we would have been spending loads of time wondering what he looked like, but Megaman's tiny torso and huge head have always been visible to us from back in the day, and for that, I salute him.

6) The cowardly boss

We've all seen bosses like this, and to give an example, here's the 4 main bad guys of Resident Evil 4.

First off, Bitores Mendez, the Village Chief. You meet him 3 times, desperate to fight him, before it actually lets you. Next up, Salazar. This guy is just a major douche. You meet him in the first chapter of the castle (3-1) and he constantly re-appears, taunting you, but not letting you fight him until the end of the castle (4-4).

You meet the final boss, Saddler, right back at the beginning of 2-1 in the village, and again in the castle when he kills your friend Luis. After all this... you finally get to fight him, only to find out that your main villain was Wesker, who will get the sample Ada took from you at the end. That's 4 annoying bosses who are constantly running away from you, and you don't even get to fight the last one.

Having a boss who constantly runs away from you is good because it makes you more desperate to fight them. On the other hand, it's really, really annoying.

Exception: Giygas

This was the final boss of Earthbound, and he was only vaguely mentioned throughout the game, although the build-up to the final battle began to mention him more as a powerful force who could corrupt living things by powering their evil. Seeing as you don't hear much about him for a while, it was tough to still give him a distinct personality, and some of the best boss battle music ever, but it worked, and he succeeded in scaring the crap out of people by sounding genuinely insane.

Antidote: Lavos

Lavos is definitely the antidote of the runaway boss. Chrono Trigger was known for it's multiple endings, and that's mainly because after playing for short time, only a couple of hours, you could go to the final battle. It would be incredibly hard, and the ending wouldn't make much sense, seeing as you'd essentially skipped almost all of the game, but the option was still there, all the way through your quest.

5) Humanimals

Human-animals have always been risky video game characters, and while they sometimes work, usually they just end up as sidekicks or annoyances. Sonic was the original humanimal, and it went downhill from there, as publishers somehow thought "This game is terrible... what if we make it a squirrel instead of a man?"

In some cases, this does work, like Crash Bandicoot, Non 3D Sonic, Ratchet and Clank, but sometimes you end up with something in between that looks like it wandered in from an amateur Spore session. Non-human things trying to be human also mostly suck (Die, Ninjabread man!)

Exception: Donkey Kong

Donkey Kong isn't saving the world from an evildoer, or trying to stop the plans of a majorly evil mastermind. Instead, he's trying to either

a) Kidnap a mysterious woman named Pauline on a building site.
or

b) Get his bananas back!

He also saves the island that he lives on, and jams with some bongos. It doesn't make him realistic or human, but it does make him fun to play as.

Antidote: Amaterasu

I've never played Okami, but I've heard of Amaterasu and seen the game in action. Frankly, Okami is the video game that proves that games can be artistic, deep, and philosophical, and Amaterasu is all of those things too. A truly unique character.

4) The mucho macho manly muscle man

Yes, I'm daring to pick on Duke Nukem. It seems that any male character besides Mario has to be bursting with muscles and stereotypically strong enough to flick enemies away... without even touching them.

It's not that these guys are unlikeable (How can you not like the 'Falcon... PUNCH' of Captain Falcon?) but it's just, like I said, stereotypical that every guy has to injest kilograms of steroids into their bloodstream in between cutscenes in order to keep up their actions. Obviously it wouldn't be fun if you NEVER got to play as someone strong, but you shouldn't have to constantly play as someone who makes you look ridiculously weedy in comparison. Granted, just weedy is acceptable, but ridiculously weedy? No!

Exception: Paul Luther

Even though Eternal Darkness gave us one or two muscly characters, like Michael Edwards, it also gave us a few surprises. For starters, two of the characters (Roberto Bianchi, and Maximillian Roivas) are overweight, and run very slowly. But the biggest surprise was when Paul Luther, a monk who stayed in a cathedral during the Inquisition, was tasked with fighting the darkness. A religious, non-violent monk, ended up slaying zombies and bonethieves just as much as anyone else.

Antidote: Link

Link is still one of the most recognisable video game characters in the world, despite not being notably strong. Still, it's like Leon in Resident Evil 4; he's not ridiculously muscly, but you can still tell he's strong. Link has made his games great by not just shooting his enemies or punching them in the face, but using his wide arsenal of weapons to tactically take them down. Toon Link also emphasizes this point of 'Strong doesn't mean oversized muscles'.

3) The annoyingly cute things

While I could make an entire list entitled 'Top 12 most annoying Pokemon' it's easier just to call them annoyingly cute. The reason being is that they're not particularly bad for the majority of the time, but when they are, they can be ridiculously annoying. I once got into a Super Smash Bros Melee match where I was Captain Falcon playing against my 3 friends, who were Jigglypuff, Pichu and Pikachu. After I started winning, they resorted to constantly taunting me in an attempt to make me lose concentration.

On the plus side, it didn't work. On the down side,

"PIKA, PIKA!" "PICHU!" "JIGGLYPUFF!" "PIKA, PIKA!"

It was annoying. It doesn't help Pikachu that back on the Gameboy on Pokemon Yellow, it had the horrible sounding 'PIKACHU' when you pressed start at the title screen. Ordinarily, it would have been ok, but on a Gameboy, the sound was ugly.

Exception: Pikmin

Despite sharing the first 3 letters of Pikachu's name, Pikmin are hard to hate. Well, not really, but let me put it this way; it's hard NOT to feel guilty when they die. Despite their low IQ, they have a lovable loyalty to Olimar, and the mournful cries they give off when they die make you feel like a douche.

Antidote: Kirby

Despite obviously being aimed at a young audience, Kirby has touched the hearts of many older gamers. We don't know whether it's his awesome ability to copy people's powers, his simple design, his game's constantly snazzy music, or his amazing dancing skills, but Kirby isn't annoyingly cute. He's just cute.

2) The weak girl

Princess Peach, Zelda, other girls who always seem to get kidnapped repeatedly by the same people (HIRE SOME BODYGUARDS, MORONS) it's always annoying when you have to go through the same quest, over and over, to save the same idiot.

It's not just games like Mario though. Resident Evil 4 saw Ashley Graham, possibly the most annoying girl to save in the world, despite the fact that she's the president's daughter. I know it must be stressful being kidnapped, without having a weapon, with people trying to kill you or kidnap you again, but for the love of God, whenever we aim a gun, you duck, making the third boss-fight with El Gigante nearly impossible.

Exception: Jennifer

Jennifer in 'Clock Tower: The First Fear' is also a 'weak girl' character, except she's forced to be stronger when she finds herself separated from her friends inside a huge mansion, with a crazy scissorman chasing her. If she ever does come across one of her friends, they're usually not alive long enough to help her.

Antidote: Sheik

I'm aware I covered Zelda with this number on the list, but in 'Ocarina of Time' she actually does more than just get kidnapped. If you've played, and probably if you haven't too, you'll be aware that she disguises herself as Sheik, and stays in hiding for 7 years while Link is trapped in the sacred realm, and then she helps him on his quest. I know it's not as if she fights any of the bosses or travels through the temples, but from Zelda to go from 'Useless Princess' to 'Disguised helper' was more helpful than her normal role.

1) My personal most annoying character type...

The unhelpful helper.

Everyone in that picture who isn't Fox will be a pain to protect...

Escort missions, hint systems, we've all come across some form of help that's way more annoying than useful. It could be your 'Allies' in Starfox who require CONSTANT saving, even the truly useless ones like Slippy, or the arrogant ones like Falco. It could be Ada Wong in Resident Evil 4, who occasional helps you, only to steal the virus sample off you, dooming all remaining Ganados to a slow and painful death (I'll never understand why fans love her so much... oh wait *looks at number 8 on this list* Now I get it)

Sometimes it's constant annoyance. I was annoyed by Midna in Twilight Princess the moment she appeared, when she started ordering around Link, sounding arrogant and bossy, making him steal from his friends, and worst of all, having the story focus entirely on her, with barely anything on Link or Zelda.

Exception: (Nobody else will agree with me) Navi

I think I'm one of the only Zelda players not to be annoyed by Navi. The main reason is because everyone over-hypes how annoying she is. Everyone says "Oh, I hate Navi! She never shuts up! Constantly, 'HEY, LISTEN, HEY, LISTEN, HEYLISTENHEYLISTENLISTENHELLOHEY!' she's so annoying!" when in reality, she... doesn't do that.

She does it a few times when Link is in places where he might need a hint, and I think she does it when Link locks onto enemies (It's been a while since I played it) but that doesn't really annoy me since it's drowned out by the 'locking on' sound, and she only says it once. Still, people talk about Navi as if she never shuts up, and in my game, she wasn't annoying, just a helper.

Antidote: Sergeant Griggs

Sergeant Griggs matches the requirements to be an unhelpful helper. He was as harsh as an army sergeant should be, and ordinarily, that would have been annoying, like Falco to Fox. However, I don't recall Falco ever dying tragically trying to heroically pull Fox to safety in a gunfight at the end of a Starfox game. Griggs was mean, but it just made it more painful when he died.

Well, there's my ridiculously long 37-picture blog. If you made it this far, sorry for wasting 10 minutes of your life, and if you think you've found a more annoying character type, comment!

Thanks for reading!

-Elmo 3000