Stalk This Way

After being saved from street thugs by a martial artist named Jann Lee, Leifang was determined to show that she could have handled the situation herself. After mastering the art of Tai Chi, she sought to prove her strength to Jann Lee by beating him up. Leifang entered the first Dead or Alive tournament, but was defeated by Jann Lee. Leifang continued to perfect her fighting skills, but was defeated by Jann Lee in the next two tournaments as well. Leifang would finally achieve her goal in Dead or Alive 4 when she got the better of Jann Lee. With nothing left to prove, Leifang entered the fifth Dead or Alive tournament and got beat up by Jann Lee for the fourth time. Leifang’s dedication to self-improvement is admirable, but it’s clear that her obsession with Jann Lee is partially driven by romantic attraction.

Booster lives a sheltered life in his tower of amusement. Rather than following women around, he simply waits for them to come to him. When Princess Peach falls from the sky near his tower, Booster takes her dramatic entrance as a sign that they should marry. Booster promptly locks Peach up and waits for the perfect time to wed. Peach protests as strongly as she can, but her pleas fall on deaf ears. Booster thinks he’s keeping Peach entertained and even mistakes “MARIOHELPMEMARIOHELPME” as an expression of her happiness. When Peach starts to cry during their wedding ceremony, Booster questions what could possibly be making her sad. After forming an unlikely alliance with Bowser, Mario successfully crashes the wedding and rescues the princess. Booster is left wondering when his next bride will fall from the sky.

Kimmy Howell is a university student who is smitten with an assassin named Travis Touchdown. She’s so enamoured with him, in fact, that she decided to become an assassin herself. While it’s certainly not unusual for a student to play a musical instrument, it’s a safe bet that most students probably don’t play a flute that doubles as a dual-blade beam katana. In an ill-conceived bid to prove her worth to “Travis the Great,” she writes him a cringey love letter and challenges him to a duel to the death. Kimmy realizes that anyone can claim to be a Travis fangirl, but she feels that cutting his head off would somehow prove her devotion to him. (Yeah, I’m not sure how that was supposed to worth either.) Despite finding Kimmy to be extremely annoying, Travis opts to let her escape with her life after defeating her.

At various points in the Monkey Island series, LeChuck is known as an evil-ghost-pirate, an evil-zombie-pirate, and an evil-demon-pirate. It would probably be easier just to call him a creepy-stalker-pirate. LeChuck is obsessed with pursuing the affections of the beautiful Elaine Marley. Elaine was the Governor of the Tri-Island Area and had no time for a megalomaniacal pirate in her life. Rumor has it that when she told him to “drop dead,” he took it literally! His obsession only seemed to build after his death, and he has since strived to make Elaine his undead bride. Despite LeChuck’s intelligence and extensive use of powerful voodoo magic, he is unable to win Elaine’s love. LeChuck’s persistence has forced Elaine to play the role of damsel in distress on many occasions, but she’s usually perfectly capable of handling things herself.

The first female character introduced into the Sonic series, Amy Rose has an obvious crush on everybody’s favorite blue hedgehog. She views him as her boyfriend, but Sonic rarely pays attention to her. Incidentally, Sonic is too busy saving the world and trying to bang human chicks. This doesn’t stop Amy from trying, and she has been attempting to win his heart from day one. Her level of obsession varies from one game to the next. In Sonic CD, she merely clung to him like a lovesick puppy. In Sonic Battle she hallucinated that Sonic was fighting by her side. In Sonic Chronicles it initially appeared that Amy had moved on, but it was revealed that she had simply made up a boyfriend in an effort to make Sonic jealous. It took a little over a decade for her obsession run the gamut from healthy attraction to full-on stalker.

When Sakura made her first appearance in Street Fighter Alpha 2, it was already obvious that she was infatuated with Ryu. This obsession extended far beyond your typical schoolgirl crush, however. Sakura was so impressed after watching Ryu compete in the first World Warrior tournament that she decided to become a street fighter herself. To her credit, Sakura managed to emulate many of Ryu’s moves and techniques. She wanted to become a stronger fighter, so she decided to follow Ryu around the world in the hopes that he would train her personally. Ultimately, Ryu took some time to spar with Sakura, but felt that he was not yet ready to train her. Sakura has proven herself to be a patient and disciplined warrior, but her obsession with Ryu prevents her from becoming her own fighter.

Tharja is a dark mage with a rebellious streak. She’s rude and sarcastic around most people, but becomes instantly enamored with the player’s avatar from the moment she joins their army. Tharja develops an unhealthy obsession for the player (regardless of their gender) and follows them around everywhere they go. She makes note of every move they make, what books they read, and even how often they move while they sleep. She’s willing to change her entire personality to impress them, and threatens anyone who interferes in her plans. Tharja has little interest in risking her life in a conflict with neighboring nations, but goes to great lengths of winning the affection from her potential mate. If the player chooses to pursue a relationship with her, Tharja warns them against changing their minds and threatens to murder them in their sleep if they do.

Given her appearance, you wouldn’t think Mai would need any help from Cupid’s arrow. Not only does Mai have a beautiful face, a killer body, and the bounciest breasts I’ve ever seen, but she also wears very revealing clothing and isn’t afraid to put herself out there. In short, it would be virtually impossible not to notice her. She’s the type of girl who could have almost any guy she wants. Like so many girls in her situation, Mai is infatuated with the one guy who doesn’t want anything to do with her. Mai has had many suitors, but she’s obsessed with Andy Bogard and even plans to marry him and start a family. Astonishingly, Andy is too absorbed in his training to pay any attention to her. Mai could very easily move on to any number of guys, but she refuses to give up on Andy for some unknown reason.

After a night of heavy drinking, Vincent is seduced by a beautiful young woman named Catherine. Vincent was already dating a woman named Katherine, so he wants to put the indiscretion behind him. Catherine refuses to end their tryst, however, and repeatedly shows up at his place unannounced. When the two women finally meet, they get into a heated exchange. Catherine unleashes a barrage of insults before attacking her with a knife! Vincent then awakens from an apparent nightmare to find that Katherine had no recollection of what had transpired. Doubting his own sanity, Vincent looks for proof of Catherine’s existence. He eventually learns that she was a succubus who takes the form of a man’s fantasies and tempts them into cheating in their own minds. Her ultimate goal is to ruin their relationships and free up their partners for better men.

This list isn’t light on delusion, but the entire plotline in Braid was the product of a character’s delusions. The story presented to the player revolves around Tim’s attempts to rescue a princess from a horrible monster. Tim’s relationship with the princess is vague, but themes of atonement and frustration are evoked as the game progresses. The central gameplay mechanic in Braid involves Tim’s ability to control the flow of time, and this also plays an important role in the story. As it turns out, Tim was the horrible monster all along and the many traps that he encountered during his journey were meant for him. Tim’s ability to control time ultimately changed the manner in which the story was presented, and painted him as a hero who was trying to rescue a damsel in distress. In reality, the princess had been running from Tim the entire time.