Masters of Mockery

Fukua was originally introduced as a joke character on April Fool’s Day before she became a permanet fixture in Skullgirls Encore. She’s basically a pallet swap of another character named Filia and can be viewed as a lighthearted jab at clone characters from other fighting games. Fukua was revealed shortly after Decapre was introduced into the Street Fighter series. (Decapre was essentially a clone of Cammy, so many fans were underwhelmed when she was the final character announced for Ultra Street Figher IV.) The trailer the accompanied Fukua’s debut was a parody of Decapre’s reveal trailer and the references were anything but subtle. Although Fukua was initially used for an April Fool’s Day joke, Lab Zero decided to leave her in the game due to the positive response from the Skullgirls community.

Grand Theft Auto III featured an undercover cop named Tanner who was a parody of John Tanner from the Driver series. As an apparent reference to the unusual animations in the Driver games, Tanner walked like a girl. The developers of the Driver series fired back by including a character named Timmy Vermicelli in DRIV3R. His name and floral Hawaiian shirts were obvious references to Grand Theft Auto: Vice City‘s protagonist, Tommy Vercetti. In a humorous reference to the fact that Tommy was unable to swim in Vice City, Timmy Vermicelli had comically oversized hands and always had inflatable water wings wrapped around his upper arms. Timmy can be found in various locations throughout the game, but he was merely a parody character and had a relatively minor role in the grand scheme of things.

Lonely, awkward, and overweight, Francis is an overzealous fanboy obsessed with video games, anime, and hot babes. Although he frequents online discussion forums, he lacks the social skills required for face-to-face communication. When confronted by Princess Peach, Francis has to bring her into a dating sim called Swoon.exe in order to have a conversation with her. Even though he has no idea how to talk to a girl, he is somehow convinced that Peach is meant to be his wife. His shelves are lined with video game consoles and memorabilia, but he’s overcritical of his hobby and spends most of his time going online to tell everyone how stupid everything is. Francis even admits to complaining about games he’s never played. In short, Francis is a lampoon on the type of gamer who finds fault in everything but themselves.

Norimaro could be likened to Francis in that he’s depicted as a stereotypical nerd. He was designed and voiced by a Japanese comedian (Noritake Kinashi) as a representation of an awkward schoolboy, and he plays on a number of otaku tropes. His entire repertoire of moves exists for comic relief. He throws plush toys, slips on banana peels, and cosplays as other fighters. Naturally, he’s well-versed in comic books and has a strong familiarity with most of the Marvel characters in the game. He also makes snide remarks about them, and suggests that Apocalypse “seemed bigger in the comic” after meeting him. To no one’s surprise, he’s a bit of a pervert and seems especially fond of Chun Li. Norimaro was only seen in Japanese versions of the game, since many of the cultural references would have been lost on international gamers.

Marie Rose hails from Sweden and was born on National Sweden Day, but her very existence is a giant “fuck you” to the country’s PC police. DOA: Dimensions was banned in Sweden in 2011 for supposedly depicting underage characters in a lavish and pornographic manner. To highlight how ridiculous the issue was, Team Ninja created an underdeveloped babyfaced brawler with the body of a 12-year-old and the personality to match. A preteen girl obviously had no place in a series known for its overt sexual themes, but Marie Rose was apparently fair game since her in-game bio arbitrarily listed her age as 18 *wink*. She’s clearly out of place in a series that popularized jiggle physics, but Marie Rose was an instant favorite for anyone with a Lolita complex and is arguably the most popular character in the entire franchise.

Bad Box Art Mega Man (also known as U.S. Mega Man) doesn’t poke fun at rival companies, critics, or political ideologies. Rather, he exists solely to make fun of bad artwork that was used for the cover of the NES version of Mega Man. (The artist responsible for said artwork reportedly created it on a tight deadline without ever having viewed any of the source material.) In sharp contrast to the streamlined anime-inspired design of the “real” Mega Man, Bad Box Art Mega Man is depicted as an overweight, middle-aged man in a polyester jumpsuit. He arms himself with a handheld pistol for some reason, and Mega Man’s iconic arm cannon is nowhere to be seen. The creator of Mega Man argued that the Blue Bomber’s inclusion in Street Fighter X Tekken would be boring, but championed Bad Box Art Mega Man as something original.

Video game violence was a hot button issue in the ’90s and many American politicians attacked the industry. In response, Sega included a secret character in Eternal Champions: Challenge From the Dark Side named Senator who hailed from Washington, DC. Like real politicians, Senator lines his pockets by pushing the agendas of special interest groups. Eternal Champions is home to cyborg kickboxers and ancient gladiators, but Senator uses a fighting style called “dishonesty.” One of his moves involves him wrapping his rivals up in red tape. Another maneuver sees him throwing “ban” signs at his opponents to prevent them from attacking. He also becomes invulnerable by waving tiny American flags, uses “Vote” pins to stab his enemies, and deflects projectiles by standing behind a podium and angrily pointing.

Conker was conceived as a colorful, Disney-esque mascot. His Nintendo 64 game was first revealed as a family-friendly platformer in the vein of Banjo-Kazooie, but Rare changed gears in the middle of development and decided to market the game to a mature audience instead. With its sexual innuendo, excessive violence, scatalogical humor, and references to drugs and alcohol, the content in Conker’s Bad Fur Day helped distance itself from typical 3D platformers of the era. The game began with Conker attacking an N64 logo with a chainsaw, and this set the stage for all that followed. Conker made fun of typical platforming games and destroyed convention at every turn. In essence, Conker was Rare’s way of making fun of themselves. After all, nobody was more closely associated with the genre than they were.

In 2010, PETA released a satirical browser game called Super Tofu Boy that featured pro-vegetarian messages and facts about meat consumption. The game was PETA’s way of protesting Super Meat Boy, and Meat Boy himself was even featured as the final boss. In turn, the developers of Super Meat Boy responded by including Tofu Boy in their game. In other words, Tofu Boy is a parody of a parody. In a not-so-subtle jab at PETA members and vegans in general, Tofu Boy has an inflated ego and is not as effective as he thinks he is. Due to an iron deficiency, he has the lowest speed and jumping height of all the characters in the game. He’s incapable of finishing most of the levels, in fact. Not only is Tofu Boy malnourished and virtually useless, but he’s so miserable that he often requests his own death.

SNK released Art of Fighter in the wake of Street Fighter II‘s success. Its main character (Ryo Sakazaki) had many similarities with Ken and Ryu from Street Fighter. Capcom responded with the creation of gaming’s quintessential joke character. Dan’s body is cleary based on Ryo Sakazaki’s while his head takes inspiration from another Art of Fighting character named Robert Garcia. Dan is an overconfident fighter who basically plays like a weaker version of Ken and Ryu. His self-developed “Strongest Style” is anything but, and his pink gi highlights how unorthodox he is. His fireballs lack range, his dragon punches look pathetic, and his arrogant taunts leave him wide open for counter attacks. Dan’s intentionally underpowered, so he’s the perfect character for players who want to showcase their skills.