The Most Annoying Video Game Characters We've Had to Put Up With Over the Years

We still hate them.

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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We love video games, and game developers, but every now and then they produce a character so annoying and unrewarding we wonder what the hell they were thinking.

Either they’re overly hard or irritatingly voiced but they always get in the way of enjoying the game.

Here’s our list of the ten most annoying videogame characters we’ve been forced to put up with. We couldn’t kill them outright because we need their services, like Tingle in The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask or because the entire game was built around them, like the unforgivably aggravating Ashley Graham from Resident Evil 4, who whined and complained her way all the way onto our list.

We hope developers will learn from these mistakes and move on to more complex and less cringe-worthy characters. However some series like Final Fantasy are always going to be replete with cringing crybabies. While we don’t condone character assassination, these examples do it all to themselves.

These are The Most Annoying Video Game Characters We’ve Had to Put Up With Over the Years

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1. Mad Clown

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Game that spawned them: Super Punch Out

The original Mike Tyson's Punch-Out! was the best damn punching simulator out there.

But you had to face off against a lot of deplorable stereotypes: A crazy German military instructor who really wants you down on the matt, Piston Honda who has some pretty complicated dialogue - "I'll give you a TKO from Tokyo" - and let's not forget King Hippo, who's just a Hippo we guess. As the series progressed into the Super NES era, with the aptly named Super Punch-Out!, we got a whole new set of characters, not the least of which was the highly annoying Mad Clown.

Now you say, who doesn't want to beat the crap out of a clown? We hear you masses and to this we say 'everyone does' but there is a time and place for a clown beat down and this should not have been one of them. After a nervous breakdown, this failed opera singer turned – naturally - to the Italian circus and then to boxing.

Throwing punches between juggling attacks, ear claps, and illegal back-fists this guy gave us nightmares for weeks.If you're lucky enough to play the arcade version of Punch-Out look for the aptly named and equally stereotypical Vodka Drunkenski, he's Russian; could you tell?

2. Covetous Shen

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Game that spawned them: Diablo III

By every right we should love this character. Voiced by the great James Hong whose voice and likeness have been in countless films - from Blade Runner to Big Trouble in Little China - we're pre-programmed as movie lovers to pull his character, Covetous Shen, close to our bosom just as we release him from his talking barrel. But why doesn't he shut up! Moreover why isn't on of the main playable characters voiced by Mr. Hong?

Nobody cares where your friend Gavin went; we don't want to hear your architectural critiques on dungeons. We know you're hungry, so why didn't you pack some food in that barrel before you locked yourself in there? He also conveniently forgets to tell you the item you're searching for is cursed and he's the only one who can fix it, for a price.

You have to deal with Covetous Shen's ramblings and, worst yet, completing Shen's dialog earns the player an achievement but that was busted until patch 1.0.5. So player's ramblings to Shen about every detail of his life was completely futile. Now that's annoying.

3. UnDead Merchant

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Game that spawned them: Dark Souls

The voice alone from the Undead Merchant in Dark Souls makes the list.

Not to mention he keeps telling you that you've gone crazy, has an imaginary friend, is damn hard to find in the first place and his prices are, to die for. Not to mention he's holding out on that Samurai sword you've always wanted! But if you want to make it through the beginning of the game you at least have to play nice because he has things you need.

By the time you've played Dark Souls the first time and finally get to Undead Burg and manage and accidentally find this merchant – thanks for the great location buddy – you're greeted with this blathering bastard. He cackles madly at you and asks, "You've gone made, have you?" Yes, damn it; I have, please give me something good. But instead you have to sit there while this crazy bag of bones strokes his imaginary pet, a pot named Yulia.

Our guess is that it was this crazy dude's snake and apparently all snakes go to heaven because he's noticeably missing. At least there's something you can do about this annoying guy. We trained and trained, killing the drake and nabbing as many souls as possible.

Then when you've grown tried of buying firebombs and have enough arrows to last you, buy up the rest of the Undead Merchant's crap and take care of business. Be warned though, he wields a sweet samurai sword, the Uchigatana and prays for his "little Yulia" to help, but take him down, take him down!

4. 343 Guilty Spark

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Game that spawned them: Halo-Combat Evolved

You'd think the collected knowledge of an ancient civilization preserved in a self reliant, robotic form charged with the preservation of all sentient life in the universe would be at least be matched with a voice that would make sentient life want to talk to it.

343 Guilty Spark exists to manipulate you with his overly happy tech-babble. We couldn't wait to kill this flying toaster soon enough. Bungie originally designed 343 Guilty Spark to sound and interact similar to C-3PO from Star Wars but ended up with something far more annoying and evil, closer to HAL-9000 from 2001 SpaceOdyssey.

When 343 Guilty Spark, also affectionately know as light bulb, shows up halfway through the original Halo we were scratching our heads, did we buy the right game? Spark keeps leading you around, getting you to do is bidding, is even helpful for a minute before he finds another halo flood bomb to jump on. Leading you into impossible situations and eventually trying to get everyone killed in a bid to save his precious universe destroying doom ring.

Thank you Bungie for finally letting us kill this guy, but it didn't happen soon enough.

5. Yuffie

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Game that spawned them: Final Fantasy VII

For a ninja princess, and thief, Yuffie does an awful lot of crying and whining in Final Fantasy VII.

If you have the displeasure of actually accepting her into your group – let's face it, we all did – you get treated to her hyperactive teenage tendencies and thieving ways. Granted the Final Fantasy series is rife with annoying characters and most, unfortunately, are skewed to the female persuasion.

Yuffie holds a special place in our hearts because she'll cause you to get decent missions and potentially get you lots of experience but steals all your magical materia and proceeds to ask double questions and follow you around nagging. While other party members are good for a bad quip or a knock-kneed crying spell, Yuffie is out to get you.

So aside from being overly cheerful and annoyingly perky, her stealing all your goodies can end up causing way more damage to your game by limiting your magic and offers exactly nothing to the gameplay or storyline, thanks Square Enix, thanks a lot.

6. Tingle

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What game spawned them: The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

Why did Nintendo decide it would be a great direction to add a weird, nearly pedophilic wanna-be forest fairy in the Zelda series and then force you to interact with him?

It's a 35-year-old man in a green suit, if we wanted to see that we'd break out our own balloon-backed forest fairy outfit from comic-con last year. We rate this number one costume to get you mistakenly arrested for pedophilia on the city bus. Tingle makes his fabulous debut in The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask and as a forest fairy fan boy bedecked like our hero but lacking sword or wit.

As much as you'd like to get away from this guy you inevitably need the maps he produces as an amateur cartographer. So you're forced to deal with him if you're going to find your way. Once you locate this little floating weirdo you've got to pop his balloon so he can plop down and start annoying the crap out of you with his trademark fake-magical phrase, "Kooloo-Limpah!"

Unfortunately you can't kill Tingle within the game – believe us we've tried – but there is no harm in trying, over and over. Tingle was originally slated to be only in Majora's Mask but you can thank the enormous positive Japanese fan response to this horrible character that means that he's in just about every damn Zelda game since then. There is little hope of ridding ourselves of Tingle any time soon.

He goes down with popular useless Japanese inventions that are fun to talk about but horrible to interact with, like a Mop Shoe bedecked cat. "Kooloo-Limpah!"

7. Mr. Resetti

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Game that spawned them: Animal Crossing

When we hard-reset a game, we do so out of frustration.

Like after you've thrown your controller while getting beaten by those damn gargoyle brothers in Dark Souls or when you just accidentally fell off a cliff into a Spiderant valley in Borderlands 2 running backward in circles getting the crap kicked out of you.

These are the times when save games would be really important, not however in Animal Crossing, where Mr. Resetti rules the RAM. If you reset the game too many times without saving this little guy shows up and reads you the riot act. Which would be great if Animal Crossing was a serious save-oriented game, because you might get destroyed at any time, but it's not. Animal Crossing is a zone-out, chill-out and unwind game that lets you set up interesting life simulations.

You can start and stop as you please while making the world as complex as you like, but wait, there is some little mole man yelling at us about not minding my main menus and saving; killin' my chill dude. Mr. Resetti has a huge amount of dialogue for such a simple reminder task and taken in shorts burst are funny. If I wasn't so calm and enjoying my bouncy little critters floating through their magical lollipop forest I might give a crap about saving.

Then the mole pops up and makes me jump through hoops and doubting the sincerity of my responses and forcing me to awkwardly controller-type apologies letters to him. I thought moles were supposed to be laid back and blind for that matter. Mr. Resetti wouldn't be so annoying if I didn't have to deal with him killing my Animal Crossing buzz, I propose a spin off game called:

Never Turn Off Your Device, Or Else.

Here's a sample of typical Mr. Resetti abuse: "AAAAAARGH!!! YOU AGAIN?!? STOP MESSIN' WITH ME! What's it gonna take to get it through your thick skull? If you're gonna quit, you gotta SAVE first! Use your head, punk! It's even written in the manual! HAAH... HAAAH...HAAAAAAH... ...You hate me, don't you? I mean, you just hate me more than anythin', right?"

8. Baby Mario

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Game that spawned them: Yoshi's Island

Ever woke up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night mumbling, "gotta, get Mario, sweet Jesus Yoshi, get Mario!" Then maybe you've had the pleasure of the endless crying that is Baby Mario of Yoshi's Island.

Everyone's favorite plumber was a high maintenance baby and the one instance where any version of Luigi is better than Mario – baby Luigi is actually pretty cool, and doesn't cry nearly as much. The focus of Yoshi's Island quickly changes from pushing the game's conclusion and resolving the story, to gettng little screamer Mario to shut the hell up.

Luckily my television comes with a great peripheral device: a mute button. Sorry Nintendo sound designers, since you so accurately constructed the ear-piercing screams of a child too well, I won't be listening to any of your game. Nintendo could have made the game much less annoying had they simply pulled back on the screams and ramped-up the mustache, c'mon, baby with a mustache.

Who wouldn't love that?

9. Ashley Graham

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Game that spawned them: Resident Evil 4

The makers of Resident Evil 4 finally figured what everyone wanted. Why not make an entire game about an escort mission of a completely defenseless, nagging character?

Ashley Graham may be the president's daughter, but you'd think she'd at least have picked up some swift ball kicks or a decent jab in the home-school yard before the apocalypse hit. Besides being whiney, difficult, slow, and generally making the game less fun Ashley also specializes in the player fantasizing about her untimely doom.

The cruelest joke of all is that you have to keep this little sweater-clad dolt alive long enough to – finally – get re-captured. Whew, you can go back to playing the game. If you want to make the game about saving someone try to make then a little more likable, or maybe turn him or her into a monster so we can at least have some redemption.

In short she's no Ellie from The Last of Us who can, at least, give a good knife stick now and then.

10. The Dog

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Game that spawned them: Duck Hunt

Tired of the scars left by the humiliations of your childhood? Are people starting to look at you strangely as you sit outside your local dog park with your finger-gun cocked whispering 'bang, bang'?

Then you too grew up with that snickering dog from Duck Hunt. Oh sure, he's only too happy to profit from your good marksmanship, you know he must take a bite now and then, but every time you miss a shot his snickering little head would pop up. It got so bad we'd have to deviate from annihilating virtual wetlands and actually switch over to the mundane Clay Pigeon mode, forced to abandon the incredibly time consuming homemade duck blind we'd constructed under the coffee table.

So thank you, Nintendo, for scarring a nation of children and forcing their parents to buy new televisions after the barrel end of many Zappers had been so firmly pressed into that giggle-box's little face that they may, or may not have, broke the TV. With all the Nintendo spin-offs they should have offered some restitution from the traitorous dog.

Despite our repeated attempts, and letters sent to Nintendo, our original NES Zapper continues to not work with Nintendogs or Animal Crossing.

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