Game Characters Even The Creators Hated
Every game has a character or two that a lot of people can't stand. Maybe they're barring the player from getting where they want to go, or maybe they won't stop crushing the game's momentum with endless yammering. This could occur because it's their role in the story to be the protagonist's foil (or because the voice acting is terrible), but sometimes, you come across a character in a video game who is just really annoying.
For some people, it might be that "Pokémon" rival that keeps challenging you to battle right as you're making your way to the Pokémon Center to heal. For others, it might be a certain President's Daughter in "Resident Evil 4" who won't stop failing escort missions by running unarmed into a horde of infected cultists. Whatever the reason, there are some characters that definitely garner more hate than others.
However, players aren't the only people who have expressed their frustrations with these characters. There are a handful of characters out there that even the people who made the game hated. Here are a few of the worst offenders.
Rebecca Chambers - Resident Evil
It's easy to make fun of Ashley Graham for her AI programming. The character shouting for help every few seconds is probably burned into the brains of many who otherwise consider "Resident Evil 4" one of the greatest horror games ever created. Series creator Shinji Mikami has a different pick for his least favorite, however.
Most of the female characters in the "Resident Evil" universe are notably independent and capable. Jill Valentine and Claire Redfield go head-to-head with mutated bioweapons with just as much ferocity and ability as Chris Redfield and Leon Kennedy, which is why Rebecca falls short in Shinji Mikami's eyes.
"I don't know if I've put more emphasis on women characters, but when I do introduce them, it is never as objects," Mikami stated in an interview with The Guardian. "If I had to name the woman character I most disliked in my games it would be Rebecca Chambers[.] She's submissive, she's not independent. I didn't want to include her but the staff wanted that kind of character in the game, for whatever reason. I'm sure it made sense to them."
A lack of agency is as good a reason as any to dislike a character. Chambers has been with the series since the beginning, but she arguably didn't really come into her own until she took the leading role in the prequel, "Resident Evil 0."
Navi - The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Link's fairy guide Navi from "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time" has to be one of the most obnoxious video game characters of all time. Fans who played the classic action RPG might remember that, although she did guide Link and help him to become the Hero of Time, she did so in the most annoying way imaginable.
Navi would shout a variation of "Hey!" or "Listen!" in a high-pitched voice — and at uncomfortably close intervals — each time she found anything for Link to interact with. The end result was a character who made players want to swing their sword wildly in an attempt to murder their own fairy companion.
But few know that even "Zelda" creator Shigeru Miyamoto didn't like Navi. In a 1999 Famitsu magazine interview (translation via Shmuplations) Miyamoto stated "Navi giving you advice is the biggest weak-point of 'Ocarina of Time.' It's incredibly difficult to design a system that gives proper advice ... and I was very worried we'd be digging ourselves into a hole, if we pursued perfection there ... I think if we'd tried to make Navi's hints more sophisticated, that 'stupidity' would have actually stood out even more."
Ultimately, "Ocarina of Time" has gone down in history as one of the most beloved games ever made, so it seems Miyamoto and his team knew what they were doing — even if Navi will always be a pest.
Ocram - Terraria
"Terraria" is an open sandbox made up of procedurally-generated worlds. The level of player customization in the title makes it one of the best games out there for fans of "Minecraft." The farming simulation and building mechanics give players a nearly limitless platform on which to express their creativity. The battle system is surprisingly robust as well, and some of the hardest bosses in the game add new layers of challenge that aren't typically present in similar titles. There's one boss that the Re-Logic development team wasn't a fan of, though: Ocram.
In a forum post on the "Terraria" website about the 1.3 "Terraria" update for consoles, Lead Developer Whitney "Cenx" Spinks wrote, "we have never felt Ocram was a good fit or a really engaging boss fight." She then went on to explain that Ocram and his related mobs and summons would be removed from the game, along with the Soul of Blight crafting item associated with defeating him.
Ocram was one of the final Hardmode bosses on the PS3/PS Vita/Xbox 360/Wii U/3DS generation of consoles, so fans who have only played the game on more modern consoles have probably never seen Re-Logic's least favorite brain-crab-monster.
Tawna Bandicoot - Crash Bandicoot
"Crash Bandicoot" was one of the most notable early PlayStation titles, and the fuzzy little marsupial has gone on to become a recognizable mascot for the platform. Fans of the first game may remember that Crash actually had a girlfriend named Tawna, but she mysteriously disappeared shortly after Crash rescued her from the evil machinations of Dr. Neo Cortex.
She didn't come back for the rest of the original trilogy, either, instead making a few appearances in spinoffs like "Crash Boom Bang!" and "Crash Team Racing: Nitro Fueled." She wasn't seen in the main series again until the series introduced a redesigned counterpart from an alternate timeline in "Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time."
The reason she disappeared is because Tawna's design in the first game was the result of a compromise that left no one happy. In a 2008 Crash Mania community Q&A interview, series creator Jason Rubin stated that the marketing director of Universal Interactive Studios "saw the designs of Tawna, hot [off] the press, and insisted that the character would never get into the game as drawn. The original designs ... were reminiscent of Jessica Rabbit from the Roger Rabbit movies ... The marketing director was not impressed."
The studio president then forced Naughty Dog to tone down her design, replacing her tank top and heels with a t-shirt and sneakers. The developers were unhappy with this forced redesign and ultimately ended up scrapping the character from further entries.
Tooty and Brentilda - Banjo-Kazooie
"Crash Bandicoot" isn't the only 3D platformer to have creators speak out against their own characters. Brothers Steve and Gregg Mayles, the co-creators of the immensely popular "Banjo-Kazooie," they have each called out their own least favorite characters from the Nintendo 64 classic.
Steve retweeted a post from DK Vine discussing the character of Banjo's sister, Tooty. Not one to beat around the bush, Steve tweeted, "She's officially the least favourite ['Banjo-Kazooie'] character. Didn't even make the sequel. Go on, name me a more unpopular 'BK' character[.]" He doesn't give a reason for his dislike of the character, but his reference to Tooty's absence from later games is a good indicator of his distaste.
In response to this, Gregg quote-tweeted his brother, saying "Brentilda is my least favourite #BanjoKazooie character and her role around providing 'facts' on her sister to enable you to win Furnace Fun is certainly one of the worst pieces of design I have ever created[.]" This is in reference to the disgusting secrets Brentilda would reveal to Banjo about her sister, the evil witch Gruntilda, who had kidnapped Tooty.
Pyramid Head - Silent Hill
The "Silent Hill" series has some of the creepiest monsters in all of video games, but its creator doesn't dislike the nastiest monsters in the games. Instead, he hates Pyramid Head, the muscled, hooded antagonist from "Silent Hill 2." Game artist Masahiro Ito created the creatures in the first three "Silent Hill" titles, but he wishes he'd skipped one of them — though he won't say why. In 2017, Ito tweeted, "If I should make a new Silent Hill, I would not use Pyramid Head or kill him in its opening." He stated that he'd used Pyramid Head for a very specific story and didn't think the character should be reused in other games. Because Pyramid Head represented specific fears the protagonist of "Silent Hill 2" had, it didn't make sense for him to appear in other games, which focused on different characters.
In 2022, Ito spoke out about Pyramid Head once again, tweeting more bluntly, "I wish I hadn't designed fxxkin Pyramid Head." Fans were quick to support Ito, commenting that Konami has used the character in various properties that simply don't make sense, like pachinko machines.