10 Video Game Characters You Didn't Take Seriously (Until They Killed You)

From clerk to dark.

Izumi Shenmue 2
SEGA

By this point, we've all consumed a sufficient amount of media to know that, yes, looks can indeed be deceiving. The bigger they come, the harder they fall, don't judge a book by it's cover, it's not the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog, and so on and so forth.

And yet, there's constantly this internal nagging thread of superficial logic telling us otherwise. A mosquito might kill more men per year than a hippo, but we all know which we'd cross the street from.

This applies to video games too, where to this day the old-school rule that bigger=badder persists. Infrequently is the final boss not the one that stands the most storeys high and strains the hardware the most. Drama - and the sort of visual spectacle that makes people want to buy the game - demands it. Fumito Ueda's masterpiece was called Shadow of the Colossus, not Shadow of the Deceptively Tough Rodent, after all.

That means, when coming up against a boss that for all intents and purposes is a goldfish, we're deluded into thinking it'll be a piece of p*ss/cake/p*sscake.

It never is (with one wormy exception).

10. Tinker Knight (Shovel Knight)

Izumi Shenmue 2
Yacht Club Games

Unlike the rest of the Order of No Quarter, Shovel Knight's villainous troupe of errant champions intent on conquering the Valley in the name of the Enchantress, Tinker Knight isn't one for rushing into battle and hitting things in the face with swords. Instead, he wages war from his workshop, ingeniously crafting an automated army to stop foes before they can get close. It's the end of the assembly line for anyone who dares.

Except, that is, for Shovel Knight, whose spade can dispatch of any and all of Tinker Knight's tools of destruction. If the player manages to get within a sniff of Tinker's epicentre of oily operations, the gadgeteer, armed with only a wrench, begins to panic, running around in a frenzy like a faulty robot. A few bonks and he's done for.

... or is he? Of course not: this is Shovel Knight, after all. Gears thoroughly ground, Tinker Knight re-emerges in a mecha to end all mechas, replete with the standard comically oversized drill. Now that throws a spanner in the works.

In this post: 
Shenmue 2
 
First Posted On: 
Editorial Team
Editorial Team

Benjamin was born in 1987, and is still not dead. He variously enjoys classical music, old-school adventure games (they're not dead), and walks on the beach (albeit short - asthma, you know). He's currently trying to compile a comprehensive history of video game music, yet denies accusations that he purposefully targets niche audiences. He's often wrong about these things.