10 Video Game Characters That Were Created For The Most Shocking Reasons

There is a lot of fun stuff to discuss when talking about Kirby's history. The most famous fact about his character is that he was named after Nintendo's lawyer, John Kirby, as a way to honor him after he saved the company from a nasty lawsuit. The creators also thought his hard-sounding name clashed with their character's cute design.

And speaking of Kirby's design, there is another fun story surrounding its conception. In an old interview with Sakurai, the game designer admitted that Kirby's round body was originally a placeholder sprite for a character that was supposed to be added later. As Sakurai and his team were working on the game, they began to grow fond of the sprite and eventually realized that its simplistic design worked better than what they had originally intended.

The sprite, nicknamed Popopo, was made the face of the game and eventually turned into the Kirby we all know today.

Honestly, it makes perfect sense that Kirby is actually a replacement for another character. After all, he's like an eldritch being that can shapeshift into whatever poor creature he sucks into the endless pit he calls a stomach... Aaand he's no longer cute!