10 Weirdest Playable Video Game Characters Ever

5. A Humanoid Star With Hands - Ristar

Fighters megamix daytona car
Sega

Whatever Sonic Team was smoking was clearly pretty potent stuff, because they weren’t satisfied with just having a supersonic-speed, azure-toned woodland beast who fights an evil ovoid genius.

They wanted to go weirder.

Ristar is one of those odd games that’s enjoyable to play (and listen to - the soundtrack is excellent), but pretty difficult to comprehend how it was conceived as a concept. A planet’s elder is kidnapped by a mind control mastermind, so everyone prays for a hero to save him (as you do), leading to the Star Goddess awakening and sending one of her children (the titular Ristar) to the rescue - a tiny star with stretching arms and creepy Mickey Mouse gloves.

Level design and overall visuals play similar to Sonic the Hedgehog, but the gameplay is distinctly different - Ristar’s offensive ability is to stretch out his arms, grope whatever is in front of him, and rapidly slam his body into theirs to murder them on impact, which is, I’m told, the way a man makes love to a woman.

Ristar may do unspeakable things with those hands, but he adorably waves his finger at the camera at the title screen just like Sonic... so how bad can he be?

Contributor
Contributor

Hiya, you lot! I'm Tommy, a 39-year-old game developer from Scotland - I live on the East coast in an adorable beachside village. I've worked on Need for Speed, Cake Bash, Tom Clancy's The Division, Driver San Francisco, Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise, Kameo 2 and much more. I enjoy a pun and, of course, suffer fools gladly! Join me on Twitter at @TotoMimoTweets for more opinion diarrhoea.