Captain N: The Game Master/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Designated Protagonist Syndrome: Despite being the supposed "game master", Kevin's personality, or lack of personality, seems to be on par with a more inexperienced beginner, leaving him extremely bland. He doesn't even react to being in a world of video games outside of a calm "You're not real", nor does he show any concern with whether or not he'll ever go home, only staying when he heard his mother wanting him to take out the trash.
    • The rest of the N-team also seems to lack any personality save for Simon... who is a Designated Hero given his rude and self loving attitude.
  • Dude, Not Funny: The reason why Simon Belmont was depicted in the show as he was is basically due to Rule of Funny but lets just say that the Castlevania fanbase seems to think that the folks at DiC are the only ones who found it funny at all.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Fans looking back on the show seem to take a liking to Simon Belmont. Reasons for this include: being just more interesting than Kevin, he was flawed and thus seemed more like a real person. Showing character development as the show went on, such as: gradually warming up to Kevin season by season. Also Gameboy for having his moments of snark.
  • Ham and Cheese: Levi Stubbs as Mother Brain. The show is worth watching just for his performance.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: In the first episode, Kevin says "I've played Donkey Kong enough to know what I'm doing" while climbing a volcano. The actual NES game has no such level, but the 1994 Game Boy remake oddly enough does, as does Donkey Kong Country Returns.
    • Also from the first episode, Kevin's TV is a Sony model. Might actually be a Funny Aneurysm Moment if you never liked the Sony Playstation.
    • Ian James Corlett voiced arch-enemy Dr. Wily - only to voice Mega Man himself some years later.
  • I Am Not Shazam: Kid Icarus/Pit. One of the stronger indicators that the people working on the show had never played any of the games.
    • The N-Team are gone for 3 weeks during their quest to find the Warp of Life in Happy Birthday Mega Man. Despite that absence, Mother Brain and her henchmen don't even attempt to conquer Videoland, nor does the N-Team acknowledge the possibility or even mentioning the villains at all.
  • In Name Only: Almost none of the characters bear any resemblance to their video game counterparts. There are also a lot of glaring inaccuracies about the games in question. Think of Captain N less as a TV show about videogames, and more as a TV show about what your parents thought videogames were about, and could observe from occasional glances at the screen.
  • Jerkass Woobie: Simon is a self-centered, antagonistic, flirtatious... Butt Monkey.
  • Memetic Mutation: Captain N: The Gay Master
  • The Scrappy: Difficult to say, given the multiple bastardizations amongst the supporting cast. But even fans of the show indisputably hate Gameboy and Kid Icarus.
  • Seasonal Rot: Among fans, the third and final season is the least regarded. Animation took a major step down and the running time was cut to eleven minutes so that it could be paired with Super Mario World. Additionally, Simon and Mega Man were used less often (a result of Konami and Capcom, respectively, owning those characters and being entitled to royalties).
  • Special Effects Failure: The episode "How's Bayou?" wasn't quite finished when it first aired, and as a result, several shots were missing their backgrounds. Reruns of the episode had the backgrounds intact, but for some reason, the DVD set uses the original, unfinished version, as does the version on Jaroo (the "Hulu for kids' shows" site). Click here to start watching the episode the way it was meant to be seen.
  • Tear Jerker: "The Big Game" reveals that returning to the real world will make Kevin forget the time he spent in Videoland. Seeing his reaction to this news is oddly touching.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: For starters, if the premise was well executed and the show was given to the right hands, this could have been the video game equivalent of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
  • What an Idiot!: Wishful Thinking has the N-Team coming across a magic lamp with a Genie that can grant any wish. And while Lana briefly considers it, no one uses any wishes to defeat Mother Brain or wish for King Charles to return.
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