Joke Character: Difference between revisions

Characters, often in the form of [[Easter Egg|Easter Eggs]], deliberately unbalanced in the negative sense. They mainly have a [[Butt Monkey|humorous value]] and the fandom often likes them due to their sheer awkwardness or strangeness. This is mainly a trope of fighting games. Joke characters are sometimes used by especially proficient players to beat other players, mainly [[Cherry Tapping|for bragging rights.]]

Part of [[Competitive Balance]]. See also [[Joke Item]]. Contrast with [[Purposefully Overpowered]], which is the opposite.

**** However, until his Dream World ability is released legally, he remains a [[Joke Character]].

** Nearly every [[Joke Character]] in Pokemon has some sort of strange gimmick. Chatot interacts with the DS microphone, Smeargle [[Mega Manning|can learn any move in the game through Sketch]], Plusle and Minun have an interaction in double battles, etc. Sometimes a gimmick allows one of these to be a [[Lethal Joke Character]]; most of the time, they are stuck being the [[Tier Induced Scrappy]].

* ''Castlevania Lament of Innocence'' and ''Castlevania Curse of Darkness'' featured a secret character named Pumpkin. In [[Lo I]], Pumpkin becomes playable after beating the game as Joachim: his max HP is lower than Leon's, but he starts with far more MP, hearts, higher defense and the Vampire Killer whip. He also starts with all special attacks and posesses an unique subweapon that he can't replace that also posesses a random assortment of other subweapons' [[Evolving Attack|Item Crashes]]. He's also a much smaller target and thus he has an easier time avoiding some enemy attacks. In [[Co D]], he is a secret Innocent Devil who is almost useless in combat (and very easy to kill by monsters), but provides huge stat bonuses for the player as long as it is alive.

* [[Gon (Manga)|Gon]] in ''[[Tekken]] 3''; he was a character in a long-running manga making a cameo appearance. Also arguably Dr. Boskonovitch, one of the few non-boss characters not to appear in any future games in the series.

* ''[[Forum Warz]]'' lets you pick a character class after completing the tutorial... or you can continue as a Re-Re, without any free stat bonuses and only gaining a fourth of the abilities that other classes do. Reaching level 10 allows you to advance to "Permanoob."

* ''Wangan Midnight: Maximum Tune'' had a secret code that would allow one to select the Toyota Celsior, also known as the Lexus LS 400 in North America. While the car itself wasn't a joke at 250 stock horsepower, it's a luxury car and not a racing car, and its basic tuning had useless "ricer" parts and comments such as "Chrome tails confuse the enemy!"

* The original ''[[Shining Force]]'' (a TBS game where you controlled a dozen fighters out of a pool of 30 or so) had a number of characters that could be found or missed during your travels. One was a character called Jogurt the Yogurt. Jogurt was a hamster with a helmet. Jogurt only talked about his helmet. Jogurt had 1 hit point. Jogurt did 1 damage. Jogurt had a magic ring that turned other (adjacent) heros into little hamsters like him. And then broke. EVERY time. Levelling takes 100 exp. Killing someone nets 48. If, somehow, you manage to get Jogurt to kill 3 people (or 2 plus 4 other attacks) doing 1 damage in close combat, he levelled - and gained NO abilities, remaining at lvl 1. You could also 'promote' fighters. Jogurt can be promoted right away - yup, no change. Jogurt is THE paragon of this trope.

** The sequel, ''[[Shining Force II]]'', included a hidden character called Kiwi, this time a ''turtle'' with a helmet. Kiwi somewhat subverted the trope, as while he could rarely do anything more than 1 damage and was slow as molasses, he had more than 1 hit point and his shell meant that most enemies could only do 1 damage to him per attack. You could also actually level him up enough to change class and turn him into a giant fire-breathing turtle a la [[Gamera]]. The downside was that by the time you got him there, the enemies were nasty enough to overcome his defense, and he drops right back down to useless again by the end of the game.

** They're not intended for combat, however -- Old Men gives free exp to other phantoms, and Grannies can remove dark points from other phantoms. Also keep in mind that Titlists are almost as useless in combat, yet they can give titles to other phantoms, items, and dungeons (and possibly give them drastic increases, such as +30% to every stat).

* The Bugatti Veyron in ''[[Need for Speed]] ProStreet''. In real life, this is the second-fastest car in the ''world'' (253 MPH top speed) and they put it in a game that's mainly about racing tuned Golfs and RX-7s, with a few exotics here and there. It is also only obtainable through a hack in the PC version or by buying the car online for the console versions. So you put down the cash and... it handles like a freaking land barge. You can go fast in the straights, but good luck getting the car to turn. Oh, did I mention that you can't actually tune it? And that this is a tuner game? Whoops.

* The boxing game ''Knockout Kings'' has a history of joke characters like rappers Jermaine Dupri and Q-Tip, shoe designer Marc Ecko, comedian Marlon Wayans, basketball player Tim Duncan, referee Mills Lane, a baby, a clown, a bulldog, oh and [[Everything Is Worse With Bears|a bear!]].

** Hell, I'd buy a game just to see Marlon Wayans mauled by a bear.

* Megane in ''[[Inazuma Eleven]]'' is a rare example of a joke character that you start out with on your team. This was probably an intentional move by [[Level 5|Level-5]] to train players to swap out team members and avoid settling into a [[Player Preferred Pattern]]. This is taken even further in the anime adaptation, where it's repeatedly lampshaded that his 2 primary contributions to the team are naming hissatsu techniques and acting as a [[Combat Commentator]]. And he gets upset and cries whenever someone else steals his thunder and fulfills one of those roles instead of him. He ''does'' score one goal in the entire series... by {{spoiler|letting the ball hit him in the face to redirect it into the goal}}.

* The [[Game FAQs]] Character Battles always have one - [[Zero Wing|CATS]], [[Portal (Video Game)|Weighted Companion Cube]], [[Pokémon|MissingNo]]... and [[Lethal Joke Character|the most glorious example]], the L-Block from ''[[Tetris]]'', [[Dark Horse Victory|who managed to even win a contest in 2007!]]

* Every monster from the [[Monster Rancher]] series has a joke sub-species.

* [[Syphon Filter]] 2 had these for 2-player games such as one of Phagan's test subjects, a homeless woman and a corpse.

* Technically, there aren't really Joke Characters in ''[[Kingdom of Loathing]]''. However, players can take familiars to assist them, and ''here'' we find joke characters. Most familiars heal you, increase your stat gains, meat gains, or item drops, or attack your enemies. The Pet Rock... does absolutely nothing. Neither does the Crimbo Log or [[Portal (Video Game)|Bulky Buddy Block]]. The ultimate joke familiar, though, is the O.A.F., or [[Fun With Acronyms|Optimal Ascension Familiar]], created as a vicious [[Take That]] against [["Stop Having Fun!" Guys|players who deem familiars with any nonessential features useless]] - it ''actively works against you'', even more so than the Black Cat (and the Black Cat was ''designed for challenge runs'').

* [[Guilty Gear]] Isuka has the Goon Squad. Three generic enemies you fight by the hundreds in the side-scroller part of the game. How useless they are? Well, their moves are so limited, some of them can't even jump.

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[[Category:Joke Character]]