30 day video game challenge day 6

    Today I will be taking about the most annoying character in gaming. Well, I will attempt to. There are plenty of contenders, and its hard to pick just one. Annoying characters can come in many forms and there seems to be no boundary between good and evil when it comes to being a massive pain in the arse. Take Waluigi and Luigi for example, Waluigi has somehow achieved the impressive feat of being more annoying than his karmically balanced counterpart. I didn't even believe this was possible being that Luigi is just a lankier, whinier version of Mario- I was under the impression the Italian people could not be degraded further by the Mario clan. Alas, I was wrong. Waluigi is basically Berlusconi in videogame form, lets just leave it at that.

    Do not be fooled, however. Waluigi may contain the essence of all annoying game characters, but he shall not receive the golden merit of grand douchebaggery. That title, my friends, is reserved for another. You see first you must understand how I arrived at the conclusion- for many games are plagued by annoying characters. Be it the rambling mentors that will talk you to death during the tutorial stages of an RPG and force you to rage-quit the game before you have slain your first foe, the clingy emotional car-crash of a love interest who questions your every action as you attempt  to save the freaking world, or simply a baddie that is so incredibly frustrating to fight that it tempts you to track down and wail on the responsible developers with a bag of doorknobs as a simpler alternative. However to achieve true greatness as an annoying bastard, they need to be memorable. Plenty of characters fill the above criteria but are not significant enough to commit to my ever dwindling  memory banks. Just play any Final Fantasy game and I am sure you will run into if not one then all three of the above character types. If this character is not haunting your dreams and forcing you to wake up with a mouthful of pillow, then they just aren't doing it properly.


   And here is that very character. Tingle the fairy. Or as he is sometimes called, Tingle the middle-aged drifter who dresses up in spandex and watches children from a hot air balloon. I know, that one is a bit wordy but lets not dress it up here. Yes, Tingle the fairy from the fantastical Legend of Zelda series has managed to score leagues ahead of the pack in the annoying character pool. Its hard to say which he is more- annoying or creepy- but I can tell you for a fact he is a fucking sack load of both. I should probably steer clear from any sack analogies when describing Tingle, he is just that depraved. To any of you whose childhood innocence was not robbed by this suggested sex offender, I shall provide a brief description, although the picture really says more than words ever could. Tingle is a fully grown man who dresses like a fairy because he believes he is a fairy. Of course. In Zelda: Majora's Mask, Link must burst his sack (oh damn, it happened didn't it?) in order to take Tingle out of the air and purchase his crudely sketched maps. Talking to Tingle was like inserting starved leeches into your ears, when he wasn't spouting infuriating nonsense about his disturbing personal life, he was making inane noises or convincing Link to befriend him for reasons I do not want to think about. This is all of course my interpretation of the scenario, none of this was ever covered in the Zelda games, but it sure was implied. Loosely. Who knows, maybe I am the sicko here. Either way, if you want your kids to grow up fast, show them Tingle and see what happens. You have been warned...