Top 10 Lists: The Top 10 Weirdest RPG Party Members Ever (Spoilers)

There have been some RPGs where a dog or a cat joins your team. Think of Koro-Chan from Persona 3 or Boney from Mother 3. Back when Phantasy Star was released for the Sega Master System RPG’s usually only stayed in medieval times and your party members were mostly knights, wizards, and that sort of thing. Well, Phantasy Star is a Sci-Fi RPG and Myau is a magical talking cat. Because, you know, it’s Sci-Fi. Science Fiction is filled with magical talking cats, right? No? Well, that’s why Myau is so odd. In the end of the game Myau transforms into a dragon of sorts and helps the hero defeat the Dark Force. It was a ground-breaking moment in the field of WTFology.

While Kingdom Hearts is better described as an action RPG I’m going to let it count. Goofy is a cartoon character that has been in Disney cartoon for 77 years. Do you think that when his creator first drew him he had any idea that three quarters of a century later he would be a party member in a game in which Disney worlds are devoured by heartless and evil beings? I’m guessing not. The reason why I chose Goofy over Donald is because Donald is known to have a temper; I could see him fighting in battles. But Goofy? He’s such a peaceful character. Yet here he is, fighting alongside Disney alumni and Final Fantasy heroes.

Teddie looks like a big inflatable bear that is cute enough to be the mascot of something. When you first encounter Teddie in another dimension he’s quiet and reserved and doesn’t know what he is or what his dimension is. His bear suit is also hollow – there’s nothing in it. Then as he travels with your party and grows he grows a human body inside the suit and can come out into our world. He realizes later that he was just another shadow-monster but grew into a better person; and the dimension he lives in is the collective unconsciousness. By end game he decides to be the guardian of the collective unconsciousness so that it doesn’t get dark and spooky again. Now how’s that for a back story?

So there’s this plantation where the farmers use advanced but hazily understood technology to make better crops. When Ryu and friends arrive there they’re told that one of the plants has become so advanced it got up and ran away. This mutant-cabbage thing joins your party when you catch him and the game says he’s a dark reminder of what happens when you screw with Mother Nature. He also starts at level one – and leveling up took <i>forever</i> in BOFIII. When – or if – you got Peco leveled high enough you’d find out he was a pretty competent mage. While he seems unintelligent he’s able to communicate with the deity-tree Yggdrasil and in the final scene in the game Yggdrasil channels himself through Peco and helps save the day. Yikes!

Known as Anon in Japan. He first appeared in the second wave of Pokemon games and remains one of the oddest species of Pokemon ever. You see, there are at least 26 different types of Unown, each in a form that resembles one of the letters in the English language albeit loopier and odder. They also always have an eyeball in their center. In later games you could even capture punctuation mark Unowns. It gets weirder, though. They only know one technique – Hidden Power. Hidden Power is a very complicated attack in Pokemon that can be of different power levels and elements – but to get Hidden Power to be what you want it to be you have to use mathematical equations involving ‘hidden’ data, which in turn require their own calculations. It’s not worth your effort, though, as it learns no other techniques, and is thus not worth of an addition to any team. So while playing Pokemon you now have the option of walking around with a living creature that resembles a part of the alphabet. Hoo-ray!

Known as Anon in Japan. He first appeared in the second wave of Pokemon games and remains one of the oddest species of Pokemon ever. You see, there are at least 26 different types of Unown, each in a form that resembles one of the letters in the English language albeit loopier and odder. They also always have an eyeball in their center. In later games you could even capture punctuation mark Unowns. It gets weirder, though. They only know one technique – Hidden Power. Hidden Power is a very complicated attack in Pokemon that can be of different power levels and elements – but to get Hidden Power to be what you want it to be you have to use mathematical equations involving ‘hidden’ data, which in turn require their own calculations. It’s not worth your effort, though, as it learns no other techniques, and is thus not worth of an addition to any team. So while playing Pokemon you now have the option of walking around with a living creature that resembles a part of the alphabet. People make fun of this character...but I beat Emerald Weapon with his slot machine limit break. So there!

Final Fantasy VI took RPG storytelling to a higher level. The ensemble cast was varied and most of them even went through character development, which was just starting to happen in the 16-bit era. But one of the hidden characters is a Sasquatch named Umaro; Yes, Sasquatch, as in yeti, or abominal snowman. He has no bearing on the story with the exception of the fact he lets a little Moogle boss him around. He doesn’t have dialogue; he can’t talk. He just roars and growls. He’s permanently stuck in state of fury – meaning you can’t control him; he also can’t equip weapon and armor although he can equip an item that lets him breathe a blizzard out of his mouth. And that’s all there is, folks. While not the weirdest or the goofiest, Umaro is the most random RPG party member I’ve ever encountered.

You know how in RPGs there used to be this evil force that nearly destroyed the world x or y hundred years ago, but managed to get sealed up by a hero? Well, Stan is that evil force. However right now he can only exist by living in somebody’s shadow – and that shadow happens to be the main characters. Stan’s power was sealed away in different little temples and there are monsters in the world feeding off of it and naturally, Stan wants to get that power back. He treats his human host as a slave and orders him around – although he also has his own butler who has an affair with the hero’s human mother. He eventually gets all of his power back and separates from the hero and you get to see his human form which resembles a mad jester. Awesome stuff.

The Mother (Earthbound) series is a very special series in which RPG conventions are turned on their head. Dungeon Man used to be a scrawny little scientist named Brick Road who was obsessed with designing dungeons. You actually get to go through one of his earliest dungeons; his main trade mark style in design is putting up sign posts that have side-line comments about the dungeon. Brick Road became so obsessed with making dungeons that he wanted a scientist to turn him into a gigantic being – one giant, living dungeon! He gets his wish; he appears as a building you have to enter. After traveling through his non-sequitur dungeon innards Dungeon Man briefly joins your team…and did I mention that Dungeon Man is HUGE? His character sprite is four to six times larger than the hero’s character sprite. He only stays in your party for ten or twenty minutes, however, because he runs into a narrow passage and gets stuck because, again, he’s HUGE. You can take him into battle though and his strength is astonishing. Dungeon Man is the only playable character I know of who is also a dungeon.

This is the weirdest RPG character I know of. It has no clear gender at first and appears to be a short person walking around in armor, or perhaps a suit of armor magically brought to life. It calls itself “Urshin”, which it claims means master, but it also carries on conversations with itself talking to “Urshin” as if it was a third person. The player is left to wonder if Urshin has multiple personalities. Well, later on it turns out that inside of it is the deity of Deis – or Bleu, of Breath of Fire fame. She’s a Naga woman usually, but in this game she tried to come to Earth from the world of the Gods and couldn’t find a suitable host so she rooted herself into Urshin’s armor, which in turn gave it life. At one point Deis tries to find another host and it looks as if Urshin will die without Deis’ magic...but in the end Deis decides to remain in Urshin, cementing her place as the weirdest RPG party member of all time.