Video Game Heroes
Art by FnrrfYgmSchnish

As you probably already know, there's a Fangame Contest going on right now (you can read about te contest in this Slime Salad post, if you didn't already know.) Basically, this means "make a game based on something that someone else came up with"... so you could make OHR games based on video games, TV shows, movies, fast food mascots, and so on.

Well, I was going to enter. I had an idea for a a decently big crossover RPG with characters from several video games, mainly from the 8-bit and 16-bit eras (though a few more recent characters and places would have shown up occasionally.) And then... out of nowhere, shortly after getting some graphics and attacks finished, I randomly lost interest. Yep, just like what happened to my entry to last year's fangame contest. I didn't even get any mapping done (or maptiles, for that matter.)

Anyway, I most likely won't ever have a use for a bunch of hero and walkabout sprites of video game characters... so I'm posting them up here. They're free to use for anyone who wants to use video game characters in their OHR game but doesn't want to just rip them from the actual games. Just don't claim you're the one that made them.

Not just an average plumber, unless you know any plumbers who can shatter bricks with their bare hands and jump ten times their height.
Mario again, this time in 'hammer stance.'

First, of course, is Mario. Main character of the Super Mario Bros. series (and its many spinoffs, most notably the series of Mario RPGs) and undisputed king of Nintendo mascots. If you don't know who this guy is, get back under your rock and never show your face around here again.

The first set of hero sprites is for when Mario is fighting unarmed, and the second is for when he's wielding hammers (though it could also be used for unarmed attacks if you want Mario to attack with some kind of double-fisted overhead slam thing.) If you're using Mario in a game and want him to be able to switch back and forth between them, try an "instead of battle" script that changes his hero sprites depending on which weapon he has equipped.

The only guy here who might actually out-power Mario. With the Star Rod, he blew a giant hole in the moon... by accident.

Second is Kirby. Looks cute and harmless, but... really, really isn't. He can eat pretty much anything (as long as it's not more than two or three times his own size) and absorbs the special powers of stuff he eats. He can also use nearly anything as a weapon, including brooms and parasols.

Please note that the fact that he's rubbery and inflatable doesn't mean you can kill him by poking him with any old sharp object. That's more likely to just piss him off, and then you'll probably lose your sharp object (and then be attacked by a little pink thing with a sharp object.)

The pointy-eared kid with a sword and a funny hat. Nothing much to say about his power level, since it's basically the same as what any of us would have if we borrowed all of his magical weapons and stuff.

Third is Link. In kind of an odd contrast to Mario and Kirby, Link doesn't have a great deal of power on his own--instead, he relies on a variety of weapons and magical items, and generally has to exploit some glaring weakness of his enemies to win. Also, he usually has the Triforce of Courage, which seems to give him the power of "I'm the main character so my luck is ridiculously good."

So basically, if you take Batman, de-age him to a young teenager, give him pointy ears, and trade away most of his intelligence and super-planning abilities for some magical equipment, you'd get something similar to Link.

This particular Link is supposed to be the one from the first two Zelda games on the NES... though they all look fairly similar to each other (minus a few small details like hair color), so the sprites could probably be used for a lot of different Links.

The little blue robot dude, who somehow weighs 200+ pounds despite being somewhere around 5 feet tall. I guess it's to help balance out the recoil from that giant arm cannon.

Fourth is Megaman. Or Rockman if you're Japanese. Or Mega Man if you like really awkward spacing in the middle of names. Anyway, he's a blue robot who started out as basically a robo-janitor but then got upgraded for combat so that he could save the world when Dr. Wily went all mad-scientist and started reprogramming his robots to blow stuff up.

Anyway, he's the only character on the list who relies almost entirely on projectile weapons, mainly his Mega Buster (which can be charged up for a more powerful attack.) And if he beats another robot in battle, he can borrow a few of their spare parts and install their special weapons into his own arm cannon, giving him a bit more variety in attacks.

Whatever you do, don't call him Ash. He hates that. Also not a good idea: addressing him as 'Pokémon Trainer' even after you know his name. I mean, you wouldn't call Mario 'Plumber,' would you?

And finally, the sole representative of the post-SNES era, we have Red. In case you didn't know (or have been misled by Smash Bros. Brawl's bizarre choice of using a generic title rather than his name), Red is the main character of the original Pokémon games.

Of course, being a Pokémon trainer, he's just a normal kid with no real fighting ability. Instead, he relies on his team of Pokémon (which includes a Venusaur, Charizard, Blastoise, Snorlax, Espeon, and a Pikachu that for some reason never evolved) to do the fighting for him, while he concentrates on healing the critters and dodging incoming attacks.

Click here to download all of these graphics in BMP format, ready for importing into Custom.