Hey g1s,

Woodyman here and it’s time for the second blog I owe from the SGC Kickstarter. Today I will be counting down the Top 10 French Video Game Characters.

This blog idea was originally suggested Atsinganoi  (who currently writes for the great gaming website 1MoreCastle.com) and he suggested Franco-something that I didn’t really listen to. Instead I just researcher which video game characters were French or spoke with such a thick French accent that it’s close enough.

 

So let’s just get this party rolling with some music and rules.

 

MUSIC:

Merzhin - Torche vivante

 

 

Yelle - Comme Un Enfant (Freaks Remix)

 

 

Les Breastfeeders - Funny Funiculaire

 

RULES:

• Don’t be naked while reading this list.
• Characters order in the list are based on how much I enjoy the character, that’s really it.
• To compile this list I just looked up which video game characters spoke French, came from France, have a French accent, or just French nationality. Then I just picked which ones I liked the best.
• There will be spoilers, you have been warned. Although if it’s a really BIG spoiler, I’ll try to warn you again in the description.
• One character per franchise.
• If you don’t like the list fine, just don’t be a douche.

 

I REALLY want to try to avoid stereotypes on this list. There are a few but I’ll try my best to keep them towards this end of the list. Nevertheless, stereotypical French characters are bound to show up here and there.

Count De French aka Industrial Prince aka Philippe is the French king from one of the best beat-em-ups in the world, Castle Crashers. The reason there are so many names is that after doing some research, I’ve found that no one can quite agree. If you’re familiar with the game you may remember him as the annoying ruler of Industrial Castle. When you first arrive at Industrial Castle this douchenozzle (warning there might be real and made up swears in this blog) just hides behind his reinforced door and laughs in your face. He reminds me of those damn French soldiers from Monty Python’s Holy Grail… taunting you endlessly. He also has the mysterious orange princess in his clutches and won’t let her go. Once you get the magic sandwich you can return to the castle and rip the reinforced door off its frame and finally enter Industrial Castle. (Never thought I’d use the phrase “magic sandwich” in a blog) When Count De French sees he’s in trouble he runs away. Once you enter Industrial Castle you realize it’s no walk in the park. The enemies throw saw blades, there are numerous traps, bombs, and even… a…. CARDINAL!

Once you defeat the minions, Frenchie here is the final boss, but you don’t fight him, you fight this giant mech suit that he controls. From the safety of his bubble, Frenchie here shoots elemental cannons at your player, drops acid, and uses giant fists to inflict some serious physical damage. After you defeat the mech, Count De French grabs the orange princess and runs away. The Necromancer is waiting and takes the princess to his lair, but leaves Count De French all by himself. Then it’s up to the player, you can leave him alone, or knock him off the balcony… guess which one I did.

 

 

I don’t really know how Glass Joe didn’t get the number 10 spot, he’s been ridiculed in the gaming community ever since he made his first appearance in the NES classic, Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! (to hell with Mr. Dream). He was the very first boxer you faced as Little Mac and obviously the weakest. Some critics of Punch-Out!! consider Glass Joe to be a negative stereotype against French people since Glass Joe is weak and a coward.

Joe himself is a 38 year old Boxer from Paris. His record is 99 losses and 1 victory, so obviously someone is worse than him… I feel bad for whoever that it. As I said above, Glass Joe is a weakling, and a coward. He has slow reaction time, and doesn’t know how to block. Glass Joe’s name is a reference to the phrase “glass jaw” which is used to describe someone who cannot take blows to the head.

But the main reason Glass Joe is on this list at all and not in the numbah 10 spot is his legacy on Nintendo and culture in general. Glass Joe is an icon for Nintendo making numerous other cameos in other games, and other pieces of entertainment. Glass Joe is so well known that even sports announcers will call someone “Glass Joe” if they are performing poorly.

 

 

Take a wild guess who Janne D’Arc is a reference to? That’s right… King Arthur!

Actually Janne D’Arc from World Heroes is an obvious homage to Joan Of Arc… besides the name and nationality there’s not much else tying these characters together.

Janne D’Arc has appeared in most of the World Heroes games, and is a staple of the series. While many consider World Heroes to be another Street Fighter rip-off they are… well pretty spot on, but that doesn’t mean the game was bad… oh no!

Many say that Janne D’Arce is a ripoff of Chun Li though, and this is where I HIGHLY disagree. I’ll admit they’re both female, but that’s about it. Janne D’Arc is a French strong cocky woman knight who fights with a sword, while Chun-Li is a Chinese reporter who fights with kicks. While Janne D’Arc’s story is a bit more interesting and I’ve never heard of another character with this backstory. Janne fights in the World Heroes game because she’s looking for a husband. That’s right! Janne values strength above anything else. She will mercilessly mock the weak, but she is looking for a strong man to marry, despite their time period. I don’t know why, but I always found that to be badass.

 

 

King is a Muay Thai fighter from the King of Fighters series.

King made her gaming debut in the original Art of Fighting as the only playable female character but then moved onto the King of Fighters series, since I’m more familiar with King of Fighters than the Art of Fighting, I chose to put it above.

Okay let’s talk about the elephant in the room here. As I said above King is a female. With a name like King, and her appearance/wardrobe, ESPECIALLY in the original Art of Fighting game you would not expect her to be a lady. Well there’s actually a reason to this. King wanted to learn Muay Thai but due to her gender, she was turned away… because Muay Thai and the training location were sacred or some other bullshit. In Art of Fighting she is a bouncer at a club owned by one of the main antagonists, Mr. Big. She is confronted by the protagonist Ryo who is looking for his kidnapped sister. The two fight and when Ryo wins, King’s shirt is ripped and her gender is revealed… if ya know what I’m saying. Since then, in numerous Art of Fighting and a few King of Fighters games, pervy players can trigger the shirt rip if they end a round a certain way.

Besides dressing like a man, shirt ripping, and Muay Thai, there’s much more too King. She is a great fighter, but often very masculine in her behavior. She has a tough time showing her sensitive side although sometimes it just comes out. Nevertheless, she’s loyal to her friends and a vicious enemy to anyone who crosses her.

 

 

Let’s avoid the stereotypes and go with someone awesome…

You might’ve never heard of Gado but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have.

Bloody Roar is a fighting game franchise that has been in arcades and on the Playstation, Playstation 2, Gamecube, and X-Box. The game and controls were somewhat similar to other 3D fighters like Tekken and Virtua Fighter. However there is one HUGE difference… the characters in Bloody Roar can transform from humans into half-human/half-animal creatures.

Alan Gado is a French fighter who appeared in nearly every Bloody Roar game since the beginning. He fights for numerous reasons including taking down evil, and for equality for zoanthropes. Gado is a military genius and missionary… I mean mercenary… year definitely NOT a missionary. He is a kind-hearted man but prefers to solve problems himself. Gado is one of the strongest characters in the game but he is awfully slow. He can easily KO other characters, but is weak if someone plays defensive and quick… And that’s it…

WAIT! That’s not it! Gado can also transform into a lion-man! How awesome is that!? Awesome enough to be in the number 6 spot.

 

 

Nadia Cassel…

I bet right now just a handful of you know who this is…

I bet even more of you are asking why Nadia Cassel deserves the number 5 spot.

Well if you stop jumping to conclusions I’ll tell ya.

Nadia is a French model who hopes to be a supermodel. What’s the difference? I have no idea but since one has “super” in it, that makes it much better. Since she is a model she’s always concerned about her appearance and weight. However, Nadia REALLY REALLY enjoys sweets, food, and eating… kind of a French stereotype here, but we will let it pass because of Nadia’s badass solution to her conundrum.

Since Nadia wants to watch her weight she became a soldier to help Trevor take down Amadeus syndicate. Now it’s been a while since I played Metal Slug 4, so I’m not really positive what some of those words mean, but basically Nadia stopped modeling, put down the fork, and picked up a gun to kill baddies and robots all to stay in shape. All you wimps doing P90X and Bowflex and shiz take a page out of Nadia’s book and join the army and kill robots! That’s how you do it! Fatty!

 

 

I know… I know… I’m obsessed with TimeSplitters, and I talk about it all the time… but it’s just SO GOOD!

Viola is a French woman dressed in a Jester’s outfit. While she is a playable character in TimeSplitters 2 and TimeSplitters: Future Perfect Multiplayer, she made her debut and is best known for being the main character in the Notre Dame story mission in TimeSplitters 2. Viola’s description reads “The child of a reclusive aristocratic Countessa, Viola assumes the guise of a traveling troubadour as a cover for her true mission- to destroy evil wherever it bares its ugliness.” Yet there is so much more than that.

In TimeSplitters 2 you hop around to different time periods killing the Splitters and collecting the Time Crystals. In the Notre Dame level you are transported to 1895 to stop the evil Jacque De La Morte. Jacque is an evil necromancer who has an army of zombies and undead creatures at his command. Jacque has kidnapped maidens and plan to offer them as sacrifices to the Splitters whom he incorrectly called the Angels of Time. French jester, Viola, and her assistant Mr. Underwood (a British detective) go through the Notre Dame sewers, cathedral, and roof. Viola is just a simple French jester, yet she manages to destroy zombies, rescue maidens, stop an evil necromancer, and even kill time travelling aliens. If that doesn’t scream badass… well umm… you’re a big jerk.

 

 

Now I already talked about The Spy from Team Fortress 2 in my collab list of the Top 5 Secret Agents in Video Games that I did with g1 FoxDark22. 

The Spy is a sneaky, asshole. If you play Team Fortress 2 then you know exactly what I mean. The Spy is a master of stealth and espionage… and I hate him for it. The Spy can turn himself invisible and then sneak behind enemy lines, and he can leave a fake dead body around to confuse enemies. The Spy’s greatest power is the ability to disguise himself as enemy classes. He can be running with your team at one moment, disguised as one of you, but in reality he's bad and he's out to kill the high target players on your team. The Demoman... stabbed. The Engineer... stabbed and his sentry gun is destroyed… in short, the Spy is a dick.

Now when I play Team Fortress 2, I tend to play as the Pyro and Tom the Iron Man and Shelby can vouch that I “spy check” EVERYONE… I can’t stand spies so if I hafta waste a little bit of fuelto be safe, I will.

Fuck the Spy.

“He is a puzzle, wrapped in an enigma, shrouded in riddles, lovingly sprinkled with intrigue, express mailed to Mystery, Alaska, and LOOK BEHIND YOU! But it is too late. You're dead. For he is the Spy — globetrotting rogue, ladykiller and mankiller. Also hates Pyros...”

 

 

Now this was a BIG decision…

I couldn’t decide if Remy from Third Strike should be on this list, or Abel from Street Fighter IV. If you look at the list, I obviously went with Remy but it was a close call.

I’ll admit I didn’t like Remy when I first played Third Strike, and if I was making this list back then, than Abel (who used to be a trap… a boy who looks like a girl) would’ve been on the list instead… well maybe not because maybe he wouldn’t have been French then… IDK, moving on.

Remy is kinda a douchebag. He claims to hate everyone, and everything. The only positive emotions he has are for his dead sister… Speaking of this dead sister, Remy has her frozen in a block of ice preserved for the future. Yeah, this character is fucked up. Let’s rewind a bit though. Remy abhors fighting and often questions why other people fight, or why he fights. He hates fighting because when Remy was young his father left to pursue the path of the warrior.

Remy is kinda emo… As I said above he hates everything. Even Alex thinks that Remy’s hatred is driving him mad. But in his ending, Remy learns to move on past his hatred.

Remy is often described as the French Guile, and that’s pretty accurate. Remy’s special moves (all besides a USEFUL divekick) are copies of Guile’s moves. The difference is that Remy uses light while Guile uses sound… Sonic Boom becomes Light of Virtue etc… He may be a French Guile, but Remy is a man all his own and an obvious choice for the number 2 spot.

 

 

Okay, now if you’ve been following my Twitter account at ALL you know that I’ve recently played through and beat Chrono Cross. I’m going to say that I am not biased in my opinion of putting Harle in the #1 spot because Chrono Cross is so fresh in my mind. She’s in that spot, because she is AWESOME.

If you’ve never played Chrono Cross them shame on you, and stop reading now. There will be spoilers… massive massive spoilers.

When you first meet Harle she is sleeping in Viper Manor. You later learn that Harle is second in command to Lynx (the main antagonist throughout most of the game). Harle helps Lynx on his quest to retrieve the Frozen Flame, an object of enormous power. She helps Lynx in all of his devious schemes such as burning an orphanage, and killing civilians. Despite her alliance with the evil Lynx, Harle herself is not too bad. When she first meets the protagonist, Serge, she flirtaciously mocks him which angers Kid (another protagonist who has feelings for Serge). Harle eventually develops feelings for Serge and tries to help him and warn him of the dangers that lie ahead.

MASSIVE SPOILERS FROM HERE FORWARD.

In order to achieve his evil plans Lynx must switch bodies with Serge and succeeds. After this point in the game Harle tags around with Serge in Lynx’s body and helps him. (You still following all this?) While Harle is in Serge’s party she begins to develop even stronger attachment to Serge and might even love him. She becomes depressed, because she knows that a relationship will never work with Serge, so she leaves the party.

SUPER MASSIVE SPOILERS THAT YOU MAY NOT FOLLOW OR UNDERSTAND.

Harle can’t have a relationship with Serge because Harle isn’t who she said she is. Instead, Harle is the seventh dragon, the dragon of the dark moon. She was created by the Dragon God aka The Time Devourer. She was sent made to look like an 18 year old girl so that she can walk among the humans and spy on them. She must follow the commands of the Dragon God and retrieve the Frozen Flame. The Dragon God wants the Frozen Flame to reclaim its power and destroy humanity. That is why Harle befriends Lynx and later Serge, she must get the Frozen Flame. This is also why Harle leaves the party when she gets feeling for Serge, she knows her orders stop her from achieving happiness. Once the Dragon God reclaims the Frozen Flame, Harle becomes a part of it once more.

Wow… did you get all that. Besides all that, I just adore Harle. She’s a tragic hero who is doomed by fate. She has her own free will, dreams, and emotions but cannot act on them based on her orders. It’s sad when you really think about it. I felt bad for Harle, and when she left the party I even reloaded multiple older save files just to figure out a way to get her back… but like Aeris from FF7 it’s impossible. She’s a great fleshed out character who manages to stand out with dozens of other playable characters and that’s saying something… if you never played Chrono Cross you won’t understand but if you have, then you know there’s no other choices for the number 1 spot.

 

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Well g1s, that’s the end of my list, I hope you enjoyed it.

I want to thank Atsinganoi for suggesting this list, because it’s one I never would have written otherwise.

 

If you’d like to vote which SGC Blog I write next PLEASE vote here. 

 

And so I bid you adieu, and in the words of Harle

"If you try and go against réalité... Réalité will surely crush you. Réalité will kill you. And réalité will continue to go on az if not'ing ever happened... From yesterday to today, and from today to tomorrow. Réalité marchez on... Leaving your crushed body behind..."

 

~Fin