Wow…

You guys are not making it easy on me. Last week I had to list the Top 10 French Video Game characters… when I knew nothing about France nor had any ideas. Today I’m counting down Top 10 Video Game Characters Made of Wood…

This list idea was originally suggested by Spoonman Abrams X

First off lemme tell you that it was tough finding a title for this list that wasn’t wordy and didn’t sound pornographic… I think I did the best I could.

Secondly, Happy Valentines Day! In honor of the holiday, I’m gonna talk about wood!

… not that kinda wood, you perverts.

Like any of my lists we will begin with some music and some rules… music first… GO!

 

Music:

Mastodon – Colony of Birchmen

 

Rush - The Trees

 

Gorillaz - Clint Eastwood (A Fistful of Peanuts from the remix album "Laika Come Home".

 

Rules:

• You must be this tall to read this list.
• Do not ask why X character is not on the list.
• Characters order in the list are based on how much I enjoy the character, and how much they influence the gaming world as a whole… that’s really it.
• To compile this list I just looked up which video game characters were made of wood.
• 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 almost made this a Top 9 list just because there is not much actually to say about Trunker from Banjo Kazooie. That’s why he’s in the numbah 10 spot.

If you don’t remember Trunker… that’s fine. He’s not that memorable except for the fact that Kazooie says to him “How’s your nuts, bark breath.” Trunker is a large coconut tree found in Gobi’s Valley. When you first talk to Trunker he claims that he’s extremely thirsty and will give Banjo a Jiggy if he gets Trunker some water. You satisfy Trunker’s thirst by freeing Gobi the Camel from his cage, and then you meet Gobi again resting in Trunker’s shade. Gobi has a lotta water inside of him but won’t give any to Trunker… luckily Banjo and Kazooie are douches, so they just jump on Gobi’s back until he spits up water onto Trunker.

There’s really not much else to say… Trunker grows big and tall, and you get a jiggy… YAY!

Moving on.

 

 

Now this is one entry that I bet nearly none of you saw coming, but that’s understandable.

Most of y’all don’t even know what Midnight Wanderers: Quest for the Chariot is! In japan it’s known as Roosters… does that help you at all? No? I figured as much. Midnight Wanderers is one of three playable games in the Capcom arcade game Three Wonders. The other games are a shmup and a puzzle game, but Midnight Wanderers is the best. It’s an action platforming game where you control a hobbit named Lou, on a quest to kick ass.

Golem Wood is the first boss of Midnight Wanderers. He’s actually a pretty tough first boss even though he’s just a tree. Golem Wood can drop spikes, shoot stuff at you, and you fight him while on top of one of his branches which he can move to give you a disadvantage… similar to the giant snake heads in Snake Man’s stage on Mega Man 3. Not much to actually say about the boss, except prepare to lose a few lives on him.

 

 

I hate Pinocchio… I REALLY do. You can call it Pediophobio or Pupaphobia, I don’t care…

The only character from the Disney classic “Pinocchio” that I hate more than the titular character is the Blue Fairy… What kind of dumb fairy bitch thinks it’s a good idea to bring a puppet to life?! Hasn’t she ever seen Child’s Play, The Twilight Zone, or Magic? *shudders* Nevertheless, I have played the SEGA Genesis version of Pinocchio a lot when I was a kid and despite my fears… I had a lot of fun playing that game.

Let’s backtrack a little bit… Pinocchio was an animated Disney movie (based on a book) about an old wood-carver who carved a puppet named Pinocchio. The Blue Fairy brings Pinocchio to life, and says that Pinocchio can become a real boy if he proves himself to be brave, truthful, and unselfish. So Pinocchio goes on this quest to become real, gets turned into a donkey, dances, and rips off Moby Dick. The plot for the SEGA Genesis video game is practically the same, and it’s actually a really well made game. The goal of the game is to collect 3 ribbons that represent bravery, truthfulness, and unselfishness. Collecting the ribbons gets A LOT tougher based on what difficulty you chose. I’m not going to go into the entire game because it’ll take too long, but I gotta talk about two parts of the game that stand out to me. The first part is when you are performing on stage and Pinocchio has to copy the dance moves of his fellow puppets. When I was a kid I always died on this part because I had no idea what to do… Similar to my problems with Parappa The Rapper. The second part is the very end of this game. All you need to do is collect the unselfish ribbon… Monstro the whale is about to attack you but you’ve managed to outrun him. Geppetto is floating on a log in the water, and there is a cave on the other side of the screen. If you go to the safety of the cave you lose, but if you jump in the water to save Geppetto… you win! I didn’t figure that out until just today.

 

 

You all know who Mokujin is… I’m sure once you read the title of this blog he was the first one to come to your mind. Nevertheless, I’m not a huge Tekken fan, so Mokujin is gonna hafta settle for the number seven spot on this list.

Tekken is a kickass fighting game that’s very technical and too confusing for my idiocy. It’s similar to Virtua Fighter and I have a lot of trouble playing it… the end…

Mokujin is a character who was introduced in Tekken 3 and made numerous appearances in subsequent Tekken games. He is a wooden training dummy made out of a 2000 year old oak tree. When Ogre woke up, Mokujin did too to help train fighters. He’s a pretty cool fighter because Mokujin doesn’t have his own fighting style. He mimics the fighting style of another fighter in the Tekken tournament. He will also mimic the pre-fight and victory actions of the character he is mimicking.

Now Mokujin himself doesn’t appear in Street Fighter X Tekken, but Pac-Man does and Pac is riding a giant mech Mokujin… which is pretty badass.

 

 

Who the hell is Bob aka Herbert from the Fallout series?

Well he is a tragic… tree parasite thingy.

Bob aka Herbert is the name of the tree growing out of Harold’s head.

I feel like I’m getting ahead of myself here, so let’s go back to the original Fallout. In the original Fallout you meet a ghoul named Harold. He’s a bit odd and creepy, but that’s about it. Then somehow in the time between Fallout and Fallout 2, Harold began to grow a tree out of his head. Harold called the tree Bob although sometimes he calls the tree Herbert, just to mess with people. The tree causes Harold no pain, so eventually Harold begins to feel a fondness for the tree and he even has conversations with it like it can talk. Fast forward even more into the future and Bob grows so big that Harold cannot even walk anymore. Years pass and Bob has gotten so big that he’s planted roots into the ground and made the desolate land all around him lush and fertile. Meanwhile Harold relies on Bob to live, because Bob feeds Harold through Photosynthesis. Also a cult called the Treeminders found Bob/Herbert/Harold and mistook him for a god. They set up the town Oasis near Bob to worship. Now let’s move onto Fallout 3 where the Vault Dweller meets Bob there are a few choices to be made you can either slow Bob’s growth, speed up Bob’s growth, or grant Harold freedom by shooting Harold in the heart… or do what I do and just set him on fire… Harold doesn’t like fire.

Special thanks to Retro Rob for his help on this entry.

 

I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, wanted to include Bonsai on this list, but since he’s not actually made of wood, I decided against it.

Instead I went with the weird ass Pokemon Exeggutor… which is the evolved form of Exeggcute. How do a bunch of purple eggs with faces on them evolve into a three-headed coconut tree, I will never know. Nevertheless, you get a buncha eggs put em next to a green stone, BAM! You got Exeggutor.

As I mentioned above Exeggutor looks like a giant coconut tree with legs, it can have 3-6 faces below the leaves and each face has a different expression. Ever since I was a kid I thought this Pokemon looked dumb, but during my first ever playthrough of Pokemon Red, I used Exeggutor. Why? Well because despite it’s derpyness it’s a pretty strong Pokemon and I love psychic types… I especially love psychic types that are combined with another type. Exeggutor fits all that and deserves a spot on my list because he was on my first ever team that took down the Elite 4… and it was glorious. Plus I believe besides Celebi and Exeggcute, Exeggutor is the only grass/psychic Pokemon in existence.

 

 

If you’ve played a single Kirby game then you know who Whispy Woods is. If you haven’t played a Kirby game lemme explain things to you.

Whispy Woods is the very first boss you fight in nearly every Kirby game and is regarded as one of the easiest bosses in all of video games. Just because Whispy Woods is easy, doesn’t mean he’s not memorable. In the Whispy Woods boss fight you will kick ass if you have any copy ability, if you don’t then the fight is a little tougher… a little bit… Whispy Woods will occasionally shoot his roots at you but more often he will shoot apples at you or little air puffs.

All of this sounds pretty lame, but I’m still not ashamed I put him so high on the list. Whispy Woods is an iconic video game character. Other than King Dedede, Whispy Woods is the character most often fought in all of the Kirby games. He is an ICON, which cannot be said of nearly any other character on this list.

 

 

Whispy Woods may be considered iconic, but he doesn’t have much influence on the lore of Kirby. However, the Great Deku Tree from the Legend of Zelda series is vastly important.

The Great Deku tree is the guardian of the forest and of Kokiri Village. He is praised and treated like a god by the people who live in Kokiri Village. They worship this overgrown log… but for good reason. The Great Deku Tree while immobile has strong magic, and uses it to protect the land and Kokiri people.

Now I’m most familiar with The Great Deku Tree from Ocarina of Time, so that’s the one I will be talking about here. Also bear with me because I’m not the biggest Legend of Zelda fan. In Ocarina of Time, the Great Deku Tree is the protector of Kokiri’s Emerald. Kokiri’s Emerald is one of three great stones that grant people access to the Sacred Realm. The Great Deku Tree would not give this emerald to Ganondorf, therefore Ganondorf placed a curse on the tree. The Great Deku tree sent Navi to find Link and asked Link to remove the curse. It is then that the Great Deku Tree becomes an omnitient narrator for a bit and provides the player with backstory and information about the land. After Link rids the Great Deku Tree of his curse, it’s too late. The Great Deku tree dies, and out of its withering husk of a body a seed plummets to the ground. This seed eventually grows into a Great Deku Sprout and some believe grows into the Great Deku Tree seen in Wind Waker. Considering Ocarina of Time is the first Zelda game that many gamers have played and that The Great Deku tree is the first dungeon and one of the first characters you meet… it’s obvious that it holds a place in many gamers hearts…

Also I know there’s a lot of speculation and myths about The Great Deku tree in other Zelda games, but there’s too much to go into. You know who this tree is, even my family knows who this tree is.

 

 

Whoooooooo!

Before I started writing this list I asked Twitter who they thought would be on this list and NO ONE, mentioned Geno. Now I know putting Geno on this list may be cheating a little bit because he is technically a star being…

NEVERTHELESS! Geno takes the form of a wooden puppet, so he makes the list. If you don’t already know, Geno is one of the playable characters in one of my favorite games of all time, Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars.

Since Geno is a star being he is portrayed as straight edged and sage-like, but he is still my favorite character in the game. He joins Mario’s party because when Smithy smashed Star Road the people of the Mushroom Kingdom could no longer have their wishes answered. The star beings sent Geno down to retrieve the star pieces and repair Star Road. When he came down from Star Road, Geno saw Mario and a young boy named Gaz playing with a bunch of dolls. Gaz played too roughly and accidently knocked out Mario with a special shot. Geno saw all this and assumed that the Geno doll was the strongest so he possessed that form. Geno is later seen trying to take out Bowser all by himself but then decides to team up with Mario and Mallow so they can help him fix Star Road.

As I said above, I love Geno. Sure his defense SUCKS, but his strength is absolutely ridiculous. He’s a “glass cannon” similar to Akuma from Street Fighter. Unfortunately, I don’t know if we will ever see Geno in another Mario game because he is copyright by Square Enix… but we can hope.

 

 

Oh… come on! Like you didn’t see this coming a mile away!

My username is Woodyman for Giygas sake! No one should be shocked by this.

Well I guess I should talk about the character himself.

Wood Man is one of Dr. Wily’s favorite Robot Masters that he has ever made… which is obvious because he’s appeared in 12 games… that’s right! 12!!!

Wood Man’s first appearance was in Mega Man 2 for the original NES. He’s considered by many to be one of the simplest bosses in the game. A fully charged Atomic Fire on Normal mode will destroy Wood Man in one shot, other strategies include using Air Man’s, Cut Man’s, or Crash Man’s weapon… any of those will do enough damage to destroy Wood Man. Wood Man uses his leaf shield as a primary defense and it can deflect most projectiles. He will then chuck the leaf shield at Mega Man to attack while more leaves fall from the sky. It’s quite easy to dodge these attacks because they are slow.

Nevertheless I love Wood Man and there’s a few reasons I derive my name from his own. First off Wood Man sounds funny and sexual… (although the jokes have been getting old… hahahaha!) Secondly, I love Mega Man games. But most importantly, Wood Man is a robot made of wood. That’s so crazy it can only be found in video games. That’s what I love about video games. They provide an escape from reality, but they present their own reality where ANYTHING can happen. A worm can wear a high tech spacesuit, a plumber can get a princess, or a robot can be made of wood. So what if Wood Man might also be covered in a thin layer of metal, that doesn’t matter. What matters is that Wood Man is a robot made of wood, and no one gives it a second thought. It’s acceptable in video games. It’s encouraged in video games.

I love that in my hobby, a robot made of wood can exist.

 

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Well g1s,

That’s the end of my list.

I hope you enjoyed it!

There will be no more voting for which SGC blog I do next, because I already started on my review of Bubsy!

It should be here next Thursday, until then…

Happy Gaming