From cute cats to super monkeys: the 18 most adorable video game animals | Games
From cute cats to super monkeys: the 18 most adorable video game animals
This article is more than 7 years oldDiddy Kong, Waddle Dee, Bub and Bob … which is the fluffiest, most doe-eyed creature ever to grace the video game menagerie?
It’s a question that has bothered gamers – and pet lovers – for many years. Exactly what is the cutest animal ever to appear in video game form? Certainly pixellated critters have been a staple protagonist for game designers since Donkey Kong first stamped his way up the building in Nintendo’s 1981 arcade classic.
Since then, as in the world of animated movies, there have been many hundreds of anthropomorphised heroes – with designers relying heavily on our instinctual protective love of small animals with gigantic eyes.
Here then, are the 18 cutest examples in video game history. Feel free to add your own favourites in the comments.
18. Ecco the Dolphin
Gaming’s most beloved time-travelling cetacean was a superstar on the Sega Mega-Drive console, where his trippy underwater adventures contrasted with the urban brawlers that dominated the era. Ecco could sing to his friends and do backflips out of the water, providing an experience that was surprisingly calming and authentic – apart from that whole thing about him discovering Atlantis and foiling an extraterrestrial invasion plot.
17. Diddy Kong (Donkey Kong Country)
He’s a cheeky spider monkey in a Nintendo cap – what’s not to love? Originally conceived as an updated version of Donkey Kong Jr, Nintendo wasn’t pleased with how much Donkey Kong Country developer Rare had changed the original 1982 character so asked for it to be renamed. Of course, Rare went with Diddy Kong. Why wouldn’t they? A legend was born.
16. Epona (Legend of Zelda)
The creators of Zelda could have made Link’s trustworthy companion little more than an equine vehicle, a game mechanic to get you from A to B in a speedier fashion. Instead Epona is introduced to us in Ocarina of Time with a lovingly crafted tale of longing, connection and reunion. Also, you summon her with a really beautiful lullaby. If only there was a “Press X to feed sugar cubes” command.
15. Dogmeat (Fallout series)
You first meet this trusty canine companion after his owner is beaten to death by thugs in the original Fallout. For some reason, he distrusts everyone, but if you show him kindness (or dress like his former owner – dogs aren’t fussy) he will become your own loveable, yet savage, attack dog. In Fallout 4, you can put a bandana and goggles on him, JUST LIKE A REAL DOG.
14. Dog (Fable II)
Another dog? Yes, shut up! Fable II’s “Dog” – well, mine was called “Pig” and yours was probably called “Bastard” or “Buttface”, knowing you – was a wonderful comrade on your dangerous journey through Albion. Spoiler alert: At the end of the game you could choose to resurrect thousands of fallen warriors – or your dead dog. We all chose the same ending, right? The world could burn for all I cared, as long as Pig was by my side, digging up condoms (actually a feature in the game) and barking at treasure.
13. Weighted Companion Cube (Portal)
Is this technically a critter? No? Do we care? Not really. This lovable resident of the Apature Lab has been taken by canny merchandisers and turned into plushes, cookie jars, keyrings... and pants, which is totally bizarre for a thing that is just a large box. No one feels this way about the crates in Zelda or Crash Bandicoot, do they? Well, those don’t have big, lovely hearts on them, of course. The Weighted Companion Cube, on the other hand, is iconic – and, continually destroyed by evil computer GlaDOS, it’s a great joke about emotional attachment in video games.
12. Lammy (Um Jammer Lammy)
OK, everyone remembers Pa Rappa the Rappa, Sony’s paper-thin rapping hero from the original PlayStation era. However, we have too many dogs in this list, so let’s hear it for Lammy, the anxious lamb guitarist who stars in the excellent sequel. Once again designer Masaya Matsuura and artist Rodney Alan Greenblat combined to fill their game with kooky characters and bizarre rhythm action challenges, but nothing outshone Lammy, with her red hair, on-point 1990s fashions and tendency to panic.
11. Amaterasu (Okami)
Proof that a game protagonist doesn’t have to be a grizzled, gruff dude with a beard to be compelling, Amaterasu is the fluffiest incarnation of a god that this industry has ever imagined. The game’s beautiful aesthetic, designed to resemble Japanese ink illustration, manages to convey both the serious godlike persona of Amaterasu and the playful nature of the wolf body she inhabits. Bonus points for her even-cuter baby wolflet, Chibiterasu, in the DS-only sequel Okamiden.
10. Missile (Ghost Trick)
Do ghosts have pets? That is the question that haunts Capcom’s supernatural adventure, in which the player takes control of a spectre trying to save living people. Missile starts off as just another dog – a very loud, slightly annoying Pomeranian that really wants to help, but ends up being shot. Pretty dark stuff, but then he comes back as a ghost and helps you out in your quest to do supernatural good deeds. Missile also turns up in Ace Attorney, but he’s not dead in that game, so not quite as cute. This is why all ghosts should have pets.
9. Chocobo (Final Fantasy series)
Ah, the lovely Chocobo. Not quite a chicken, not quite a horse, would probably taste delicious but that’s a bit weird and let’s not go there. You won’t find a bird this accommodating in real life, willing to carry your overburdened butt into battle and back, as well as being used for races, breeding and inventory management. But they’re so cute. Especially the fat ones, which can store extra stuff inside their big, yellow bellies. Just don’t ask how, it’s probably gross.
8. Marshal (Animal Crossing)
The. Best. Animal Crossing. Villager. Hands. Down. Ever. Marshal is a grumpy but adorable little squirrel-dude who’s a total gentleman, and if it were possible and not weird to date Animal Crossing characters, he’d be a smash hit on Tinder. He’s also surprisingly flirty for a character in a sweet, childlike game, always telling you that you look nice and turning up to your house unexpectedly … Obviously if this was real life we’d get a restraining order, but in Animal Crossing, we love this smug, squirrel-faced Lothario.
7. Toad (Super Mario Bros)
This helpful denizen of Mushroom Kingdom is a mainstay in the games of Shigeru Miyamoto, brightening the platforming fun with his massive mushroom head (the name Toad comes from toadstool of course) and teeny legs. He’s starred in his own games as well as in the Mario Kart series, where apparently he is Miyamoto’s least favourite racer. Miyamoto, you monster.
6. Cats (Neko Atsume)
Normally, cats have mood swings and ignore you and scratch you. Even if they’re generally nice cats, they are arseholes. The cats in cat collecting game Neko Atsume don’t pretend to love you – they’re blatantly just here for the food. But still, they’re so cute, when they’re sitting inside a cardboard train or staring right at you while wearing a tiny cat-sized cowboy hat. Even Tubbs, unanimously agreed upon to be the Worst Cat because he eats all the food, is cute. He just wants to be your friend (so he can eat all your food).
5. AiAi (Super Monkey Ball)
Let’s be honest, it’s difficult to get monkeys wrong, but when Alan Partridge … sorry, Toshihiro Nagoshi pitched Super Monkey Ball to Sega, surely the veteran video game company couldn’t have known what a simian mega hit it had on its hands. The lead character, AiAi, is the game’s charming focus, with his cow’s lick hair, giant ears and evident joy at navigating a series of perilous platform worlds in a giant hamster ball.
4. Miles “Tails” Prower (Sonic the Hedgehog)
Sonic is not cute. He’s too cool and spiky, and standing there tapping your foot and occasionally making a thumbs-up gesture, is not cute, it’s obnoxious. Tails, though, is cute, with his wide eyes, yellowy fur and ability to hover in the air like a foxy helicopter.
3. Waddle Dee (Kirby’s Dream Land series)
Sure, Kirby’s cute. But Waddle Dees, the inhabitants of Nintendo’s Dream Land platformers, are another dimension of cute. Kirby has a mouth and a solid personality; a Waddle Dee is mouthless and voiceless and his main personality trait seems to be “sometimes has an umbrella”. Occasionally, the Waddle Dees work for series antagonist King Dedede, but usually they waddle around the overworld being gorgeous. Kirby has probably inhaled hundreds of them throughout his adventures, and that’s why Kirby, although cute, is also the worst.
2. Bub and Bob (Bubble Bobble series)
Sure, it’s easy making a cute monkey, but a cute dinosaur? That’s more of a challenge. And its a challenge that Taito designer Fukio Mitsuji was up to in 1986 when he created Bubble Bobble, the inventive platforming game featuring two prehistoric monsters with unlikely bubble-blowing capabilities. So beloved where these rotund reptilians that the game spawned a vast range of sequels and spin-offs, including the brilliant Puzzle Bobble series.
1.Pikachu (Pokemon series)
When Pokemon Yellow introduced Pikachu as an overworld companion, the gaming universe changed forever. In previous role-playing adventures, you travelled alone or with other hardy warriors. In Pokemon, however, you had a tubby yellow plush toy toddling after you, occasionally offering helpful insights in the form of cute facial expressions. Pikachu actually starts off sort of loathing you, but by the end, he’s all smiles and yells of “PIKAAAAA”. That’s how friendship works in real-life, right? Right?
Anyway, out of the hundreds of Pokemon candidates for gaming’s cutest animal – and despite the doe-eyed presence of Jigglypuff and Squirtle – it had to be ‘chu.
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