Video Game Catfishing: When The Title Doesn’t Match The Face

Like books, video game titles usually give us a pretty good clue as to the kind of adventure we should expect from the experience. Most conventional titles will include the main character’s name or a reference to them. But, every once in awhile, there’ll be a game that will throw off our expectations entirely.

Join me as I share the Top Ten games where the title doesn’t match the face!

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10) Yoshi’s Cookie
(NES, 1992)

Yoshi was and remains a beloved character since his initial appearance in Super Mario World in 1990. However, Nintendo wouldn’t let us actually control him until 1995 when we got Yoshi’s Island: Super Mario World 2. So, in the meantime, the big N would just slap his name on games to entice us – though, technically we were just controlling Mario in one of his many jobs. Put the cookie down!

9) Beauty and the Beast
(SNES, 1994)

Disney has had dozens of iconic licensed tie-in games with their movies and shows: DuckTales, Aladdin, Chip n Dale, Darkwing Duck, The Lion King, and so on. Yet, when it finally came time to develop a Beauty and the Beast game, were we controlling Belle? No! Belle is too girly! Instead, they decided to take the easy road and just build another action-platformer game from Beast’s perspective. Tale as old as time.

8) Star Fox Adventures
(Gamecube, 2002)

To be fair, Star Fox only had two games before this Gamecube sequel came out. Buuuuuut, Star Fox 64 (1997) wasn’t just any game. It was HUGE – in the top ten of most successful games for the N64. It was quite a turn for them to show up with a new game 5 years later only for us to have to play as new character Krystal for the first sections of the game – and in a completely new play style nonetheless! Where’s Fox?? (He shows up later).

Nintendo was quick to remedy this with Star Fox Assault in 2005, and the series has had a rocky ride since then (conversely, I’ll admit that I’ve been re-playing Star Fox Zero lately, and I kind of love it).

7) Wario’s Woods
(NES, 1994)

Like Yoshi, Wario gained a following after he appeared in Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins in 1992, and he even earned an immediate solo adventure in the game’s sequel of 1994. That didn’t stop Nintendo from trying to pull the wool over our eyes by throwing his name on yet another puzzler. Stranger yet is that in Wario’s Woods, we’re controlling *Toad* of all people!

6) Metal Gear Solid V
(Playstation 4, 2015)

Snake, Snake……different Snaaaaake! I don’t know much about the lore of the Metal Gear series, but I do know that by the time they got to Metal Gear V, they decided to ditch Solid Snake altogether to tell a prequel about “Venom Snake” who is very closely tied to the original game. I mean, they could have just called this Metal Gear Venom, right?

5) Donkey Kong & Donkey Kong 3
(Arcade, 1981/1983)

In Pac-Man, I play as Pac-Man. In Dig Dug, I play as Dig Dug. In Q*Bert, I play as Q*Bert. In Donkey Kong, I play as….Jump Man! It’s strange that these arcade classics decided to put all their focus on the main villain of the game rather than the heroes that we controlled – Jump Man (Mario) and Stanley the Gardener. Though, it begs the question, if this series was naming their games after the villain, then why wasn’t Donkey Kong Jr. called “Mario??”

4) Mega Man X7
(Playstation 2, 2003)

Here’s an entry that drives me nuts. The Mega Man and its spinoff series are some of my favorite games ever. Not only did they jump the shark by making Mega Man X7 a weird semi-3D adventure with horrendous camera angles and some of the worst (“BURN TO THE GROUND”) voice acting I’ve ever heard, but YOU HAVE TO UNLOCK Mega Man X. That’s right, the main character of a MEGA MAN game is an unlockable requiring you to complete a significant portion of the game before you can use him. WHAT AM I FIGHTING FOR?

3) Metroid
(NES, 1986)

While it’s kind of a joke now, children of the 80’s never expected that 1) the title of the game did not contain the main character’s name and 2) the main character was a girl (further evidence that we could have played as Belle in the Beauty and the Beast game!). Meet your main hero, “Metroid!”

2) Hollow Knight
(Various, 2017)

Maybe it’s unfair to put Hollow Knight so high on the list, but I know I wasn’t the only one who thought that *I* was the Hollow Knight making my way through the depths of Hallownest. No, you are just “The Knight,” a generic dude who is learning all about the actual Hollow Knight and their connection to this strange place. It’s a cool twist – but you had me fooled!

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Honorable Mentions:

Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!
(NES, 1987)

Tinstar
(SNES, 1994)

Bram Stoker’s Dracula
(SNES, 1993)

John Madden Football
(SNES, 1991)

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1) The Legend of Zelda
(NES,1986)

I could have easily paired this with Metroid in that they came out around the same time – but more amusing yet is that in the manual of Metroid, they simply referred to Samus as a “space hunter,” never mentioning their actual name. Furthermore, they used “he/him” pronouns throughout. They were TRYING to trick us!

In The Legend of Zelda manual, however, Link is mentioned right away in the game’s story. And, the in-game crawl text reiterates this same lore. Did we read the manual, though? Did we have the manual? Heck no! Get me in the game! Nobody knew Zelda was a girl’s name, so we plunged forward as Zelda, the great swordsman destined to save Hyrule!

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Thanks for stopping by to read my post! Can you think of any other characters who are starring in games that aren’t named for them? Share with me in a comment below!

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