In the wake of Father’s Day, we thought it only appropriate to count down some characters with serious daddy issues. We are keeping this list to games-only characters, so you won’t see any movie or comic book characters here unless they started in video games and migrated to other mediums afterward. Also remember that this list is my opinion. You are more then welcome to chastise my choices and feverishly lash me for leaving out whomever you would have chosen. So, with that being said, let’s get started.
Kratos – God of War
Let’s get this party started right. Kratos has got some seriously deep-seeded issues with his father, Zeus. So much so that he murders every single one of the gods of Olympus just to get to him and then pound his face into hamburger. But, I’d like you all to think about something for a sec. If a half-breed like Kratos has enough juice in his veins to kill not one but all of the guys, why not just subjugate them and force them to do your bidding? Why would you have to tear them apart piece by piece (literally) to prove a point that no one is real sure of to begin with? Just saying. Kratos sounds a little like a spoiled brat to me, more so than a vanquisher of the gods.
Quico – Papa & Yo
Speaking of rage, Papo and Yo is rife with it. Only this time it comes in the form of a huge monster that follows you, Quico, around and goes into insane rage-fits at any given moment and with no real notice. But the game itself isn’t really where the daddy issue comes from. The game’s creator and developer, Vander Caballero, was an abused child. He grew up with an alcoholic father who would fly into a rage at any given moment for no good reason at all, so obviously there is some parallel with the game itself. But no matter what, you’re doing good to just get by with this monster that is always at your back, just waiting for the next moment to lose its sh**.
Kazuya Mishima – Tekken
Have you ever been so mad at your dad that you thought you wanted to kill him? Well apparently that kind of thing is a two-way street between father and son in the Mishima family. For the last twenty years or so Kazuya and Heihachi have done everything they can to kill each other…but have always come up short. I mean, Kazuya tossed his pops off a cliff. Then dear old dad came back and tossed Kazuya into a volcano. But then Kazuya comes back and blows Heihachi up with explosives. And yet somehow they’re both still kicking.
Scott Shelby – Heavy Rain
In Heavy Rain , from Quantic Dreams, you can play as Scott Shelby. Now before you say that it sounds innocent enough, he is an insane serial killer who drowns his victims in rainwater and then tortures the victim’s father. Want to guess why? Yep, you guessed it. His father was an abusive a-hole which eventually caused him to lose it as a child and become the notorious Origami Killer. So mean-ass dad turns his anger on his child. His child suffers a psychotic break and becomes a homicidal maniac. Then the son takes it one step further and bags a second, horribly tortured victim before calling it quits. All because he never got hugged as a child. Way to go, Mr. Sheppard.
MegaMan – MegaMan
I know this one is a little bit of a stretch but it’s definitely worth mentioning. Dr. Light creates a sentient robot and names him rock. Then he realizes that he doesn’t want him to be alone so he creates him a sister named roll. Now if their names don’t assert that these two were bound for greatness, I don’t know what does. But after one of his first battles, Rock is given the name Mega Man (ok, so it was actually some dudes in a marketing department). After that, the rest is history. Some combination of Dr. Light and Roll getting kidnapped and drug all over hell and everywhere by Dr. Wily. Why does Mega Man have daddy issues? Because he can’t ever get a moment’s peace with his own creator long enough to get his bearings as a person – er, robot.
Fox McCloud – Starfox
Your dad gets killed by Andross. You get left in charge of his former unit. You have to listen to a rabbit tell you about how your dad would’ve done things and blah, blah, blah. Oh, and you’re a fox that walks upright like a human. It’s sounds a bit like a story from the Grimm Brothers book of fairy tales, but it’s from Starfox . This poor guy has to take on the very guy that killed his father and left him alone to face the world until he was taken in and mentored by his father’s buddy Peppy.
Jack Marston – Red Dead Redemption
Another guy whose dad gets killed. Actually his dad gets killed in the pursuit of saving his life. Sadly, Jack is in kind of a hurry to throw his own life away and go after the man that murdered his father. It’s a pretty classic plot really. Someone killed my daddy and now I am going to kill them. Except in the beginning poor little Jack was kind of a sissy that wouldn’t be able to take on much of anyone at all. Fortunately for him, time grows a man up and it gives him the resolve to carry whatever his life’s calling may be. But it also gives anger and hatred a chance to fester and swell, like an infected wound, and that can lead to some seriously nasty consequences.
Solid Snake – Metal Gear Solid
First off, Snake never actually knew who his father was until way later in life. That alone can be an issue. Then to find out that he was actually a test-tube project to create the perfect soldier from the DNA templates of his would-be father, that’s another thing entirely. So now he’s been fighting his brother (in some shape or form) for quite some time, but it wasn’t until the end of MGS4 that we believed Liquid to be vanquished and Snake finally gets to meet his real father, such as he is. All of this after meeting his mom, who has a dying hallucination that Solid is actually her lover Big Boss. This story just keeps getting more and more messed up.
Cheryl – Silent Hill
In Silent Hill, a man named Harry Mason is looking for his adopted daughter. The odd thing about this girl is that she is half-demon…well she has half the soul of a demon inside of her. But that’s actually not the oddest part. The oddest part is that Harry himself is the killer that caused his adopted half-demon child to go running for Silent Hill. So throughout all the fighting and straining and pushing onward, showing every ounce of devotion a father should to saving his child, Harry is actually the evil that has caused Silent Hill to converge all it’s sadness and wickedness upon him. A tragedy that reveals the truth only in the end.
Little Sister – BioShock
These poor little girls may be the most unfortunate of them all. Created by a deranged doctor as a means to an end, these little girls have become the easiest source of Adam or Eve in Rapture . Oh, except that they are almost always guarded by a gigantic, lumbering monster called Big Daddy. And these daddies will stop at nothing to see you riddled with holes from their weapons. It’s not really love for these children though. It’s more of an indoctrinated sense of duty to protect them from the likes of you and anyone else who would mean to do them harm. So that makes for a pretty screwed up family reunion I’d wager, one that you are most definitely not invited to if you chose to harvest these ‘innocent’ little ladies.