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The same goes for video games. More often than not, some characters follow noticeable tropes, like the pretty boy heroes in classic RPGs, the stoic martial arts men in old fighting games, or the wacky, furry animals in platform games. However, some video game characters have more curious inspirations behind their designs. Here are a few eyebrow-raising examples.

7 Pokemon and Mushiking Come from the Same Japanese Kids’ Game

Pokemon needs no introduction, but what’s Mushiking? It was a Sega arcade game where kids played rock-paper-scissors via cards with beetles (‘mushi’ in Japanese) on them. The beetle with the best stats and moves wins. If that sounds familiar, it was reworked into Yakuza Kiwami’s strange, woman-based equivalent Mesuking. Both it and Pokemon are based on the same children’s game: bug hunting.

In it, kids would capture beetles, then pit them against each other in combat. Adults also get way too into bug hunting, often grooming, breeding, and betting on the best ones. Pokemon creator Satoshi Taijiri was such a fan of the game that he was called ‘Mr. Bug’ as a kid. Part of the reason he made his magnum opus was to combine his love for insects and video games into one source. Only Pokemon expanded to include mammals, birds, and other animals too, while Mushiking is exclusively all about beetles.

6 Johnny Knoxville is Both Nathan Drake and Travis Touchdown

The easy joke would be to say both Drake and Touchdown were Jackasses, but that would be the easy way out. Uncharted’s Nathan Drake clearly has some Indiana Jones and other pulp-era heroes in his DNA with the globetrotting and grave robbing. However, the first game was originally going to be more comedic and madcap. So, Drake’s personality and looks skewed closer to Knoxville’s yuks and stunts than in the final product.

The Jackass star’s influence on No More Heroes’ Travis Touchdown was more obvious. His personality as an otaku that dives into things without much thought, among other foibles, stands out strongly in the final product. But the game’s director, Suda 51, wanted a way to sum up how he imagined Touchdown to be to his team. So, he used a clip of Knoxville getting his nipple bitten by a baby alligator in the first Jackass film to illustrate his point. It worked, and his game became one of the Wii’s must-have titles.

5 Noctis was Based on Kurt Cobain

One would think that if any musician inspired a Final Fantasy lead, it would be a Japanese pop or rock star. Final Fantasy 15’s Noctis Lucis Caelum would surely be likely to owe more to Takuya Kimura, Gackt, or the like. Instead, Japanese voice actor Tatsuhisa Suzuki was given a different rock source: Kurt Cobain. The idea was that Cobain was a celebrity who didn’t like being famous and often shunned the limelight when he wasn’t messing with the script.

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Thus, Noctis would feel the same about his royal status, wishing he didn’t have the burden of royal responsibilities when he’d rather be free to go out with his friends. If that wasn’t odd enough, the banter he’d have with said friends was inspired by Aaron Sorkin’s work. If anyone was wondering what a Cobain-esque hero exchanging The West Wing-style dialogue in a fantasy series would be like, Final Fantasy XV has them covered.

4 Johnny Sasaki was a Real Guy

The Metal Gear series isn’t a stranger to throwing in odd jokes. Metal Gear Solid 2 may have a scary plot about information control, manipulation, and abuse, but it also had a soldier having a bad time in the bathroom. Johnny Sasaki has been a series mainstay since the first Solid game in 1998, often being struck with bad bouts of diarrhea and other stomach problems.

He also happened to be inspired by a real person: Metal Gear Solid 1’s character model designer Hideki Sasaki. According to the commentary on the Japan-only Metal Gear Solid: Integral game, Sasaki had a bad habit of slacking off one way or another back then. So, when he was late for work one day, the development team decided to name their hapless guard after him as a joke. A joke that would last 17 years as the Sasaki family turned up in each subsequent Metal Gear Solid entry in one form or another.

3 Vamp is Based on a Real Flamenco Dancer

Staying in Metal Gear, Vamp stood out as one of the series’ more interesting villains. He’s Romanian, drinks blood, is cold to the touch, and was nigh-on immortal until Snake figured out the convoluted way to negate that. But he wasn’t called ‘Vamp’ because he was like a vampire. It was because he was a flirty bisexual. Originally, he was going to be a woman, where the seductive female vampire act would’ve been more of a typical trope.

Except his debut game, Metal Gear Solid 2, already had two female villains in Fortune and Olga Gurlukovich, complete with their own boss battles. So, character designer Yoji Shinkawa had to go back to the drawing board to make something more unique. After seeing flamenco dancer Joaquin Cortes in action on TV, he decided to turn his femme fatale into a homme fatale. Cortes’ influence was so strong that, on top of having the same look, Vamp would also use flamenco dance steps and claps in his boss fights.

2 Guile was Inspired by 3 Different Jojo Characters

As one of Street Fighter 2’s most iconic characters, it’s funny to think the all-American air force pilot Guile was inspired by General Rudol Von Stroheim, Joseph Joestar’s Nazi frenemy from Part 2 of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. They have the same barber’s brush hairstyle that’s surely not within military code. However, that’s not the whole story. Originally, Guile was going to be based on another Jojo character: Jean-Pierre Polnareff from Part 3.

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The problem was that no one on the team could remember his name at the time and mistook it for his sworn enemy J.Geil. By the time they realized their mistake, the name was set in place. Then, during the concept sketch phrase, the trademark giant flat-top they took from Polnareff got floppier and flatter with each sketch. By the end, they jokingly called it ‘the Stroheim look’ and stuck with it. Capcom would eventually get to put Polnareff and his hair in a fighting game with 1997’s Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Heritage for the Future.

1 Lara Croft was a Combo of Tank Girl, Neneh Cherry, and the Creator’s Sister

The Playstation may have come out in 1994, yet 1996 was when it really came into its own. Tekken 2 succeeded over its predecessor in every way. Crash Bandicoot gave the Playstation a mascot on par with Sonic the Hedgehog and Mario. Then, Core Design ported Tomb Raider over to it and turned Lara Croft into a household name. Her genesis was interesting, as she went from a male hero to a Hispanic adventurer called Laura Cruz, then to the British Lara Croft to appeal to the home UK crowd.

Creator Toby Gard based the character on cult comic star Tank Girl and musician Neneh Cherry. Largely because both were noted for being sexy and tough women, with Tank Girl’s looks sticking out in particular in Lara’s final design. However, it’s said Gard also took a little inspiration from his younger sister Frances, as she liked to travel to new places and explore the sights. The difference being she probably didn’t shoot rare animals with giant handguns. As far as anyone else knows, anyway.

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