Today is March 17, and that means it's Saint Patrick's Day. How do you celebrate the occasion? By making everything green. Wear green clothes, eat green food. Light the buildings green. If you live in Chicago, you also dye the whole river to be green! If there's something that can be green, people will make it green.
Green is also one of the most iconic colors in the context of video games. It's the color of the triangle button on a PlayStation controller, and the A button on an Xbox one. Xbox itself has also made green their main color. For PC players, NVIDIA is another green one. On many systems, green is the color the power light flashes to indicate that the console is on. It's also a trope for the first level or world in a video game to be the "nature" one, meaning that you see a lot of grass and trees that are, you guessed it. Green!
This also extends to characters. Characters wearing green. Characters with green fur. Characters who slipped into a vat of green paint and stayed in for too long. Whatever the reason, there are tons of video game characters that we associate with the color green. So now let's go through them and recount the ones that have stuck with us the most.
Luigi - Super Mario
Official artwork by Shigehisa Nakaue.
This is an easy one. He's the brother of arguably the most well known video game character of all time, so how could Luigi not be on the list? If you're not too familiar with the Mario universe, it may be easy to dismiss Luigi as simply a green palette swap of the red Italian plumber. And in fact, during his first outings, that's exactly who he was. Later games tried to give him a floatier jump and slippery physics, which I don't think is well liked in the slightest.
This wouldn't stop Luigi from evolving truly into his own thing. Luigi has taken his own spotlight separate from Mario originally in Mario is Missing! (and this watch game from 1990), and finally got his own sub-franchise in 2001 when the original Luigi's Mansion was launched along with the GameCube itself. Luigi's always lived under the shadow of his brother since the beginning, but at least they've done something to carve out his place in all our hearts.
Bulbasaur - Pokemon
Bulbasaur's official artwork by Ken Sugimori, and the one on our Pokedex.
Ahhh, the very first Pokemon in Pokedex order. Bulbasaur may not necessarily be my favorite Grass-type starter, but there's no denying that it's the one that carries the franchise the most. Really, that's true for all of the first-Generation starters. Bulbasaur is a standout in due to his design and his prominence in the anime. I could've put Frogger on the list, but he's literally just a frog. Bulbasaur on the other hand is a frog with an onion bulb on it who will be your best friend throughout the adventure (or worst enemy if you happened to choose Squirtle as your starter).
By the way, in case you missed it from our birthday announcement articles, we have a fully functional Pokedex on the site now. You can even play "Pokedle", effectively Wordle with Pokemon, with a new Pokemon to guess every day.
King K. Rool - Donkey Kong
King K. Rool's appearance in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
Since we're already talked about Mario, let's keep the Nintendo train rolling with his original barrel-throwing nemesis turned good guy, and then the nemesis of said nemesis. He was established as the main antagonist of the beloved Donkey Kong Country games where he couldn't decide if he wanted to cosplay as a pirate, a mad scientist, or a boxer, so he did all three.
Despite his nearly 20-year long absence when he finally returned in Donkey Kong Bananza, K. Rool managed to stay alive in the hearts of all of us because all of his games did as well. Donkey Kong Country, particular the three SNES games, are known as three of the best platformers of all time, and at the time, also the most graphically advanced. Throw in a villain with a personality like K. Rool, and it's easy to see why the games and the characters have stood the test of time.
Master Chief - Halo
Master Chief render from Halo: Infinite.
A bit of a tonal dissonance from the previous three entries to this one, Master Chief is essentially the character that single-handedly gave Xbox a fighting chance in the console world. While the original Xbox has a lot of great games on it, people didn't buy an Xbox to play those games. They bought an Xbox to play Halo and since they already had the Xbox, they were free to pick up the other good games on the system too. For years, dare I say decades, Master Chief essentially stood as the face of Xbox.
For as much as people tend to claim that Master Chief doesn't have much character, I do believe has "blank slate" personality was an important part of his character so players could bridge the gap between their normal, real life human self, and the lucky Spartan that can kill anything he comes into contact with. Later games did also try to expand his characterization a lot more, particularly with his relationship with Cortana. And let's be honest, the green armor is just cool.
Blanka - Street Fighter
Blanka's official artwork for Street Fighter II.
Unlike a lot of other fighting game franchises, Street Fighter has never been particularly known for its non-human characters. Not only is there simply not that many of them, but the few that do exist are generally not that interesting. With one big exception... Blanka.
Blanka was just simply the first one there, which is an advantage, but what the few non-human characters don't have that Blanka does is real personality and character. Blanka has an interesting backstory beyond just being a "feral" man, a lovable personality that contrasts his "beastly" image, and a fun moveset where he can roll into a ball and generate electricity that makes him unpredictable and fun.
Yoshi - Super Mario
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Official artwork by Shigehisa Nakaue.
The Mario series gets two iconic green characters on this list? Yes, it's unfair, but it's also totally fair. Because Yoshi is Yoshi. Yoshi is easy to love because he's a cute, little dinosaur (and dinosaurs are awesome, we can all agree on that one) that will be your best friend no matter how many times you let him drop down a pit to avoid falling yourself. I wasn't sure if cartoony dinosaurs like him were popular at the time, but his status as one definitely made him recognizable.
Not only is he an adorable sidekick, but he's also a bit of a badass with his ability to flutter jump, and also to swallow absolutely anything and everything whole. His charming design and fun abilities meant that it wasn't that long until Yoshi would get his own spotlight. Only 5 years after his initial appearance in Super Mario World, he got his own game, Yoshi's Island (or rather, "Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island", despite not really having anything to do with the first game), and a series of similar games down the line known for its challenging gameplay contrasting the cutesy art styles.
Carol Tea - Freedom Planet
Carol's sprite from Freedom Planet 2's character select screen.
A bit of an oddball choice, but from the game that owes its roots to Sonic, Carol outranks all of the green characters from its inspiration franchise. What iconic green Sonic characters are there? The best contender is probably Vector the Crocodile. Carol has definitely established her place in the gaming world better than any of the green Sonic characters. While she's fun to play as in the first game, the second game gave her a more fun move set and gave her much more tension and characterization with her relationship with her older sister playing a pivotal role in the game's plot.
Carol is a character that establishes herself due to her personality. To be fair, all of the playable characters in both games do this quite well, but Carol is a necessary character to have. A spunky, energetic contrast to Lilac's determined and serious tone, Carol is the character that reminds us all that no matter how high the stakes get, we're playing a video game at the end of the day, and that means the goal more than anything else is to have fun.
Link - The Legend of Zelda
Link artwork from the cover art of the Japanese version of the first game.
Because we don't have enough Nintendo characters on this list already. The Legend of Zelda is probably only third to Mario and Pokemon in terms of franchises known by the general public, even outside of gamers. Link and his 5000 different incarnations have defined the video game world so much that they've created their own designator (the "Zelda-like") and effectively created the concept of dungeon crawling in general (no Gauntlet fans, I haven't forgotten about you).
Why Link has ascended as one of the most popular characters in any media? Well other than obvious answer of being recognizable because of his past fame, Link is an icon because the games allow you to see yourself in him. He's effectively just a little elf-man (yes, I know he's a "Hylian", don't burn me alive) who can pick up a sword and conquer impossible odds. Playing through a Zelda game is essentially a story of the underdog persevering through every obstacle he comes into contact with.
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