Duncan and Lester

I really never thought I'd pull myself to draw either of these guys in my life. But alas, here's a drawing I made of who I'd like to call two of the worst video game characters in history. Of course it's worth mentioning that I never heard of these guys until recently when I saw James Rolfe's reviews on their games. And I have to say that after watching those two reviews, I'm SO glad I never played either of those games when I was a kid in the 80s and 90s. But anyway, for those of you who have never heard of these guys before until now, allow me to clue you in as to why they're so obscure and unheard of.

Prince Duncan:
This guy is the main protagonist from Dark Castle, a game that was originally released for the Macintosh Computer in 1986. The game has had several releases on several other home consoles including the Sega Genesis and the Sega CDI console. From what I've heard, the Mac version was actually decent. It had some smooth responsive controls, and it was actually playable. But the Sega Genesis and CDI versions of the game failed miserably. Mainly because of the suck ass controls and crippled gameplay which ruined the experience.

The story in Dark Castle is quite simple, when the evil Black Knight terrorizes the townspeople, Prince Duncan for some odd reason decides to take it upon himself to journey to the Black Knight's castle to topple his throne. But in order to do that, he must travel to the four sections of the castle: Fireball, Shield, Trouble, and Black Knight. You can acquire a shield and fireball from those stages. However, you don't really need the shield and the fireball to beat the game. When you start the game, you are given the choice to choose one of four doors to go into. You can choose to go through the trouble of playing through the entire game, or you can just go straight to the Black Knight, who is final and only boss in the game. But the big joke here is that the Black Knight only throws drinking cups at you. But I guess that makes no difference because everything that hits you kills you instantly. And yes, this is one of those games where if anything touches you, you're dead instantaneously. Doesn't matter what it is.

The character Duncan is a complete joke. In fact, he is beyond any doubt one of the puniest and most pathetic protagonists in the history of video games. He's so weak and clumsy that its just ridiculous. Everywhere you try to walk, he trips over things, and he keeps getting dizzy which leaves you open to attack. And trust me when I say that his low stamina and lack of endurance is only one of his major flaws. Another big flaw with this guy is that he has no ability whatsoever to drop down from any height. He could fall two or three feet from the air and it kills him or renders him dizzy. Even the smallest drop on the ground causes him to see stars. Hell, Duncan controls like an 80 year old man with arthritis! He's so wimpy that it just boggles the mind why he'd want to risk his life going to a castle where there's more than a good chance that he'd end up getting himself killed!

Unlike most video game protagonists, Duncan doesn't use the usual kind of weapons you'd normally expect a character to use. His only defense he has against enemies are rocks that he throws. And the big problem with this is that the rocks get used up, which means if you run out of them, you're completely defenseless. And to make matters worse, most of the enemies never seem to die. You can kill bats and rats with the rocks, but the stronger enemies like the guards and the jailers get right back up and come back after you. In a common sense perspective, a smart person would have brought along a sword with him or something. But rocks? What a joke! Can you imagine the stupidity behind that? I mean who goes around in haunted castles with nothing but rocks as his only weapon of choice? Hell, Simon Belmont from the Castlevania series would wipe the floor with this guy! And in all honesty, I'd much rather be playing Castlevania than ever play Dark Castle in my life! Because at least Castlevania was fun and enjoyable unlike this lame excuse of a game!

Lester:
This guy is the main character from an old SNES game released in 1994 called "Lester the Unlikely". Now most of you who have seen James Rolfe's review of that game probably have heard of this guy by now. If not, let me explain. Lester, whose last name is unknown or not given, is a comicbook nerd who wonders off to a dock while reading his new issue of a comicbook series called "Super Duper Hero Squad" (yeah, very original). He unwittingly falls a sleep on a peice of cargo that's loaded onto a ship, and he becomes an involuntary stow-away. Later, the ship is raided by pirates, and Lester escapes and swims to a nearby tropical island. And that's where the game begins.

Lester is yet another one of the worst video game characters of all time. In fact, this guy is pretty much on par with Prince Duncan in being one of the most pathetic and forgetable characters in that category. The control scheme in "Lester the Unlikely" is similar to the control scheme from the old Prince of Persia, Out of this World, and Nosferatu games, which all used the same style of rotoscoped animation. But trust me when I say that Lester the Unlikely is a complete embarassment when it comes to gaming. He's so slow and clumsy, and to top it all off, he's a big coward as well. In the first few levels of the game, he constantly does things against your own will. When you approach a turtle or a crab or whatever, he runs in the opposite direction and screams like a freaking pussy. Your only means of attack is a puny kick which can immobilize crabs and turtles, but its useless against all the other enemies in the game.

After you save a girl from a gorilla in one part of the game, Lester eventually mans up and becomes more capable and less cowardly, which means he's no longer afraid of animals or greater threats. But this doesn't save the game from sucking. Yes, even cowards can man up, grow some balls, and become more courageous. But it's not saying much in this case because the game is still pretty crappy. And to save myself the effort, I've seen speed runs of this game on Youtube, and I have to say even the ending is pathetic. Fortunately, Lester never got his own sequels, and probably for a good reason. In fact, there's no doubt that that was quite a relief to those who have played such a miserable wretched catastrophe of a game. In fact, as I remember, James Rolfe even made a few jokes about how potential sequels for Lester the Unlikely would have turned out. And I have to say they were pretty crude, but hilarious jokes. Anyway, there's no doubt in my mind that if Lester and Duncan were to meet, they'd most likely be the best of friends in the world of forgotten video game characters. But in this case, I think its a good thing that these two have been forgotten. Because boy did their games suck.

Prince Duncan belongs to Electronic Arts and Silicon Beach Software.
Lester the Unlikely belongs to Asmik Ace Entertainment Inc.