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Unpopular Popular Character / Video Games

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Unpopular Popular Characters in Video Games.

Note: Although this is subjective, only blatantly obvious or creator-acknowledged examples should be listed.

A No Recent Examples rule applies to this trope and examples shouldn't be added until 3 months after the character is introduced.

  • Assassin's Creed: Arguably, Altair in the first game. He has status as a Memetic Badass among fans and the distinction as the first playable character in the series, but many of the other Assassins in-game don't think very highly of him because of his arrogance, to the point that he violates all three tenants of the Assassin's Creed and is demoted to novice by Al Mualim. In particular, Malik—who loses his arm and his brother because of Altair—is pretty unforgiving of him for what he did previously. However, Altair's actions are appreciated by many NPC civilians, who call him a hero, and most of the Assassins warm up to him over time. It zigzags a bit in Assassin's Creed: Revelations where the Assassins are divided between supporting either Altair or another Assassin named Abbas. And by the end of the first game, Malik turned from strongest hater to closest confident and friend so Altair does more than just zigzag this trope.
  • Baldur's Gate has a few particularly successful cases of this:
    • Edwin Odesseiron: In-universe an arrogant and entitled Smug Snake who fellow party members will mock and refuse to take seriously at best, and attempt to violently murder at worst, Edwin is The Friend Nobody Likes taken to its logical conclusion; i.e. he has no friends at all and not even the dialogue choices with him for the player generally offer a friendly response. Among the fandom Edwin is not only widely considered an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain for his humorous failures, but also has a respectable amount of Fangirls (enough to star in his own romance mods!), and an infamous reputation among game-players as a Game-Breaker to such an extent that he can effortlessly outperform player-made mages.
    • Tiax: Even more than the aforementioned Edwin, Tiax is a gnome priest of Cyric with a delusion of grandeur. His party members barely tolerate him but he has a solid fanbase among players.
    • Viconia de Vir: In-universe a frequent victim of Fantastic Racism and almost universally disliked as a result (but also for other reasons), among the fandom easily considered one of the best-written characters in the game and the hottest female in the series, with her Romance Sidequest without a doubt being the most popular one in the second game.
  • In-Universe, Alice Angel from Bendy and the Ink Machine got a less-than-stellar reception upon her release. Out of universe, she’s arguably the most popular character in the game.
  • BlazBlue
  • The Borderlands series has Claptrap, who's a bit of an odd case. In the first game, the Claptraps were the Scrappy. After that, however, the writers noticed the fandom's negative opinion and went wild with the Take That, Scrappy! moments. This actually led to him getting Rescued from the Scrappy Heap — the constant, relentless abuse made him downright pitiful, and its jerkass tendencies eventually gave way to endearingly earnest incompetence.
  • CarnEvil: Despite him being ridiculed in-game as a "kiss-ass", Umlaut seems to be the most popular character with the fandom, receiving more fanart than anyone else. It helps that Umlaut is the mascot of the game, has a cool design and voice (not to mention amazing Evil Laughs), and has a great sense of Black Comedy.
  • Corpse Party:
    • Yoshiki Kishinuma. Somewhat of a delinquent and loner, who's implied to have had a Friendless Background prior to meeting the main cast members. He suffers from some of the more gruesome Wrong Ends the game has to offer because the Big Bad favours him as a chew toy and being paired with Ayumi means he has to go through a lot of effort to keep her alive with little gratitude in return. He's also easily one of the most popular characters in the series, for being very level-headed in a crisis, surprisingly kind-hearted, and because fans just sympathize with the poor guy.
    • Sakutarou Morishige, to a lesser extent. He suffers from Loners Are Freaks in-universe due to being so anti-social, but fans like him either because they can relate to that aspect of him or because his creepy hobby later in the game is equal parts entertaining and tragic.
  • The Maple Heights district of Criminal Case: Grimsborough introduces Adam Bentley, a forerunning socialite whom the Grimsborough PD dislike for being a pretentious creep who frequently hangs around rich and powerful people — most of whom ended up dying — while the rest of the districts looks down on him for not having an affluent background. He seems to be quite well-liked by the audience, and his murder gathered more than a few mourners among fans.
  • Danganronpa:
    • The first game has Kiyotaka Ishimaru. Despite his best efforts to make the students work together, almost everyone else sees him as an annoyance, it is made clear that Mondo is his Only Friend, and barely anyone reacts when he's killed. The fanbase on the other hand loves him and he always scores highly in popularity polls.
    • The second game has two more:
      • Usami/Monomi is treated very badly by almost the entire cast. She gets abused by Monokuma for most of the time, and almost all students are suspicious of her and are very annoyed by her constant appearances, causing them to tell her off and verbally abuse her. Because of all the hatred she receives In-Universe, she's The Woobie to the fandom, with many players being able to sympathize with her, especially since she is constantly shown to be on her students side no matter how much they hate her. It also helps that she is sometimes useful to the class, such as saving Fuyuhiko and Nekomaru's lives or her role in the Grand Finale.
      • Mikan was bullied relentlessly throughout her life by both her peers and family, repeatedly insulted by Hiyoko, and Fuyuhiko is rather harsh to her before his Heel–Face Turn, while the rest of the cast range from being annoyed or indifferent to being nicer but mildly condescending towards her, with the possible exception of Ibuki and Hajime. While she is a bit more controversial than other characters listed here due to other factors, many people express a desire to give the poor girl a hug.
    • Nagito, Kokichi, and Miu are treated as The Friend Nobody Likes within their respective stories. However, while some fans view them as divisive characters, they have very loyal fanbases. A Reddit poll ended up placing Nagito at the top ten and the official NDRV3 popularity poll had Kokichi and Miu at #2 and #4 respectively.
  • Donkey Kong Country: King K. Rool is detested by the Kongs (possibly related to the fact that he has stolen their bananas, kidnapped them and even tried to blow up their island) and isn’t well-liked even among his underlings due to how badly he treats them. Among audiences, however, the Kremling King is beloved thanks to his refreshingly crazed personality and ridiculous yet effective schemes. He was one of the most popular contenders for a playable fighter in the Super Smash Bros. series, and his reveal in the fifth game was met with acclaim.
  • Dragon Age: Origins:
    • Alistair is, while not hated, at least viewed as rather annoying and childish by many of the other companions, with even the most positive opinions of him being condescending. Many of the fans, on the other hand, find him hilarious, adorable, or some combination of both.
  • Ensemble Stars! has very clear in-universe popularity rankings for each of the units which often diverge greatly from reality. In-universe, fine is the clear top unit and Akatsuki second, while in reality those two tend to be among the least popular. (Though this is justified by the fact that real-world readers are privy to a lot of information about fine's bad behaviour that the in-universe audience are not, and fine's popularity is at least in part due to Eichi's deliberate manipulation.) By contrast, Knights is definitely the top unit in the real world, with Undead and Ryuuseitai up next. And while Ra*bits isn't hugely popular, it's a hell of a lot more known out of universe than in-universe, where they're a very new unit who got off to a very shaky start (thanks, again, to Eichi and Akatsuki).
  • Epic Mickey: Oswald the Lucky Rabbit leans a bit into this trope. In the game, he's portrayed as a vengeful and jealous antihero regarding Mickey's popularity. Though he improves, he's constantly pained with the knowledge that Mickey received his fame. In Real Life, Oswald's inclusion was one of the key aspects which drew people into the game, and he has a solid fanbase in Japan.
  • Final Fantasy VI Kefka Palazzo is hated by almost every single character on the game for good reasons. Amongst the returners, he's a cruel commander who has killed lots of people, innocents included, for his callousness and amusement. The empire soldiers on his charge doesn't have a higher opinion of him either, as he's infamous for burning lots of imperial soldiers during a practice. Kefka is so cruel, sadistic and sociopathic he cannot fully get true loyalty from anyone outside of dangerous beasts. And yet, the fanbase loves him for being such a darkly amusing villain who manages to take over the role of the Big Bad. A lot of his popularity comes from the Woolseyism in the American version, giving him a surprisingly charming humor sense while also showcasing his cruelty and effectiveness as a villain.
  • Final Fantasy VII's Yuffie, certainly not without justification seeing as how she's a thief that attacked the party and tried to trick them after the fight. If you head to her hometown, it'll turn out that the party was right to be suspicious. She steals your materia and you have to get it back from her. She joins you on the straight and narrow from then on and by the end, some of the group have grown attached to her, such as Red XIII (the only one to point out she's missing when the group re-unites before the final dungeon) and Cloud (who welcomes her back when she comes.)
  • Serra from the Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade. No-one likes her at all unless you engage Supports, yet she's very well-liked by fans.
  • In Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach, it's clear that no one In-Universe likes the Daycare Attendant, due to it being unnecessarily creepy even for this series and its tendency to traumatize the children it's supposed to watch over in its Moon form. Even Freddy doesn't have anything good to say about it. Out of universe, it's easily one of the most popular characters, getting quite a bit of fanart and fanfic.
  • Fukushima Masanori is one of the better-known historical Japanese generals, leader of the Seven Spears of Shizugatake, and one of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's finest (and wasn't reported to be as brutal as his fellow general Katou Kiyomasa, who takes anti-Christianity Up to Eleven). However, whenever he makes an appearance in KOEI games (Samurai Warriors, Ace Attorney-like game Saihai no Yukue), he is usually portrayed as a bumbling fool nearing The Scrappy level to possibly make Ishida Mitsunari (main protagonist of the latter game) look good. Koei truly hates Masanori.
  • Genshin Impact has Hu Tao who is canonically disliked by nearly every character save for a select few. Yet despite this, you would not have guessed that she is one of the most popular characters in the game who also has the largest fanbase, with her subreddit eclipsing even that of Raiden Shogun's. The fact that her JP dub is voiced by Rie Takahashi probably helps in her insane popularity.
  • Grand Theft Auto:
    • Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas: If there's any character in this game that deserves to be in this trope, it would be Ryder. Sure Ryder's an asshole who betrays the Grove Street Families later in the story, but he has the charisma and cohesive attitude that makes him a fan favorite to many fans of the game.
    • Grand Theft Auto V: Trevor Philips is undoubtedly one of the most psychotic and murderous playable characters in the franchise history which understandably makes him not very well-liked by anybody around him apart from Michael and Franklin and a handful of other people, with his underlings following him mostly out of their fear for him. For the fans, however, he's easily the most beloved and memorable character out of the three game protagonists thanks to that very same psychotic nature. Trevor's popularity is also helped by his surprisingly complex personality with many Hidden Depths that makes him an entertaining yet also relatable character.
  • Heavy Rain: Norman Jayden is abused by every police officer in the game, constantly getting the crap beaten out of him and doesn't have a single happy ending But he's easily the most popular character outside of the game.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Tingle is one, but only in Japan. It's Downplayed in his debut appearance; Tingle's father is certainly embarrassed by his son's obsession with fairies, but it doesn't go as far as hate. Notably, if you bring him a pictograph of Tingle, he'll reward you with a heart piece. The Tingle of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, on the other hand, is clearly viewed as bizarre at best and outright disliked by the laborers on his island — two of whom are his brothers!
  • Lunar: Eternal Blue: Lemina is loud, pushy, money-grubbing, has her fair share of blonde moments, and is somewhat lacking in integrity from time to time (despite her respectable long-term goals). She's sometimes viewed as a slight annoyance by the rest of the group, and certainly by people outside of it.
  • Mortal Kombat:
  • Nippon Ichi:
  • Persona 4: Yosuke is liked enough amongst most fans. It's not uncommon for him to end up as the butt of a joke. It's a different story when the laughter stops: See any scene involving Saki.
  • Generally speaking, with the Phantom Thieves from Persona 5 receiving All of the Other Reindeer treatment, a few of these are bound to happen. However, these people deserve special mention-
    • Ryuji Sakamoto is ostracized by his former track teammates because he was indirectly responsible for getting the team shut down-even though he was trying to call out Kamoshida’s abusive behavior, and while he's not disliked by the other Thieves, he’s definitely the Butt-Monkey of the group and they, especially Morgana, tend to make comments at his expense. In spite of consistently ranking at the bottom on Eastern popularity polls, the Western fanbase adores Ryuji due to his endearing, friendly personality and bromance with the protagonist, and many of his fans are not fond of the scene where he gets beaten up offscreen by the female Thieves while the males do nothing to stop them after they escape the last palace.
    • The other students at Kosei High treat Yusuke Kitagawa differently due to both his association with Madarame and because of his behavior in general, and after Madarame is arrested, he's actively shunned. However, he manages to be one of the most popular characters in the game due to him being a Comically Serious Cloudcuckoolander.
    • Upon her introduction it is clear that Makoto Niijima is not very well-liked among her classmates. In fact, it's implied that she didn't have any friends before joining the Phantom Thieves. While she does have a vocal amount of detractors, Makoto nevertheless is one of the more popular characters within the Eastern and Western fandom alike, for being useful in battle, her team mom status and a fan favorite love interest of Joker.
    • Prior to Futaba Sakura being a shut-in, she was almost completely friendless at school with her Only Friend having to be a girl named Kana in which their friendship ended up falling apart. On the other hand, fans really like her due to her Moe personality, having huge amounts of Character Development, and her lacking the Annoying Video Game Helper tendencies that past Mission Control characters have.
  • Pokémon:
    • Magikarp: since it has horrible stats and can learn only four moves outside of events, it is systematically perceived by in-game trainers as useless, and even its Pokédex profile describes it as "virtually useless". In Real Life, on the other hand, everyone knows it evolves into the much more badass and useful Gyarados, so it ended up being the opposite of this trope for fans and the Trope Namer for Magikarp Power. This had the side effect of giving the impression that nearly any Pokemon based on a fish is bound to be awful, even when it isn't the case (most of the time anyway).
    • Absol is despised in-universe for a widespread but mistaken belief that it starts natural disasters but has quite a hefty fanbase because of a very beautiful design.
    • This applies to many of the Dark and Ghost types, as well as a few Poison, being widely feared or at least regarded with suspicion in-universe but loved by the fandom for their good designs, usefulness in battle, or just because Evil Is Cool.
    • Mimikyu is probably one of the franchise's biggest examples yet. It's a tiny ghost who wears a crudely made Pikachu costume made from old Pikachu merchandise in the hopes that it will be noticed and loved more thanks to its resemblance to the widely popular Series Mascot. Considering its massive Ensemble Dark Horse status among the Pokémon introduced in Pokémon Sun and Moon, it seems to have achieved this out of universe at least, thanks to its Woobie-ish backstory and endearing design.
    • In terms of human characters, Team Skull is treated as a group of nuisances and losers In-Universe, but out of universe, their comedic qualities, strong personalities, and surprisingly sad backstory resulted in the group being one of the most popular villain teams in the franchise.
  • From the Punch-Out!! series:
    • Glass Joe. He may be the ultimate Jobber with more defeats than most champions have victories, but he'll always be the champion in players' hearts.
    • Aran Ryan (at least in the Wii version) is a complete psycho who breaks all the rules and is greeted with a chorus of boos from the in-game audience. He also happens to be one of the most popular characters.
    • Super Macho Man (Also Wii version) is met with more audible boos than Aran Ryan, and the crowd cheers harder for when you knock him down than the other combatants. Despite this, he is loved by the fanbase for his overinflated ego and how much of a Large Ham he can be. Add that to the number of things he says falling under Memetic Mutation.
  • Schezo from Puyo Puyo often gets no respect from his peers, due to being an intimidating dark mage and generally unpleasant. On top of that, his terrible choices in vocabulary lead to him be taken far less seriously than he would want to be. Fans, however, find his antics entertaining and is well-loved to have better depictions in fanworks, if only to soften his Butt-Monkey status.
  • Uncle from Red Dead Redemption and Red Dead Redemption II is often berated by other characters for being a lazy, sleazy, drunken freeloader. Out of universe? He's one of the most, not the most popular character, due to providing much of the Comic Relief, his Jerk with a Heart of Gold moments, and sacrificing his life to save the Marston family.
  • Erik from Rune Factory Frontier. Despite his sheer awesomeness, he has to bribe people in-game to appear impressed by him.
  • Dexter "Dex" Jackson in Saints Row. In-Universe, he's virtually hated by everyone In-Universe for suddenly betraying the Saints for Ultor, then attempting to kill the Boss, and then becoming a Corrupt Corporate Executive in Saints Row 2. Outside, he's well-liked for his snarky attitude and for being more level-headed than the rest of his gang, especially when compared to Johnny Gat. It doesn't help that Volition put both him and his storyline from the second game on a bus, as the Corporate Warfare DLC was never released on the infamous PC port. Although Dex returned in Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell as part of a revenge sidequest, many long-time fans felt that it was an Anti-Climax ending to a feud that went unanswered for two games straight.
  • Shantae: Bolo is often treated with disdain from nearly everyone In-Universe, and generally written off as nothing but an idiotic screw-up and pervert. Out of universe, he is loved for being a loyal friend to Shantae, his antics being seen as hilarious, and he is even a popular ship partner for Shantae.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog:
    • Tails is often a "victim" of this, especially in Sonic the Comic.
    • Knuckles seems to be leaning into this area as well due to recent Flanderization. He's bitterly jealous of Sonic and his dopiness and lack of "team ethics" has even Cream the Rabbit making snide remarks at him at times, nevertheless he has a fanbase nearly as big as the hedgehog himself (granted, however, Knuckles was an Ensemble Dark Horse even before his transition into a Butt-Monkey).
    • Same for Dr. Eggman, especially in Sonic X, where the poor guy's really just an Attention Whore at heart.
  • The Adoring Fan from Starfield. He's an homage to the character of the same name from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, where he was The Scrappy for his obnoxious voice, obsession with the player, cowardice in battle, and general uselessness. His Starfield iteration, however, is perfectly competent in combat, has enhanced carrying capacity, and will never question the player's actions or challenge their authority. For an evil playthrough, the Adoring Fan is easily the best companion: even the most morally grey Constellation members complain when the character does something truly evil and will likely leave them if they keep it up, Vasco is a Crutch Character whose weapons cannot be upgraded, and the other hirables are Flat Characters who are often a pain to find and lack the Adoring Fan's useful mixture of abilities.
  • Street Fighter:
  • Super Mario Bros.:
    • Luigi tends to be neglected by the citizens of the Mushroom Kingdom and Bowser and his men, apparently the entire population of the Beanbean Kingdom, Colonel Campbell... his fanbase is fairly large due to this, especially since his own game debut Luigi's Mansion gave him his own personality to stand out from Mario, and it's pretty hard to find someone who doesn't like him nowadays, to the point where most Nintendo fans are likely to tell you they prefer the green-clad plumber to his more iconic brother. In fact, a lot of Luigi's problems in-universe, especially in the Paper Mario games, is that he can be as good as Mario, but nobody gives him a chance. This has gotten to the point that Nintendo declared 2013 to be The Year of Luigi to celebrate three games Luigi stars in.
    • Waluigi isn't very well-liked by the characters in-universe due to being a crazy, petty Jerkass. Outside of the games, a sizable portion of the fanbase loves him for various reasons, including being an underdog (due to his plans often backfiring, Nintendo themselves occasionally teasing him, and his minimal chances at A Day in the Limelight - the closest to date being the Tricksters Episodes from the 3DS version of Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games), having great levels tied to him (such as Mario Kart and Mario Sports Mix's Waluigi Pinball), going through bouts of Crazy Is Cool and just plain hilarious ridiculousness (like trying to take over the world with his dance moves in Dance Dance Revolution Mario Mix), creating several memes (including "Waluigi time!", the crotch chop, and Waluigi's Taco Stand), and various combinations of the above. Nintendo once ran a poll asking who you would give a Valentine to, and while their polls usually pull in a couple thousand votes per option, Waluigi totaled more than 1.25 million votes by the end of March of 2019, becoming the only character on the poll to break a million; for comparison, Animal Crossing's Breakout Character Isabelle received the second-highest number of votes, and she still didn't even reach half of Waluigi's total. In spite of his lack of presence outside of spinoffs, Waluigi has managed to pull in a dedicated group of fans, and support for him to have his time to shine, whether in Super Smash Bros. or headlining his very own title, is very easy to find on the internet.
    • Goombas are the lowest ranked and weakest enemies in Bowser’s army, and never stand a chance against Mario’s almighty shoe soles. Yet they are an integral part of the franchise, being the most featured enemy along with Koopa Troopas, as well as influential enough in video game culture to have a trope named after them.
  • Raven from Tales of Vesperia. At best, everyone tolerates him. Usually, the party members are disgusted by his antics, mostly because he's a Dirty Old Man and refuses to act his age. Most of the time they don't even call him Raven; they just call him, "old man". He's still one of the group until the end.
  • Lots of Touhou Project fan works (and some canon) show their love for characters like Hong Meiling, Cirno, and Reisen Udongein Inaba by making them into all-round Butt Monkeys abused by their superiors.
  • Tsukihime: Satsuki is the only heroine without a route in the original visual novel, and side material more often than not treats her as a Butt-Monkey mocked by the other characters for not having a route. Isn't it sad, Sacchin? But she's one of the more popular characters amongst the fanbase for her underdog nature to the point that she eventually managed to become an Ascended Extra in the Video Game Remake.
  • Papyrus from Undertale has three people in the Underground who give him the time of day, and one of them's his brother. The others are Undyne, and a soulless flower who's repeatedly killed him before you show up. Naturally, the main reason he wants to be a Royal Guardsman is because people might actually want to be his friend afterwards. The fandom, meanwhile, pretty much universally loves him, the cinnamon roll that he is.
  • Yandere Simulator: Word of God has repeatedly emphasized that he created Midori Gurin to be an obnoxious Hate Sink representing fans pestering him about the game's development, and in-universe, neither students nor teachers have a positive opinion of her. She's nevertheless one of the most recognizable and talked-about characters for her ditzy behavior, her repeated deaths drawing in audience sympathy, and the faint hints regarding her being an Expendable Clone, especially amongst ex-fans tired of the game's Troubled Production who see her concerns regarding the game as completely legitimate in hindsight.

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