Memetic Badass/Video Games

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Capcom

• According to a disturbing number of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney fans, Damon Gant can and will rape anything. Others prefer to think of him as a more traditional Memetic Badass. That, and his stare will ravage your soul.
  • The same sort of popularity has been applied to Manfred von Karma, Edgeworth's Control Freak mentor. Do not let him get within a foot of a taser.
  • At the other end of the spectrum, a group of members from the Court Records forum has elevated Klavier Gavin to the status of a rock/sex god, complete with commandments. Said commandments (numbering 55 as of this edit) include paying to see Klavier shower and losing one's virginity simply by looking at him.
  • More recently, there has been a push towards Luke Atmey getting this treatment. To wit, he is able to stop Manfred von Karma's soul-devouring gaze by hurling his Ace Detective badge directly into the prosecutor's face.
  • HoboPhoenix. After he's been hit by the car, he'll walk away with only a scratch- just in time to completely screw you over, destroy your livelihood, get his revenge, and he reunites families in his spare time. This does not apply to preHobo!Phoenix, however.
  • No, screw that; Phoenix Wright in general is this. Even in his college days, he was capable to knocking out a guy with a one-handed shove. And during his lawyer days... he proceeds to defeat three of the most formidable prosecutors in the world, and he the only reason he will ever lose is If he wants to lose, or is confronted with a certain memetic jerkass. And don't ever lie to him; if you do, he will find out and expose you as the liar you are.
  • Investigations's Tyrell Badd earned the Fan Nickname "Detective Baddass" within days of the game's release. You know how his Badass Longcoat is riddled with holes? Yeah, those are bullet holes. And that's Canon.
  • The real reason for Godot's Cool Mask is that he can shoot lasers from his eyes.
• Oddly enough, thanks to a certain song, Air Man has been elevated to Memetic Badass. It is completely undeserved, of course. Strangely enough, someone made a Mega Man-like game with Hatsune Miku as a main character. The final boss is Air Man in it, and he's actually HARD.
• Frank West. He's covered wars, ya know.
  • Don't forget Chuckie Green, All he needs is Duct Tape....and he can create anything.
  • The Dead Rising fanbase considers 8-Ball from 2 the most badass character in the entire series....despite the fact that he's a corpse (and not a living one either).
• Mayor Mike Haggar is the FUCKING MANLIEST POLITICIAN in all of history. If he were president, he'd solve all the world's problems by just piledriving a shark into them.
  • Which he becomes in Marvel vs. Capcom 3... after beating Dormammu with a pipe for setting his billboard on fire and piledriving Galactus.
    • Yet another reason Sentinel should've packed up his bags and canceled his flight the moment Haggar was confirmed for MvC3.
  • Behold the glory that is The Ballad of Mike Haggar.
• Devil May Cry's Dante. Badass mutha 101. Wrote the book "My Life As A Badass With A Cool Jacket". Invented the line, "I'm too cool for stairs!"
  • Cutscene Power to the Max!Dante is invincible. You can't kill him, you can't surprise him, and you can't even hope to get a brief upper-hand. Hell, he can even kill you with billard balls and defy the laws of physics at a whim.
• M. Bison from Street Fighter. So awesome and evil that he has done a lot of evil, Badass stunts, only to forget them, because for him... it was Tuesday. A role model for everyone who wants to, you guessed it, Take Over the World.
  • "OF COURSE!!!"
    • "YES! YES!"
    • "DELICIOUS!"
      • M. Bison, the character so powerful he KILLS THE PEOPLE PORTRAYING HIM.
      • *gasp* Too Soon!
  • In later games (particularly starting with Alpha and crossover titles), Bison has this pose where he smugly and triumphantly crosses his arms across his chest. It's almost like he's saying, "That's your super? I'm M. Bison."
    • How badass is he? So badass that he can will his fiendish soul post-mortem and simply wait for a clone body to be produced so that he can kick your ass all over again. You simply cannot kill him. In fact, M. Bison is so badass that when SFIV was announced, he retconned being sent to Hell by Akuma's Shun Goku Satsu. His words? YESH! YESH!
  • Dan and Dhalsim have also achieved this level of unparalled badassery. Dan's mighty school of Saikyo-ryuu is beloved by fans of the genre, and confronting Sagat will earn you some of the manliest occular gushes to have ever been gushed by a man. The latter? These words shall suffice....

Dhalsim: "I will meditate and then destroy you."

• • Recently, it has been said that if Cody would actually start giving a shit in battle, he could solo the entire SF universe (this version of him is known as Totally Serious Cody in some circles). Considering that he fights evenly with most of them already (keep in mind that he's a fifth-degree black belt who is a major pragmatist when it comes to fighting and willingly holds himself back by continuing to wear his prison cuffs which he could take off at any time), this assumption doesn't seem too far off...
• Chris Redfield is so badass, he rapes 16 ton boulders and then punches them to death.
  • Also Jill Valentine can survive 100-plunges face first, because that dying shit is for pansies.
  • Imagine yourself in an infested Raccoon City swarming with zombies. Now place all of the protagonists there. And Wesker. Finally, add HUNK into the mix. HUNK will solo them all. There's a reason his official sobriquet is "Mr. Death".
  • When Leon Scott Kennedy fights a giant ogre monster and when it's weak point is spewing out it back, what would you do? Shoot it? Not Leon! He just climbs on the thing's back and slash it with his knife!
    • Fighting bio-organic monstrosities, silencing fanatic cults that utilize said bioweapons, and being a Big Damn Heroes in general is all in a day's work for Leon. It's how he earns his paycheck.
• There was a green-armoured Redshirt who appeared in the first stage of Mega Man X2 and exploded in the game's opening. Nevertheless, the Green Biker Dude, as he became nicknamed, has gained something of a reputation.
  • Pull a wheelie and die, GBD! For Everlasting Peace!

Nintendo

• Nintendo's very hardware is virtually indestructible, as it is made of Nintendium, which is harder than diamond. (This last anecdote is verified by a troper.)
  • The most famous is the Game Boy that was found in a bombed-out barrack.
  • Back in the Game Boy Color days, their idea of quality assurance actually involved taking the machines to the roof of a three-story building and chucking them off.
  • Out there in the Internet wilds is a video of some guys who dragged their Game Cube from a rope behind a truck through a rural neighborhood in attempts to disable it before they bought their shiny platinum Game Cube. Despite the tumble, it still worked. Didn't survive the sledges and firepit, though.
    • There was a letter-to-the-editor in a 1990s issue of Nintendo Power: A old-school Game Boy had taken a bullet during Operation Desert Storm, and the owner sent it in to demonstrate that, though the screen was busted, it could still start up and play Tetris.
  • According to an issue of Nintendo Power, if you hurt yourself by dropping a Game Cube on your head, the magical medical gnome housed inside the GCN will bandage the wound for you.
    • X-Play did experiments that showed the Game Cube was the most durable of the consoles for its generation.
    • Of course, this generation, the PS3 takes that crown, with the Wii taking second place.
  • Nintendo's games are notoriously badass for another reason.
    • And apparently the games by Atlus is purposely made to be even more memetic than Nintendo's for being being Nintendo Hard. After all, one of their company spokespersons proudly admitted the following: We get off on your tears.
  • As one YouTuber so eloquently put it (all the while putting a spin on the Genesis's tagline), "Genesis does what Nintendon't... but Nintendo is what Genesisn't!"
  • Don't be mistaken though. Game Boys have never really been waterproof. This troper learned that out the hard way.
• Reggie Fils-Aime, the Nintendo of America president since 2004. His introductory words during that year's E3? "My name is Reggie. I'm about kicking ass, I'm about taking names, and we're about making games!" Cue the rejoicing on Console Wars forums everywhere.
  • When the Wii released, shirts were sold depicting Reggie as a shirtless, muscular man holding a Wiimote and a Nunchuk, to cement his "Reggienator" image.
  • (after winning a Wii Sports Resort match) "That's why they call me the Reggienator."
  • "My body is ready."
  • On the Nintendo 3DS's one-year anniversary in the US, they distributed a Reggie Mii over SpotPass. If you venture forth with him in Find Mii, he's level 5 instead of the usual level 1 or 2 StreetPass Miis or wandering heroes you get.
• F-Zero's Captain Falcon, amongst Nintendo fans. To be more specific, his Falcon Punch is said to match Chuck Norris' roundhouse kick, thanks to a YouTube video of a clip from the anime adaptation F-Zero: Falcon Densetsu that makes it look like it creates an explosion that can be seen from outside the galaxy.
  • Arguably justified in the first Super Smash Bros., since Captain Falcon was one of if not the most dominating characters in the game, and in the right hands could be absolutely devastating against any other character, or even multiple characters at once. So much so that he was greatly de-powered in the sequels, reducing him to merely a formidable opponent.
    • Not quite; Falcon was strong but community consensus is that Pikachu, Kirby, and Ness are more effective. However, Falcon's memetic badassery is known to rub off on the players that use him. In particular, Isai has filled that role in the Melee scene.
    • Isai is too good. ^{[dead link]}
  • Nuclear physicists around the world have based their entire research procedure on the Falcon Punch. How badass is it? Too badass for a physical manifestation to not blow itself up repeatedly.
    • • The Captain's badassery is established also in the fact that we can see his muscles from underneath his clothing. Also, he originated in a racing game. How did the developers get the idea to give him those moves? He can shoot fire from out of his legs and arms... without magic or any technological explanation.
        • From watching his behavior in the Subspace Emissary plot (driving a racecar with his arms folded, knocking over a giant robot with his paunch, carrying other characters, and summoning his spaceship by snapping his fingers) one could conclude that the developers themselves acknowledge his fanbase and may secretly want to be a part of it.
    • F-Zero's characters are a homage to comic book superheros; Falcon was always intended to be ridiculously badass.
• Wolf O'Donnell can't let you do that, Stah FOX!
• Beam Claws from Kid Icarus Uprising. That's not the weapon he's using, it's his name. His particular weapon, however, has Paralysis properties. He can close gaps with his excellent foot speed and cure blindness by running really fast. He can turn a single slash into a brutal Combo. And he takes advantage of the fact that opponents on rails are easy targets. He's also the only one capable of firing Daybreak. To a lesser extent, everyone else in the multiplayer. It's thought that Masahiro Sakurai himself was playing as Beam Claws.
  • Anti-example in Fairy Orbitars, who didn't do a single thing to help his teammates out and just stood by looking like an idiot when Beam Claws fired Daybreak. And he had to call in Pit to replace him.
  • Black Club too. He's Beam Claws' worthy opponent. Hell, he was the first to land a kill, and who died? Beam Claws, getting rammed by Black Club's big black balls.
  • Beam Claws' teammate, Twinbellows Cannon also counts. He knocks his opponents off the edge with AUTHORITY.
  • Insight Staff is divisive. He's either a coward who only runs away and gets a few cheap shots or he's a ruthless, cunning Cold Sniper.
• Jeff Andonuts has a cult following (a cult following within a cult following?) like this. The most famous example being found here. Mature content warning.
  • Also, Flint from Mother 3, who has earned nicknames such as Flint Norris and Flint Eastwood.
    • The Flint is disappointed he has not been mentioned as such.
    • There are in-game videos that showcase Flint's awesomeness.
  • One of the NPCs in Mother3 looks exactly like Mr. T. And what does he do the first time he shows up? He drags your silly ass off the train tracks and tells you, essentially, "don't do that, foo'." Best of all, you can do that several more times, and he has different dialogue each time.
• Anti-example: Glass Joe.
  • To elaborate, Glass Joe has a win-loss record of 1-99. However, such a staggering ratio shows that no matter how badly he keeps getting beat, he doesn't give up and keeps coming back for more.
  • Super Macho Man's RELEASING THE BOGUS!
• Red from Pokémon is definitely this. Only he can defeat a mafia, stand in a pitch dark cave, on a mountain, in the snow (with no jacket), isolated from man, and run like a ninja... and he's fourteen (eleven when he defeated Team Rocket and became Champion). Cynthia also tends to be this when she isn't depicted as a Memetic Sex Goddess.
  • Red's silence has been known to make the manliest of men break down into hysterics.
  • Red did not climb Mt. Silver. Mt. Silver grew where Red decided to stand.
  • Just like his anime counterpart, Green from the games can be this due to his personality and the fact Gary is based off him. You usually beat him though. His new clothing can also be used for this lately.
    • Gary Motherfucking Oak! Mostly because Green/Blue/Gary is always one step ahead of you and acts like a dick throughout the game.
    • Blue was the Ozymandias of his time. He was always leaving behind breadcrumbs for you to follow. "What's that? You beat all eight of the Kanto Gym Leader/all of the Elite Four? I did it thirty-five minutes ago."
    • Leaf, Red's Distaff Counterpart, has become one of these to varying extents. She's on the level of Red, she's stronger then Red, she's their weakness, she wasn't in HGSS because she was too good for it or would have made the universe explode if both her and Red were in it, etc.
  • You were not necessary to shut down Team Galactic. Rowan would have subdued them with nothing but a steely gaze and ellipses. He just deputized you to do it instead so he could spend the weekend at a spa.
  • Youngster Joey's Rattata is in the top percentage of all Rattata. EVER.
    • The best part is that the source data shows that his Rattata actually has MAXIMUM IVs. When Joey says "top percentage", he's not fucking kidding.
  • On the actual 'mon side of things, we have Genosect, also known as Dennis. Why Dennis? This is why .
  • Hilda, the most recent female protagonist, has been portrayed -- especially in artwork around the revelation of her -- as a Badass truck- or motorcycle-obsessed Ladette.
  • Missingno., anyone?
  • Garchomp is a hammerhead landshark dragon that can fly at mach speeds (at least according to the 'dex). His stats also place him in the top tier of non-Olympus Mons, and many gaming communities actually rank him higher than lower-tier legendaries. Not good enough for you? Look at Garchomp. Now look at shiny Garchomp. Notice the difference? No? That's because Garchomp is perfect as it is.
    • The shiny one looks darker, but only because GARchomp scares light.
  • Magikarp. For one reason. It's so common. It evolves INTO THE STINKIN' LOCH NESS MONSTER! Because it's so common and so easy to catch, you can easily raise an unstoppable army of GYARADOS! Also, see Magikarp Power.
  • Officially, members of the GAR pantheon include GARizard, GARados, GARchomp, etc.
  • FUCK YEAH! SEAKING!
  • Where do you think Blue/Green/Gary got all of his magnificence? That's right, Professor Oak. The Oak family's got genes, bitch. Possibly doubles as Memetic Sex God and/or Memetic Molester.
  • Erika tends to be made into a Hidden Badass.
• Certain The Legend of Zelda CDI Games characters are subject to this in Youtube Poops. Most notable is King Harkinian. Shopkeeper Morshu is also sometimes considered as a Memetic Badass. He has rope and bombs.
  • Also Gwonam, who uses SQUADALAH, DAI, and birds.
  • The Cuccos anyone? They are one of the most terrifying things in the Zelda universe.
  • Speaking of Zelda, we have Link himself and every reincarnation of him, seemingly the only guy you need when something bad happens. Silent but deadly.
  • And now, Groose and/or his pompadour join this elite club. This trope shall now be renamed Memetic Groosinator.
  • Demon Lord Deborah Ghirahim the Fabulous is Furious! Outraged! Sick with anger! at the fact that his tongue, which is longer than Long-cat, is not mentioned on this page.
• From Golden Sun, we have Briggs and Dullahan. Briggs for being a Badass Normal pirate as well as a nasty "Wake-Up Call" Boss, and Dullahan for being a gleefully Nintendo Hard Bonus Boss.
  • Both of whom get canon badass moments in Golden Sun: Dark Dawn: Briggs repeatedly attacks the most defensible city on Angara's east coast with a busted ship to rescue his son and dies of wounds sustained soloing against the superpowered monsters of the Grave Eclipse, and Dullahan gets a difficulty upgrade.
  • It doesn't matter where in Weyard they are or what they're facing, war zones, monster-infested wilderness, trap-filled dungeons... if there are teenage Adepts on a quest and in need of exposition, Kraden will find a way to them.
• Grit can snipe with a revolver.
• No mention of Weegee yet?
  • The real, one true badass of Super Mario Bros..? The Green Thunder himself, Mr. L, of course. Mr. L wasn't working for Count Bleck; Bleck was working for him. Losing to you? All part of the plan, of course. And The Dark Prognosticus was completely correct in that Mr. L is the one most suited for the Chaos Heart; however, Dimentio was too afraid of him, so he had to settle for Luigi instead.
  • Regular Luigi's no slouch either, his punch can break mountains.
  • Mario can kill the sun. He also knows about timed hits.
    • Don't mess with the plumber.
• Admiral Dane from Metroid Prime 3. Impressive, since he shares a universe with a woman that has (to date) blown up three planets, one which was a sentient parasite, and caused the near extinction of at least two major-threat species. This fandom was likely spurred on by official concept art portraying him with an eyepatch, peg-leg, cape, and laser sword.
  • Samus Aran needs no fandom to exaggerate her badassery. She is the intergalactic Queen of Badass.
    • In 'verse, too. Some characters talk about her like some kind of war goddess, while others can't believe the stories (they're wrong).
    • Hell, the Space Pirates actually treat stories of her as some sort of myth. It'd be like telling your kids about how Satan will come to blow up them and everyone they love if they act out... only Satan's a hot blond chick in power armor.
  • Besides, Dane's too manly to wear a helmet or filtration system while landing on the Space Pirate Homeworld to order Samus around. Note that no pirates have the balls to even try to snipe him during the briefing.
    • That, and he does so on a planet ravaged by rain so acidic that even Samus has to use a special widget to survive. What does he use as an umbrella? His own personal flagship.
      • Also notice that most space pirates stop appearing after he makes planetfall. This fact has been linked to his slightly "bulkier" appearance later in the game. So, what did he do to the pirates?
      • Rounded them up, locked them in a huge cage, then bench-pressed it.
      • Also, he SWORE in a Nintendo game.
• Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn has a faceless, nameless NPC that the fandom calls the 3-13 Archer. Has been called the best character in the game. Has had fanfics devoted to him. Is known for having had entire strategies revolving around him.
  • Statistically, he is considerably worse than your player characters, being only midway through his second tier, with average stats at best for said tier. This does not explain how he manages to instantly kill a tiger laguz every turn whilst taking no damage. It is the great mystery of Radiant Dawn.
  • Fire Emblem 7 has Glass, a level 3 mercenary, who gives us the famous quote "I am Glass! The gods fear my name!", as well as Batta, a level 2 brigand, with the quote "You think you can stand up to Batta the Beast?"
  • There's also Gheb, from Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones. He's very unattractive and makes not-so-subtle advances to Amelia, and has had the game in which he appeared HACKED TO STAR HIM.
    • Said hack also stars GLASS!
  • Not to mention pretty much every Swordmaster in the entire series, many tend to overlap with Memetic Sex God.
    • Most Heroes do that as well.
  • In the Japanese fandom, Wrys (Or Riff or whatever) is this, despite weing a weak Cleric who can be considered borderline useless (recruited in the first chapter, but has bad stats and there isn't much need for a healer in the beginning, and you get a better Cleric in chapter 3), to the point the SNES remake didn't include him (the DS one did, to his fans' rejoice). Or probably because of this.
  • In Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, EPHRAIM DOESN'T PICK FIGHTS HE WON'T WIN!
• According to TV Tropes, Kirby: he will destroy entire armies for a piece of cake and regularly kill Eldritch Abominations. Do not fuck with Kirby, for he is hardcore (IN AMERICA!)
  • Forget America, Kirby's a memetic badass everywhere. His punch... can split a planet in half! His resolve... trumps everything. His appetite and mouth... even God himself fear. Even in the anime when Dedede was inhaled by Kirby (temporarilly, apparently) he saw the universe! Don't be fooled by his cute little face and little round, pink body... Kirby is the walking apocalypse.
    • The cake is a lie because Kirby ate it first.
  • I say Meta Knight da bess.
  • The Wild Mass Guessing page for Warhammer 40,000 states that the Tyranids, an intergalactic Horde of Alien Locusts that eat planets to their metaphorical bone and outnumber the stars, are running from Kirby. And it makes perfect sense.
    • What about the Wild Mass Guessing that Kirby is actually fighting a Reaper from Mass Effect (in the form of Zero)? Colonizing planets? Assuming direct control? Augmenting them? And Kirby's still the one who sets things staright by fighting a freakish eyeball made of what could possibly be liquified Pop Star inhabitants, and Mass Effect 2 has eyeball bosses! Talk about perfect sense.
  • For that matter, many have described the Waddle Dee from Kirby Super Star's Arena as the most powerful boss in the entire game, in spite of the fact that his sole distinguishing trait is an unusually large amount of health for a Waddle Dee (though Kirby can still inhale him).
    • The DS remake gave Waddle Dee a bandana and made him a secondary character in one of the storylines. FEAR THE BANDANA DEE!
    • It gets even better; in Kirby's Return to Dream Land, Bandana Dee is a playable character.
  • What about Sailor Dee? He went down with the ship. Like a MAN!
    • Actually, Meta Knight saved him in the end. But the fact remains that he was willing to go down with the ship.
  • Let's not forget the big guy himself, King Dedede; a.k.a. the TRUE hero of Super Smash Bros.. Brawl's Subspace Emissary. The mere fact he has the balls to fight the pink destroyer of the universe is certainly enough, but this cunning penguin apparently outplanned everyone, even the likes of Ganondorf and an interdimensional being, in order to save the greater world all in a scenario where nobody talks. And he pimp-slaps Bowser! In Kirby's Adventure as well, he's the REAL hero while you, Kirby, have ironically shown your True Colors as the greatest villain the universe has ever seen. To go up against Kirby man... that's gutsy. If you don't agree well... then you can have...
  • What about Waddle Doo and STINKING KNUCKLE JOE?
  • It would probably be easier to think of the Kirby series as basically Fist of the North Star but in a Sugar Bowl instead of a apocalyptic wasteland.
• Diddy Kong. Period. In the Subspace Emissary of Brawl, he fired two peanuts at a couple of Bullet Bills IN MID-AIR, and then he and DK stood doing an Asskicking Pose while the bullets EXPLODED BEHIND THEM!

Square-Enix

• Sabin. Because MOTHERFUCKER SUPLEXED A TRAIN.
  • And he's running as fast as it is - backwards - on top of that.
  • In a little known universe known as Final Fantasy VII, there exists a woman who can powerbomb a 50 foot monster... UNDERWATER! ON THE BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN FLOOR!. That woman is Tifa Lockhart.
  • Kefka.
    • Locke Cole would like a word with you.
• Emperor Palamecia is so badass, he conquered Heaven and hell at the same time! Either way, you're fucked from either end of the celestial food chain.
• Gilgamesh in Final Fantasy V. An entertaining, Affably Evil Dragon at best? Not to his fans! He's the ultimate Badass of the FF series, and nobody should dare suggest he's a cowardly boastful goofball who brags about his abilities, flees at the drop of a hat, and has trouble distinguishing legendary swords with worthless counterfeits.
  • It's his theme song.
    • And the fact that he's pretty much the only character to show up in more than one FF (all the other cameos are just alternate iterations).
    • Gilgamesh exists outside of time. Chaos only got a foothold because Gilgamesh has a sense of direction rivalling that of Ryoga Hibiki.
• Jecht, originally from Final Fantasy X, has achieved this thanks to Dissidia Final Fantasy, and has earned the Fan Nickname "Captain Jecht." The nickname only makes more sense when you think that he has his own version of the Falcon Punch - one of his HP attacks is an exploding punch. Also, in a cutscene where he slams his son Tidus halfway across the arena with a single blow, and takes a sword slash to the chest and literally shrugs it off.
  • And also, HE'S THE BEST.
  • Just watch a certain Let's Play of Final Fantasy X and see how long it takes for you to believe that JECHT IS THE BEST!
  • He's SO FUCKING MANLY he can punch out a Level 130 Feral Chaos without Iai Strike AT LEVEL ONE in 34 SECONDS!]
  • Auron: Square Enix's own Uncle Iroh with a bigass sword. He knows exactly what Xanatos has planned, killing him does nothing to stop him, he mocks the god of the dead, and Hercules only survived a fight with him because Auron allowed him to.
• Kain Highwind from Final Fantasy IV isn't quite as memetic as Gilgamesh or Jecht, but he definitely has his fans, and his own "Kain Facts." With his inclusion in Dissidia 012, you can be assured that there will be many a YouTube video of Kain and Jecht duking it out... or teaming up via the new Assist feature.
  • Hell, Golbez, the not quite Big Bad of IV, is one of these in Dissidia (not to the levels of the above three, but still). Jecht might beat your face in with his manly vigor, but Golbez literally pimp slaps some knowledge into you.
• In the Kingdom Hearts fandom, Vanitas is quickly ascending the ranks of undisputed Memetic Badassery. He's so awesomely evil and Magnificently Ax Crazy that he completely dodges the Fan Dumb title of Draco in Leather Pants, all while being admired equally by male and female fans. Also, FEAR THE SMILE.
  • Before there was Vanitas, there was Mickey Mouse. No, your eyes are not deceiving you. That Mickey Mouse. Square made him the KH-verse's answer to Yoda, and it worked. He's so Badass, that they made Big Damn Heroes a gameplay mechanic revolving around him.
  • Also from Birth by Sleep, there's Aqua. Considering what this Cute Bruiser can and has done including kicking (Master) Xehanort's ass when he was theoretically at his strongest, kicking the aforementioned Vanitas' ass three times, with the the third and final time in a Back-to-Back Badasses moment with Mickey, and being the only one of the game's trio to not have their body stolen or end up in coma, it's easy to see why!
    • And she's a raging goddess of pain and destruction in gameplay too. Meld a few commands, and by early midgame no mob can touch you.
    • She spent 12 years in the World of Darkness without a Black Coat and yet none of the darkness has eaten away at her heart. The storyboard writers have probably kept her out of commision for so long in fear of Aqua becoming a One Woman Story-Breaker Power.
    • She's not speaking in Dull Surprise, she's just relaxed because petty matters such as Master Xehanort's plan are child's play for her.
  • The KH version of Seifer has undeniable proof that he can totally own lamers like Roxas. He's always lookin' after the town, y'know?
• Taban is the true mastermind behind everything!
  • There's also a joke in the fandom that Janus's cat Alfador is really The Entity.
• Sephiroth, to the point that the exaggerations are becoming canon in spin-offs.
• Sho Minamimoto knows the last digits of pi, and those last digits are Sho Minamimoto.
  • Sho Minamimoto can Divide by Zero.
    • And he will nuke you with pi.
    • He knows Level i Flare.
  • Then there's Joshua, who is Jesus and can DROP THE FREAKIN' MOON!!!!!
• Big Joe!

Touhou

• Touhou Project has them in spades. It's probably easier to count the characters who are NOT Memetic Badasses.
  • Cirno: the Strongest of Gensokyo!
    • She is also a genius.
    • It is notable that as of Fairy Wars, while she is still the Small Name, Big Ego type, some of what fanonically made Cirno idiotic has been disproved (she has been shown to have knowledge of maths, including fractions), along with an admission by Marisa herself that she is growing strong or skilled enough to pose an actual challenge. At this rate, she may well become a canonical Badass as well!
  • But can she compare to CAPTAIN MINAMITSU MOTHERFUCKING MURASA?
  • Bah. Neither can hold a candle to MANnosuke. Or his blazing glory of manliness. (Link is NSFW because of the site.)
    • Mannosuke pales before Cho-Marisa.
    • How about Marisa herself? Badass Normal Extraordinaire, fires gianormous lazors and a Memetic Sex God to boot as well!
    • No, no, the strongest is clearly Yuugi, her sake NOT EVEN DROP.
  • Rumia, or rather EX-Rumia (without her hair ribbon).
  • Everything in Gensokyo is exactly how Yukari wishes it. Even while sleeping for most of the time, everything continues to be Just As Planned. Even think of messing with her plans, and she will hurl a train at you.
  • Unzan and his Brofist.
    • Not to mention that Ichirin is just his hitbox.
  • Flandre Scarlet and Yuka Kazami. If you see either of them, run away. Screaming.
  • Forgotten character Mima has the Twilight Spark, which has lead many to believe that when she comes back (and it will be when) there will be explosions.
  • Let's not forget about Hong Meiling. She may be feeble at danmaku, but she can and WILL kick the asses of every martial artist in the universe, simultaneously.
  • Then there's EX Keine. She has the power to "create and change history", which is the kind of vague power which could mean anything and everything, but of course the fans took it as an indication of omnipotent and godlike power and ran with it.
  • Mokou wears the pants in Gensokyo. (She also possesses strong phoenix vibes, which helps.)
  • Wriggle may be a stage 1 boss, but she can still (litterally) kick your ass.
  • The Soccer Ball. It has been sliced 10,000 times in one second, rapid-kicked so hard it burst into flames, propelled from space and back into earth by the explosion of a Space Station, slashed by the scythe of a Grim Reaper, a several-kilometer long energy sword, and a katana that can cut the moon in half, Beam Spammed to hell and back, blasted by something that can cause an Earth Shattering Kaboom... and it has has survived all of that and more without a single scratch. Just what is that ball made of?
    • The only time the ball is ever compromised is during Ran's Shikigami: Heavenly God's Descent where it briefly becomes too radiant to see clearly and splits in two when Ran kicks it. And then it merges back together.
  • HAX SIGN [YOU JUST PLAIN F*CKING LOSE ]. That is all.
    • Reimu's Fantasy Heaven in Hisoutensoku really is a beast.
  • And then there's ZUN, who apparently can finish the games at the hardest difficulty setting with closed eyes without getting hit once, depending on how drunk he is.

Others:

• The Xbox and Play Station 3 are so large, they are visible from orbit and warp gravity around their frames.
• Sylvia, of all people, is one now too. Yes, the girlfriend that was kidnapped in Spartan X, known to us US people as Kung-Fu Master. Punch in "Natraps X" into youtube and witness her true unadulterated badassery.
• Not even driving simulators are safe from Memetic Badassery. In Forza Motorsport 2 (and Forza Motorsport 3), the AI Driver M. Rossi has been elevated to this status (although "Memetic Bastard" would be a better way of putting it for him).
• The only reason the Order was able to kill Harry Mason is because they must have caught him enjoying a little "me-time". He's indestructible otherwise.
  • Harry Mason told Heather he was the strongest man in the world. Both her and gamers thought so until Silent Hill 3...
  • And he's not even the king of this trope within the series. That title can only belong to Pyramid Head, whose memetic... badassery became so enormous that future Silent Hill developers just had to find a way to include him in almost every game. And, of course, the movie.
    • Harry Mason could kill Pyramid Head, but not before asking it if he's seen a little girl.
• Far Cry 2 gives the player character a chance to become this. At reputation level five your journal will note circulating rumors that you are literally Satan himself and never kill your enemies before extensively torturing them.
• Under no circumstances should anyone entertain the notion of pursuing Lu Bu.
  • Also Honda Tadakatsu. Not only was a dragonfly split in half by simply landing on Tadakatsu's spear, his drill spear will pierce the heavens!
    • The drill spear part only applies to his appearance in Sengoku Basara where he also happens to be a ginormous robot samurai
• Blue Steel, an otherwise minor NPC hero character in City of Heroes, has been used for so many offscreen Deus Ex Machina conclusions to superhero capture in villainous story arcs that he has gained a game-specific list of Chuck Norris-esque alleged accomplishments. It is even lampshaded by another NPC.
  • He is also one of the very few NPC heroes that you are never given the chance to fight in the game, so there is no telling just how tough he really is.
    • But with the new Shield Defence powerset added in the last update, we might get to see him in action (read: kick his ass) after all!
• Star Wars fans have, in addition to Mace Windu as played by the aforementioned Samuel L. Jackson, Kyle Katarn. There was No Endor Holocaust because Katarn said so. The shockwaves from the explosion of the second Death Star knew to not screw with him.
  • A joke idle animation showing him shaving with his saber elevated Kyle Katarn's beard to it's own, independent status as the toughest material in existence.
    • But behind Kyle Katarn's beard, there isn't a chin. It's just another pistol.
  • When Kyle Katarn does pushups, he doesn't push himself up. He pushes Nar Shaddaa down.
    • No! He pushes Nar Shadaa up, because that's the way HE defined gravity!
  • The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard in Jedi Academy because otherwise Kyle would beat the entire game for you in five minutes.
    • It gets to the point that no-one protests that Kyle Katarn is quite a bit more difficult an end-game boss than a ressurected ancient Sith Lord, because, well, it is Katarn.
  • And they get Darth Revan as well. Who is so badass in-game that he can't be killed by a full turbolaser barrage from a Knights of the Old Republic Star Destroyer. And can kill three terentateks all by himself, normally the work of nine Jedi. And can out-swoop-race, out-lightsaber-duel, and out-shoot everyone in existence.
    • It doesn't hurt that his d20 game stats have six levels on Kyle Katarn.
  • Here is what the Expanded Universe says about the Katarn Commandos (whom he was a member of): "Around this time the unit changed its name to the Katarn Commandos - some say as a tribute to Commander Katarn, though Wookiee member Frorral insisted the name referred to her homeworld's jungle predator. No team member dared mention Frorral's crush on Katarn as a possible contributing factor."
• World of Warcraft: High Overlord Saurfang, an NPC on the Horde side, characterized by his glowing equipment, ridiculously high critical attacks, and Badass Boast, is a target of this, to the extent that a massive list of Saurfang Facts exists. "Area-effect target caps were implemented after Saurfang used Cleave on Stormwind and it shattered Draenor."
  • Amusingly, Word of God apparently approved of this, and Saurfang is now a bona-fide Badass as exhibited by his actions in Northrend. Among other items he's storywise now the boss of the players and shows up to save them from time to time. In the upcoming civil war, popular support is on his side versus the actual other factions that exist.
  • Also, Hogger.
    • Which, to an extent, became an Ascended Meme in Cataclysm, where he now has a posse, a hill named after him, and a reappearance at level 25 in the Stockade, complete with disbelief from a nearby NPC that killing him was even possible.
  • At the same time the Saurfang fad was really hitting its stride, the Alliance attempted to elevate Bolvar Fordragon to a similar memetic position. It never quite caught on.
    • Its now being attempted on Genn Greymane, whose hatred of the orcs was so fierce that he actually left the Alliance because they didn't hate them enough.
      • Note that the Alliance was putting orcs in internment camps at the time...
    • Also being attempted on Darius Crowley, a NPC in the Gilneas starting area. He's a political dissenter that got locked up for disagreeing with Genn Greymane's isolationist poilcy, sounds like a drunken lout (especially after he turns into a Worgen), Cleaves oncoming hostile Worgen mobs WITH HIS BARE HANDS when you go to the prison to help free him, and attempts to sacrifice himself in a battle he knows he can't win (and gets turned into a Worgen in the process). After his transformation, Crowley actively seeks out feral Worgen in an attempt to help them regain their sanity. Also associated with the meme surrounding this NPC is the song "Mr. Crowley" by Ozzy Osbourne.
  • The Devilsaurs of Un'goro Crater also count, as any players who have suffered through their stealth Ninja attacks while leveling in that zone can attest. Seriously, a 50-foot tall dinosaur should not be able to sneak up on you like that!
    • Fel Reaver, otherwise known as Mister Squishyfeet and The Outlands Welcoming Committee. The roaring sound it makes when it gets close to you is not a warning, but a taunt.
    • Mor'ladim was the original. A level 35 elite with more HP than most level 60s, wandering around a level 25-30 questing area. He was silent and deadly.
    • Gentlemen I present what might be the greatest badass (besides Saurfang) in Warcraft, Rhonin ^{[dead link]}.
    • Yes, but in Hellfire Peninsula, the Horde and Alliance resistance could tell that the Fel Reaver coming by the extremely loud footsteps, and managed to fight it with relatively few casualties. The very next day, a Devilsaur stealthed through the Dark portal, and wiped out every Ally and Horde in the region.
    • Gentlemen, behold! I have turned the Fel Reaver into a bear!
      • Welcome Bear made it to Outland!
  • Many people in MMO-champion have grown fond of Bolvar being the ultimate badass hero of the Alliance, where anything can apply to the Lich King Cutscene.
  • Algalon The Observer in the Hard Mode of Ulduar. His JOB is to assess Azeroth and determine whether the Titans need to hit the planetary "reset button". Two of his attacks are called "Black Hole Explosion" and "Big Bang". In a topic on the forums about Hard Mode, this is what a LEAD WORLD DESIGNER said:

Hard mode rewards will be the best in the game. With that said, I want to be sure that everyone understands: Hard mode is hard. Some hard modes are harder than others. Then there's Algalon the Raid Destroyer. He feeds off of your tears.

• • • In the same vain as Algalon: You! The player! Well, assuming you beat him. Assuming a player beats Algalon, he attributes your raid PERSONALLY as showing him that Azeroth has a fighting chance if the Old Gods DO awaken. Beings so powerful the only solution was to ANNIHILATE THE WORLD, and he basically says "Yeah, you can take 'em".
    • Gamon, a neutral tauren NPC in Orgrimmar whose purpose is to be pickpocketed for a rogue quest. After spending 6 years as essentially a Memetic Woobie, being repeatedly killed to the point where many horde players had honed it to a reflex, with Cataclysm he has been buffed to a level 85 elite, capable of two or three shotting anyone who would dare mess with him
    • People did continue to mess with him in the early days of Cata though (because it was possible to kite him). That only served to make him even more badass. Come the next patching, they beefed him up again. Now he can't be kited and hits like a mac truck going downhill at 150mph.
  • Kuros is a BAMF. This is why.
  • Murlocs. Yes, I said Murlocs. They've got their own badass anthem.
  • Theldurin the Lost."It was a bright, shiny day, when all of the sudden, Deathwing appeared! I said to myself, "IM GONNA PUNCH THAT DRAGON IN THE FACE!"
  • JOHN! J! KEESHAN!
  • Shandris Feathermoon, leader of the night elf military, has an ability that brings down dozens of super-powered moon beams (like the Druid spell Moonfire but Up to Eleven). For a time, players could kite her - she could kill Garrosh and all the players trying to defend him in mere seconds.
• Sanger Zonvolt and Elzam von Branstein/Ratsel Feinschmecker of the Super Robot Wars games. The latter is for much the same reason as Char Aznable, with the added bonus of his theme song overwriting all others. The former is said to be able to cut ANYTHING, and may have a bit more truth to the claim, due to breaking open the roof of an underground fortress designed to withstand an alien apocalypse, from the outside, while fighting his alternate-universe cyborg self in some sort of Chuck Norris joke Gone Horribly Wrong.
  • Waga zankantou ni tatenu mono nashi!
• A Word of God-approved version of this is Master Chief in Halo. In the original games, Master Chief was relatively slow and weak (at least compared to FPS heroes like the Doom guy, who can run at 60mph while carrying a metric ton of equipment and can soak up hundreds of bullet hits before dying), with only his regenerating energy shield allowing the player to make it through a level long after the standard allied Mooks have all perished. In the novels based on the Halo universe, Master Chief and all his fellow SPARTANs have been drastically upgraded to Space Marine level Super Soldiers who see in bullet-time, can punch out Powered Armor while naked, can run at vehicular highway speeds, can flip armored jeeps over with their hands, and can soak bucketloads of small-arms fire without much concern.
  • His Memetic Badassness has carried over to fansites as well, as eh kills aleins and doesn't afraid of anything.
  • If you want to go strictly by game mechanics, then his standard allied Mooks have energy shields too. And flip tanks without touching them.
  • And some of that power increase is formalized into Halo 3, where Master Chief is now superhumanly athletic -- able to outrun or outjump the friendly NPCs by quite a wide margin -- and is strong enough to tear turrets from their moorings and carry them around with him.
  • Sgt. Johnson has more or less the same amount Memetic Badass as the Chief. Same could be argued for the other Spartans Fred, and Linda. Controversial_Argument But this is controversial for some lame reason.
    • Sgt. Johnson is so badass, he even has laser eyes.
  • The ODSTs have also picked up this reputation:

"Master Chief only managed to kill three ODSTs because they were just in a firefight and went to the gym to cool down." "They are so badass that they can do a headshot. Using a Shotguns. With buckshot. At 100 meters." "A ODST squad could have done Master Chief's job, in one quarter of the time. They just let Master Chief have fun." "If an ODST and a SPARTAN had children, the offspring would reach Johnson badassery." "ODSTs can defeat chieftans using ball pens." "ODSTs can Dual Wield Gravity Hammers. They don't do it because that way is too easy." "ODSTs use Pods, because if they didn't, the energy released upon impact would be enough to destroy a city." "Spartans never die. ODSTs never lose."

• Segata Sanshiro, the "mascot" for the Sega Saturn, though he was portrayed this way in the ads even before the Internet got to them. Really, how else can you describe a man who threw one person into another, causing both to explode?! The fact that he's played by Kamen Rider 1's actor just adds to the badassery.
  • It took a nuke aimed at SEGA HQ to get him off the planet. He wasn't affected by the vacuum of space, and the explosion gave him an awesome sendoff tossed him to another galaxy where he's too busy introducing the natives to the Saturn to come back to Earth.
    • He resurfaced briefly in 2008 in person, advertising the Rambo game of the fourth film, with a much younger girl by his side.
  • Let's face it. Segata is the Katanas Are Just Better version of Chuck Norris.
    • Segata Sanshiro isn't Japan's Chuck Norris, Chuck Norris is America's Segata Sanshiro.
• Gaenor, from The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind has recently become a Memetic Badass among the community, as seen here.
• In the Dwarf Fortress forums, Captain Ironblood from Nist Akath (A Community Fortress, which is kinda-sorta-not-really a fanfiction).
  • Also, the Elven king of dwarves Cacame ^{[dead link]} surfs zombie wyverns into battle, fights carp and wins.
    • And as a merely "Competent" Hammerman, he made mincemeat of a dragon. No, seriously. ^{[dead link]}
      • To elaborate on his (in-game) backstory: He was a common elf child born in a kingdom that was under constant war with the dwarves. He lost his mother when he was only 1, and his father when he was 2. When he was 5 years old, the dwarves conquered his city, and installed a new government there. At the young age of 12 he joined the army, and married the elf Nemo. Two years later, an elven attack injured his lower body and killed his wife (who was then eaten by the elf that killed her). Two years after that, in 99, the dwarven king was killed in battle and, somehow, Cacame became the leader of the civilization at the age of 16. It can only be assumed that his hatred of his other elves at eating his wife was so great that it impressed even the dwarves, who then granted him the title of King.
        • He is also the only elf to be beloved by most of the fanbase.
  • And Queen Sankis
• People shouldn't have been surprised that Link, Cloud, and Snake lost the way they did during The Great GameFAQs Character Battle of 2007. After all, the L-Block is shaped like a boot to kick your ass!
• Simon Belmont, who can cause Galamoth to run away like a wuss. He once appeared on the cover of Nintendo Power magazine, waving around the severed head of Dracula.
  • He killed Dracula twice. He was dying the second time, and yet Dracula's curse did nothing to deter him. Nothing.
  • This thread on the GameFAQs Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles board started off as a questioning of why Richter Belmont is so "average". Eventually, it turned into a pages-long thread about Richter's awesomeness that would go on to hit the capacity of 500 posts.
    • And lest we forget about The Belmont Walk. Richter's own variant is so pimpin', it's divine.
    • Richter is so badass that his memory imprinted into the Vampire Killer itself can kick ass without trying. Not the real Richter, a mere shadow of him.
    • His Bible can fire holy rainbows beams of concentrated testosterone able to kill anything within a 20-mile radius. Eat your fucking heart out, Joshua. (How Alucard survived is up in the air; he should bless his lucky stars.)
    • Most of the other characters do a simple Double Jump and call it a day; Richter backflips in midair. It has also been theorized that Richter's super jump was the progenitor of the Shoryuken.
    • Last, but not least, he defeated Dracula with a key. WITH A KEY.
    • On the other hand, Maria completely outshines Richter.
  • Julius Belmont gained this status for being an old geezer who still kicks all kinds of ass. He got his own set of jokes, though they were nothing more than transplanted Chuck Norris jokes.
    • Sorta justified by plot and extrapolation, though. That guy, Dracula, that confirmed memetic badasses Richter and Simon could only keep down for a couple of years, a decade or two at best? Julius killed him permanently, in something that has been referred to as a war. And then met Drac's reincarnation, and whupped his ass too, until said reincarnation either followed orders or disobeyed. In the latter case he killed him permanently a second time.
    • Going by the manual for Aria of Sorrow, Julius is simultaneously the youngest (19) and the oldest (55/56) canon Belmont to have kicked Dracula's ass.
    • Soma (said reincarnation of Drac) has to use Magic Seals in Dawn of Sorrow to permanently seal away the bosses, lest they regenerate and start the battle anew. Julius had no such problems; he was whipping their asses so hard that they had no chance to regenerate.
    • You need two theme songs to make his, because no single theme is enough.
  • Leon Belmont. Rushing into a vampire's stronghold unarmed? Stupid. Inadvertently providing Mathias with the means to gain immortality and begin his war against God as Dracula? Regrettable. Most androgynous protagonist in series history? Probably. But only one man has the gall to vow to kill an entire time of day, hand the Grim Reaper's skeletal ass to him on a silver platter (and explain to him just how he did so), and raise a clan of badasses for the sole purpose of (bears repeating) killing an entire time of day and every single stinking hellish fiend that tries to get in their way. That man, ladies and gentlemen, is Leon Belmont.
  • And on the evil side, we have Slogra, aka Berigan, aka THE MAN!!! As the old adage goes, "Where you stand, he's gonna land!"
• Homeworld's Salvage Corvette (really).
  • Just from a gameplay example: imagine a Tiidani heavy cruiser merrily laying waste to your capital ship fleet. Ambush it with a small contingent of 'vettes and, if you're lucky, you'll be the proud new owner of a free cruiser.
• NO ZOMBIE IS SAFE FROM CHICAGO TED.
  • I have a Steam friend by the name of Chicago Ted. When I met him, he mentioned something about getting bored of Left 4 Dead...
  • Search urbandictionary for Chicago Ted. Go on, We'll wait.
  • It gets worse.
  • Eilis' buddy Keith. For someone who is never once shown onscreen and may or may not be real, he's quite the badass. He has suffered from third degree burns over 95% of his body twice (once making fireworks, once deep-frying turkey), lost two fingers and a toe to frostbite, broke both of his legs after driving his car off a cliff, built a shack out of mud, been stabbed by a homeless man, got tear gassed by the police, snuck a paintball gun on a roller coaster, got attacked by an alligator, bombed by the military (among the bombs, Ellis claims, were nerve gas and cluster bombs), drowned in the Tunnel of Love, got cut up by his own "bumper-car" lawn mower leaving him with wounds over 90% of his body, got cement paved over him in a sewer after falling down an open manhole, lived in a graveyard for a year after getting kicked out of his house, hung spit on the overhang in the Tunnel of Love, fell off a roller coaster onto the tracks with the ride still going, got a tattoo on his forehead saying "I'm a moron" for $200, ate three pounds of raw chicken (The in game subtiles say catfish), turned a recreation of colonial times into a raccoon fight in his backyard, drove across a river without using the bridge, married a couple, and would have even gotten married himself, had he not ran away from his own wedding.
• Dead Space's Isaac Clarke: curb stomping legions of alien zombies and cutting up Cosmic Horrors with his mighty power tool is all part of the job (also to save his girlfriend).
• Kratos, Villain Protagonist of the God of War series. Given that he fought his way out of Hell on three separate occasions, and killed the Three Fates, even after they decided he wouldn't, it's entirely justified.
  • Pit, Kid Icarus himself, did it seventeen years before him, though.
    • Pit did it once, and his hell was a bit more family friendly than any time Kratos saw it. Also, Pit defeated Medusa using three sacred relics. Kratos ripped her head off and used it as a weapon... while it was still alive.
    • That's Kratos's response to anything immortal when he doesn't have an ultimate weapon handy. So far, he did it to Medusa, Eurayle, and according to the demo, Helios.
    • And what did he do with the head of Helios? He used it as a flashlight.
  • Come God of War III, Kratos has gained a reputation as a walking apocalypse.
  • Listing everything badass Kratos did would be a category in and of itself. Hell, he can even score instant threesomes.
    • The ultimate sign. Kratos managed to, by sheer badassery, score a place in Mortal Kombat 9. That's not the impresive part. Every other character then said this was unfair. Wizard gods, machines built for fighting, karate masters and the lord of the dead all thought being pitted against Kratos was just too much.
  • Kratos is so badass, he put the smackdown on Thanatos in Ghost of Sparta. For those unawhere, Thanatos was a god that the Titans and that GODS THEMSELVES feared. While Hades is the god of the underworld, Thanatos was the God of DEATH. Yes, Kratos BEAT DEATH to DEATH.
• What, the other Kratos gets no mention? His sexy voice, Cool Sword, roguish alignment, angel wings, theme song, hot (but dead) wife and BETRAYAL OF HEAVEN ought to qualify to be as good or better than the Kratos that most people know.
• Duke Nukem. Heck, his character is supposed to be seen as a Memetic Badass.
  • Or a parody of one. Either way, he's still more than capable of doing awesome things.
  • This is the reason Duke Nukem Forever was in Development Hell for a good 12 or so years. The devs had to keep on scrapping the project because they knew that the chickenscratch they kept coming up with wouldn't do him any justice. When you bet on the Duke, you do it right.
• Gaia Online has, in its 'casual' MMO zOMG, the Bonus Boss Landshark. Players roughly describe it as "what would happen if Chuck Norris used a Shark Attack spell".
• Gabriel Angelos, aka Cap'n Gabe, in Dawn Of War 2. It doesn't hurt that his arrival lets you turn the final boss fight into a f***ing Curb Stomp Battle.
• On GameFAQs, it seems Captain MacMillan of Call of Duty 4 and Sergeant Reznov of Call of Duty: World at War are Memetic Badasses, the former despite being present for two missions, spending half the second one with a leg injury. Captain Price in all his porn-stache glory isn't one.
  • Captain Price isn't a Memetic Badass, he's a canonical Badass. As for MacMillan, spending half of the mission with a leg injury just makes it more badass that he still lays down covering fire for you.
    • The same goes for Reznov, seeing as he not only survived and fought his hardest all the way from Stalingrad to Berlin, but did it with half a trigger finger. All of his deliciously sadistic dialogue and his saving Petrenko (the player character) at the very end of the last mission certainly helped, too. Hell, he even has an article on Uncyclopedia that calls him the "alpha male of the human race"!
    • The same website has an article on the Red Shirt Carmine from Gears of War. To best sum up their opinion of him, their link to a more professional version of the article is God on That Other Wiki.
  • RAMIREZ, DO EVERYTHING!
    • RAMIREZ! STOP THAT NUKE WITH YOUR RIOT SHIELD!
    • RAMIREZ! DESTROY THE RUSSIAN ARMY WITH THIS FRENCH FRY!
    • RAMIREZ! TAKE OUT THAT HIND WITH A THROWING KNIFE!
  • To elaborate, Ramirez, a US Ranger and Player Character for half of the campaign, constantly gets ordered around by his superior Foley into literally doing everything. A bunch of Infantry Fighting Vehicles are attacking you position? Ramirez operates a predator drone and destroys them. Enemy snipers? Ramirez can counter snipe them. Column of enemy armor? Ramirez can take that Javelin and wipe every last tank out. A platoon of soldiers in the Burger Town? Ramirez has already killed them. It's gotten to the point where Ramirez is basically the USA's entire army.
• Yuri Lowell. How Badass is this man? He has fourteen Badass tropes on his character page. Surely that lets him qualify.
• The Tails Doll of Sonic R infamy was an innocuous, debatably unsettling bonus character. From there, it escalated to a Bloody Mary-like figure.
  • Does Shadow count? He even had his own presidential campaign website back in 2008. (Quaker and Bowen hosted it, and have since taken it down, although the link remains on the Tails Doll site.)
  • Sonic himself certainly has quite a bit of fan exaggeration at how fast he can go. Then again...
    • His status as a badass is no exaggeration. In the span of 20 years, he's taken down countless robotic armies, government military forces, an evil genie, an evil version of King Arthur, extra terrestrial Eldritch Abominations, extra dimensional Eldritch Abominations, living weapons of mass destruction, dimension-traveling antagonists, the Polygon Ceiling, and Physical |Gods. One of which, the God of Destruction, he took out WITHOUT his super mode. To many protagonists, this would be a lifetime adventure. To Sonic, this is just another day for him.
  • Super Sonic can only be played with a console that has Blast Processing. Using him on anything else will cause it to crash because it cannot process that much awesomeness.
  • To Say nothing of Dr. Robotnik/Eggman. Oh, you destroyed his doom ship? He has another one as back-up. Planning to pull one over him with a fake Mineral MacGuffin? He'll trap you in a capsule rigged with explosives, because you told him. Going Super Mode to stop his latest ploy? He already set a trap just to take the Chaos Emeralds from you, turn you into a furry Werehog, and then send you plummeting into the Earth's atmosphere. No matter what your counter-plan is, he's always two steps ahead of you. Defeating him? All part of his plan. All Of It.
• In the genre of sports games, there has never been, or never will be, a greater athlete than Tecmo Bowl's Bo Jackson.
  • TOUCHDOWN THURMAN THOMAS
  • Brazilians would think that's Allejo, from International Superstar Soccer Deluxe.
• Team Fortress 2: SAXTON HALE, Australian CEO. If you're not satisfied with his fine line of spy articles, you can take it up with him!
  • Some people think they can outsmart Heavy Weapons Guy. Maybe. Maybe. But we've yet to meet one that can outsmart boollet.
    • Yes we have. SAXTON HALE!
  • Saxton Hale can capture points whilst ubercharged. And cloaked. And disguished. With his bare damn hands!
  • He even has his own facts site.
  • Sun Tzu, at least according to the Soldier.
  • Demopan is becoming this.
• Hailed by the heavens, Earth, and people, the one and only BANG SHISHIGAMI is now here!
  • BANG BANG BANG BAAAAAANG!
  • Not to mention God-Tier George XIII.
  • Hazama has become this in some circles of the internet.
  • Also, Valkenhayn.
  • A rare female Memetic Badass in the form of Makoto.
• The Kid doesn't stay dead. Besides, are you willing to argue against someone who killed a demonic dragon, a technological genius, a dream-manipulating toad, a brain capable of ending your lives without a second thought, two of the greatest warriors who ever lived, a vampire, two sacred guardians, as well as his own father?
• After the game was reviewed by the Hungarian 'Bad PC Games' webseries, the Featureless Protagonist of Airborne Hero became the legendary Dick Assman (not related to the gas station owner of the same name).
• Pablo Sanchez of Backyard Baseball. If you look on youtube for the comments on any video about the best player in the game (the video makers' opinions range from Maria Luna to Nomar), there will always be comments about Pablo as a Badass, mostly because he speaks Spanish. Though he really doesn't.
• ALEX FUCKING MERCER.
• In Starcraft II We have General Horace Warfield, who even before acquiring his Memetic Badass status beats a hydralisk to death with his bare, well power armored hands, takes terrible, terrible damage, survives enough poison to kill an Ultralisk, then gets his arm amputated and replaced with an Arm Cannon.
  • The proper phrasing is that he punched a Hydralisk INNA FACE. TO DEATH.
• In Resistance: Fall of Man, whenever you played co-op, the second player was an unnamed African-American soldier with no relation to the plot and no spoken lines (and coincidentally the only black guy in the game). He's actually a representation of a real-life QA tester whose hard work was awarded by the game designers putting his likeness into the game. That doesn't stop some of the fans from calling him "the greatest video game character of all time", and jokingly point out how Hale is wrongfully credited for the random black dude's epic heroism.
• From Fallout 3, Old Lady Palmer and Deputy Weld have both been given "badass" status by various communities.
• Mr. Zurkon requires no nanotech to survive, Mr. Zurkon lives on fear!
  • Mr. Zurkon shall spare your life, puny alien. PSYCH! Mr. Zurkon lives only to kill!
• Gordon Freeman receives this treatment inside and outside of the games. By the second game he has become so legendary due to his actions in the first that the interdimensional alien empire collectively crap their pants at the mere sight of him, and La Résistance members and Vortigaunts especially are constantly in awe of him. The fandom meanwhile considers him to be an unstoppable killing machine equivalent to planet-destroying superweapons (with is techincally true). Also, the reason he never speaks is because doing so would cause peoples' heads to explode.
  • How badass is Gordon Freeman? Drop him in the 41st Millenium, where there is only war, and he hardly bats an eyelid.
  • Lets see... the combine defeated the earth forces in seven hours, yet they have trouble dealing with Gordon Freeman. He lives in an Orwellian Police State, and he survives by killing the shit out of anybody who messes with him. Also, when he's attacked by combine, his friend Barney throws his signature crowbar to him, seemingly thinking that all he needs for beating a mighty, orwellian space empire to oblivion is a crowbar, and he's RIGHT!
    • Barney himself is almost on the same level as Freeman, which caused the fans to worry when he didn't appear anywhere in the second episode despite having escaped the city before Freeman and Alyx.
• Duncan (or more specifically, his beard) of Dragon Age: Origins gets this treatment, being considered unkillable due to the great power given to him by his beard. Bann Teagan also gets this treatment and is also a Memetic Sex God.
  • All of them, however, pale before Sandal, who can make hearts explode with his terrifying battlecry of "ENCHANTMENT!"
    • Which may just be canon. How do you explain all the darkspawn he killed just by saying "Enchantment!" repeatedly?
  • In-universe, Hawke in Dragon Age 2 is an example.

Random guy in the bar: I hear the Champion of Kirkwall sleeps on a bed made of the bones of a High Dragon. And he uses the Arishok's skull as a gravy boat.

• SIR ISAAC NEWTON IS THE DEADLIEST SONOVABITCH IN SPACE!
  • More appropriately for that game...Shepard is this both out-universe AND in-universe. S/he became well-known in the first game for being the first human SPECTRE. By the time the second game rolls around, he/she is such a living legend that even though it's well known that Shepard died two years before, hardly anybody mentions that except in passing and no one is freaked out with talking to someone who should be a corpse. Because it's Shepard: death is merely an inconvenience.
    • Not to mention that as far as we know, the only reason Shepard was resurrected in the first place was because of his/her memetic badassitude in the fight against the Reapers.
    • Also remember: The Collectors killed him/her once, and all they did was piss him/her off.
    • Along with the fact that Shepard can use the Widow and the Claymore, both guns that would break a normal human's arm (the Widow had to be modified to be handheld, it's normally a vehicle-mounted weapon), the Revenant machine gun, and the Cain. Shepard is a goddam Devastator.
    • Fighting the Shadow Broker involves quite a bit of punching him. Yes. SHEPARD PAWNCH is effective against people four times the Commander's size.
    • Shepard: "I expected [the interrogation] to be more difficult." Thane: "Shepard, he was just a common criminal. You killed a Reaper."
    • Keep something in mind: as of "The Arrival", the Reapers have acknowledged Shepard as a threat to his/her face. A race of multi-million year old semi-invincible machines, who consider organic life forms lower than dirt and nothing but a curious accident, consider this single human being to be the biggest threat they've had to deal with for billenia. That is badass-cred.
    • "No matter what scars you bear... whatever uniform you wear... you can fight like a krogan, run like a leopard, but you'll never be better than Commander Shepard!"
  • Niftu Cal, who is a GREAT BIOTIC GOD! He thinks things....and they happen. He'll destroy the universe after getting a nap.
    • He is a great wind that will sweep all before him like...a great wind!
  • "Charge."
  • In certain corners of the internet, multiple characters get this. In no particular order...
    • Garrus, who is Space Batman.
      • In the first game. In the second he takes on Frank Castle levels of badassitude. "How'd you manage to piss off every mercenary group in the Terminus Systems?" "It wasn't easy. I had to really work at it."
    • Zaeed Massani, who can't even go and get a drink at a bar without everyone around him dying horribly.
      • The reason why Zaeed is the only survivor is because he is literally unkillable. He walks into a bar, gets set on fire, shot in the head multiple times, and has a bomb explode beneath him. He says "Give me a goddamn drink." Then everyone around him dies. He tells them "Suck it up, I've seen worse." Because he has.
    • Kal'Reegar, who held the line against a entire squad of geth and a Colossus before Shepard got there, and is evidently the quarian Rambo.
    • Blasto, the first hanar Spectre, with a girl in every port and a gun in every tentacle.
      • He's one big Shout-Out to Dirty Harry, whaddaya expect?
        • Blasto is actually an inversion - he was created as a memetic badass in the first place on the forums before even appearing. This Troper was fortunate to be around at the time of his conception.
• Pleinair from Disgaea doesn't float; she dodges the ground.
• Dungeon Fighter Online has GSD. He is the first character the player has to escort, though it's more like GSD is escorting you. The various theories for his blindness include God getting Scared, GSD believing that being sighted was too easy, and that he witnessed his own pwnage.
• The Gelato Man is behind everything. Killing him was all part of the plan.
• According to Daniel Remar, Youtube user Reallyjoel's dad is the best gamer to have ever lived. There used to be a difficulty level suited to his skill, but he beat it so hard it ceased to exist.
  • Iji has a hidden Reallyjoel's dad difficulty level with an impossible time limit, no stat increases (and thus 2 HP), no health items, and a barrier at the end of the first level telling you you must kill all enemies. It is patently impossible. Hero Core also has a hidden Reallyjoel's dad difficulty level which IS possible, in theory--you are just dumped in a room with every boss in the game at the same time. Both, however, treat you to humorously modified intro scenes.
• Nine Ball from Armored Core (no relation to that other one), to both fans and in-game. The title given to those that get to the spot of "Number 1 Raven" is "Ninebreaker" simply because he actually, "it" was that much of a Badass and held the spot of Number 1 for so long. And pretty much the mantra for every new AC title in the works is "Is Nine Ball gonna be in it?" This is despite, or rather because of, the fact that Nine Ball personifies Nintendo Hard in AC.
• The Fraxy Community has a notable member named Eboshidori, A.K.A. Creator of the Best Bosses Ever A.K.A the most awesome Fraxian in existance A.K.A. Your Lord And Savior.
• Anthony Higgs, from Metroid: Other M, has taken on a life of his own in terms of memetic badassery. it is said that if he and Armstrong Houston (the other memetic badass from Metroid) were to meet, the universe would implode from the sheer awesome.
• Professor Layton has no equal in his universe. If he wanted to rule the world, he could do so over a weekend, and that's even taking time out for tea. He is the greatest puzzle-solving, sword-fighting, car-driving, bullet-dodging, device-making, detective/archaeologist in existence. He is also very modest. Also, his level of epic exponentially increases between games.
• Mr. Blank. You can send him out to space, force him to dance, stick him inside a TV and he WILL NOT DIE. Hell, he was wearing the Kamina shades BEFORE Kamina did. And they were PINK.
• Boone from Fallout: New Vegas. He headshots the Sun five seconds before it appears over the horizon.
  • Thumbs down, you son of a bitch.
  • Why not just the whole 1st Recon team?

"The last thing you never see."

• • And then there's Joshua Graham, who is this in-universe for being possibly the one man that not even Boone could kill. If five confirmed shots from 1st Recon, getting blown up at Boulder City and finally getting covered in pitch, set on fire and tossed into the Grand Canyon couldn't kill him, then what can? Asides from the Courier? all with a .45 caliber pistol and nothing else.
  • The Courier is one as well. In-universe. The Powder Gangers call him/her the Grim Fucking Reaper and every faction wants them to help them win the war. Cass describes it best.

"Don't fuck with the man who delivers your mail."

• Red Dead Redemption gives us Herbert Moon. Sorry, Herbert MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!!!!
  • "YOU EAT BABIES!!!"
• From Free Space: Alpha 1 (aka the player character). A fighter pilot so amazing that he can take down entire fleets of enemy ships on his own, and is The Alliance's greatest weapon.
  • Parodied relentlessly in the Just Another Day joke campaigns, in which the universe ends if Alpha 1 ever dies (because he's the player character), and everyone is aware of this!
• NO ONE CAN STOP MR. DOMINO!
• Flint Paper can kill anything!
• Allen sends you home to mama! Not only can he take more bullets than any tank, weapon or enemy machine, but he also wanders around below freezing temperature with nothing but a machine gun and a pair of shorts. He has been swallowed by a killer whale which spit his bones out, and returned later to fight you again! And he can kill you with a casual whip of his ammo. Nothing can stop his resolve to return to his wife and son at the end of the day.
• The Rock is the deadliest enemy you will encounter in Agarest Senki. It's so deadly, that the Big Bad of the game couldn't win against the party without the help of one Boulder itself.
  • As far as player characters go, the Raglen family is made of pure badass, with Rex in particular reigning supreme. Vashtor has reached this status due to his amazing strategies, mixed with his lack of moral compass. And then there's Reverie. A young girl, relatively unimportant when compared to the rest of the cast, and yet she's the only one who can wield the spear that belonged to the freaking god of war (not that God of War mind you).
  • Usually, when you're on the receiving end of a Limit Break Combination Attack, you cower with fear. The "Fairy" Mook (and its different kinds) however eat an apple before getting all clobbered up like it was just a random encounter! Take note, the attack is formed up by an elf who has the protection of the highest light god and the three protagonists who are the Reincarnation of the dark god!
• Carmen Sandiego, an agent gone thief For the Evulz. She's Sophisticated As Hell, and you're probably rooting for her honestly. She can swipe the Mason-Dixion Line without much trouble.
• Colonel. Mael. Radec. Awesome incarnate, so badass he makes other Helghast look like ISA pussies. You think you beat him at the end of Killzone 2? Ha! Radec got so bored fighting you, that he killed himself so he could respawn somewhere more intresting.
• Legend of Mana: In-Universe, Mr. Moti the Dancing Turban Man. His Encyclopedia entry reads: "He is everywhere. He sees all."
• In the Suikoden series, Georg Prime is this for the good side and Luca Blight is this for the bad side. Unfortunately, there's no way these two can clash swords together and find out who would win.
• How has Sly Cooper not been mentioned yet? HE SINGLE HANDEDLY DESTROYED A GIANT ROBOTIC OWL THAT HAD MURDERED HIS ENTIRE FAMILY FOR HUNDREDS OF YEARS! AND THEN HE DEFEATS SAID OWL A SECOND TIME, THIS TIME THE OWL IS BEING POSSESSED BY AN EVIL, PURPLE TIGER! THEN HE BREAKS INTO STINKIN' FORT KNOX, JUST TO BREAK INTO A SAFE!
  • Another example could be Clockwerk. Replace your entire body with machinery in order to live forever, fueled only by sheer hate and hate alone, build a Death Ray / Wave Motion Gun, and make yourself a Five-Bad Band out of the most infamous criminals in the world, all for the sake of wiping out a rival family? Hell. Yes.
• Jebediah "Jeb" Kerman, of the Kerbal Space Program, laughs in the face of danger. Literally and figuratively. Possibly half dorf, but the jury's still out on that one.
  • "Jeb still gives no fucks even when he can see the rear of the spaceship out the front windows."
• Thanks to Linkara's Let's Play, Ensign Munro of Star Trek Elite Force.
• Modern Warfare has MacMillan. CoD fans have made countless Chuck Norris-esque facts about him and begged for his return in MW2 and 3.
• Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean gives us The Great Mizuti. How badass is Mizuti? She's a fourteen year old girl. Who fights gods by tackling them.
• Inverted with Mike Dawson of Darkseed. The sequel has actually made him wimpier and sadder compared to the first installment; he's now considered to be the least heroic video game character by some.
• Raidou Kuzunoha's sideburns.
• Male_07, an incidental character from Half-Life 2, has become a symbol of Garry's Mod after his role as Gordon Frohman and John Freeman.
• Sub-Zero (the original, although it's frequently overlapped with his younger and more popular brother as well) is something of a meta example, as he and his infamous "Spine Rip" Fatality are responsible for the creation of the ESRB. That's right, he's more or less the father of the ESRB.
• "TRAITOROUS DOG! YOUR LIFE ENDS HERE!"
• The Starfleet Captain in Star Trek Online rapidly reaches this status in-universe.

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