Happy Monday, everyone, and welcome to the Weekly Video Games Thread! Gotta say, I’ve really missed being a more regular part of the commentariat. Hopefully I’ll be able to be more involved soon enough. Anyway, prompt. I was gonna have a fun one based on my current run through God of War: Ragnarök, but that’ll have to be tabled in favor of something more (for want of a better word) “newsworthy”.

Specifically, that Ash “the Brash” Ketchum is now a Pokémon Champion. NPR did a story on it, so you know it’s legit. Ash has been at this for twenty-five years; the Pokémon anime has been around for seemingly ever (I’m not sure if it intends to continue into the Scarlet & Violet era, though the episode apparently has a clue for Friday’s upcoming games). And this got me to thinking: Ash is a Nintendo mascot. Of course he is. He was the main character of a Nintendo game (the Western-only Pokémon Puzzle League). He’s world-famous. But he’s also a character who’s original and all but exclusive to the anime. He’s loosely based on Red, the default main character from Pokémon Red & Blue, but he’s his own eternal 10-year-old man and Red has gone in his own, different direction.

Hence this prompt: favorite characters from the adaptations of video games. They can be big (I like Alice from the Resident Evil movies) or small (some of the one-off side characters of The Witcher or Castlevania). They can be weird, too, like when Street Fighter: The Movie made the Captain Sawada character to use an actor Capcom wanted in the film—and then he got into Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game. And remember when the Kirby anime comprised like 70% original characters? What of Escargoon?

Alternatively, if you want to make fun of Cole from last year’s Mortal Kombat movie, have at that, too! And please tell me all about your gaming adventures this weekend; I’ll really try to make time to read them.