Happy Monday, folks! And welcome to the Weekly Video Games Thread! I’m Wolfman Jew, hale and hearty from a holiday weekend.

A productive holiday weekend at that: I did a whole replay of the spectacular Resident Evil 2 remake over the weekend (it’s not that impressive; I had Thanksgiving weekend off and it’s like six hours long). It was my first time playing as Claire! Of course, if you choose Leon you get an incredibly goofy song, and I was gonna use that to jump into a prompt about vocal songs in games. Except uh oh, I did that two years ago. I think it’s okay to reuse prompts, but let’s think of something else. Bring that one back in a few years.

Oh, I know! Let’s play some word association to find a prompt! Okay, “vocal video game song” equals “Jump Up, Super Star,” which equals Super Mario Odyssey, which equals Pauline, which equals… my mother’s bizarre obsession with Pauline. My mom almost never plays video games, but she did once see me go through some of New Donk City in Mario Odyssey, and that left her with a bone-deep impression of Mario’s first love interest / Nintendo’s most stable politician-singer. I mean, Pauline’s from the fake Forties, she sings, and everyone loves “Jump Up, Super Star.” It makes sense. But it’s kinda fascinating to see someone really fall into a deep affection specifically for a character who’s pretty ancillary, all things considered. I mean, I’m a Nintendo fan; I know from passionate character-specific fanbases. But it’s kind of inevitable for anyone who plays games as much as we do to get into the ones who aren’t mascots or icons or the subject of T-shirts (apparently Pauline does not get any “swag,” much to someone’s dismay).

…Which leads me to the question at hand: who is a favorite character of yours who is undeniably minor? Obviously what “minor” means is different to everyone, but basically, I want you to talk about a character you love who is ultimately not that important to whatever story or series they’re from. There’s something almost noble, it seems, about supporting the long shots, the never were, the fictional characters that livened up perhaps as little as a single scene but did it well.

I guess I’ll start, to break the ice. I love El Verdugo, the one Xenomorph-looking bad guy from Resident Evil 4 who ambushes you in the sewer (the “right hand” who “comes off,” if you will). Like, “think he deserves to be in Marvel vs. Capcom instead of Nemesis” love. “Used his picture as a Halloween gimmick avatar even though it wasn’t even appropriate for the gimmick username change” love. I also adore the Tropical Wigglers from Super Mario Odyssey (there it is again!), and the Kargoroks from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. And you know what? Emily Wong got a raw deal in Mass Effect 3; she was pretty great, even if no one really remembers her much. Ooh, and Doopliss, and Grimsley, and people don’t talk about those cute enemies who don’t spout terrible Britishisms from Banjo-Kazooie enough.

…Well, that was a lot. Anyway, I guess, what did you play this weekend?