Joke characters are a fun inclusion in fighting games that add an extra layer of interaction between players. Picking a joke character is a great way to give one player a handicap, tack on mental damage to an opponent, or just have fun playing a fighting game.
Some joke characters are stronger than other characters in the cast, but more often than not, they're made to be intentionally bad. They're also a nice indication of how far fighting games have come since they fill a new role in a game's roster. Fighting games went from having 2-8 characters on their roster to having extra spots to fill, especially in modern games, and joke characters are a welcome addition.
Updated July 17, 2022, by Tom Bowen: Back in the early nineties when fighting games were first finding their feet and were largely limited to arcades, most tended to have incredibly small rosters. This soon changed with the rise of home consoles, however, with developers eventually adding in unlockable characters as a way of encouraging subsequent arcade mode playthroughs. Some of these were licensed guest characters while others were original creations that were given their own place in the series' lore. Not all of them were intended to be taken seriously though, with some developers opting to include comic relief characters in their games. The best joke characters in fighting games left a lasting impression on many players, usually because of how downright ridiculous their inclusion was.
12 Gon
The Tekken series is generally considered to be one of the more well-balanced fighting game franchises around. There are characters to suit just about every playstyle, each of whom has their own distinct strengths and weaknesses. It's for this reason that the inclusion of Gon in Tekken 3 felt so out of place, with the little orange dinosaur being an absolute nightmare to play against due to his small stature and obnoxious move set.
What a lot of westerners might not realize though is that Gon was actually a licensed character, having initially been created by Masashi Tanaka for a manga series of the same name. A 50-episode anime was also released in early 2012, though, for most gamers, Gon will always be remembered as the tiny dino who farts out poisonous gas clouds, breathes fire, and is able to avoid the overwhelming majority of attacks simply by being short.
11 Mokap
Motion capture is used for just about everything these days. Back in the nineties, however, it was a tool that was primarily used for the creation of fighting games. It's what helped the genre to successfully make the leap into the third dimension courtesy of Yu Suzuki's hugely influential Virtua Fighter franchise. From there, it became something of a fighting game staple and is used by all of the heavy hitters to ensure maximum realism in animations.
This ultimately led to the team at Midway turning the technology into a joke character for their Mortal Kombat series, with Mokap being a secret playable character in 2002's Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance. He even has his own backstory, with the character said to be a motion capture actor with a deep understanding of martial arts. Since making his debut, Mokap has gone on to appear in four additional Mortal Kombat games, though he was only actually playable in one of them.
10 Dan Hibiki
Dan is probably the most recognizable joke character in fighting games who is essentially a built-in handicap. Dan was introduced in the Street Fighter Alpha series and is portrayed as a weak fighter who uses similar techniques to Ryu and Ken. His attacks look unrefined and often do less damage than normal, so he's a joke in the lore as well as gameplay.
His most current version in Street Fighter V shows some promise though as he's one of the most technical characters in the game and even has an infinite combo. For a joke character, he's well-designed and has some fun costumes to troll his opponents with.
9 Kuma
Kuma is a bear. That's pretty much all that's needed to summarize who Kuma is and why their inclusion in a series like Tekken is so strange. Tekken never took itself too seriously but the addition of Kuma at first was a bit strange. Nowadays, they're a staple character with an iconic move set the game should never be without.
If them being a bear wasn't enough to convince someone they were a joke character, their move set definitely would get the job done. Their special stance of getting on all fours unlocks some pretty comical moves where they sit on opponents, roll around on the ground, and in some games, fart on their opponents until they faint.
8 Hercule
Hercule is a charismatic human martial artist and the canonical savior of Earth in the Dragon Ball universe. Obviously, the only reason he has this title is that he rides on the back of Goku's achievements time and time again, taking credit for things he never actually did. He's actually a pretty strong martial artist for a human though and has taken attacks from mightier beings like Saiyans and even Cell.
In any Dragon Ball fighting game that he's appeared in, his attacks are always gimmicks and deal little to no damage but he's funny to watch and sometimes, actually quite useful. Hercule uses any tricks he can from dynamite to hidden weapons to get the upper hand on his opponent, and it makes him different than any other character in Dragon Ball fighting games because of these gimmicks.
7 Pichu
Pichu is less of a joke character and more of a joke in general. In Super Smash Bros. Melee, Pichu was included as a " clone character" to Pikachu with a few major differences. For starters, Pichu's attacks had slightly different properties like less hit stun on projectiles or slightly slower startup on aerial attacks. The main difference between the two is that any of Pichu's electric attacks (most of them) deal damage to them.
Pichu's place was more of a handicap for players to use since they would hurt themselves by attacking and that was a fun element to include in a casual party game to play with friends who might not be familiar with Melee. In Smash Ultimate, Pichu was arguably one of the best characters on release because they did so much damage and could zip around the stage at unparalleled speed.
6 Cronos
Cronos from the Bloody Roar series is definitely an interesting case of a joke character because the joke becomes less funny as the battles go on. In a game where other characters can turn into lions, wolves, and whatever other menacing animals you can think of, Cronos turns into a penguin. It isn't a giant penguin with weaponized talons or anything either, just a normal penguin.
The reason he's so powerful is that his height makes him difficult to hit. 3D fighters are all about movement and restricting the opponent's options, which makes Cronos a bit of menace since he's so hard to contain in penguin form.
5 Chairperson
Chairperson from Rival Schools is another joke character who appears weak at first glance but hides her strength behind some nuanced gameplay. Her main attacks do very little damage and all of her animations lack any real oomph to them, illustrating how weak she actually is. Her fighting style reflects the saikyo style of Dan Hibiki which says a lot about her fighting style.
Chairperson's strength as a character shines through when she's used as a backup team member in Project Justice. Her team super attack heals the lead character of the team and grants them extra meter to use for supers during battle. This support role of hers explains her weak attacks and bad mobility since she's the strongest supporting character in the game.
4 Crispy
Probably the most absurd joke character to make it into a fighting game, Crispy is literally just a chicken from Eternal Champions 2. He has no special powers or anything, just normal chicken-like abilities. Pecks, kicks, and short spans of flight are all included in Crispy's kit and for some reason, they're super effective.
Crispy's small size makes them difficult for humanoid character's to hit and Crispy is pretty mobile as well. Crispy's attacks also do pretty standard damage, but since they're a chicken, it feels like the moves always do more damage than they should. Maybe that's because of the mental damage that comes with fighting a regular chicken that can hold its own.
3 Fukua
Skullgirls is praised for its unique and in-depth character design that puts those assets first, above just filling a roster with characters that blend into each other. Each character is full of life and smooth animations that make it easy to tell them apart from one another. That goes for most of the cast except Fukua. Fukua was announced as an April Fool's joke, and was an obvious palette swap of an existing character, with reused animations and assets.
After her exposure to the public, fans demanded she become a regular playable character and the developers listened. Nowadays she's included in Skullgirls as a rebalanced Filia, the character she's based on with slightly different moves and properties. Her whole inclusion as a joke can also be seen in her story mode as it gives non-canonical answers to questions fans have been asking for years.
2 Teddy
As the mascot character for Persona 4, Teddy was actually quite strong in the base Persona game as a magic-caster and healer. In Ultimax, Teddy works as expected with comical phrases, wacky special moves, and funny poses. His role as comic relief doesn't subtract from his gameplay and players who want to use Teddy in combat can definitely get by with his tool kit, even if it's full of jokes.
Teddy's move set is especially interesting because he doesn't actually end up using the characteristic ice spells that made him so valuable in Persona 4. This is likely because Mitsuru, another ice user, is included in the game as well, forcing Teddy to take more of a back seat than he might otherwise have done.
1 Lum
Lum the gambling panda is an unbelievable design, with an even more outlandish set of tools. His design probably takes inspiration from Panda, an alternate skin for Kuma in the Tekken series, and his moves borrow from Faust, a regular character in the Guilty Gear series. His best move revolves around him playing a slot machine that generates a random item onto the battlefield.
Some items are extremely powerful and others are almost useless, but it's the guessing game that keeps opponents on their toes and Lum players get so much power from this mind game. He can also jump into the air and throw melons to keep enemies away, or trampoline over them to create space. His voice lines are some of the funniest things in fighting games as well.