The heroes, villains, and icons who defined retro gaming culture
A mustachioed Italian plumber from Brooklyn who became the face of Nintendo and video gaming itself. Mario has starred in dozens of games across nearly every genre imaginable.
The eternally reincarnated hero of Hyrule, Link is a young elf-like warrior chosen by destiny to wield the Triforce of Courage and oppose the evil Ganon. Silent and resolute, he serves as a blank-slate avatar for the player's own heroic journey.
A galaxy-renowned bounty hunter clad in a Power Suit developed by the Chozo alien race, Samus Aran hunts Space Pirates and the parasitic Metroid organisms across hostile alien worlds. Her 1986 reveal as a woman was a landmark moment in gaming history.
Sega's blue, attitude-laden hedgehog was designed to be everything Mario was not: fast, cool, and unapologetically irreverent. Sonic became the face of Sega's aggressive challenge to Nintendo's market dominance in the early 1990s.
A robot created by the benevolent Dr. Light who battles the armies of the villainous Dr. Wily, Mega Man is defined by his ability to copy the weapons of defeated Robot Masters. His games are celebrated for their precision platforming and the strategic depth of their weapon-absorption system.
A brooding ex-SOLDIER turned mercenary whose fragmented memories and unstable identity form the psychological core of Final Fantasy VII. Cloud's unreliable narration and eventual confrontation with his own constructed persona made him one of gaming's first truly complex protagonists.
A legendary special forces operative defined by his mastery of infiltration and his weary, philosophical relationship with violence. Solid Snake is Hideo Kojima's vehicle for exploring the ethics of war, the manipulation of soldiers by governments, and the human cost of living as a weapon.
A young woman born with the rare ability to use magic naturally in a world where such power has been weaponized by the tyrannical Gestahl Empire. Terra's journey from mind-controlled weapon to self-determined woman is Final Fantasy VI's emotional spine.
The silent young hero of Chrono Trigger, a time-traveling adventure considered one of the greatest RPGs ever made. Despite never speaking a single line of dialogue, Crono communicates warmth, courage, and determination entirely through the reactions of those around him.
A British archaeologist and adventurer of extraordinary physical capability and aristocratic intellect, Lara Croft became one of gaming's first genuinely mainstream crossover celebrities. Her debut in 1996 established third-person 3D action-adventure as a viable genre.
Nintendo's original villain — a massive gorilla who kidnaps Pauline and hurls barrels at the hapless Jumpman — Donkey Kong was eventually redeemed and reborn as a heroic protagonist in the Super Nintendo era. His journey from antagonist to icon is one of gaming's great character rehabilitations.
The patriarch of the vampire-hunting Belmont clan, Simon wields the legendary Vampire Killer whip against Dracula and his supernatural legions. His games defined the action-platformer formula on the NES and established a gothic aesthetic that influenced horror gaming for decades.
A round yellow creature who eats dots while fleeing four coloured ghosts, Pac-Man became the most recognisable video game character in America and the mascot of an entire industry — designed deliberately to appeal beyond the young men who dominated arcades.
A round pink puffball who inhales enemies and copies their abilities, Kirby debuted in 1992 as the deceptively simple creation of a 19-year-old Masahiro Sakurai — a character built to be approachable for newcomers yet deep enough to anchor one of Nintendo's most enduring franchises.
The white-gi'd wandering warrior of Street Fighter, Ryu is Capcom's flagship fighter and the archetypal fighting-game hero — a disciplined martial artist forever seeking stronger opponents, and the origin of the Hadoken that every fighting game since has echoed.
The first playable woman in a fighting game to reach a mass audience — designed in five weeks, and never balanced as a novelty.
A bespectacled MIT physicist with a crowbar who never speaks a word, never appears on screen, and never once relinquishes control to a cutscene.
A cryomancer ninja born from a technical shortcut — the same digitised actor, the same animations, a different palette, and one of gaming's most enduring rivalries.
A hapless would-be pirate whose weapon is his wit, Guybrush Threepwood is the face of LucasArts' Monkey Island games — an everyman hero who solves absurd problems with dialogue and inventory instead of a sword.
The wild-eyed marsupial Naughty Dog built to be the PlayStation's mascot — a spin-attacking, crate-smashing platformer hero positioned to go head-to-head with Mario and Sonic in the 32-bit era.
A limbless hero whose floating hands and feet were born from a hardware limitation, Rayman anchored Ubisoft's first great mascot platformer and became one of the most distinctive character designs in games.