As mainstream as video games have gotten nowadays, there are plenty of examples that give a nod to niche media for those in the know to chuckle over. Yakuza 0 quotes Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series (“Screw the rules, I have money!”). King of Fighters ’96 has the Ikari Warriors Ralf and Clark do super sentai poses. While Fallout: New Vegas got really obscure by referencing the failed indie game Zybourne Clock.
It shows inspiration can come from the most curious sources. While some took some very different turns, like both No More Heroes’ Travis Touchdown and Uncharted’s Nathan Drake being inspired by Jackass’ Johnny Knoxville, other influences are more apparent. For example, these video game characters took a lot of inspiration from anime.
8 Guile, Benimaru, And Paul Phoenix Are Jean-Pierre Polnareff
The reason “Is that a Jojo reference?” Became a meme is because 25+ years’ worth of references suddenly became more obvious when the 2012 Jojo's Bizarre Adventure anime became popular. One of the more popular characters in the franchise is Stardust Crusaders’ Jean-Pierre Polnareff, a dorky Frenchman with tall hair who can still kick ass. King of Fighters’ Benimaru Nikaido was nearly identical to him in his debut from the hair to the clothes.
Then in an interview with Edge, Tekken series’ director/producer/all-round head honcho Katsuhiro Harada revealed his predecessor Masamichi Abe based Paul Phoenix on Polnareff because he was a fan of the series, including naming the character after him ("Pol-nareff" "Pol-Phoenix"). Oddest of all , Street Fighter’s iconic air force pilot Guile started off as a Polnareff clone before getting altered into a Rudol Von Stroheim lookalike, a character from a completely different Jojo part.
7 Cloud, Nightmare, And Velvet Are Guts
Berserk’s Black Swordsman is perhaps the most iconic knight in manga. Both he and his series have inspired a multitude of media from the SoulsBourne games to Netflix’s Castlevania series. Guts and his Dragonslayer sword in particular have inspired nearly every wielder of giant broadsword. For example, Final Fantasy VII’s Cloud has Guts’ moody attitude and his Dragonslayer-esque Buster Sword.
SoulCalibur’s Siegfried has the sword, patricidal backstory, and a dark transformation into the Azure Knight Nightmare which made him look particularly Berserk-esque. The most Guts-like character would have to be Tales of Berseria’s Velvet Crowe, as she became a cold, vengeful figure after she lost her arm and her loved ones during the Scarlet Night. Just as Guts lost his arm, an eye, and all his friends during a ritual called the Eclipse.
6 Xiba And Natsu Are Goku And Naruto
Siegfried and Nightmare weren’t SoulCalibur’s only anime references. It’s just that most of its classic characters tend to fit anime archetypes than individual characters. Kilik, Xianghua, and Maxi may as well come straight out of a fantasy series like Inuyasha. While Yun-seong is a hot-head dimwit a la Yu Yu Hakusho’s Kuwabara or Okuyasu from Diamond is Unbreakable.
But SoulCalibur 5’s strained development meant the new characters ended up less inspired. Xiba, a staff-wielding boy with a heart as big as his stomach, is more like Dragon Ball’s Son Goku than Journey to the West’s Sun Wukong. Then Natsu, a kunoichi feared by her clan because she has a demon sealed inside her, is just female Naruto. If there’s ever a SoulCalibur 7, these two would have to be fleshed out more before they return.
5 Sonic The Hedgehog Is Super Saiyan Goku
Speaking of Goku, while Xiba resembles the Saiyan’s childhood self from the original Dragon Ball, Sonic is more akin to grown-up Goku Dragon Ball Z. Mostly. The Blue Blur was designed to be a cool dude full of attitude, while Goku is a cheery bumpkin full of ki and turkey legs. Even so, as Dragon Ball Z got more popular in the West, players couldn’t help but notice similarities between the Super Saiyan and Super Sonic forms.
They both give Goku and Sonic yellow hair and make them nigh-on invincible. The difference is that Sonic has to find seven Chaos Emeralds to go super. Rather like how Goku and his friends had to find seven Dragon Balls to make wishes. Both McGuffins scatter off afterward too, where they have to be tracked down again through gameplay or plot convenience. Ultimately, Sonic is what people would get if Disney and Dragon Ball did the fusion dance.
4 Mega Man Is Astro Boy And Casshern
The Blue Bomber is a little different as he has two standout anime influences. Astro Boy is the most obvious one, as it told the story about a robot boy who helps defend the Earth with the help of his kindly, beardy scientist guardian. Both Astro and Mega Man have robot sisters in Uran and Roll respectively, and themes about identity and whether robots can be equal to humans.
Casshern is a little more obscure outside Japan. The original 1970s cartoon was about a man who was converted into an android to hunt down rogue robots, just as Mega Man was a house-cleaner remodeled into a super fighting robot. Casshern was aided by his robot dog Friender, so Mega Man is helped by his own canine companion Rush. His mechanical descendant Mega Man X would follow Casshern's robot hunting plot more closely, with his ally-turned-nemesis Sigma resembling Casshern's Buraiking Boss.
3 Dante Is Cobra
The links between the Son of Sparda and Space Adventure Cobra’s protagonist are less obvious. Dante swings a broadsword against demons and occult beasts, while Cobra fights aliens and space pirates across the galaxy with his hidden “Psychogun” arm cannon. Dante and Devil May Cry is more like Berserk if it was written by Marvel Comics, and Cobra is Metroid with a man. However, Cobra isn’t exactly as stoic or as serious as Samus Aran.
He’s a cocky spacefarer who loves adventure as much as he does flirting with the ladies. Devil May Cry creator Hideki Kamiya wanted Dante to resemble Cobra in personality to make him “a character that you could go out drinking with”. The two would even have women accomplices in Trish and Lady Armaroid who, while not love interests, are perhaps more important to them than any romantic prospects.
2 Kasuga Ichiban Is Luffy
The characters from Sega’s Yakuza/Like A Dragon series draw from a lot of sources. Japanese crime movies like Sonatine and Hanabi are obvious standouts, as are martial arts movies, urban legends, Shenmue and House of the Dead. But there are also some odd standouts, like Yakuza Kiwami 2 having a substory based on the time Kazuma Kiryu’s voice actor Takaya Kuroda worked on BL drama CDs, and Lost Judgment having one based on the TV show Old Enough!
Yakuza: Like A Dragon brought in new JRPG-style gameplay, and a new hero in Kasuga Ichiban. Unlike Kiryu, he was more emotional, wild, and a bit of a goof. But he could still be deadly serious when things got heavy. In an interview with Crunchyroll, series’ producer Masayoshi Yokoyama revealed these contrasting sides of Ichiban's personality came from One Piece. “To me, Ichiban is basically Luffy. And around him, there’s Zoro and Nami and basically the rest of the party". He'd continue to say it was, to him, the closest they could get to a "Yakuza: One Piece" game.
1 Solid Snake Is Lupin The 3rd
If Ichiban and Luffy seem like two peas in a pod, Solid Snake and Lupin the 3rd don’t look like they’d be sold in the same store. The former is a special operative who laments his fate as both a hero and a killer, and the latter is a gentleman thief with an overactive libido. Snake deals with giant, nuke-firing bipedal tanks. Lupin deals with the law and corrupt oligarchs while trying to nab valuable treasures. But in a 2010 interview with 1UP.com, Hideo Kojima drew the comparison between the two himself.
He described how, in the original Metal Gear Solid, “Snake became this sharp-tongued, Lupin the 3rd-like guy who flirted with women and told lots of jokes”. Which is true. For every serious quip (“I’ll die after I kill you!”), there’s one about the women (“Yeah! You’ve got a great butt!”), or one at his expense (“What’s wrong with you, Otacon?!”). The two even shared a voice actor, as David Hayter also voiced Lupin in the Manga Video dub of The Castle of Cagliostro. Maybe they’re not so different after all.