Nintendo Characters Virtually No One Knew About Until Now

Every time a new Super Smash Bros. game is announced, petitions seem to pop up everywhere begging for certain characters to be featured. Sakurai himself has been hounded over the exclusion of Waluigi, and outright tantrums have been throw over subpar picks (Pichu is featured but not Skull Kid?). But here's the thing: the Nintendo universe is vast, growing steadily since its start back in '75. There are plenty of characters that haven't even had the honor of being nominated for a Smash game, let alone noticed.

We're not talking about underappreciated faces like Birdie's either. Pit and Palutena might not be near as noticeable as Mario and Luigi, but they're familiar faces. No, we had to dig deep, deep into dusty Nintendo lore in order to find these strange characters buried in obscurity. If you can recognize them, we concede that you've got to be some kind of superfan.

In Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3, Mario himself is utterly absent. Instead, Wario takes center stage in a tale of greed, pirates, and castle renovations. We don't blame you if you haven't heard of it, either, because the game is older than some of our writers: released in 1994, the 2D platformer for the Game Boy was well received, even earning Best Theme and Fun in the 1994 Nintendo Power awards. But even though we've gotten to know Wario over the years, who we don't know nearly as well is his mortal enemy: Captain Maple Syrup.

Move over Captain Toad, and step aside Princess Peach: this beautiful Captain has looks that can kill and a crew who will do her dirty work. The Brown Sugar Pirates are anything but sweet; they're just as greedy as Wario. Captain Syrup is one of the first female antagonists in a Nintendo game and a recurring character. She always vows revenge upon defeat, serving sometimes as the final boss in Wario Land games. A formidable foe, she is something of an inventor, able to create machines designed to trip up mustachioed enemies. She changed her ways (kind of) and her look (drastically) in the 2008 title Wario Land: Shake It! when she gave Wario access to the parallel world Yuretopia in order to shake it down for all it was worth.

Maybe you're more familiar with Pit through the Super Smash Bros. games rather than the actual three Kid Icarus games. For the uninitiated: the series centers around a battle between Palutena, the Goddess of Light, and Medusa, the Goddess of Darkness, in Angel Land, where gods and monsters live together. In a totally shocking turn of events that we're not being sarcastic about at all, Medusa ends up being evil and takes over with her hideous cronies. Pit must try to free Palutena by defeating enemies like Reapers and ... Eggplant Wizards.

Yes, you read that right. Like a one-eyed Thanos, these purple monstrosities have the power to throw around magical eggplant projectiles and even turn Pit himself into an eggplant. This is a real inconvenience, but can sometimes come in handy because itty bitty eggplants can fit through passages that full-fledged Pits cannot. Eggplant Wizard's design has evolved since the first game in '86, but his powers have remained largely the same. He's been turning people into vegetables for decades and shows no signs of stopping. We don't remember this particular figure from Greek mythology, but he's just as scary as any gorgon or cyclops.

Say hello to the most ... handsome face on this list. In 1996's Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, Booster is yet another dude trying to forcibly marry Princess Peach. At the beginning of the game, Bowser did his thing and kidnapped her. In turn, Mario did his thing and rescued her, but a giant sword sent them all flying. Peach ends up in Booster's tower, which is a "famous tower of amusement," according to Booster. Booster is a Viking-like brute who lacks serious stats in the brains department. If you couldn't tell by his unchanging expression, he's not the brightest crayon in the box. He thinks that drinking punch and eating cake at his wedding reception "sounds complicated."

Being something of a villian, Booster is naturally determined to marry Princess Peach, who he sees as a gift from above. It takes the combined might of both Mario and Bowser to navigate the tower and save Peach from yet another shotgun wedding. Although Booster isn't exactly a memorable character, there is a noteworthy moment where it's possible that he may just accidentally kiss Mario.

In order to remember Doshin the Giant, you've either got to be a collector of ultra-rare Nintendo games or from somewhere outside the US and Canada. North American fans might look at this happy-faced behemoth and say, "Seems fake but okay," because we're going to be honest: Doshin is weird. He's the reincarnation of the sun, a god of good deeds. Native islanders worship him and shower him with hearts depending on how altruistically the big, yellow giant behaves. While Doshin is the "Love Giant," Jashin is the "Hate Giant" and is showered with skulls for bad deeds. Jashin comes in to wreak destruction when your followers have committed crimes and are in need of divine retribution. Talk about playing god.

It's a unique concept with moral motivations: the bigger Doshin is, the more he can protect his people from fire and hurricanes. And the more cuddly his noodle-armed hugs are. As the player, you have total control over the treatment of an entire island population. With great power, comes great responsibility that you're totally free to abuse. Doshin didn't make it to America for purely technical reasons; there was no uproar over kids showing sociopathic tendencies as they set their villagers aflame like ants with a magnifying glass. Rather, Doshin the Giant was one of the few 64DD games, a Japan-only rewritable expansion to the N64, allowing for only Japanese children to play a blank-faced yellow god of goodness (though European kids later got a GameCube port).

By now, we're all more than familiar with the princess of Hyrule herself, Zelda. She was the only child of the king of Hyrule, destined to inherit the throne and all the power that comes with it ... or was she? No, this isn't a conspiracy theory about Link being her brother. Rather, in the second game of the Legend of Zelda series, Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link, we find out that in this moment of the twisty-turny timeline, Zelda has a brother. And he sucks.

First of all, the prince of Hyrule doesn't even have a name. He's just Zelda's brother, the prince, and unfortunately his father's heir. While Zelda is clearly the better choice to rule Hyrule, having a first name and all, the prince becomes the monarch after the king's death. His first royal mission? Find the missing Triforce of Courage that the old king hid in the Great Palace to keep it from falling into the wrong hands (cough cough, the prince's, cough). However, only Zelda was given the knowledge of its location. The prince hates this, and tries to extract the secret from his sister. When she doesn't yield to him, he uses the power of a magician. The magician places her under a sleeping spell and conveniently dies soon after. Now Link has to do all the work and wake the sleeping beauty Zelda by uniting the Triforce of Courage with the Triforce of Power and the Triforce of Wisdom.

Nintendo is usually fairly kid-friendly, but has been known to wander into dark territory. Just think about all those terrifying descriptions of certain Pokemon and the fact that even in a fluffy, carefree game like Yoshi's Crafted World, there are enemies wielding knives. Knives! That's worse than running with scissors. What's even worse, perhaps, is the blank, possessed face of Geno. Originating in Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, he is something "sent by 'a higher authority' to restore peace to Mario's world" that is possessing a child's doll.

Despite his blank, staring eyes and strange design, Geno fancies himself as a true hero and behaves with all the confidence and enthusiasm of a protagonist. He might be forgettable to most players, but this strange little guy has a place in Masahiro Sakurai's heart. Geno was considered for Super Smash Bros. Brawl and a costume based on his likeness was added in DLC content Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS / Wii U that could be worn by Mii Gunners. That's right, you too can look like an obscured possessed doll.