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The 25 Awesomest Hidden Characters

Some of the coolest characters in video gaming history reside in the shadows, waiting for an enterprising character to discover them so they can live once more. Check our guide to the most famous hidden characters ever.


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Reptile
Credit: Midway Games
25

Reptile

One of the things that made the Mortal Kombat franchise such a powerhouse in the 90s was the sheer amount of lore and bizarre hidden stuff that the developers put into it. You felt like there was something hiding under every corner and it just took the right sequence of commands to unlock it. This tradition started in the original game when creators Ed Boon and John Tobias decided to pallette-swap Scorpion and Sub-Zero with a green color to create a third masked ninja. To fight him, you had to win two consecutive rounds in the Pit stage without blocking or taking damage and finish the fight with a fatality while a shadow flies across the moon (which happens once every eight games). That's a lot of work just to get your ass kicked!

Cloud Strife
Credit: Square Enix
24

Cloud Strife

It's no exaggeration to say that Final Fantasy VII not only made Square Enix, it made the PlayStation too. So it's only natural that they'd want to get as much mileage out of the characters as they could. One of the best comes in Final Fantasy Tactics, the legendary 1998 strategy title. If the player follows a complicated series of sidequests, they can activate a machine that rips a hole through the dimensions and sucks in the spiky-haired swordsman. Of course, after you do all that he's useless without his Materia Blade, which is also hidden... in a volcano. Have fun!

Richter Belmont
Credit: Konami
23

Richter Belmont

Will we ever see a Castlevania game as good as Symphony Of The Night again? The PlayStation title that basically created the "Metrovania" genre let players loose in a gigantic castle with an army of monsters and as they collected weapons and equipment they could gradually explore more and more of it. But the game's biggest secret came after it ended. If you play the game normally, the last boss is Richter Belmont, the vampire hunter. Kill him and the game ends. But! If you equip the Holy Glasses, you'll see a glowing orb controlling him during the fight. Destroy the orb to unlock the Inverted Castle, where the real last boss lives. Get the best ending by exploring over 180% of the map (it adds up to 200% with two castles) and you'll be able to play as Richter himself, which drastically changes the game.

Barack Obama
Credit: EA Sports
22

Barack Obama

Now that we finally have our first baller president, it's only fair that the NBA Jam series comes back from obscurity. The two-on-two arcade basketball game has a long tradition of hidden characters (making it probably the first game to feature Al Gore), so it's nice to see that NBA Jam 2K11 keeps that up. Players can pick from a huge roster of pro basketball stars, but with a little work you can also unlock Barack Obama, Joe Biden, John McCain and Sarah Palin.

Senator
Credit: Sega
21

The Senator

The Sega CD never really pulled it off - it was a little too soon in the hardware cycle for ambitious games to really work out, and most of the titles were either bad or weird. One that was both was fighting game Eternal Champions. The plot was simple: a diverse assortment of violencers must beat ass on each other to find out who is the best at ass-beating. And then... profit??? The game actually got a sequel with even more weirdness, including a hidden character so ridiculous he had to hit the list. The Senator (a pallete-swap of another fighter with a replaced head) was a corrupt politician who fought with a bevy of inane moves like Red Tape and Diplomatic Immunity.