We've done a list of the best Nintendo doctors, but how do less distinguished professions fair on Nintendo hardware? How about, say... pirates? Everyone loves pirates these days, from Jack Sparrow to the Tales of the Black Freighter, but Nintendo loved pirates before loving pirates was cool. Also after. Because if the people want pirates, you give them pirates. In that spirit, here's a list of Nintendo's ten greatest pirates, along with a special honorable mention.
Honorable Mention: R4 Owners Everywhere!
Congratulations! From Korea to Japan to the US, you guys are the thorn in Nintendo's side that just won't go away. You know exactly why, too. Sure, the R4 can be used to make your DS run MP3s, video media, and homebrew applications on the DS, but that's not why most folks drop their $40 on it. No, you see, the R4 can also run illegal ROM images of DS games that crafty pirates download from equally illegal websites. This lets an R4 owner effectively steal an unlimited supply of DS games. Occasionally squeamish software pirates supply the cover excuse that they're just trying to sample games before they buy them. Sure you are, matey.
10. Bikke the Pirate
Bikke is the second boss you fight in the landmark NES RPG Final Fantasy, and an exercise in the blackest comedy. Bikke's taken over the port town of Pravoka with his band of pirates. The game wants you to go beat him up and free the town. If you attempt to do this immediately after reaching Pravoka, the battle is fairly balanced... but nobody does this. Most players instead fight Bikke after spending a few hours battling monsters to accumulate gil to spend on improved equipment. When you do get around to battling Bikke, it's probably not to liberate Pravoka's frightened peasantry. No, you're basically mugging him for his pirate ship, which you need to sail on to the next town. Bikke remains behind in Pravoka, shipless, a mere half-pirate.
It's not often that an RPG lets you completely crush a man's spirit.
9. Jonathan "Johnny" Jones
Hailing from the unbearably awesome Super Mario RPG for the SNES, Johnny is both a shark and a pirate. This automatically makes him one of the greatest ideas since they found a way to put peanut butter and jelly into the same jar. He's the boss of the Sunken Ship dungeon, and guards the fifth of the six Star Pieces Mario needs to acquire in the game. Provided your party can beat his, he'll jovially hands over the Star Piece to show his gratitude for such a great battle. Later on another boss tries to blackmail Mario out of that Star Piece, but Johnny makes a triumphant return to help Mario get his present back. Sure, Johnny's a pirate, but that doesn't mean he's got to be a bad friend. Too bad sharks can't breathe on land, or Johnny probably would've made a great addition to your party.
8. Captain Whisker
Captain Whisker performs main villain duties for roughly 7/8ths of Sonic Rush Adventure for the Nintendo DS. He's a rotund pirate who bears a strikingly suspicious resemblance to Sonic's old foe Dr. Eggman. Unlike the villains of a lot of recent Sonic games, Captain Whisker has no real pretensions of grandeur. He's a goofy, bumbling villain whose efforts to find the Jeweled Sceptre are played strictly for comedy. It's reminiscent of Eggman's treament in the early Sonic games, which Sonic Rush Adventure's sprawling levels are patterned after. Of course, Captain Whisker would be a better villain if his backstory didn't involve the asinine "parallel dimension" introduced in Sonic Rush as Blaze the Cat's home turf, and the Sonic franchise as a whole would be better if it wasn't using Dr. Eggman's paradimensional more-evil twin Nega Eggman as a recurring villain. With a modern Sonic game, though, you take what you can get, and Captain Whisker is a fine respite from depressing inanity like Shadow the Hedgehog.
7. Kaptain K. Rool
Maybe Mr. Rool felt pretty bad after his humiliating defeat in the original Donkey Kong Kountry. Sure, he had a pirate ship then, but also had the megalomaniacal chops to call himself King K. Rool. In Donkey Kong Country 2, he returns after giving himself a demotion to Kaptain and an utterly fabulous new pirate makeover complete with blunderbuss. This time he takes the prudent step of abducting his arch-nemesis Donkey Kong, and demanding to have the Kongs' banana hoard given to him in exchange for Donkey's safe return. Sidekick Diddy isn't about to give up the bananas after all the crap he went through to get them in the first game, so he sets out with his girlfriend Dixie to beat the crap out of the good Kaptain instead. All of the levels take place on the Kaptain's Crocodile Isle, so pretty much the whole game is delightfully pirate-themed. It's also the best game in the series, so overall a pretty good showing for the forces of, um, piracy.
6. Captain Syrup
Captain Syrup and her crew appeared in the first two Wario Land games for the Game Boy (the latter remade for the Game Boy Color), where they bedeviled Mario's greedy rival Wario. In the first game, Captain Syrup is a notorious pirate who steal a gigantic golden statue of Princess Peach that Wario desperately wants. After spending the game looting the various treasures of the Brown Sugar Pirates, Wario defeats Captain Syrup and takes a magic lamp from her. The genie inside gives him a wish, which we uses to acquire an enormous castle for himself. When Captain Syrup and her crew return in Wario Land 2, they get their revenge by flooding Wario's castle and taking all of his stuff. Wario sets out to get revenge by stealing it all back, and any number of insane things can happen in the game depending on what you do. This includes complete branching storylines that affect what the overall goal of the game is, and numerous battles with Captain Syrup herself. Not only is Captain Syrup the rare video game pirate who successfully engages in real piracy, but the branching plots mostly serve to make her look even better. If Wario wasn't greedier than she was, she'd be unstoppable.
5. Straw Hat Pirates
Ah, I can hear all of you out on the Internet crying foul at this inclusion. The Straw Hat Pirates are the protagonists of One Piece, a worldwide hit manga by Eichiro Oda that's in turn spawned an anime adaptation, numerous movies, and a lot of games. One Piece games tend to be a little less lousy on the whole than, say, your games based on Dragonball Z and Naruto, possibly because the premise lets the games do a little bit more than just cheesy 3D fighters. There are also cheesy adventure games and beat 'em ups! For this list, though, the Straw Hats most important appearance is in the first-party import-only games Jumpst Superstars and Jump Ultimate Stars. These manga megacrossover fighting games developed by Ganbarion and published by Nintendo let the heroes and villains of the various comics that run in the popular anthology Shounen Jump beat the hell out of each other. The fighting mayhem makes for a great four-player portable party game, and the process of unlocking all of the playable characters-- like the Straw Hats-- even makes for satisfying single player. What more could a pirate ask for?
4. Zebes Space Pirates
The Zebes Space Pirates are the traditional villains of the 2D Metroid game series that began with the original Metroid on the NES, climaxed with Super Metroid on the SNES, and finished in recursive fashion with a remake of the NES original called Metroid: Zero Mission on the GBA. Their numbers include the ever-popular monsters Ridley, Kraid, and the Mother Brain herself. The titular Metroids were apparently just hanging around and got caught in the crossfire. Of course, the Metroid games are awesome, and all of the Zebes Space Pirates make for fantastic boss fights. They'd easily top the list if, well, there was anything outside of the manual that indicated basic sentient, let alone a taste for piracy in deep space. I mean, I went twenty years thinking Samus just waded into a planet full of the nastiest monsters in the galaxy to clean them out, because someone was lying her or maybe she just had a really bad day. Finding out Ridley and Kraid were less mindless face-shredders than they were scurvy space-dogs with a really poorly furnished hideout leaves me not knowing exactly how to feel about Metroid anymore.
3. Blue Rogues
The Blue Rogues are the heroes of Skies of Arcadia, an excellent Dreamcast RPG that is easiest to find now as part of its GameCube port, Skies of Arcadia Legends. While a little forgetting if viewed strictly as an RPG (it's pretty much the PlayStation formula down to a T, complete with a ridiculous encounter rate), it's a really freaking great game when it comes to the freewheeling adventure you get from exploring the clouds in your airship. You do play as a fairly boring protagonist with a pretty generic goal (save world from evil empire), but the whole game is made immeasurably better by making the hero Vyse and his friends pirates. For all we know, they're really out to stop the Valuan Empire because if they destroy the world, the Blue Rogues won't have anywhere to keep their stuff (let alone explore). The ship-to-ship combat option is also a pleasant change of pace from the usual formula, and even the formulaic aspects of the game are handled with a lot of polish. If you ever wanted to specifically indulge in the fantasy of being a pirate and traveling the skies on a Nintendo system, Skies of Arcadia is really one of the best games to play.
2. Tetra
The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker for the GameCube is a game that's hideously underappreciated by American players, who I guess couldn't handle a game so utterly lacking in brown. It was actually an inventive re-imagining of the basic Legend of Zelda plotline, with gorgeous graphics and a lot of fun dungeons (although, really, the sailing crap did get old after awhile). Tetra is an especially young lady pirate who took over leadership of her crew after her mother died. She's consistently helpful to Link in Wind Waker and the subject of one of the best plot twists in the game-- suffice to say, she's a new face for an old Zelda character with a habit of appearing with a new face and name. Tetra is even a reasonably popular character as the Zelda universe goes, putting in an interesting supporting appearance in Phantom Hourglass. She was also featured prominently in a mode of the Four Sword Adventures GameCube game, but it was cut from the American release.
1. The Sea Rabbits
The Sea Rabbits are the protagonists of the gloriously addictive and occasionally frustrating Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure for the Nintendo Wii. It's a light puzzle game with a few irritating elements, but enough good stuff to always keep you coming back for more. The Sea Rabbits are the pirate crew the titular Zack & Wiki belong to, apparently so named bcause they're all rabbits. Er, except for Wiki, who's a magic golden monkey, and Zack, who's... possibly human? Maybe? I guess they must be honorary Sea Rabbits. Anyway, they're about the best companions a pirate could hope for. They sell you the Platinum Tickets and Oracle Dolls you need to get through difficult puzzles, pilot Johnny Style gives you hints during the level, and your crewmate Maddy uses secret maps to help you find bonus treasures. All in all, an excellent pirate crew to help you out during the most excellent game about pirates you can play on a Nintendo system.
