Informed Species / Video Games

Informed Species in Video Games.

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• AFK Arena: Vurk, Skreg, Drez, and Kren are supposed to all be part of the same tribe of rats in the original Chinese version. However, while they do have traits in common with each other, none of them resemble rats at all. Vurk and Skreg are frequently mistaken for canines or hyenas, Drez is frequently mistaken for a fennec fox or stoat, and Kren closer resembles a bobcat or lynx. Because of these, the English translation tries to avert this trope by calling them a fictional species, Durri, instead.
• Animal Crossing: Due to the extremely varied and cartoony designs of many of the villagers, they sometimes strongly resemble other species than the ones they are. For example, Tucker is officially an elephant villager, but resembles a woolly mammoth (complete with a stereotypical caveman leopard-print clothing), and Drago, who is officially an alligator, but (as his name implies) looks like a dragon, complete with a "burn" catchphrase, dragon shirt, and a traditional Eastern-style house, and the ostrich villager species is basically an umbrella category for long-necked birds, with only two of them, Sandy and Sprocket, looking like an ostrich. Others, like Sprocket and Ribbot, also look like robots.
• ARK: Survival Evolved: While most dinosaur designs take considerable creative liberties, most of them are still recognizable as their fossil counterparts. However, some look more like hybrids, such as the Triceratops, which has a frill more closely resembling a Styracosaurus, and the Pteranodon have crests and teeth like those of Caulkicephalus. There's even an in-universe example with the brontosaurs, which the in-game dossier acknowledge as essentially being generic sauropods rather than a specific genus, even suggesting that they might more accurately be another genus such as Argentinosaurus or Dreadnoughtus. All of this is at least partly justified, though, because it's made clear that the various dinosaurs and other creatures don't actually exist here naturally and many of them have been changed drastically from being transplanted to the Ark, such that almost all of them are officially classified with different species names: even the tyrannosaurs, despite being referred to as Rexes in-game, are actually the fictional species Tyrannosaurus dominum, not Tyrannosaurus rex; the dossier for them says that everyone just calls them Rexes, anyway, so that's their common rather than scientific name.
• Banjo-Kazooie: Banjo is supposed to be a bear, but his long snout and stout physique make him look more like a dog. Also, his feet, hands, and belly don't have any fur on them, much like a gorilla's, and designwise, he gets inspiration from Donkey Kong with the exception of his face, so he ends up looking more like a dog/bear/gorilla hybrid.
• Bayonetta 3: Viola’s demon, Cheshire, is supposed to look like a cat, since that’s what animal his namesake is. Despite this, he instead looks more like a demonic teddy bear (minus the pointy ears), having a very plump body and a stubby, bushy tail.
• Blood West has the "Leech" enemies who looks suspiciously reptilian. They appear closer to zombified crocodiles than leeches, although they do have the ability to suck blood (albeit with tentacles instead of proboscis).
• Bubble Bobble: Bub and Bob are described as two Brontosaurus buddies, despite both resembling miniature chibified Godzillas.
• Carnivores: Most of the dinosaurs and prehistoric beasts the player hunts are based on outdated restorations from vintage paleoart. Granted, considering the games take place on the alien planet of FMM UV-32, these inaccuracies can be justified by the fact that technically speaking, none of these creatures are true dinosaurs but rather extraterrestrial lifeforms that have evolved to possess a superficial resemblance to true dinos:
  • The Allosaurus looks more like some type of 90s-inspired dromaeosaur, including being smaller than the real animal. Apparently, its model was originally intended for the Raptor, before the latter got an overhaul and this model was used to represent Allosaurus instead.
  • The Chasmosaurus from the second game more closely resembles a Triceratops.
  • The Ankylosaurus is much smaller and more slender than the real animal, and it also has a dragging tail, spiked osteoderms, and a more subtle tail club.
  • In Ice Age, there is a wild boar that obviously resembles a warthog.
  • Also from Ice Age, the Yeti has bird-like feet of a theropod dinosaur and three-fingered hands. While the creature still has status as a cryptid, most reports state it would have hands and feet no different than a primate.
  • The Troodon from Dinosaur Hunter lacks the killing claw on its foot, making it look more like a Compsognathus.
  • Dinosaur Hunter HD and Reborn had Gallimimus and Pelecanimimus that both look more like Compsognathus. Especially jarring with the former, whose incarnations in previous installments looked more like the real animal.
• Clu Clu Land player character Bubbles is supposed to be a balloonfish, a specific variety of pufferfish/blowfish, but she does not even look like a generic puffer fish/blow fish. Bubbles is just a round ball with arms and two noodle legs or maybe a stubby tail. Furthermore, Bubbles does not act like a puffer fish. Rather than biting anything of puffing up, her method of attack is to stun the target with sound waves, like a sperm whale, and then smash them against a wall, like a sea otter. Her most immediately noticeable attribute is her strong forward momentum, so strong that she cannot freely stop or change directions, which is the exact opposite of a real balloon fish, which can turn and stop quite well but only move forward quickly in short bursts.
• Club Penguin:
  • Rockhopper is supposed to be a rockhopper penguin, but besides having red feathers (many penguins are coloured strangely in this game, anyway) and a beard, his Big Ol' Eyebrows are black instead of yellow and don't really resemble the spiky feathers the real species has, not to mention that he lacks spiky feathers on top of his head. He should also have red eyes. However, the Earth Day party features more realistically-looking rockhopper penguins.
  • The Utahraptor from the play "The penguin that time forgot" looks nothing like any species of dromaeosaur. It's tripodal, featherless (besides some kind of crest, which wasn't present on the real animal), has two fingers, three toes (including its dewclaw) and lacks its sickle-claw. However, the Raptors from the Prehistoric Parties looks more like real raptors, including being decently feathered.
• Crash Bandicoot:
  • Crash and Coco don't look much like bandicoots. Coco especially, since she lacks a long snout like her brother. Coco looks more like a chipmunk or Shiba Inu. Crash has sometimes been mistaken for a tailless fox (real bandicoots have a long, rat-like tail). Originally, Crash DID in fact, have a tail, but the developers thought it didn't animate too well on-screen due to technical limitations at the time, so it was removed. The creators claimed that Crash's design was almost entirely a result of technical limitations and conveying his actions to the player, and they didn't actually decide on his species until fairly late in development (they picked the bandicoot because it was a rarely used species and they figured the name would help Crash stick out). Uncharted 4: A Thief's End lampshades this when Nate plays through a level of the first game, where he keeps calling Crash a fox despite Elena telling him that he's a Bandicoot.
  • The same goes for Tawna, Ami, Isabella, Liz and Megumi, who look even less like bandicoots. Similarly to Coco, they have small snouts and, although they do have tails, theirs are small and fluffy, similar to a rabbit's. Besides, the latter four used to have human ears in Crash Team Racing, whereas in the remaster, they have cat-like ears.
  • The Viscount is supposed to be a Tasmanian devil, yet he looks more like a purple doberman pinscher.
  • Moe and Joe are supposed to be Komodo dragons, but they are green and have tail spines, which monitor lizards do not have. They look more like mutated green iguanas or dragon people instead.
  • Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time features spiky dinosaurs that some sources invariably call Nodosaurus or even Ankylosaurus. While do have features more like nodosaurs, such as spikes along the sides and the lack of a tail club, they do not resemble any known species. They have horns on their snouts, which ankylosaurs lack, and their armor have few osteoderms.
• Dino Crisis:
  • In par of Dinosaur Media, the Velociraptor look more like oversized, featherless Deinonychus. Downplayed in Dino Stalker, where they have long snouts and skinny builds like real-life Velociraptor.
  • The Therizinosaurus came from a period before much of anything about the species's appearance was known aside from its arms. Consequently, while the real thing was a plant-eater with a long neck and a somewhat dumpy build, the in-game one looks more like a generic theropod. What's less excusable is the size: even going by the information at the time, it's about a third the size it should be, and its signature sickle-handed claws are quite small while its arms are too long, more like those of Deinocheirus. They're not a bad match for Megaraptor, though, especially considering that at the time, Megaraptor was thought to be a giant dromaeosaur instead.
  • The Mosasaurus from the second game look more like crocodiles with fins and eel-like tails, plus they're about a third the size they should be.
  • The Carnotaurus from Dino Stalker look more like T. rex with bull horns, though at least they have shorter arms and four-fingered hands.
  • Trinity barely resembles a Troodon, having horns and no killing claws on the feet. Possibly justified as she's genetically-enhanced.
• Dinosaur:
  • The Champsosaurus looks more like a monitor lizard than the crocodile-like reptile it was in real life.
  • The Quetzalcoatlus looks more like a Pteranodon with a tiny head and short beak than the real animal.
  • The Dryptosaurus doesn't even remotely resemble the real dinosaur and instead looks more like... a baby Zilla?
• Donkey Kong Country:
  • Cranky Kong is supposed to be a gorilla like Donkey, and in fact he was the original Donkey Kong, but he looks more like a baboon.
  • Despite being labeled as a rattlesnake, Rattly barely resembles such. He doesn't even have the rattle at the end of his tail.
• Trouble Bruin/Maruyama from Dynamite Headdy looks like a cat but is supposed to be a bear.
• Evil the Cat from Earthworm Jim looks more like a deformed rat with caracal-like pointed ears than a cat; compare him with Bob the Goldfish's burly cat henchmen (henchcats?). Also Psycrow doesn't look all that much like a crow.
• The European Dholes in Far Cry Primal don't look anything like actual European Dholes (which looked basically the same as modern Asian Dholes). If anything, they look JUST THE SAME as African wild dogs (which are obviously not European).
• Final Fantasy XIV features a creature called the Deinonychus, which looks absolutely nothing like the dinosaur by that name. It has a face like a dog (complete with ears), tiny bat-like wings in place of arms, and, oddly, doesn't even have the sickle claw the dinosaur is named after.
• Freedom Planet:
  • Sash Lilac is supposed to be a dragon, but in actuality looks more like a purple cat-thing. Her horns and very short tail also makes her vaguely resemble a goat. There are a number of pandas in the game too, most of whom are mostly white and would be more identifiable as polar bears than pandas if not for the black around their eyes (which some characters do not have). It helps that the game had its origins as a Sonic fangame, and still has a similar art style. It's zig-zagged as far as dragons go, however—other dragons depicted are much more recognizable as dragons than Lilac. The sequel explains that half-breed dragons exist, and gives us a full-blooded water dragon in Merga as a comparison point, as well as another half-breed in Askal.
  • Milla is supposed to be a dog - a basset hound in particular - but many members of the fanbase (and Igor in-universe in the sequel) mistake her for a rabbit due to her long ears. This despite the fact that her paws have clearly visible pads for the few moments we can see their undersides, let alone the lengthy tail and canine mannerisms she carries herself with. And then there are the green globules on her ears, which normal dogs don't have period. This last one is a plot point, as it's a major hint that, as the sequel reveals, she's actually an extraterrestrial.
• Hidden City's publishers state on their social media page that Alligator the dog is a doberman, even though he looks nothing like the other dobermans that can be found at the Foggy Backstreet or the Citadel. His oversized dewlap makes him look like a Great Dane instead.
• Hollow Knight:
  • The Last Stag does not really look like a stag beetle, given that he lacks their trademark dual pincers. If anything, the singular horn on his head and another one on his back make him look closer to some kind of rhinoceros beetle.
  • The Garpedes are called centipedes in the game's code. However, they have two pair of legs per body segment instead of one like real-life centipedes, which might make them look more similar to millipedes.
  • Dirtcarvers are enemies that look a lot like silverfish due to their flat body shapes and silvery scales, but the game's codes refer to them as baby centipedes, implying they are child garpedes. To make matters more confusing, an enemy called Carver Hatcher is a flying bug that spawns dirtcarvers from its body, but neither centipedes nor silverfish are able to fly in any part of their lifes. The game's bestiary even comments on it, wondering how they could be the mothers of the dirtcarvers if they look so different from them.
  • The God Tamer is a boss who was confirmed by her backer to be based on a cockroach, but she looks much more like an ant due to her more slender body shape and lack of wing-cases. She even tamed an animal to use as a Beast of Battle, much like some ants in real life can tend aphids and caterpillars as livestock for sugar.
  • An official post mentioned that Molten was based on a cicada, but he doesn't resemble one much due to the artstyle, having longer antennae and a smaller body, especially when compared to fellow cicada, Cloth. He does is recognizable for keeping his old exoskeleton for protection though, and cicadas are famous for the molts that they, like all arthropods, leave after their ecdysis.
• Impossible Creatures has a "spitting cobra" that is bright blue.
• Jazz Jackrabbit Secret Files: The cat enemies from the last level look more like foxes with short muzzles (or better said, like a non-anthropomorphic Tails).
• James Pond is claimed to be a cod, albeit that's mainly to have a "Robocod" pun in the second game. James is bright orange throughout, while real cods have a white underbelly and a dark green or grey topside. Some fans (and the Wikipedia article on it) claim he's actually a mudskipper, which are brown in real life, but certainly look more like how Pond does.
• Jitsu Squad has one of the bosses, Viper the snake-woman, who despite her namesake looks more like a cobra (hood and all).
• The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: The dogs found around stables and other settlements are called Hylian retrievers. However, their appearance more closely resembles herding breeds such as collies and Australian shepherds.
• Lemmings: If it weren't for the title, you'd have no idea what those little people in blue robes with wild green hair were, because the lemmings in the game look absolutely nothing like actual lemmings at the slightest.
• Lost Eden:
  • The Velociraptor look like generic theropods, although at least they have the long, narrow snouts.
  • The Mosasaurus look like pliosaurs with long tails.
  • Moorkong is said to be a Tyrann general, but his skeleton is that of a human with a fanged reptilian skull rather than a tyrannosaur.
  • The dinosaur that blows the trumpet mimicking Moorkong's roar uses the same model as the game's Velociraptor, but Dina refers to it as an iguana.
• PaRappa the Rapper:
  • Parappa is not readily identifiable as a dog.
  • From the same universe, we have Lammy, a guitar-playing redhead sheep (note how her name is a play-on-words of "lamb") who more resembles a deer or calf, or a human with antlers, pointy ears, and round nose. Name one person who already knew she was a sheep without being told. Originally, Lammy was going to have a more sheep resemblance, and be younger too, but Sony's higher-ups forced the developers to redesign her to be sexier, older, and less sheep-like. Not that that's a bad thing, mind you. Though to be fair, Lammy does more closely resemble a wild sheep, like a young bighorn◊.
• Minecraft: The chickens lack the characteristic comb, have bills like ducks, and have wide feet reminescent of ducks' webbed feet, so they look more like blocky ducks with the chicken's characteristic wattle than blocky chickens.
• Paladins: Chickens look like oversized yellow chicks with short legs and egg-shaped bodies.
• Psychonauts: The lake monster that haunts the summer camp for psychics (long story) is a giant lungfish that looks nothing like an actual lungfish. Aside from being huge, it has legs with webbed feet instead of fins, a lure on its forehead like an anglerfish, a large mouth full of sharp teeth, and a bizarrely oversized head. Justified by the fact that she used to be a normal lungfish but was then experimented on and mutated into the monster she is now. The flashback slideshow “Lungfish and Loboto” shows that the lungfish used to look like a fairly realistic lungfish, albeit one drawn in a cartoony style who happens to be watching television.
• Putt-Putt:
  • Little Skeeter and his mother from Saves the Zoo are identified as boa constrictors, but they look more like green tree pythons (real boa constrictors are brown and patterned with reddish-brown "saddles").
  • Joins the Circus had a bird which Putt-Putt referred to as a cockatoo, but it looked more like a green toucan.
• The werewolves in The Quarry are probably the least wolfish looking werewolves in all of fiction. Other than their digitigrade feet and fangs, they look nearly indistinguishable from humans when standing upright.
• The Queen Cobra boss from Songs for a Hero looks nothing like a cobra, lacking a hood or venomous abilities. She seems to be a generic-looking green boa if anything.
• In the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, with exception of the title character (who barely passes as a hedgehog at least in modern form) and a handful of others (Cream the Rabbit, Vanilla the Rabbit, Vector the Crocodile, Tails the Fox, Espio the Chameleon, and Blaze the Cat, all of whom are more recognizable animals), pretty much none of the anthro characters actually resemble the animal they're supposed to be:
  • The franchise's many hedgehogs vary, with Classic Sonic probably being the best (prominent spikes and pudgy proportions, abilities involve curling into a ball). On the other end of the spectrum, there's Amy, who doesn't even look like she belongs to the same species as Sonic relative to the others. In her classic design (which resembled a pink Sonic in a dress), she looked a bit more like a hedgehog than her current design, where she looks more like a cat with a bob wig.
  • Knuckles's resemblance to an actual echidna is pretty loose; he lacks the echidna's long snout and tongue entirely, his quills are like dreadlocks (and in general, he can't curl into a ball like Sonic can unless every character can as well), and he has a long crooked tail (most echidnas have stubby, basically vestigial ones although some echidnas have slightly longer tails). His signature spiked knuckles are the only thing that might mark him as one, if you generously say they're meant to be claws. Other than that, he looks more like a red dog with gelled-up dreadlocks.
  • Nack the Weasel/Fang the Sniper doesn't look much like a weasel or have any weasel-like features. This is a result of his species being changed from the Japanese version, in which he's actually half-jerboa, half-wolf. And now he's been retconned into just a jerboa, which he also has a tenuous at best resemblance to.
  • Mighty the Armadillo can be hard to identify as an armadillo at first glance. He lacks their long snout and rough looking skin. The only visible armadillo traits he has are the ears and the heavily stylized armor on his back, and even then, the latter does not appear to be composed of individual plates. He does curl into a ball, but in this series, that's not very species-dependant.
  • The Babylon Rogues are identifiable as birds of some sort, thanks to their beaks, but really don't depict their exact species well. Jet the Hawk's green feathers and red markings around his eyes make him look like a hybrid between a parrot and a hawk, not helped by Jason Griffith playing the character with such a nasally voice. Wave the Swallow has a curved beak like Jet's instead a straight beak like swallows have; she has a greater resemblance to a swallow tailed kite rather than an actual swallow. Storm the Albatross, with his bulky body, lack of wide wings, and small round eyes, looks more like an owl than an albatross.
  • Bean the Dynamite, another bird from the franchise, is an interesting example, as initially most people assumed he was a duck, and he certainly resembles one aside from being green, having a very Daffy Duck-esque aesthetic. However, later, more accurate translations of his character profile reveals that he's actually a woodpecker, which he bears significantly less of a resemblance to.
  • Big the Cat is pretty tricky to identify as a cat. He does have a few cat traits, such as whiskers and a long tail, but all his other features are very off; his ears, for instance, definitely aren't cat ears, being about as long as his entire body. His massive, rotund body and Dumb Muscle Gentle Giant personality also don't call to mind your stereotypical cat, nor the fact that he looks almost nothing like Blaze, the other main cat in the franchise. Without knowing his name, you could just as easily call him a raccoon or a lemur.
  • Trip the Sungazer Lizard is basically just a hedgehog with a pointy nose, spiky tail and bumps where her ears should be. Her super form looks a bit more like an actual sungazer... by virtue of being a giant, spiny dragon.
• Downplayed in Splatoon: Some of the more humanoid NPCs like Sheldon (horseshoe crab), Annie (sea anemone), and Spyke (sea urchin) look more like humans with animal-themed hair/helmets, but it's still fairly easy to visually discern what species they're supposed to be representing.
• Sponge Bob Square Pants Employee Of The Month had a sea snake that looked more like a cobra than a real sea snake.
• William the Kid from SPY Fox: Dry Cereal is supposed to be a goat, but his pointed snout with a big, black button nose makes him look more like a dog (with small horns and a stubby deer-like tail).
• Spyro the Dragon:
  • While Hunter was identifiable as a cheetah, the resemblance was somewhat vague and in general he looked more like a generic feline with spots. Averted in Spyro Reignited Trilogy, where Hunter significantly looks more like a cheetah, having the stripes along the sides of his muzzle cheetahs are well-known for having.
  • Moneybags the bear looked more like Muppetesque nearly flat-faced, wide-mouthed "koala bear" reminiscent of Fozzie Bear, but derpier. Averted in Spyro Reignited Trilogy, where Moneybags' new look gives him a properly smug expression on his face, and looks significantly more like a bear, having a more noticeable snout, with fur on the sides resembling sideburns.
• Falco Lombardi from the Star Fox franchise is said to be a pheasant by Word of God, but looks more like a falcon with pheasant-like plumage. The fact that his first name is Falco doesn't help.
  • Krystal from the unreleased Nintendo 64 game Dinosaur Planet is meant to be a fox however she looks like some sort of cat instead. When the game was changed to Star Fox Adventures she was redesigned to look more fox-like (and be Hotter and Sexier).
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • The Buzzy Beetle enemies (which are basically fireproof Koopa Troopas) look more like hunchbacked, gray turtles than actual beetles.
  • Monty Moles resemble gophers rather than moles.
  • Poochie, Yoshi's pet dog from Yoshi's Island for some reason does not look like a dog at all and looks more like a platypus instead. Polterpup of Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon shares a similar appearance, implying that it's the same breed as Poochie.
• Turok: Tal'Set's pterosaur mount in Turok: Evolution has been invariably identified as a Pteranodon or a Quetzalcoatlus by various sources, with the latter being more favored. However, it looks more like some sort of ornithocheirid such as Tropeognathus, as it possesses a circular crest at the end of its beak and also lacks the long neck of Quetzalcoatlus.
• In Undertale, Toriel and Asgore are both based on goats, despite them looking more like a cow and bull respectively.
• The Ultimate Haunted House featured a Killer Gorilla that looked more like a green sloth creature.
• Fire Leo from Viewtiful Joe, despite being a lion actually doesn't even look like a lion at all. Joe actually calls him a dog, but he hates being referred to as such. His brother, Frost Tiger, looks more like a tiger than Leo does a lion, but also has a mane and a very similar build and appearance otherwise. This suggests they're actually ligers (or tigons), but neither are accurate to any type of big cat.
• Komasan from Yo-kai Watch is meant to be a Komainu (lion-dog) and has some Shiba Inu influences but he just comes off as a Cute Kitten and if anything looks like a panda. This could be because he is a cub-puppy though, as his older-looking evolution more resembles a lion. Averted in Yo-kai Watch: Shadowside, where he actually looks like a realistic Komainu instead of a Cartoon Creature.
• Yooka in Yooka-Laylee is supposed to be a chameleon, but aside from his tongue attack and his (obtained later in the game) invisibility move, it's hard to tell. It doesn't help that most characters just call him "lizard".
• In the Zoo Tycoon series, dinosaurs and prehistoric animals are particularly heavy offenders of this trope:
  • The dinos introduced in the Dinosaur Digs expasion pack of the original game look mostly fine, but others have aged pretty badly thanks to more recent discoveries. The Spinosaurus is portrayed as a biped with long legs and an allosaur-like skull, Ankylosaurus has spiky armor and a pointy tail club, and Apatosaurus looks more like a giant-sized Palette Swap of the in-game Plateosaurus rather than the heavily-built sauropod it was. Zig-zagged with Velociraptor, which is scaly but has an elongated snout and a slender physique like the real animal.
  • In the second game, the Dino Danger DLC pack adds four dinosaurs for you to adopt, which are Triceratops, Styracosaurus, Carnotaurus and good ol' Tyrannosaurus rex. While the former two are recognizable, the latter two look downright bizarre, not helped by the sequel's more cartoony art style. Carnotaurus lacks bumps and has a rather bulldog-esque head, bull-like horns and an enlarged lower jaw, while Tyrannosaurus has a bizarrely bird-like head and an oversized upper jaw. Both theropods have blocky, huge feet and walk in unusually upright stances. While their Extinct Animals redesigns fare a little better, the Carno still doesn't have bumps and the overall proportions of both theropods remain messed-up.
• The chameleons of Chameleon Twist barely resemble their actual species thanks to their circular heads. Their redesigns in the sequel game do attempt to rectify this, as they bear more of a resemblance to the animal they're supposed to be.

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