Five Video Game Characters who would Enjoy St. Patrick’s Day

Happy St. Patrick’s day everybody. As everyone knows, St. Patrick’s day is about two things: bastardizing Irish culture, and getting very drunk, over a very long period of time. In commemoration of this event, it seemed like a good idea to highlight some notable video game characters who enjoy booze as much as any St. Patrick’s day celebrator. Alcohol has had a rocky history in video games. There was a time that nobody cared about the content of video games and the alcohol ran like water. Then came several major waves of censoring where any mention to booze had to be changed to some inoffensive drink. Finally, with the advent of the ratings system and a bit of a lax in the harsh censoring rules, alcohol is now fully allowed in video games, as long as the game in question doesn’t mind being bumped up in rating. So let’s look at five random picks for alcoholic characters we all know and love.

Despite what you may think, this is not indicative of Irish culture

5.) Rose of Sharon Cassidy (Fallout: New Vegas)

Soon, soon.

Cass is probably the biggest drunk on this list so it makes sense that she go first. Pretty much her entire character is about whiskey. She never stops talking about it. If your character is female and flirts with her, she states that she isn’t into girls, but when she’s had enough to drink she doesn’t care whose bed she winds up in. During one sidequest, you have the option of feeding one of your companions to a group of high class cannibals. If you feed them Cass, they will comment on how her liver is inedible and the meat had a whiskey marinade on it. Now, that’s drinking commitment! The companion perk she gives you is Whiskey Rose, which removes all of the negative aspects of whiskey, and what true blooded St. Patricker wouldn’t want this? On top of that, she can make you some of her patented homemade moonshine; one of the ingredients to this potent drink is a fission battery, so we all know that Cass is down for serious drinking.

4.) Link (Legend of Zelda Series)

This isn’t going to end well.

No, Link’s entry on this list isn’t just because he is the closest thing to a Leprechaun in the video game world. He is added because of the suspicious “Milk Bar” he can attend in Majora’s Mask. This milk bar is members only, open only at night, and serves various “vintage” milks. In other words, it’s a wine bar. This brings up a lot of bad connotations in the Zelda world. If milk is equivalent to wine, does it even have restorative properties, or does Link just get sloshed and think that he’s suddenly been healed? Of course Majora’s Mask isn’t the only game to have Link drink milk. In Ocarina of Time, Link can get milk from cows, or, more commonly, from Talon. He’s the kind of guy that would have no problem with underage drinking. Remember, he left his preteen daughter in a busy metropolitan city, while he went off to sleep, then offered to marry Link and that daughter because Link was able to pick out three chickens that he had thrown into a pile of other chickens in his house… you know what, I’m starting to think that Talon should have been on this list.

3.) Commander Shepard (Mass Effect Series)

Commander Shepard doesn’t sip drinks, she conquers them.

Commander Shepard is never one to be above a couple of drinks here or there. In every bar in the entire series, including the bar in the Normandy in Mass Effect 2 unlockable with the Kasumi DLC, Shepard is able to take a good shot of alcohol. Shepard also isn’t beyond getting drunk. Enough of those shots will have Shepard stumbling around, a drunken mess. In Mass Effect 2, Shepard isn’t beyond going way too far while drinking with the ship’s doctor. In Mass Effect 3, if you have too much to drink, you can end up passed out on Aria T’Loak’s couch. Shepard has a problem. If you are trying to unite a galaxy through very intricate political maneuvering, the last thing you want to be doing is passing out drunk on the couch of a known crime lord. In Mass Effect 2, Shepard’s need for alcohol makes him/her order a drink in a bar even though (s)he knows that the bartender poisons the drinks of humans. Now that’s dedication!

2.) Auron (Final Fantasy X)

It’s difficult to be this badass and not be a raging alcoholic

Auron is that one character from Final Fantasy X that everyone can agree is awesome. His character design is heavily inspired by Japanese ronin right down to the jug he carries with him. This jug is labeled, in Spira language, as nog. Forgive me for assuming that Auron isn’t ringing in the new year. Just look at the guy. He’s haggard, hasn’t  combed his hair in years, and kind of stumbles along until he’s needed for combat. In other words, Auron is a drunken master. His patented drink is used in two of his overdrives. In one of them he takes a swig of the, presumably, strong booze in his jug and spits it on his blade. This fits with the samurai design as spitting sake on their blades was seen to feed spirit into them. The other overdrive has him throwing the jug into a cyclone to ignite it, as if you needed any more proof that it was moonshine.

1.) The Great Explorer Toma (Chrono Trigger)

No kids, don’t give him a drink. It’s a trick!

Toma is a man committed to drinking like no other on this list, and also one who got hit by the censors pretty hard. You see Toma is a barfly. You’re going to encounter him in a bar or not at all, and he’s goes way too far in his drinking. What is he drinking? Well it’s soda pop, or cider of course! Don’t mind the slurred speech or the general lack of coherentness, as that is simply a side effect of drinking too much pepsi, or the Middle Ages Chrono Trigger equivalent. The same kind of thing happens again in Chrono Trigger when Lucca gets hammered on “poi” in the Prehistoric period. Toma is such a committed drinker that he asks you to poor his drink on his grave. The kicker is that when the player does this, Toma’s ghost comes to help the player as if he was resurrected by his powerful love of the sauce.

Stop drinking you two. You aren’t making it on the list.

There we go, internet, five video game characters who would enjoy the traditions of St. Patrick’s day if it was available to them. Of course there are many more characters who enjoy passing out on the street, so remember kids: video game characters aren’t role models, unless they are super cool, then you should try to emulate them in every way.

– Mistranslations of the Modern Gamer