Heroes, they're kind of the most crucial element to a video game's story. If you're going to be having a gamer spend hours in the shoes of a character, that character better be extremely likable. Fortunately for designers, charm can take many forms. Players have fallen in love with game heroes' funny one-liners, tragic backstories, or even just simple adorable looks. When done right, those aspects can even propel a video game hero into greater pop culture stardom. The fact that Pikachu graces countless t-shirts is a testament to that fact.

Yet as iconic as video game heroes have become, their schtick can get boring after a few decades. Sometimes it's more fun to be bad. The rise of open-world, choice-driven games has shown us that. Why save a princess for the thousandth time when you have the freedom to hop into a huge city and blow a bunch of things up? Freedom without consequence is something that has appealed to mankind since the dawn of time. While you don't want to live real life like a Grand Theft Auto protagonist, there is some twisted itch those kinds of games scratch.

With gaming now embracing darker themes, the question has to be asked: what would evil Mario look like? What would happen if Sora did just give up and embrace the darkness? If Kratos stopped playing dad and went full God Of War? What follows are several takes, both fan-drawn and official, on what your favorite gaming heroes would look like if they became the villains.

21 But Why The Hat?

We've always just assumed that Pac-Man is the hero of his game. After all, he is the one who has his name all over the arcade machine. But what would the events of Pac-Man look like from the ghosts' perspective? Maybe they're just enjoying a nice stroll through their labyrinth home when this freaky mouth-man comes out of nowhere, steals their fruit, and eats them! This art shows what it must be like to have Pac-Man bearing down on you, and it certainly doesn't paint him to be the good guy. It also apparently implies that Pac-Man has a taste for gentlemanly hats.

20 The True Ruler

The artist Glubbinex shows a sinister take on Princess Peach. Or perhaps in this version she should be called Dark Queen Peach. That high, spiky collar and cape certainly give off a more queen-y vibe. And if Peach were to go dark, you know she wouldn't just settle for the title of princess. She'd want it all. In fact, she'd probably be the one invading Bowser's kingdom. But what would Mario do in that case? Would he switch to rescuing Bowser, or would he go around terrorizing the poor Toads in Queen Peach's name?

19 Yoshi Grew Up

Yoshi is adorable, and his cute looks and chipper attitude have earned him the spot of choice in many a gamer's go-kart. He's also a favorite on the tennis court, baseball diamond, and even at parties. Yet Mario's faithful pal is a dinosaur. There's probably a reality out there somewhere in which Yoshi actually looks and acts the part of a ferocious apex predator.

In this scenario, he probably sees Mario more as a snack and less as a master.

And he certainly wouldn't be down for a friendly game. His fans should consider themselves lucky we got the cute version and not this Jurassic Park-ified Yoshi.

18 The Creepy Side Of A Classic Game

The legacy of Pokémon's Lavender Town goes way back, to a time before Youtubers picked apart every video game theory. With its haunting music and haunted tower, Lavender town spawned a lot of talk about just how sinister the Pokémon world could be. Its resident ghost, in particular, seemed a little too chilling for an otherwise happy-go-lucky setting. Fortunately, giving the ghost enough peace to move on to the afterlife was part of the game's story. And yet...maybe its business wasn't finished. Maybe it stuck around, driving the trainer to catch 'em all and train them, making a team powerful enough to crush Team Rocket in revenge for its untimely demise. At least, that's what my uncle who works at Nintendo told me.

17 Someone Actually Made Dark Parappa

I honestly just tossed out a Google search for "evil Parappa" on a whim. So imagine my surprise when I found that such a thing exists. According to Dierabbit, the creator of this piece, it's meant to be a crossover between Parappa and the Gitarooman series.

Parappa gets eaten by a dark spirit and becomes possessed via his hat.

As to why that gives him a magic floating microphone of darkness. I cannot say. It's actually a really neat design, corrupting a classic cartoony character without being too over-the-top. I could see a character like this appearing in a game. Who wouldn't want to see Parappa get into a rap battle against his dark alter ego?

16 When Bae Leaves You For Ganon

In The Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Ganondorf actually gets very close to his goal of shrouding Hyrule in darkness. Which might be said of every Zelda game, but Twilight Princess goes as far as having Ganondorf succeed in making Zelda his slave. This "puppet Zelda" is a boss Link must fight, and she certainly has a very sinister look. This art also serves to bring out the detail in her design. Her sitting at the foot of Ganondorf's throne is a nice touch. It's a shame to see a good girl go bad, but puppet Zelda makes it look so good.

15 Your Princess Is In Another Castle

It all makes sense now. Bowser never took Princess Peach. The whole thing was a ruse for Toad to play some sort of sick joke. He was laughing at Mario every time he said: "But our princess is in another castle!"

Who knew that mushroom head was hiding such a malevolent mind?

Joking aside, I would totally play a game where Mario goes through the usual levels and stomps Bowser, only to learn that Toad was the mastermind behind the whole thing. Then you'd have to go back through all the castles all over again just to find out which one he hid the princess in. Get on it Nintendo.

14 So Heartless

As a mashup of Disney and Final Fantasy aesthetics, Kingdom Hearts has always had a very striking visual design. Its outfits, in particular, have always been a point of interest. So a reinterpretation of Sora as a villain has to be cool, right? This fan artist's take on evil Sora doesn't disappoint. Rather than give Sora some sort of elaborate Heartless form, the artist chose to keep it simple and clean (oh yes I did). This is Sora's classic outfit, but with some sinister details. He's also wielding a Queen of Hearts-inspired Keyblade, backward even. You know a guy means business when he holds the sword backward.

13 I'm You But More Pixelated

Super Mario Bros. Z was a Flash-animated series from a time when those were a thing. As the name implied, it took the Super Mario characters and used them in a Dragon Ball-style plot. Battles were fought at ridiculous speeds, episodes ended on crazy cliffhangers, and Sonic the Hedgehog even came from a doomed world like Future Trunks. Eggman followed, however, and gifted Bowser with a new toy: Metal Mario.

Like Metal Sonic before him, Metal Mario is a heartless version of the original that's even more powerful.

It's too bad Super Mario Bros. Z was never allowed to come to a conclusion, but it's definitely worth a watch for the fight scenes alone.

12 Straight Outta Kanto

This line of official figures depicts Pikachu wearing the costumes of Pokémon's various evil teams. While the look of them is more adorable than intimidating, it does raise an interesting question.

What is it like to be the Pokémon of an evil trainer?

Pokémon are shown to have minds of their own, so they definitely must have some thoughts on what heinous acts their trainers are using them to commit. Flooding the whole world? Calling down a godlike being to rewrite history? Beating up a ten-year-old? Maybe the Poké world would be a better place of Pokémon said "no" to their trainers sometimes.

11 Ryu's Not The Only One

Imagine trying to keep track of the Street Fighter lore. There's probably many out there who do, but I'm not one of them. All I know is that there's a lot of people who fight with a style similar to Ryu's. There's also Akuma, who is like Ryu's evil rival, but then also a dark version of Ryu. Chun Li, meanwhile, just kind of stays a force for good. But what if she didn't? She might look like this, a power-hungry, electrified, glowy-eyes version of herself. After all, glowing red eyes seems to be the universal sign of evil. You can't imagine how many villain "edits" with glowing red eyes I found when I put this article together.

10 This Is Why You Don't Download Malware

Being a robot, Mega Man always seems one virus away from going bad. Or for that matter, why couldn't Dr. Wily just pull an Eggman and make an evil version that equals the strength of the original? I suppose that's what Bass is supposed to be. Here, however, we have what Mega Man would look like if he went rogue. As you can see, he has the standard red lights that bad robots get instead of his friendly blue ones. And black armor, because red-and-black equals evil. The smoky effect coming off the cannon does look cool. Props to the artist, Jason Sim.

9 Sonic OCs Are The Real Villains

I now finally understand the meme about terrible "original" Sonic The Hedgehog characters. When I was searching for the picture for this slot, I typed "evil Sonic The Hedgehog" and "dark Sonic The Hedgehog" into Google. The results were...enlightening. Tons of OCs that were really just pictures of Sonic photoshopped different colors with red eyes. Because we all know that red eyes are the official sign of a villain. Eventually, I was able to wade through all of the Sonic clones to find this interesting take.

Sonic the Egghog, I call him.

I'll admit, I didn't think of Sonic becoming a scientist in a world where he goes bad. Creative choice, Sonic The Edgehog.

8 You Either Go Out A Hero Or...

Liu Kang has always been THE good guy of the Mortal Kombat series. He won every tournament and successfully defended Earth from being invaded by the evils of the Netherrealm. Then the reboot happened. In the new timeline introduced in Mortal Kombat X, Liu Kang ends up meeting an early and unfortunate end. He is revived as an undead servant on the side of evil. This piece of concept art for the corrupted Liu Kang is actually official concept art commissioned for the game. While they didn't quite go in this direction for Liu Kang's appearance for the game, you can see how the armor in this piece influenced the final product.

7 Nintendo Did It For Us

Before Mario was Nintendo's number one hero, he was just a guy trying to save his girlfriend. The original Donkey Kong arcade game had Mario jumping over barrels to rescue Paulina from the titular gorilla. But many gamers might forget that there was a sequel, Donkey Kong Jr., in which Mario actually plays the role of villain.

In revenge for taking Pauline, Mario locks Donkey Kong in a cage.

It's up to Donkey Kong Jr. to save his dad, but Mario sends all sorts of monsters after the little guy to make sure that doesn't happen.

6 He Is A Wild Beast

Given that he plays tennis and drives go-karts with a smile on his face (and that Smash Bros. taunt), it's easy to forget that Donkey Kong started off as a villain. That's especially true for children today who probably never played the arcade classic Donkey Kong. Yet before he got a snazzy tie and settled down, DK was an unruly beast. He took Paulina, the mayor of a city named after him, and threw barrels at the silly little man who tried to save her. This art does a great job at reminding gamers of the fact that DK is still a huge scary gorilla even if he does play baseball sometimes.

5 One-Winged Devil

Okay, confession time. This isn't really Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII as a villain. This is actually the way he appears in his Kingdom Hearts cameo. However, he does team up with Hercules villain Hades in Kingdom Hearts so he does sort of highlight as a villain. And this version of Cloud is just one bad dude. That single wing stands in opposition to Sephiroth and his single angel wing. Cloud has always flirted with the darkness, so it's fun to imagine what it would be like if he went all-out. While he never did in Kingdom Hearts, this fierce take on him is probably the closest we'll get.

4 He Got Tired Of Being Called Zelda

Every few generations, a Link is born to save Hyrule from danger. Ganon and Zelda are also reborn, and the three of them play the same roles in their eternal struggle between light and dark. But what if the roles were switched? This artist did a concept for what Link would look like if he became the dark one of the trio. Oddly enough, he still keeps the elf hat. But everything else becomes more serious and sinister as he ditches the tunic for a suit of armor. The Master Sword also takes on a darker vibe. Overall, this Link looks more ready for battle and less likely to collect bugs.

3 "Renegade"

Remember when video games went through that "choose your own path" phase? I think it was Fable that started it, but there were a few years where it seemed like every new game was a "sprawling RPG where the world reacts to your choices!" Most of the time it just boiled down to making your character good or evil. The Mass Effect series was one of the few exceptions. Commander Shepard was always fighting for the people of the galaxy, but the player decided the nitty gritty of how they got it done. Shepard could be a faithful paragon or a loose cannon renegade. Their appearance would even reflect it.

Renegade Shepard is an...intense looking person.

He's not quite a villain, but the glowing scars could've fooled me.

2 Full-On War God

Is Kratos a hero? That's a question the God Of War series itself struggles with, and it's much too much to get into in this tiny blurb. What I can say is the latest game definitely takes big steps towards making Kratos a more sympathetic character. Becoming a father will do that to a man. Like all myths, however, the story of the God Of War would take a much different path with one single decision. What if Kratos didn't settle down in Norse land? What if he continued on his warpath, ending entire pantheons of gods? The games certainly have the capacity to tell such a story. Then again, if Kratos did choose war over fatherhood, we'd lose all the great "Boy" memes.