Lost Vikings Cast

Here's the third and final picture in my current burst of Lost Vikings fan art. This is almost every interactive or playable characters in the series, excluding the Vikings' families, the Crutonian robot guard at the beginning of LV2, or Tommy from LV 2, as well as none of the characters who appear only in voice, like Thor, Odin, and Tommy's parents. The Lost Vikings was made by Blizzard, so naturally, pretty much every guy is jacked as hell, and pretty much every girl is stacked as hell. Anyway, here's the run-down of who we've got in this picture, left to right, top to bottom.

ERIK the SWIFT - The self-proclaimed leader and brains of the team, Erik is the only viking able to run and jump, as well as break walls with his head by dashing helmet-first into them, permanently damaging his head gear, as you can see. Erik may be the youngest, but it's usually he who has to stop the quarrel among the team members. In LV1 there are so many stages that Erik can play parts he wasn't supposed to, and several neat glitches he can trigger.

BALEOG the FIERCE - A tough, mean brute, Baleog loves beating the life out of things. He has a short temper, and no patience. Baleog often does not get along very good with any of the people the vikings come in contact with. Baleog is a master of swordplay and archery. It seems Baleog enjoys barely anything but smashing monsters. I always thought Baleog looked like the logo for the NFL team, The Vikings.

OLAF the STOUT - Sure, he's your run of the mill burping, farting, relatively not-all-there fat guy joke, but Olaf is such a lovable oaf. His giant shield can block anything, serve as a boost step for Erik, and even help him glide gracefully through the air. While Olaf is usually thinking about his appetite, he also claims to be the most sensitive of the vikings, and even sympathizes with the human player when Erik and Baleog are too hard on them for losing continuously.

TOMATOR - The evil Crutonian space lord, Tomator captures exotic life forms from allover space and time to put on display in a zoo-like exhibit. He's freaking huge and looks a hell of a lot like the orcs from War Craft. Unfortunately, the second game completely ruins the character with a cheap joke that really isn't that funny at the end of the game, but I'll still always think of him as the badass tyrant he was prior to that ending.

AFTIEK - A weird-looking red alien aboard Tomator's space ship, Aftiek is a friendly guy who helps the Vikings with advice. He's the only interactive character in the first game who makes multiple appearances.

TREE HERMIT - A nameless caveman living high up in the trees in prehistoric times, this old neanderthal hates company. He holds a brief conversation with Erik, helping him figure out how to reach the other end of the waterfall, and does little else. When I was a kid, I didn't see his design properly. I saw his nose as a chin and his beard as blue cloak. I was WAY off.

CAVE GIRL - A young cave girl who was locked in a wooden cage by evil cave men by the volcano, she helps the vikings by stopping the spastic eruption from the volcano with her psychic powers. Yeah, she has psychic powers. Gotta love how casually she just throws that out there, too. Why couldn't she have used those powers to open the lock? Who knows. One can only assume the cave men locked her in there to sacrifice her to the volcano, possibly even because they feared her powers. If memory serves me right, in the old journal from the official site back in the day, Erik takes time out of the quest just to hit on her.

PHARAOH - Despite all the tomb guards being hostile towards the viking brothers in ancient Egypt, this man shares stories with them. He is the only character in the past to know of Tomator, and what he says allows one to assume he may have been captured by him once before. He gives the vikings crap advice - how do you find Tomator? "Keep moving. When you find him, you will know". Nothing ever says this guy is a pharaoh, and the fact that he is in the level titled "Cairo" and not the one titled "Pharaoh" may suggest I'm wrong, but that's just what I've always referred to him as. He’s the last ally character you can talk to in the game. The industrial area and candy land/fun house area don’t have one for whatever reason. I always thought they should have just put a clown or something in the fun house world.

FANG the WEREWOLF - One of two new playable characters in Lost Vikings 2, Fang is called a "were"wolf, despite having no human form. He is always just an anthropomorphic wolf, and he looks metal as hell. Seriously, that hair makes him look like he should be the front man for an 80's hair metal band. He can run, jump, scale walls, and slash enemies, among other things. There's a really un-funny running joke in the game, possibly the worst joke in the series, where nobody ever knows what kind of animal he is. He is referred to as a deer, platypus, and all other things. I guess some people may find that funny, but that joke is just a dud in my book.

SCORCH the FIRE-BREATHING DRAGON - A noble, honor-bound dragon from the dark ages, Scorch is the second new playable character in the sequel. He can jump, fly, glide, and spit fireballs. In the earlier half of the game, he is bent on following Olaf's command being that Olaf is the viking who freed him, but after Olaf makes continuous slip-ups (to be fair, everyone does, only Olaf gets blamed, though) he seems to treat him like everyone else. In the alternate version of LV2, Norse by Norsewest, Scorch's voice sounds like Sean Connery. I believe this is a direct, intentional reference to the film Dragon Heart, where Connery voiced the dragon, as the film was still very relevant at that time.

FREYA the VALKYRIE - A bodacious Valkyrie babe who guards the Bifrost, she revives the fallen vikings after battle if they fail. She really doesn't do much else, but when I was a kid, seeing her every time I lost was like porn. Life was tough as a kid before the internet. According to the manual, Baleog plans to date her, yet Baleog is married. Actually, all three of the vikings are married. Why are they always hitting on chicks?... oh yeah, they're vikings... Anyway, she's named after Freyja, Norse goddess of the Valkyries.

WITCH - An un-named witch who befriends the vikings in Transylvania. Every area of the game has a different teleporter character, and the witch is the first. Despite being a witch (aka someone who performs black magic to serve Satan...) she is very off-put by Baleog's rudeness, and in an effort to "teach him some manners", she sends him to crappy places when teleporting everyone. Needless to say, Baleog isn't very fond of her, but then again, Baleog isn't very fond of anyone. In Norse by Norsewest, the Witch looks drastically different. Rather than the younger, sexy style she has in LV2, she's just a stereotypical, Halloween decoration witch complete with an old hag voice. Needless to say, I like the LV2 version better than a crappy rip-off of the Wicked Witch of the West.

THE SORCERESS, KAR-IN - Kar-In is a clumsy sorceress who has never quite got her spells licked, especially teleport spells. She serves as the teleporter of the dark ages. Every time she screws up her spell, there's either a funny pun thrown in, or even a hint to who will show up in the next stage within her spell. Just before the first dark ages stage with Fang she says "lycanthrope" in the spell. Scorch seems to respect Kar-In a bit.

GYPSY - Well, technically there's a different gypsy sister in each stage in the Smuggler's Cove world, but they all look identical, so I only drew one. The gypsies are the teleporters for the pirate ship world, and are the only teleporters who aren't truly allies. Where all the teleporters ask the vikings to find three items for them to cast the teleportation, the gypsies only truly need a crystal ball and tarot card, but use the vikings by pretending they need diamonds, too. It is really hard to see much out of the bottom half of the gypsy's sprites, namely because the art method for the sprites in the game was shrink them as they go down. The corset seems to take up so much space that the legs get very obscured.

WITCH DOCTOR - Again, like the gypsies, the witch doctors are different in every stage, all brothers of one another, only they all actually have names. Their names, seemingly very long, hard-to-pronounce names, are actually all jokes if you read them out, like "Dakindagaiyuluftahait" (the kind of guy you love to hate). They all talk about how proud of the vikings "the gods" are. They are the teleporters for the Amazon world.

CONROY - Kyle Reese, I mean, John Connor, i mean, Conroy is a rebel fighter during the apocalypse, and the teleporter for the doomsday area. He's your run of the mill 80's or 90's action star. He's buff, wears a Rambo headband, carries a gun the size of himself, wears bright ass colors, and has that classic 90's hairdo. He and Baleog exchange some good Star Wars quotes. He's the only teleporter character in the game who is apparently also actively trying to fight Tomator, though he does nothing to ever help other than teleport the crew.

So, that was quite a lot to write about characters that not many people even know of, but, hey, Lost Vikings has always been one of my favorite game series of all time, and is definitely in my top 10 (possibly even top 5) 16 bit games list. The game is so well constructed, it has great humor, such creative, unique, innovative gameplay, fun worlds, tight controls, bright, beautiful graphics, and a badass hip-hop soundtrack. I find it such a crime that these games have not gone down as classics in gaming history. The three vikings deserve a spot up there with Mario and Megaman if you ask me. Such a unique and well made series. Hats off to Blizzard for making the greatest puzzle-platforming series of all time!

HERE ARE THE OTHER LOST VIKINGS FAN ART PIECES I DID RECENTLY:


AND HERE IS ONE I DID OF TOMATOR LAST YEAR:


AND CHECK OUT SOME EXCESS PARTS OF THE PICTURES HERE AT MY TUMBLR:
brendancorris.tumblr.com/post/…