Now I'm sure this is not a comprehensive list, nor am I forgetting the simple joy of doing the ridiculous in video games. After all, why play through a recreation of something I could just as easily do in real life?
Sometimes however I just sit back from a game and proclaim POPPYCOCK!
There is often a reason why fantasy weapons only exist in fantasies, and I'm going to share my five favourite examples to bite my thumb at.
(Before I go on though, allow me to express my disdain for real life violence. I do not condone it, merely think about it as we all do from time to time in a perfectly harmless manner. My apologies if this article in anyway seems to be in bad taste. Don't go hurting people, and if you must do don't do it with one of these items!)
1. The Keyblade
The Kingdom Hearts series
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| At least it's a pretty funky looking key! |
It's a massive key. There really isn't much else too it. It seems the designer was looking for something original, and just picked the nearest object to hand. It could of just as easily have been a massive pen or a mobile phone. At least with the latter idea there could of been flip-phone-fu!
Usability: 4/5
I've done some research, and it would appear you smack people over the head with it. Seems reasonable. The only baffling thing is why there is a hand in the middle of that lobed bit? Surely it'd make sense to either have it ninety degrees on, or to just hold it along the main haft? What TWADDLE!
Lethality: 3/5
Take your house key, and hit yourself over the knuckles. Hurts right? (Pro-tip, if you actually just did that then you're a DOLT!) Imagine what a key much much larger would do? Yeah, it'd hurt. It just doesn't seem like the weapon of kings does it?
Defence: 2/5
How do you defend yourself with a key? Again those lobe things only really get in the way, rather than protect your hands. Then the rest of it as only useful for parrying something in the same way not using a bare hand is. I just don't see key-fencing hitting the Olympics any time soon.
2. The Buster Sword (Second entry from Square Enix)
The Final Fantasy series
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| Back in the days when gelled hair and a boiler suit were cool. |
The guy over there is Cloud. He has some SERIOUS issues and difficulty playing with others. Therefor, he feels the need to overcompensate for his social inadequacies with the biggest weapon he could find. He's like those kids with that automatic need to stand on ledges and pick up sticks when they find them. Suffice to say I think his choice of weapon is VERY SILLY! Simply because it's so very very big, and that isn't always better, despite what the other kids might say.
Usability: 1/5
To suggest anyone could actually use this sword is hilarity in itself. I'm not saying you couldn't lift it, as I have seen many DIY geeks give it a good shot themselves, but to actually use this as anything more than a club is the foolish part. If you swing it, you either have to move with it or let it fall to the ground. There's no form, no grace, no sword part to it! You could stick a sharp edge to a dead person and use it just as well!
Lethality: 4/5
Fair enough, if somebody hit me with a shard of metal this big I would be PERTURBED! It only looses out top marks because firstly, I'm pretty sure there is no feasible level of subtlety which could disguise a foretelling of the mother of all home-run swings. Secondly, I'm pretty sure that if the first swing didn't kill me it would be such hard work to pull it of me that we'd both just stand there gory and unhappy. That is, until I used a superior weapon to jab him with... probably a normal sized sword in this instance.
Defence: 3/5
In favour of this sword, is that it is both pretty scary to look at and nearly the size of a wall anyway. On the downside, it would probably work better as a wall than a weapon at all! Speedy, this thing won't be. Not unless you drop it out of a plane. Furthermore, Cloud's main rival is a man called Sephiroth who uses a reeeaaally long katana-style sword... It's longer and lighter than the Buster Sword, but still apparently as strong and sharp. I know what I would rather be using!
3. Faeblades
Kingdom of Amalur: Reckoning
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| Neeeeeoooooow it's a plaaaaane! |
A very young entrant into this hall of shame, the Faeblades were added to the virtual world this year in Kingdoms of Amalur. Used in pairs, the combatant spins in completely impossible ways as monsters die all around you. It's fun, definitely! I feel like a DASTARDLY PICAROON when I play with them, but I have to forget how stupid they would be in real life.
Usability: 2/5
If you were to swing one of these, you'd forever be swiping at thing slightly behind you. Your fist, gripping the handle inside the blade, is pointing one way whilst the weapon bits are pointing elsewhere. You might notice that if you took off one of the blades it'd look like a curved sword. However there's a reason swords don't have blades on the top and the bottom! It's an accident waiting to happen! That's before you even consider that in-game you usually use these in pairs; meaning the chance of accidently stabbing yourself, catching a limb, or just bumping into yourself in the most un-cool of ways is bordering on a outright certainty!
Lethality: 3/5
I can almost see how these could be dangerous, asides from being dangerous to the user. However there are two real-life analogues that outline why this design just ins't right. There's the pick, and the punch dagger. Picks are usually tools but they bury into skulls just as easily as rock or ice. That's because you swing them from the handle for added momentum. Faeblades are only as long as the arm swinging them. Punch daggers have horizontal grips like the faeblades so you can punch with a fist-forward dagger. However faeblades don't have anything as useful as a forward facing blade so that simplest and most effective of attacks is nigh-on-void. The end result is that these could be the finest crafted blades in the world, but unless you mount them on the side of a bicycle you're not going to get any force out of them. Someone will definitely bleed, but it's a 50/50 gamble on who that'll be.
Defence: 1/5
Well at least your hands will remain unscathed, if unattached.
2. Ring Blade
The Soul Calibur series
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| What a pretty lass. Now tell me how that's supposed to be a weapon? |
In Soul Calibur 3, we were introduced to Tira: the parent-less murderous wanderer who kills people with a massive bladed hula-hoop. Presumably, the lack of a stable domestic life is why she doesn't know what 'suitable attire' is, let alone what constitutes as a weapon. Not surprisingly, no one complained. Let alone myself I might add, as back in the day she was my favourite character: all perky and exciting in her... personality and what not... WHAT A ROUSING FILLY!
Still a ridiculous weapon though.
Usability 1/5
I know how she uses it in the game. She spins it about and pulls poses. Fair enough, you could do this with a hula-hoop. Put massive steel blades on it and you could do this PERADVENTURE! What doesn't make sense is the idea that you could put any kind of force behind it. If it hit anything whilst spinning, it's not going to keep spinning like a medieval buzz-saw, it's going to stop spinning and probably hit young Tira over the head and make her eyes water. Since it also has no proper handles, if you tried to smack someone with it whilst holding onto the blunted side it'll bounce off them because it's round and you're basically pinching it between your fingers and your palm. Imagine what would happen if you grabbed it incorrectly for that matter! Frankly only a LUMMOX would forget to make a weapon with a handle!
Lethality: 2/5
Well, you could wear some heavy-duty clothes and just try to clobber someone to death with it...
Defence 2/5
This really bugs me, when considering this weapon in a real life (and probably horrifying) situation: how would you use this to help stop someone from killing you? Considering what Tira has to do to fill up an entire move-list in game, in the grim real world you'd have to be a never-stopping gymnast to keep up at least the pretence that approaching you would be dangerous. That's before you consider what might happen if someone out-foxed you with a long stick or they decided not to grit their hands with a lubricating oil. At best your opponent could presume that with such an odd weapon, you are some incomprehensible master of martial arts who will use the hoop to staggering effect. Good luck with that.
1. Hidden Wrist Blade
The Assassin's Creed series
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| The greatest union of blades and wrists since kids started getting 'emotional' |
This is probably a bit controversial. As in, everyone I know who has ever played an Assassin's Creed game has wanted to at some point use a wrist blade. They're flashy, sleek, clever and above all suggest that it's possible to kill any military professional with little to no repercussion. A quick look on that crazy FANDANGLED internet suggests that every geek with questionable motives has attempted to make their own hidden wrist blades with a certain level of success. However I simply do not buy it as a viable weapon.
Usability 2/5
Sadly, and I do mean that honestly, it is incredibly easy to pick up a knife and kill someone. They represent one of the earliest tools used by man, and have been the preferred tool of murderers throughout history. A knife is silent, reliable and intuitive. Their utilisation can turn almost anyone into a killer of human beings.
So Ubisoft decided to give their assassins something a lot more complex.
It's a BABOONISH experiment, but if you try taping a ruler or something similar to your wrist you can work out why a wrist blade isn't as good as Ol' Reliable. There is nothing to brace the weapon against when it's slung on the underside of your forearm. In your hand though, your palm and fingers can all get a purchase on the handle to maximise grip and help drive the point into the target. Even with a lavish amount of leather lashings (oo-er) there is no way that a wrist blade is going to stay put, certainly not after a long day of genocide. Then consider that this contraption also requires you to activate it, making the blade spring forth with that satisfying air of discrete menace. In the first game, is involved loosing a finger! Even in later games though, it's based on finger manipulation. Can anyone else see the problem in having a spring-loaded hair-trigger stabber that's connected to the most dextrous part of your entire body? One false move and that itch you had is going to get relieved in the most awful of ways!
Lethality 3/5
Again I feel I must stress that the knife is the tried and tested way to kill just about any human being. In principle then, a hidden blade that is ready to hurt someone at the very last second is just an efficient evolution of that principle. However we're also talking about a contraption located in a PREPOSTEROUS location and connected to a GORDIAN trigger system. It actually makes killing people harder! Consider just how many people in the world have died from knife wounds. It's an obscene amount. It can't really be considered a tactic that needs evolving.
Consider this. As gun technology improved, people saw the opportunity to replace personal knives as the number one self-defence/offensive weapon of the day. The idea was to use gunpowder contraptions to make a weapon small, discrete, easy to use and reliable. The result? Well for a very long time it was LAMENTABLE devices with an effective range of just a few inches. It took many many years to come up with anything compact enough to be hidden well, and even longer to just make it quieter than Zeus's flatulence. All the while knives and daggers kept on doing what they do best, and do so to this day. It makes you wonder then why a more complicated version of a knife would be better than... a knife?
Defence 0/5
Here's the final gripe about this weapon. It's a stealth weapon that makes stabbing someone harder, but worse still is that it's only use is to stab people who are unaware. Even in the fantastical realm of the games, anyone who already knows you're going to use the wrist blade generally has the upper hand on you. It is a wholly offensive weapon, that's not as good as the one it's based on.
Not bad enough? Still think it can be redeemed? Scroll up the page and swallow your pride as you realise that any of the above weapons could hold an advantage over the wrist blade in a straight fight. No really, it's daft but it's true. At least a normal knife can be thrown, swapped hands and used with force: all things which might give an attacker a fair chance against any of the antagonists listed above. Wrist blade though? Only helpful if you think they might be distracted by gadgetry.
Agree? Disagree? Got any suggestions for even worse fantasy weapons? Comment below and I will happily jump into the NIMPERDOODLE debate! (Fair cop, the last not-swearing word was completely made up)
