Ed Ranks Playable Characters in Maniac Mansion

Protip: Don't microwave the pool water.

Maniac Mansion (1987) is a graphic adventure game produced by LucasFilm Games (now LucasArts).  I was absolutely obsessed with the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) port of the game. Why? Because it had multiple endings, and multiple ways to achieve those endings based on which characters you chose to play with. It also had "cut scenes" (cinematic stories that interrupted your game play to move the plot along) long before most other video games did. Another cool aspect is that you have to switch between the multiple characters you choose for the game (3) and have them do different tasks at different times to finish out a story - so team work is required and you need to position your characters appropriately to perform various tasks throughout the mansion. 

If you're not familiar, the plot is this:

20 years ago, a meteor from outer-space crashed near the mansion of Dr. Fred Edison and his family. But it wasn't just any meteor, it was an EVIL, BRAIN-CONTROLLING METEOR! It took over Dr. Fred's mind and had him start kidnapping people to perform experiments on their brains.  Dr. Fred's family are also a bunch of fucking weirdos. I'm not sure if that has to do with the Evil Meteor or if they were always just weirdos. Also he has two pet tentacles - a Green Tentacle and a Purple Tentacle - that act as henchmen. Or, in the case of Green Tentacle, fairly useless house guest (think Kato Kaelin, but in the form of the arm of an invertebrate that might be featured in Japanese pornography). Anyway, a cheerleader named Sandy is kidnapped by Dr. Fred, and Sandy's boyfriend, Dave, decides to rally a team of exactly TWO friends to help save her from the aforementioned Maniac Mansion.

Oh, you can also kill a hamster in a microwave. That was pretty controversial.

While I could rank the "endings" of this awesome game (as I did with Bandersnatch), I think instead I'll rank those select-able characters. Here they is:

7. Dave - You have no choice but to have Dave. Dave is the "main character" and Sandy's boyfriend. But Dave is, within the game, completely useless. Most characters in the game have a "thing" they are able to do, which makes them special and allows for a different ending to the game (or a different way to get to the ending). Dave is not able to do anything special that any other character you select cannot do. As I discussed when talking about Final Fantasy XII, the main character is often the most boring character.

6. Jeff - Jeff is a surfer dude / stoner. He does almost absolutely nothing. Like Dave, he has no significant impact on your ability to win the game. Since the game makes you select three different characters, it is winnable no matter what selection of three you pick. That is because the remaining five characters that I have not talked about yet all have special abilities that will allow you to win. So if you select Dave, Jeff, and a third character... then the third character is how you're going to win because these two are crap.  Oh, Jeff is marginally better than Dave because he has the ability to fix a telephone. You don't need to fix the telephone to win the game though. Fixing the telephone DOES make the game easier, because you can prank call Edna (Dr. Fred's wife) and distract her in order to steal a key from her room. But Edna also kidnaps the kids wandering around the mansion when she sees them and takes them to a dungeon. So if you properly position two characters, you can have one get caught and taken to the dungeon by her (you can then have another character break them free after) and have the other character sneak into her room and take the key while she's going down to the dungeon. In some versions of the game, all of the characters have noticeable footsteps as they walk, except for Jeff because he's barefooted. While this could have been worked into the plot of the game somehow as an awesome stealth power that Jeff has to sneak around where other characters can't - it isn't and there is unfortunately no payoff to Jeff's quiet feet.

5. Syd - Syd plays music. He seems like some sort of New Wave / Flock of Seagulls / Pop-Synth musician. Syd is okay. Syd's ability to end the game depends on his music skills. Through his music skills, you are able to get a demo tape from the Green Tentacle (he's sort of a music junkie). Then you can send that demo tape to "Three Guys Who Publish Anything," a company that, well, publishes anything. They will love that shit and send you a contract.  Once you give that contract to Green Tentacle, he will be your best friend and help you break into Dr. Fred's lair to defeat the Meteor and win the game.  The final obstacle preventing you from getting into Dr. Fred's lair to defeat the Evil Meteor and save Sandy is always the Purple Tentacle, so you will always need to get someone on "your side" to cockblock the Purple Tentacle and let you pass. The music contract way of doing it is cool, and therefore Syd is okay.  The problem? He's a repeat character. There is another character with the exact same qualities as Syd, who can win the game through this method.

4. Michael - Michael is a photographer. Michael also has a cool way to end the a game and get past Purple Tentacle. Dr. Fred's son, Weird Ed, is a psycho paramilitary commando nut... but he's also at least sane enough to see that his dad has gone crazy and he wants to help "save" him. Michael is able to develop some photos for Weird Ed, that will get Weird Ed on your side. Then he'll be the one (vice Green Tentacle) to come down and help you push Purple Tentacle out of the way to confront Dr. Fred and the Evil Meteor.

3. Wendy - Wendy is a writer who aspires to be a novelist. I'll be honest, Wendy is the character I probably used the least when I played this as a kid because she seemed the most boring. But her endings are actually kind of awesome and she actually has TWO DIFFERENT ENDINGS, if you're smart enough to also use a Bernard-Wendy combo with Dave. Anyway, the Evil Meteor is, in addition to being evil, sort of an aspiring writer. But he sucks at spellchecking and editing (much like me, as you can tell if you've read this blog)! Wendy can fix up a manuscript you find written by the Evil Meteor, send it to deliver it to "Three Guys Who Publish Anything," and get a contract for the Evil Meteor that will make him famous and get him on a Late Night TV show! Just give this contract to Purple Tentacle at the end of the game, he'll give it to the Evil Meteor, and the Evil Meteor will renounce his ways, free Sandy, and turn good in order to become a famous author. Nice, huh?  I mentioned a second ending as well, but I'll get to that when I talk about Bernard, because he's required for the second "secret" Wendy ending.

2. Razor - Remember everything I said about Syd above? The same goes for Razor. Razor is also a musician. But rather than being a Flock of Seagulls-type musician, Razor is a badass sexy ginger metal rockstar who wears tight black leather. Why the hell would you want to play with Syd if you can play with Razor instead? Razor can get the publishing contract for Green Tentacle and win the game, only she can do it while you listen to a better music soundtrack the whole time.  Oh yeah, each character has their own theme music that you get to hear when you're playing with them. Razor's is obviously the most awesome. Also, players in the game are totally killable in different ways (you might want to kill Dave just for the hell of it, because Dave sucks). If you kill all the characters you have except for Razor and then end the game, there is a quasi-secret ending which implies that Razor and Sandy hook up. HAWT.

1. Bernard

Yes, disco does suck. Good call, Green Tentacle.

Bernard is the dork/nerd/loser. But he's great! After I figured out his skills, I think I usually selected him in every single game I played (no matter what ending I wanted to get). He's clearly the best and most competent character. Given his nerdery, he can fix broken things that nobody else can fix. That means he can fix the telephone that Jeff can fix to make the game a little easier, but he's also able to fix a radio that Jeff has no clue what to do with.  What good is the radio? Well, it gives you the super awesome (my favorite) "Meteor Police" ending. What's that? Well, remember how there is an evil meteor from outer-space who is your enemy? That's appatently not an isolated thing. In space, there must be so many evil, brain-controlling meteors that an elite team of space cops named the Meteor Police have been set up to counter them.  When you fix the radio, you can send a message to space and let the Meteor Police know what's going on.  Then, when you show up to Dr. Fred's lair and get stopped by the Purple Tentacle, the Meteor Police will show up just in time to save the day and arrest him. Sweet, right?  Well, that's not all. Let's go back to Wendy.  If you select both Bernard and Wendy as your team members, then you can still have Wendy re-write the Evil Meteor's manuscript and make him a famous writer that appears on a Late Night TV show. But right before you go in to give the manuscript to the Purple Tentacle to make the Evil Meteor famous, go ahead and have Bernard call the Meteor Police too.  Then, in the middle of the talk show appearance on live TV, the Meteor Police will bust onto the set and still arrest the Evil Meteor. Bernard rocks so hard that when they gave Maniac Mansion a sequel, they made Bernard the main character. The only thing they did to Bernard, which was slightly annoying, was that they made him a "wimp," which essentially just meant that the first time he runs into the Green Tentacle monster he runs away like a coward. Oh well, I guess he has to have some flaw.