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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Best villains in gaming

Spoiler! (Sorry, I don't know how to make a spoiler tag)

Wander from Shadow of The Colossus. Pretty rare to play as the villain, and even more rare to not be aware of it until the end.



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Not too many villains resonate with me tbh, that said my favorites are probably:

Dickson from Xenoblade Chronicles
Tohru Adachi from Persona 4
Nagito Komaeda from Danganronpa 2



"Just for comparison Uncharted 4 was 20x bigger than Splatoon 2. This shows the huge difference between Sony's first-party games and Nintendo's first-party games."

I know a lot of people prefer villains with interesting backstories and multi-dimensional personalities, but to me, the ideal villain is someone I "love to hate." They don't need to be redeemed or have a reason for doing what they're doing, they just need to have an awesome presence and just keep me wanting to see more of them. When a story can make a villain so twisted I want them to die horribly, but also can't help but want to see them even more, that juicy contradiction is just perfection.

Unfortunately, I can't think of many examples of that in video games, but some come pretty close.

Malos (Xenoblade Chronicles 2): Good example of the above. No sad backstory or any real reason for his actions other than his connection with his Driver, was basically just a bored guy with the power to destroy everything. And looked stylish as hell while he does it all. Little things like him winking at his fellow Torna members and laughing at the thought of fighting Mythra again just made me want to see more of this guy.

Ashnard (Fire Emblem Path of Radiance): Didn't get a lot of exposition, but what little we saw of him was really powerful. The sequel gives more motivation to his actions, but still leaves him vague enough to remain an intimidating force that set events in motion to change the entire world. While it breaks my rule above slightly, I find it interesting that he essentially was in the right all along, in his own twisted way.

Ghirahim (Zelda: Skyward Sword): Another stylish villain who I couldn't help but like to see. Creepy as hell but man was he cool to watch, and his true identity was so satisfying given the nature of the game.

Ganondorf (Zelda series): This one is probably a bit hard since his personality and character vary across games, from mindless evil to classic villain to actual tragic character, but overall I can't think of video game villains without thinking of this guy.

Hades (Kid Icarus Uprising): Mostly a joke villain, but still was funny enough that I enjoyed seeing him all the time. His banter with the other gods and the final showdown (PIT! HADES! PIT! HADES!) were hysterical.



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I'll give Luca Blight the 3rd vote. He's like a Game of Thrones villain. Or medieval Hitler. 

Reapers from Mass Effect series were great. 

Kefka for his laugh. 

The Black Samurai from Ninja Gaiden. Because he was incredibly hard to beat, in a game full of hard to beat bosses. 

Salazar from RE4. "Welcome, Mr. Kennedy!"

The Unkillable Necromorph from Dead Space's chapter 5. 


Hiku said:
pokoko said:

Luca Blight is always my go-to answer for this question.  I think part of that is that he went out like a bloody star.  I'll never forget his last stand:

"It took hundreds to kill me but I killed humans by the thousands!!!! Look at me!!!! I am sublime!!!! I am the true face of evil!!!!"

That quote and that battle have always been one of my most memorable villain showdowns. It took a bunch of different teams, and arrows, and in spite of that he was still standing.

Yeah, I got to that scene yesterday, and the game suddenly went from being great to being fantastic for me. I loved how Joey and Silverberg set Luca up to die. It honestly felt like when Joffrey from GoT was assassinated for being too much of a dick. I can't wait to see what the writers do with Joey in the second half of the game. And I wanna know if his new wife finds out that he helped Luca kill the king!



Hiku said:
pokoko said:

Luca Blight is always my go-to answer for this question.  I think part of that is that he went out like a bloody star.  I'll never forget his last stand:

"It took hundreds to kill me but I killed humans by the thousands!!!! Look at me!!!! I am sublime!!!! I am the true face of evil!!!!"

That quote and that battle have always been one of my most memorable villain showdowns. It took a bunch of different teams, and arrows, and in spite of that he was still standing.

Most of the time, the defeat of the villain is all about making the hero look good.  He kicks down the door, yells something about friendship, and then beats the bad guy simply because of destiny or something.  On the other hand, defeating Blight required a master plan from a brilliant strategist, the coordination of an entire army, and then several teams of your strongest characters.  It was epic

The brilliance of Suikoden was that it rarely settled for typical, something which is hard to say about many JRPGs.



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The Great Mighty Poo, for both his musical number and the sheer fact that you are literally fighting a giant pile of shit in a Nintendo published game

GLaDOS, her hilarious and sardonic commentary



Dr Neo cortex: crash bandicoot series. He's funny and Clancy Brown's voice was so good for him.
Ganondorf: windwaker. This version just has a bit more backstory and feels more fleshed out.
Hades: kid icarus uprising. They did such a good job hiding him the build up to this game. None of the levels from after you beat medusa were used during the advertising of this game. He is the funniest video game character ever while also being extremely intimidating and evil.



pokoko said:
Hiku said:

That quote and that battle have always been one of my most memorable villain showdowns. It took a bunch of different teams, and arrows, and in spite of that he was still standing.

Most of the time, the defeat of the villain is all about making the hero look good.  He kicks down the door, yells something about friendship, and then beats the bad guy simply because of destiny or something.  On the other hand, defeating Blight required a master plan from a brilliant strategist, the coordination of an entire army, and then several teams of your strongest characters.  It was epic

The brilliance of Suikoden was that it rarely settled for typical, something which is hard to say about many JRPGs.

And suikoden does not romanticize war the way like many other JRPG's do,it dares to be more gruelling about it effects.



SammyGiireal said:

Sephiroth...Kefka was a wussy clown that the party should have easily killed at the start of the game in the Figaro desert. Sephiroth could kick ass. 

Sephiroth was an oedipus caracter. Just a boy with top many mommy issues.

The reapers from mass effect 1 were the best villains of all time. But they fcked that up in 2 and 3.



Skullkid + Majora's Mask. The back story of both is awesome, and when they get together and throw the Moon into the world... Woah, too much epicness.