Favorite Villain

[Dagger Dias]

Every video game has some sort of antagonist, so I ask a simple question.... Who was your favorite villain out all of the bad guys and antagonists in the video games you have played and why? I'll share two of mine.

Yggdrasill from Tales of Symphonia is my pick for the best villain in video game history. He fits the criteria for the perfect villain down to the smallest detail. A tragic past of dealing with racism towards his species of half-elves has fueled his desires to see his plans, which are obviously far worse than the racism that gave birth to his evil intentions, come into fruition. This combined with a handful of epic mega-spoilers you find out along the way help him earn my pick for the best villain. I won't go into too many details, I'd rather you play the game if you haven't yet and see for yourself.

Of course I had to include Sephiroth. He's one of the more famous video game villains and has rightfully earned that honor. A certain iconic scene where he does one of his most heartless acts is still one of the biggest spoilers in all of gaming to this day. His transformation from a heroic figure Cloud looked up to into an evil antagonist bent on destroying everything out of frustration was done fantastically. He's one of the few gaming villains you legitimately fear seeing come onscreen.

What about the rest of you, who are some of your favorite video game villains and why? Please no spoilers unless you place them in spoiler tags.

Discuss.

 

[JGlass]

The best villains are the ones with depth, ones you might get to play as at some point in your gaming experience.

I could probably find a few examples of great video game villains, but perhaps one of my favorites is Scorpion, from the Mortal Kombat series.

Scorpion is an undead warrior of sorts, who has been resurrected from the Netherealm to do the sorcerer Quan Chi's bidding. The reason he agreed to this resurrection is because he has a goal of his own in the living Realms: to avenge his clan which was brutally slain by the Lin-Kuei.

Now vengeance is a common theme for both heroes and villains alike, but if it was just an issue of vengeance for Scorpion, it's kind of hard to see the guy in a bad light. His people were not warlike, and they were ambushed and ruthlessly slaughtered by a clan of ninjas who seemed to have no reason for the attack. Sub-Zero personally wants to kill Sub-Zerio, who is the man that killed his wife and child. While not all revenge scenarios are endearing (Dr. Doom and Reed Richards, The Joker and humanity), it's hard to not be sympathetic to this one.

However, it's Scorpion's extracurricular activities that make him into a bad guy throughout Mortal Kombat. For all intents and purposes, he made a deal with the devil to come back to life, and is forced to do all of Quan Chi's, and therefore much of Shang Tsung's bidding. This often includes attempting to kill the purer heroes of the game, like Liu Kang, Sonya, or Johnny Cage. By aligning himself with Quan Chi, Shang Tsung, and Shao Khan, Scorpion's noble quest for revenge is quickly outweighed by the fact that his success would mean the hostile takeover of Earthrealm.

And on top of all that, how cool are his moves? His spear is one of the signature moves of the Mortal Kombat series, and he can conjure hellfire at will and has a badass sword. He's also got one of the cooler looks in the game: a ripped ninja with a yellow and black suit and pure white eyes.

 

[The 1-2-3 Killam]

Let's go back in time a bit to the mid-90's. Kids are collecting those stupid circles of cardboard in crazy tubes with fun images on them. Power Rangers are about to go from bad-ass to completely stupid. Disney has yet to be ruined by child pop icons and terrible friday night specials. Magic the Gathering is ubber popular, but is about to fall to one of the greatest gaming dynasties of all time... Pokemon. The game series that revolutionized the RPG and did something Dragon Warrior could never accomplish. The series that made billions of dollars and put Nintendo back in the drivers seat. The craze that captivated the globe in gaming, television, trading cards, and stupid spin-offs...

But go back to the original series. Pokemon Red and Blue. I had Blue when they first came out and my younger brother had Red. And no matter how many times you play it, and no matter how many times you play the sequels...the original still reigns supreme. And do you know how the villain was? I'm not talking Team Rocket, the Elite Four, or Giovanni... I'm talking the REAL villain. It's that brat of Oak that was somehow ALWAYS ten steps ahead of you. You found 50 types of Pokemon in your dex? That dick found 85! You captured 10 creatures? He has 34! That's not even possible at this point douchebag!

That's right everyone. Gary F***ing Oak!

Spoiler

 

[Uncle Phatso]

See I’m the exact opposite of Mike, as a kid I always wanted to play as Team Rocket. I though the suits were cool, and Giovanni was always one of my favorite bad guys ever.

As a whole, Team Rocket has to be my favorite "Villain" of all time. Who just didn't want to go smack the shit out of Ash from time to time? Who, after a while didn't want Jessie and James to just crush Misty, Brock, and Ash? I found myself rooting for them, more often than not. I just wanted them be more than. Oh disguise, shit they found us, entrance, Pikachu you know the deal, fly away. With robots, and more that's basically the whole premise of Jessie and James.

Granted Team Rocket in the games are rather easy to beat. But just once you want to see how the bad guy's team works. You can do that for about 2.2 seconds in Hg, and SS. Then BOOM, your rival fucks you over.

 

[Dagger Dias]

The best villains are the ones with depth, ones you might get to play as at some point in your gaming experience.

Great point. Villains who are playable at some point or another are always fun. Even if they remain computer controlled but are still following you around on a quest, showing off the same abilities they will one day be using against your own characters. It makes them more intimidating and having a villain be playable in the first place is often due to the intention of adding to the level of intimidation for when you have to face them in battle later. Ghaleon from Lunar Silver Star is an excellent example of this. He's playable for only one quest, you're still at a low level at this poing while he's squashing every monster like a bug with his powerful magic.

Then there are those who begin as being playable, but turn heel later on during the game. That often makes for great plot twists. You find yourself wondering if that particular character will come back to your side or if they will remain a bad guy until the end. Some great redemptions have been seen over the years such as Kain from Final Fantasy 4 or Kratos from Tales of Symphonia. Brilliantly done character development in both cases.

 

[poppycock]

Great thread. I will mention a few, starting with a bit of a generic answer and that is the zombies from the first two Resident Evil games. I love zombies and those two games summed up the type of undead I like perfectly.

I really like Vamp from Metal Gear solid 2. Bowser deserves a mention just for his amazing ability to kidnap at will.

I can think of lots so to save me getting carried away I will for now pluck for the CyberDemon from the Doom games...

Just pure unforgiving sadistic evilness in the form of a huge half devil half robot demon with a gun for an arm.

 

[FlexAmerican Dynamite]

My favorite villain isn't so much one person but more like a type of villian. I don't know if anybody knows what im talking about but there have been many instances in a game where you fight a boss and you think you've killed but he morphs into something even more ridiculous with an even bigger life bar. I remember as a kid i'd be pulling my hair out wondering when he'd just die.

 

[Kermit]

Xehanort from the Kingdom Hearts series gets my nod here. Simply because, if nothing else, Kingdom Hearts has brought my my all time favorite gaming experience. It will be the sole reason that I get a PS3, or whatever system it is released on. The story was so entrancing that I am still anxious to this day over the long awaited arrival of Kingdom Hearts 3. I'm tired of all of this sub-title crap. I just want the third piece!

 

[Cracka Jack]

That's right everyone. Gary F***ing Oak!

[youtube]mOHSiewG130[/youtube]

Anyway, my personal favorite has always been Sephiroth. Not only because Final Fantasy VII is one of my favorite games ever, and not only because he's so unbelievably badass, but because it's understandable that he ends up as fucked up as he is. Considering what he finds out about his birth, and some things surrounding it that I won't get into now for spoilers' sake, it makes sense that he'd go absolutely bonkers. Also, he wields the longest sword I've seen a human use in anything ever, which is quite cool.

For nostalgia's sake, I'll also mention Bowser, because I'll always love taking his turtle-dog-whatever ass down.

 

[Spunky]

Loghain from Dragon Age: Origins. He's not out and out evil, he's just doing what he thinks is right for his country even if his reasons are a little warped. He is trying to protect the people of his beloved land by any means necessary.

The best villains are the ones you can relate too, and Loghain is just that.

 

[Captain Morgan Freeman]

Firstly honorable mention must go to the almighty poo villain from Conkers bad fur day, "I am the great almighty poo, i will throw my shit at you" that used to put me in stitches.

Anyways my favorite villain is none other then Psycho Mantis from Metal gear solid.

One of the most innovative boss battles in gaming history. Psycho mantis worked as a psychic for the KGB and the FBI. During the interrogation of a serial killer he delved too deep into the killer's mind using his telepathy and as such became just like the killer driving him insane.

What's so great about the boss battle is that it truly blows your mind the first time you play it. He starts off by reading your memory card and if you had saved data from any konami games he would make comments about them like in the picture above. Then he moves your controller with his mind(although it was just the controller vibrating).
Then onto the battle itself, because he can read minds it's impossible to hit him because he makes you miss every time. If that wasn't enough he starts messing with your TV by making the screen suddenly go blank every few minutes all the while laughing and taunting you and you miss him again and again. Then just as you think it's absolutely impossible to beat him Roy Campbell tells you the secret to beating him. You plug the controller into slot 2 stopping Mantis from "reading your mind" and thus finally being able to beat him.

The boss battle is kind of like the watching the movie Memento in that it's never as good the second time round, however Mantis makes it to the top of my list for the sheer mindfuck he caused me when i first played the game. I can safely say im never going to fight another boss that was more innovative and original then mantis was.

 

[Sean Valjean]

GLaDOS - Portal​

There have been many villains that I've grown to love over the years, several being listed on this thread. But my vote has to go to GLaDOS.

She seems well meaning at first, congratulating you for completing the first few testchambers. But the further you progress, her true intentions are slowly revealed. She becomes increasingly condescending and malevolent, claiming that you'll never survive the next challenge because of how impossible the odds are. Still you prevail, and she becomes more and more unglued. Eventually, she tries to incinerate you and even after escaping and knowing her intent, she tries to win you back by saying she wasn't really being serious and constantly promises cake.

The final boss fight is fantastic test of all of the skills you've learned and GLaDOS' taunts during the fight are among the most hilarious things I've ever heard in a video game. Even after you beat her, she continues to mock you with her hysterical "Still Alive" song during the credits.

Many of the villains listed deserve the praise they've received, but none have fascinated, entertained, or held my full attention quite like GLaDOS and that's why she's my favorite.

 

[JWGunslinger]

GLaDOS - Portal​

There have been many villains that I've grown to love over the years, several being listed on this thread. But my vote has to go to GLaDOS.

She seems well meaning at first, congratulating you for completing the first few testchambers. But the further you progress, her true intentions are slowly revealed. She becomes increasingly condescending and malevolent, claiming that you'll never survive the next challenge because of how impossible the odds are. Still you prevail, and she becomes more and more unglued. Eventually, she tries to incinerate you and even after escaping and knowing her intent, she tries to win you back by saying she wasn't really being serious and constantly promises cake.

The final boss fight is fantastic test of all of the skills you've learned and GLaDOS' taunts during the fight are among the most hilarious things I've ever heard in a video game. Even after you beat her, she continues to mock you with her hysterical "Still Alive" song during the credits.

Many of the villains listed deserve the praise they've received, but none have fascinated, entertained, or held my full attention quite like GLaDOS and that's why she's my favorite.

I'm so glad somebody mentioned GLaDOS, I honestly didn't expect it but she really is such a fun character that seems to be caring at first but is really just a plain sneaky bitch, excellent choice.

My choice has to go to Mayor Hoodoo Brown(Ron Perlman) of Gun.
Obviously it's already cool that he's voiced by a big name like Perlman, but I loved the character before I knew it was him. Hoodoo is the crooked mayor of the town of Empire City, New Mexico where he offers his services to the main protagonist Colton White. However as the story goes on we find out that he is allied with Colton's enemy General Magruder and he turns on White. He's that typical slimy politician figure with double the creepy and sleazy, and Perlman does that character very well. In the end Hoodoo may not have gone out when or how he wanted but until he did he was my favorite Baddie alongside Magruder and Josiah Reed.