LibArc's list of top video game villains

[B4UTRUST]

I was going through various lists of so-called top video game villains and 'most diabolical villains' and was very disappointed with the entries. On a list of most diabolical villains, Donkey Kong took 1st place. Yes, Donkey Kong. The giant ape who kidnapped Mario's girlfriend and threw barrels at him. As the mos diabolical villain. Ever.

So, having suffered through lists containing entries like Carmen Sandiego, the ghosts from Pac-Man, and Donkey Kong I figured the best thing would be to write up our own list.

Rules for submissions are simple:
1) Tell us the name of the villain (but not the video game)
2) Tell us why this badass of badness needs to be in the list.

Vote for submissions. We'll tally up the votes and make the final list.

[B4UTRUST]

Bob Page -

• Billionaire philanthropist and founder/owner of Page Industries.
  Member of the Illuminati
  Developed the Daedalus AI for the purpose of keeping track of developments in communication technology so that the Illuminati could take them
  Developed the nano-plague known as The Gray Death
  A subsidiary of Page Industries, Versalife, is the only manufacturer and provider of the Ambrosia vaccine against the Gray Death
  Created Majestic-12 and took down the Illuminati so he could take their place.
  Established the Aquinas System at Area-51 on top of the old Echelon system and gained the ability to monitor communications everywhere on the planet.
  Created the Icarus AI that in turn merged with Daedalus to create the Helios AI
  Manipulated governments at large by way of his massive donations and his control of the Ambrosia vaccine.
  Sought to reduce the world to chaos to further his own ambitions and set the stage for his plan to become a technological god.
  Used nanotech to augment himself so he could merge with the Helios AI and become a god.
  And did this all with 99.9% of the world still believing him to be the good guy!

[Mayabird]

I'll keep mine simple.


Kefka -

Destroyed the world.
Made himself a god, ruling over the ruins for his amusement.

[rhoenix]

GlaDOS-

Screws with the protagonist incessantly, constantly talking shit and giving bad advice, and makes you feel guilty for trying to kill her, as she's doing her level best to kill you off. Without no apologies or remorse, even - just happy expectation.

[B4UTRUST]

I have to agree that Kefka definitely deserves to be listed. No doubts. And GLaDOS is an evil bitch.

[LadyTevar]

I have to second Kefka. Take a look at his deeds:

1. Brainwashes the Protagonist pre-game, so she destroys 40 men in seconds.
2. Attempts to destroy the 'allied' kingdom of Figaro, sends warriors to kill their king.
3. Poisons the water supply of the Kingdom of Doma, killing all but one of her citizens.
4. Kills the one honest man in the Imperial Army: General Leo.
5. Kills multiple Espers using his spells alone.
6. Destroys the Balance of the Universe by tampering with the Three Goddesses.
7. Kills his Emperor using the Power he'd stolen from the Goddesses.
8. Destroys the Planet using the Power of the Goddesses.
9. Plays petty games with the remaining humans just for his own sick fun.

Far as I'm concerned, Kefka is THE BEST VILLIAN out of all the Final Fantasy games. Sephiroth is a whiny bastard who wants his mommy compared to Kefka.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Jon Irenicus (Baldur's Gate 2)

"You bore me, mageling." Video says it all, really.

[Hadrianvs]

Jon Irenicus (Baldur's Gate 2)

There's also the scene where he escapes Spellhold.



All the best, most powerful wizards that Amn can muster, and Irenicus just casually murders them like they are nothing.

Shadows of Amn really managed to capture the all powerful villain archetype. He spends most of the game fucking with you, and it's only after you spend considerable time leveling up somewhere away from him that you can finally fuck back. The only time you can defeat him before the final confrontation involves getting a dozen mad wizards to gang up on the guy. Afterward you get the impression that you'd be dead if not for the fact that Irenicus is in a hurry and you're just not important enough to spend the time finding and killing. It's not until you're powerful enough to eat bloody dragons for breakfast that you can take on Irenicus on even terms. The whole thing is god damned epic.

Irenicus was also written with such an exquisite balance in his background, motivations, and actions that on a level one feels pity for him, yet on another it's immensely satisfying to finally put him down. That's another thing that makes him a great villain, he's a three dimensional character who feels like a real person. I can see myself having done much the same things as he if in his position, yet I can also feel free to hate him for what he has done. It's a quality that is very rare in villains, because it's rather difficult to write.

[Cynical Cat]

The writing behind Irenicus is great, but having David Warner deliver the dialogue is the cherry on top. The combination of hubris and ennui is absolutely perfect.

[Steve]

David Warner seems to voice villains quite well. Or even portray them on live screen. Gul Madred was damned chilling.

I third the vote for Kefka, greatest of Final Fantasy villains. Heck, why do you think I used his sprite (and laugh effect) for Laird in Final Flamewar?

Might I also add Maleficent (Kingdom Hearts series) for consideration? They took one of Disney's most classic villainesses and made her into a perfectly legitimate threat to all existence.

Not sure if Vayne Solidor (FFXII) was quite iconic enough. Oh, sure, he was a manipulative, Magnificent Bastard who committed fratricide pre-game, patricide in-game, and then blamed the latter act on the Imperial Senate simply so he could seize power with the aid of the tyrannical Judges that ran the government and armies of Archadia and then provoke a war using manufacted nethicite-powered weapons. That still doesn't rank up with Kefka though.

[General Havoc]

I cannot stress enough how much I agree with the mentions of Irenicus in this list. He made BG2 the gem that it was. His voice acting was wonderful, his writing silky-smooth, and deliciously evil. He had lines in that game that I still remember to this day. I wanted to utterly kick his ass by the time the game was done.

Other suggestions:

Durandel (Marathon series): An insane god-delusional supercomputer running rampant across the galaxy invoking some demented plan to overcome the end of the universe and destroy various alien races. Seen it all before? Think again. Durandel was completely nuts, in the most awesome way possible, philosophical and whimsical as he played with you. You spent the first game fighting him, the second game allied with him by force until he himself was overcome by another evil supercomputer, at which point you kill him at his own request, fight the other computer, bring him back to life, and initiate bloody revenge together. He is by far the most awesome "crazy-AI" I've ever seen, way moreso than SHODAN or AM. He's erudite, devious, twisted, and actually keeps the usual villain-taunting ("HAHAHA YOUR DESTRUCTION IS INEVITABLE HAHAHA") to a minimum.

Kerrigan, the Queen of Blades (Starcraft): Blizzard's strengths are not generally in their storytelling, but Kerrigan was one thing they did unquestionably right. She starts out as a damsel in destress/"token tough girl" that Raynor gets to salivate over, and then when she gets betrayed and corrupted by the Zerg, she turns into... wow. She's a revenge-obsessed hyper-strategic genocidal war machine who seizes control of the very species that assimilated her and uses it as a weapon of mass destruction to utterly thrash every other damn thing in the galaxy. No "Woe is me, what have I become" bullshit from Kerrigan, no whining or emo crap, nor brooding over lost innocence. She is angry and quite ready to break shit about it, ruthlessly and effectively, and fully happy to employ all her new toys and tools to get the revenge she is after. As she puts it at one point, "I'm pretty much the queen bitch of the universe." I could not have put it better myself.

Kane (Command and Conquer Series): Kane is the fucking MAN. Westwood's live action video sequences have always been hit or miss, but Kane has consistently been the baddest motherfucker around in them. A quasi-religious messianic leader of a worldwide underground terrorist army, Kane is simply the Ur-villain for all the would be emperors of evil out there. He's slimy and yet charismatic, thanks to the acting and voicework by his portrayer, Joe Kukan. I thought this guy was a badass back in the original Command & Conquer, and I still do today. He's deliciously evil, slightly crazy, plotting, unhinged, and yet always in control. You can't have a villain list without Kane.

[Batman]

SHODAN. Nuff said.
Oh, and honorable mention for The Dark Savant from Wizardry.

[Hadrianvs]

Kane (Command and Conquer Series)

You forgot to mention, Kane is also somehow bloody immortal. Old age? Tiberium? Ion cannon to the face? None if it bothers Kane in the slightest. The prime rule of the C&C storyline seems to be that if you think Kane is dead, then you've thought wrong. I mean, every time he comes back he's bloody casual about it, as if you'd have to be a complete idiot to not expect it.

SHODAN. Nuff said.

"L-L-Look at you H-Hacker: a p-pathetic creature of meat and bone, panting and sweating as you r-run through my corridors. How could you challenge a perfect immortal machine?"

[rhoenix]

Three I thought of, and all from the same game.

Chiaki Hayasaka (SMT: Nocturne): Exemplifies the sin of Pride. Initially a high-school friend of the protagonist, during the course of the game she discovers that she's pretty much all alone in a world full of demons. So, she convinces a very old (and dying, thanks to the actions of another of the antagonists) daemon to give her all of his remaining power. He does so, and she as one of the Holders of Reason utterly annihilate entire groups of weaker beings, since to her, weak beings are ugly, and must be destroyed. Her Reason for remaking the world is Power, which would ensure that only the most powerful beings would rule, keeping the weaker ones constantly oppressed - her view is that she, as the holder of Reason, would always be the strongest, so she wouldn't have to be afraid of being powerless. It is an unspoken irony that had she succeeded, she would've lived a life of eternal paranoia and torment, as she defends her position from all threats, perceived and real, every single day for the rest of her life.

* * *

Hikawa (SMT: Nocturne): He's the one who created a cult populous enough to bring about his real aim - unmaking the world into a world-seed - a proto-world where only daemons roam, ripe for one who holds a Reason to remake the proto-world into whatever sort of world he wishes. He does so at the beginning of the game, starting the Conception (the event that resets a world back to a world-seed) - which promptly annihilates all life on the planet except for a 50-mile radius sphere, and kills all people within that radius except for himself and a few others that happened to be in the wrong place at the right time. Immediately afterward, he begins gathering daemons to his cause to create an army, and activate ways of destroying any groups of daemons strong enough to prove a threat. His Reason for remaking the world is Silence - all people are one with the world, and the whole messy "individuality" thing is removed from everyone. Everyone that is, except him. Had he succeeded, one can only imagine what he might have done.

* * *

Lucifer (SMT: Nocturne): Having arranged for the possibility for a world with life on it to be capable of being "reset" to a world-seed in the first place, he never takes direct part in the events during any particular world-seed stage. Instead, he lays traps and tricks for those involved to either gain an immense amount of power, or lose their soul - usually both. It was he that made sure that one person in every world-seed event would be the one who would ultimately influence events of that world by making them a demifiend - a being with the raw power of a daemon, but with human emotions and compassion. The demifiend's actions and choices influence the development of a world-seed greatly.

If the demifiend succeeds and remakes the world with a Reason he or she has adopted (as a demifiend cannot create their own Reason - its one of the rules Lucifer made up), then the world will continue along until the next time it is reset. Should the demifiend take the bait of power and walk the Labyrinth of Amala all the way to its heart, the demifiend would gain vast power - and lose his or her human heart and compassion in the process. If this occurs and the demifiend subsequently succeeds in remaking the world, the world will be dissolved into nothingness, calling that world "an experiment at its end," and gain a new and powerful minion.

[Armaina]

I also have to echo that Keftka is one of the best on all counts.

To be honest, I may have to replay some other games to remind myself some of the 'deeds of certain villains. The hard part is trying to think of Villains that aren't just big monsters or some sort of mindless 'evil force'

[Vehrec]

How about Demon Path Revya from Soul Nomad and the World Eaters? In the first long cutscene, you get treated to a choice.


Go ahead. Pick the path of four little dots. It couldn't hurt right? I mean what kind of bad end could possibly be indicated by that little skull?

Well, for starters you murder the entire village. And it goes up from there. Winning the game on the Demon Path is basically a matter of destroying the world and becoming the biggest monster of all. Why? Because you're going to tear it apart with your own two hands dammit. And nobody else is allowed to.

[The Minx]

*notices thread*

I nominate Kane of the Brotherhood of Nod (from Command and Conquer).




PS: Although the thread is a bit old, it's still fairly high up on the page, so I figure it's still safe to respond to it. ^^

[Jason_Firewalker]

Bob the Killer Goldfish (Earthworm Jim)

Goldfish with high intellect, who has mutated house cats into super warriors and turned them into his minions. Seriously, for a goldfish thats pretty damn bad ass.

Alma (F.E.A.R.)

Creepy as hell.......... still shiver when I think of what that game is...

Kane (C&C)

Need I say more?

Kerrigan (Starcraft Series)

Queen Bitch and she knows it and revels in it.

Circle Of Ossus (Age Of Empires III)

Not an individual but a shadow organization that is willing to do anything and does do anything they can to get the water of the fountain of youth and in the process screws with one bloodline of people pretty freaking bad.

Cthulhu

Ancient mind rape inducing madness loving giant squid headed deity bent on driving world insane and eating its populace for mid afternoon tea. Totally best villain EVER in a video game. I cant remember what game where no matter what you do he wins, its just a matter of survival for as long as you can in that game, but it really showed the great horror of fighting something so scary...