Screw Nuance, Give Me A Memorable Villain | Semi-Ramblomatic
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ต.ค. 2024
- This week on Semi-Ramblomatic, Yahtzee discusses the lack of memorable villains in recent times.
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I feel like Megamind said it best, the difference between a villain and a supervillain is presentation. The best villains are the ones who OWN their shtick.
Of course it loops back to Megamind. The Tumblr guys get it.
That's why I disliked the new backstory for Maleficent: What's wrong with being evil for the sheer JOY of terrorizing the hell out of everyone??
To this day the way he delivered that line is one of my favorite scenes from an animated movie.
Handsome Jack owned his shtick and I found him annoying as fuck, not even hating the character, just the writers.
@@ChaingunCassidyyeah but that’s different because borderlands has horrible writing
I think it's one of those trends that writers seesaw back and forth between. We get a bunch of cartoony villains until people find them too one-note and then someone writes a more nuanced villain and everyone likes that until every villain has a tragic childhood and a grey morality.
No one-side is inherently better than the other, but people get fatigued from too much exposure.
You need balance.
It's the Circle of Villainy
I love Hades I because of the dynamic between Zagreus and Hades. The main villain is your loving dad who is basically tired of your shit and wants you just to stay home. Like its nuance and very different from traditional villains but also flamboyant and funny like traditional ones (cause like he's still your dad and you as essentially going through teenage angst). And that dynamic between the two evolves throughout the story and that bond is very important in the end.
@@MintyCoolness ...and it rules us aaaaaaaall...!
Variety is the spice of life, after all.
I love games like Armored Core, where everything is morally grey, and there are no real heroes or villains. Because all the story comes from the nuance of the interactions between different people and factions. And you get to choose your own path through it all, and interpret it your own way. That kind of thing can be a perfect setting for interactive media, like a video game, since it allows for more freedom for the payer to interact with the world.
But, sometimes its nice to just see a character, immediately know they're evil, and get excited to shoot them in the face a few hours from now. If all you have is one or the other, then its guaranteed to get boring after a while.
There's a reason people loved Big Jack Horner in Puss in Boots: The Last Wish.
Whats ironic though is that I think I've seen more people talk about Death than Jack Horner. His discourse was all over when it first launched, but Death completely outpaced Horner in terms of memorable villain department, even though Death had way less scenes!
It's funny you mention that movie, because I was thinking about how Death there was the first in time in a while I felt like I watched an animated movie that wasn't ashamed of making its villain evil. But it's a reflection of just the good writing there. Goldilocks is the redeemable antagonistic force, Jack Horner serves the dual purpose of being both comic relief (what you might call funny evil) and put a ticking clock of the quest for Puss and Kitty, and Death is the genuine threat, who doesn't need to be played for comedy, because that's what Jack Horner is for.
@@SRFriso94 Exactly. The villain is a role, and that role can be big or small. In this case, the villains played a very big role, and there were several of them.
But I don't think a villain has to be memorable for a story to be good. We have a bias toward it, but I think the demand that a villain has to be memorable is a dangerous demand when that isn't necessarily going to be the goal of every piece of art.
Also Death from the same film! Not even a villain but as an antagonist to Puss he's genuinely well crafted, simple and most importantly to the god damned point.
@@SRFriso94 Death was the only legit threat for sure... but he wasn't evil, just doing his job. Plus he could have ended Puss several times but didn't because he didn't actually wanna kill him, just have him right his ways. Like he says at the very end "I came here for a selfish hero, but I don't see him anymore".
Kale from Hi-Fi Rush really deserves additional praise in this regard. The dude's a corporate man child who's never worked a day in his life. His evil plan is to mind control people into buying his products rather than making his products actually good. His dying words are "this is too much work". He's perfect.
Yeah, he was just great. And he still had depth to him. The way he'd lose his cool if anything went even slightly wrong, or the way he viscerally reacted to "Losers" really hinted at someone who knew deep down that he was a fraud and was constantly trying to cover it up. I think that's the kind of depth I love in villains: Not the kind that makes them seem justified, but the kind that informs on why they're this particular brand of evil. Kale's a fraud pretending to be a competent leader, so he covers it up by bullying everyone around him.
Is that a videogame villain or just a stereotypical CEO?
@@MorbidEelYes.
@@MorbidEel There's a difference?
Wondering if that studio was canned because the executives looked at the villains and didn’t like being called out.
Perhaps the issue is more that nuanced villains are now the norm, and so having clear villains feels refreshing? Which is the opposite from how it was 10-15 years ago.
I think this is really it. In order to break away from the status quo you need to do whatever it is you're doing differently very good. This means that by the time people notice you, whatever you cook up is A. very good. and B. stands out from the crowd making it look even better.
25 years ago we had nuanced villains in JRPGs.
@@kakizakichannel I was speaking very generally. I'm sure there are examples of nuanced villains in the past. Which JRPG villains would you list as nuanced?
This always really amused me, like obviously good writing transcends trends every time, but as a society we almost seem to go around in circles. We have good heroes and bad villains but then we get bored of that so we get morally complex heroes and villains but then everybodys just sad all the time and we start to appreciate good and bad people again until we get to used to them and want to get a little edgy again.
As a super hero fan this is so obvious to see, in the last couple of decades we've seen Superman go from the boy song to the moody depressed Jesus figure because he was just to boring, and then everyone kinda missed having a boy scout and we've seen a resurgence in altruism recently.
Maybe for some. Some of us either always had a preference and never liked them leaving, or enjoy both of them and don't like being without options. I like both but it gets annoying if I'm only ever getting one thing.
I absolutely love how Hi-Fi Rush’s villain Kale Vandelay’s whole plan, with mind control programs in the robotic implants that Vandelay produces, came about not because of any world-conquering ambitions but because he doesn’t want to waste money and energy on a marketing department
5:55 this immediately made me think of a GabeN quote: "I have never thought to myself that realism is fun. I go play games to have fun."
I think there's a specific kind of gamer for whom suffering and toil is a special flavor of virtue, and finds appeal in game systems like kingdom come deliverance or escape from tarkov. Might be an Eastern European thing but I don't want to paint with too broad a bush here, because a lot of these games feel like they originate from the region.
@@GYI5U this is true... but for most things they are typically more the exce3ption than the rule
And yet, the madlad put a ton of realistic systems in Half-Life and wanted to put even more of those that didn't make the cut. Although I understand that his intent in that case was less about being ultra realistic and more about making the game world a living organism of sorts that the player has to deal with.
Realism is *useful*. You don't have to explain the rules to the game if they behave the way the player expects them to from real life.
Copying realism can be a shortcut to interesting design. There were a ton of different locomotive designs in the age of steam, each with their own advantages and drawbacks. You can present the player with interesting decisions just by modeling your game locomotives after real ones.
@@gus.smedstad I think if you view realism by that lens, as a tool you can use rather than as a value to be pursued, it can be a lot better, but realism for realism's sake should be examined critically in any media, but especially in media where one of the core motivations is escapism.
Why not compromise: have two villains. One's a morally complicated nuanced figure. Halfway through the game one of your teammates stabs you in the back and becomes the memorable, uncomplicated villain, and then you have to team up with the first villain, and then you and them part ways and agree to stop fucking with each other.
yes this is literally just Portal 2
It's also essentially the reverse of Far Cry 3...
That's basically what the second puss-in-boots movie did, because they had a whopping *three* villains; Death, just trying to do his job and indifferent to people's woes. Goldilocks and the three bears, the best example of a found family and Jack Horner, who hasn't a redeeming bone in his body and had no desire to improve himself.
The Last Wish had it all, catering to all kinds of villian likers~
I personally plan to go with the "pretend to do evil for the greater good, secretly is just plain evil to convince their followers" narrative with some of my villains once I get to actually develop games and not just an engine.
Well, Star Wars had nuanced Vader and Pure Evil Palpatine from ESB to RoTJ
The newest game I played with personable villains was _Super Lesbian Animal RPG._ And it does exactly this! One of them is a tragic sympathetic figure whose motives make sense and can listen to reason, and the other is a wizard with a VHS tape for a head who screams at you.
I like villains with nuance when they are presenting me with something new and deeply philosophical. Not the tragic backstory of "Oh my family was killed and I had to do all this villain shit to take control of the world to prevent stuff like that."
I mean villains like Kreia from Knights of the Old Republic 2, whose philosophy is totally anathema to anything I've ever seen from Star Wars. Someone who wants to kill the Force on the grounds that it causes intense amounts of suffering and death on the grounds of balance? That's downright unique in Star Wars.
Yes, villains who own their villainy and relish being evil are fun, I love them too. Sometimes it's just nice to watch someone be evil because that's what makes them happy.
I think you may find Zeno Clash 2 interesting on that front. Or another game by ACE Team, that being The Eternal Cylinder.
I was about to make a comment like this, so I fully agree.
Kreia is to me the go to example of doing a complex villain right. Interesting my 2 favorite villains from star wars are palptine and Kriea. Palptine is great for how weel he plays his part. The complex he given is show how manipulate and how munch of a bastard he is. Like in Darth palegiues books. Again both palptine and Kriea work well for they do in the story(well at least for episode 1-6).
For my hat it is Zelemir from Defender's quest.
The guy had an ancient evil that was nearly about to be freed... And so he proceeds to start a mass blood ritual that requires hundred and thousands of dead people so that anyone related to them still being alive will keep the seal active... To the point most of the continent would need to have their population dead before the seal would be broken.
Is it wrong to commit mass genocide? Yes...
And yet I remember that guy more often than the true final boss.
The guy may have had a point... But that doesn't make it an better as the 'walk away and leave' ending just sucks as the ritual even works without any issues... Expect the awful feeling you get.
Far better than the 'maybe they has a point' villains or the 'not so different actually' villains we get that seem more focused on trying to convince the audience that the villain had a good point... Rather than acknowledge the awful things they actually have done.
was gonna say I feel like this entire video and most of the comments are actually griping about tragic backstory "nuanced" villains because I see more of those than any villains I'd actually call nuanced in stories
Apathy is Death. :P But yeah Kreia was fascinating in that way.
As far as "The Batman" goes, while the contents of the movie strove to be extremely realistic, the framing, tone, and cinematography of everything made it feel like the most fantastical Batman movie we've had in a long time. It truly did feel more like a Batman comic than any other live action one I've seen. Sure, the Riddler is structurally more grounded than ever, but that discounts Paul Dano's goofy-ass but still disturbing performance. It made the movie have a very memorable villain, not just with him, but with the Penguin. I still see those two pop up all the time, they've had more staying power than many comic book movies, and i think that's definitely points in the memorability basket.
Exactly, it's an incredibly fantastical world. In the "real world", Pattinson would have been beat up by the mobs of thugs when he first tries out his costume. Also, to Mr. Yahtzee "I don't watch movies" Croshaw, if you ever watched Se7en, that's pretty much the mold that Dano's Riddler follows.
Yeah, it didn't feel like it was playing the recent games of "complex villains". Riddler's still a charismatic over-the-top shitheel, he just hasn't put on the bowler hat and green suit _yet._ Penguin is unambiguously evil, he's just not the guy causing serious trouble in Gotham this week. It all felt like Batman _before_ he commits to being a one-man military industrial complex; not like he's going to avoid it for realism.
The only two disappointments I had with The Batman was that the villain portrayed in the movie was meant to be the Riddler, and the Joker teaser at the end. The villain did work as the villain of the movie, I just don't feel he worked specifically as "The Riddler".
@@thesquishedelf1301 The tone of the movie definitely fit that it was showing the fall of the traditional mob villains that ruled Gotham before Batman (Falcone, Maroni, etc.) and the rise of the Rogue's Gallery (Penguin, Riddler, etc.) that rise as a response to Batman's presence.
Having a memorable antagonist makes all the difference. Say what you want about the comedy of the 2 first borderlands games, but the banter and back and forth with Handsome Jack really made it great. It doesnt come down to the lines either its all about the delivery of the great voice actors we have.
that "i am a goddamn hero" monologue still pops up in my mind from time to time and i havent played borderlands 2 in years
Never understood people calling jack a good villain. Dude came off as more an annoying internet troll if anything. And i dont thing being annoying is enough to qualify being a good villain, even for the non-complex ones.
as much as i find borderlands no where near as fun as i did a few years back, handsome jack still is a stand out example of great writing
If Handsome Jack is your example of a great villain, please play games that actually have good characters and writing.
@@CryoJnik You think hes anoying, others dont so we in a impass here. Nonetheless he's mentioned alot in great video game villains so that might count for something.
Showing my age here, but one of my favourite video game villains is Gruntilda, and she's literally just a wicked witch from a children's story. The way she shit-talks Banjo and Kazooie all throughout the game (in rhyme, no less!) makes defeating her all the more satisfying.
I think there's something to be said for a particular mix of "nuanced" but also "batshit evil".
Caesar from Fallout: New Vegas is a megalomaniacal fascist with brain cancer. He's one of the most loathsome villains I've ever hated in a video game, and part of that comes from how willing he is to sit down and have a polite chat about his ideology, with the earnest intention of bringing me to his side. After talking with him, I was left thoroughly convinced that he had already heard every argument I might conceive of to redeem or soften him, and already dismissed them all, one by one. He was intelligent, driven, and honestly devoted to his cause, and while I appreciated the option to join it, I knew it had to all burn.
@@SimuLord...Okay, now I'm more convinced to check out those games.
@@SimuLord Horizon Zero Dawn's writing did things to me only Silent Hill 2 and Parasite Eve had done before.
Your description is extremely correct.
I really appreciated the way Caesar invited someone known for killing their members, so we had a direct line to powerfist punching him in the face. Especially when we bring Boone who said the moment he steps foot in he's going to start killing, and we respond "Yeah duh that's the plan"
Speaking of villainous New Vegas characters, I like how Mr. House (much like Andrew Ryan in Bioshock) *thinks* he's getting away with appearing subtle, nuanced and high-minded by using fancy five dollar philosophy words to disguise the fact he's just an capitalist-brained tyrant who's really no better than Ceaser.
@@thirdcoinedgeif you've ever wondered why the rallying cry/recurring joke amongst Horizon fans is "Fuck Ted Faro", you'll learn why if you play the games.
He's an interesting antagonist.
Ganondorf from Wind Waker gets the sweet spot.
He is unapologetic evil, serial kidnapper, terrorizes the sea, explode islands to achieve his goals.
Yet still sympathetic in its final moments, with the whole wind speech, delivering the Nuance as a memorable footnote through the whole ordeal.
I agree, except I wouldn't say that Ganondorf is _sympathetic._ He is certainly tragic, but he's a great example of a tragic villain that is not a sympathetic villain.
He's tragic because he's ultimately a ghost of the past that can't let go; looking out on the ruins of Hyrule, contemplating why he sought to conquer it in the first place, yet still unable to let go of his quest to conquer Hyrule. But he is not sympathetic: his attempt to conquer Hyrule is the reason it was flooded in the first place, he destroys an island because it wouldn't give him the item he sought, and, when the King of Hyrule wishes for Hyrule to be washed away and for Ganondorf to drown with Hyrule, Ganondorf tries to kill Link and Zelda: two children, as one last act of spite. He is not sympathetic, as he brings it all on himself, but he is tragic.
@@matthewmuir8884 What adds to the tragedy is that it couldn't have ended in any other way (even though we didn't know that yet when Wind Waker came out). Skyward Sword retroactively added tragedy by making it clear that there is no reality where Ganondorf can give up on conquering Hyrule. He is just as much a slave to the cycle as Zelda and Link are.
Entirely understandable. I still remember Scar and I haven't watched The Lion King in years.
FOOLS! I will be King.
@@jamesclarkson156 Stick with me, and you'll never go hungry again!
Which, let’s be honest, is in no small part due to Jeremy Irons
Long… live… the king!
I like both kinds of villains personally. I like Joker as much as I like Magneto. It''s just that the complex ones have become over saturated to the point that there are far less chaotic evil villains.
There are some more comedic villains who stand in a weird middle ground too like Heinz Doofinsmertz for example. He has a tragic yet absurd backstory behind most of his schemes but they usually do little to rationalize his actions for comedic effect. Even his eviler alternate universe counterpart has an incredibly petty but absolutely hilarious reason as to why he's so much more evil.
Tragic backstory aside, people like Doof because he kinda sucks at being a villain and is inherently more of a nice guy than he gives credit. He's a great dad to his daughter.
@@leithaziz2716It's like Wreck-it-Ralph said: "Just because you are a bad guy doesn't mean you have to be a bad guy."
Just to add to your point, but the cage-headed boss in Bloodborne you mentioned has one of my absolute favorite "death screams" in gaming. Dude's hamming it up, even while he's dying
OH KOS, OR SOME SAY KOSM, GRANT US EYES!
You mean Micolash?
The man has so many memes spawned from his dialogue, the fandom spews his lines all the time.
"A hunter is a hunter, even in a dream!"
NOW I'M WAKING UP! I'LL FORGET EVERYTHIIIIIING!!!
AAAAWWWW!!!
I think one of the biggest problems with trying to write a realistic villain is that no matter how hard you try to drive home that they’re evil and what they’re doing is still wrong, if they feel like a real person, there will be a real person out there who thinks they are correct.
Do it poorly enough, and you’ll find yourself accidentally writing a thesis paper for an ideology that you’re trying to condemn.
I find it kind of ironic we use Nazism as a synonym for evil when a frankly disturbing amount of people looked at Hitler's regime and all that it entailed and responded with "Okay, this guy knows what he's doing, I'm in."
Humans will follow anyone who looks like they could lead them somewhere good, no matter how many red flags they have to look past.
love when voice actors like the one for handsome jack just go all in on their characters warped view of themselves and actually come across as believing in their own fantasy
I was looking for someone to mention Handsome Jack. BL2 had him as a great villain who you wanted to hunt down, both by what he does, and because he is constantly present. Talking to you, mocking you, and ultimately being pissed off by you.
Armstrong, to be fair, is a nuanced villain that is also unequivocally a villain. His entire mantra is about how the corruption of governments drives people to fight for the causes of others and not for their own beliefs and wants to set the record straight in a might-makes-right manner. Of course, might-makes-right is a bad system of social governance, but thats why hes still a villain.
Kefka from FF6 is proof you don't need a villian to be relatable and have 500 pages of backstory to be an incredible antagonist.
I feel like the majority of love for Kefka comes from the operatic masterpiece that is Dancing Mad.
@@uberculex The majority? Nah, I don't think so. I'm sure Dancing Mad is part of his memorability, but he has a LOT of quotes that speak to his character as just an irredeemable monster throughout the whole game, from jokes and rhymes while he's laying waste to entire communities, to dismissing the heroes' statements at the very end as "You sound like a self-help book!"
He's also an interesting subversion where the midboss, the joke boss, usurps the final boss's throne with disasterous effect.
Kefka and Starscream from Transformers fill a simillar archetype. They act like bootlickers for the bigger bad, but secretly harbor desire to overthrow them and gain power for themselves. They also have a thing for flair and show no empathy.
The irony is that Starscream actually had a nuanced character arc once. It was in Transformers Armada, and I like both depictions. Aramada Starscream is a very tragic character.
See and I've always felt that Kefka is one of the most overrated villains in gaming. He's just crazy and evil. That's it. I guess I just disagree with the premise that evil for evils sake makes a "good" villain. Personally I feel like that's a boring villain
Palpatine from Star Wars is the quintessential villain in my mind, and he is pure, unadulterated evil. Adding nuance to him would make him less interesting.
Meanwhile Darth Vader was the quintessential sympathetic villain. Tyrannical and hostile, yes, but practical and efficient enough that he realized what a mistake he had made.
Emet-Selch, villain GOAT. You can have nuanced and flamboyant.
Glad to see someone else mention my favorite "recent" (been what, 4 years now?) video game villain. And his successor Fandaniel was also a really good villain. Although Fandaniel leaned more to flamboyance to nuance where Emet-Selch was more nuance than Flamboyance.
People call him boring but i fucking love Zenos for just how one note he is in a sea of legitamately complicated and compelling villains. sometimes you just want some dude who is as strong as you pining for your attention and committing horriffic acts just to get a rematch, and sometimes that last fight with him is one of the most memorable fights in the game for just how literally far he will go just to kick your ass.
I don't get the Emet-Selch fanboying. He's every charismatic demigod, plus all his dialogue is god-awful forced exposition.
He even spends PARAGRAPHS trying to frantically convince the PLAYER with the clumsiest possible dialog that the Scions aren't idiots for letting him tag along with them for an entire expansion (they are).
@rclaws3230 obvious bait aside, there literally wouldn't be a way to stop having emet follow you around. The choice is whether he is watching from the shadows or in the open. The later allowing insight into his goals, methods, and being able to keep tabs on him. The later is the obvious right choice.
@@Captain.Mystic ayyooo fellow Zenos enjoyer.
Fire Lord Ozai is a great example of a memorable villain who is neither flamboyant nor larger than life. He's a genocidal a-hole with an industrialized fascist military at his beck and call, but still we remember him. Why? Well, let's give a few points to Mark Hamill's killer performance and the fact that scarring your own son out of pride is pretty hard to forget, but I think there's more. Ozai's crushing grip on the world of Avatar is felt in just about every episode, even when Fire Nation forces aren't present. His and his forefathers' reigns left tangible scars on the many peoples that have come under the Fire Nation's boot. There's never a time where the gaang's fear of getting killed seems unjustified because everywhere they go they are haunted by a looming Ozai.
And THAT is MEMORABLE.
He didn't get as much screentime as he should've, but Gary Smith from Bully comes to mind. In the final confrontation, Bullworth Academy has descended into utter chaos. Jimmy demands to know why Gary did all this. His response? "Because I CAN!" He's literally off his meds and is just stirring shit up for the sake of stirring shit up. For better or worse, he's a complete pushover in the actual fight because he's not as good at hand to hand combat as Jimmy, but putting that bastard in his place is all the more satisfying for all the trouble he caused behind the scenes, and the simplicity of his motivation.
His betrayal is a major turning point in the story and it was part of what gripped me and kept me going through the rest of the game.
Also a rather dark reminder of how the education system destroys anything good that goes into it.
Red Death from Venture Bros comes to mind. ESPECIALLY that scene with the train tracks. Dude bringing back professional classic villainy.
That was such a great speech, really outlined why classic, uncomplicated malicious villains are so effective when done right.
"Long before there were loud-mouthed buff guys in spandex, there was the Gentleman Villain. His favorite sinister act was this: tying someone to a train track. It's simple, inexpensive, personal, and deadly. But it gives you a little hope. Maybe you'll escape. [...] Now, the Gentleman Villain had these old-school time bombs -- three sticks of dynamite wired to an alarm clock. And what was so poetic about that is that they ticked! You could hear them. Tick, tick, tick. [...] There's the ticking. The train is coming. Is it on this track? Tick, tick, tick. Maybe it's on the other track? TICK, TICK, TICK!"
I'm so glad to see someone putting respect on that scene. It stuck with me like few monologues ever have.
I think the only reason why a lot of those villains are memorable, is because they're a clear threat while also being completly over the top. Even more 'sane' villains like General Shepard gives a fucking speech.
Over the top, loud, bombastic, kinda ridiculous when you stop and think about it are memorable. Maybe not 'good' per se, but memorable nonetheless.
Yeah when there's too much nuance the audience is ultimately left thinking, "well I guess it won't be too bad if the heroes fail."
I think the best way to write villains is to go with a, 'road to hell paved with good intentions,' type character. Their core idea isn't bad, but thanks to the villain's past/upbringing/life experience/etc. that good idea is filtered through so much pain and anger that the idea becomes an excuse rather than a reason.
Or for a truly unredeemable villain, don't give them the core idea and just let their life experiences justify their villainy in their minds. Show how different upbringings and lifestyles can lead to drastically different, sometimes violent, ideologies.
It's the difference between Vader and the Emperor. We understand how Vader became a self-admitted monster as he tried desperately to protect everything in his life only to destroy it all, but the emperor is just a power hungry despot who's unconcerned with the lives of his subjects. Both great and memorable villains who serve their purposes in the narrative perfectly
I feel that Liquid Snake from MGS 1 deserves a shoutout. He really chews the scenery every time he shows up (I love his over dramatic enunciation) and his backstory still gives him some nuance. The Metal Gear series as a whole has a great record of goofy and highly memorable villains (Volgin, Ocelot, Vamp etc).
So true. The most recent ones being Liquid Ocelot and Armstrong
Paul Dano's Riddler still works for me. Yeah, it'd be nice if he was wearing a full green, question laden tuxedo, but he still manages to be over the top and crazy imo. He's just crazy in the "conspiracy theory terrorist" kinda way, and not the "answer my riddles 3" kinda way.
I love the scene where he fucking thanks his subs it's so funny
The Batman might lean more on the "realism" side, but it's still a very stylised movie. Compare Gotham in the film to how it's portrayed in Christopher Nolan's movies, where it's just Chicago.
I love how goofy classic Riddler is, but I was very happy with how unique he was in Reeve's movie. The scene where you see him interact with a live audience as he talks about committing terrorism is some deeply unsettling stuff.
I think Paul Dano's performance is what made the character work as a villain, still very memorable despite the film going for more realism and nuance than other Batman movies.
@@leithaziz2716 I got most of the movie spoiled before watching it *except for the final scene in the stadium* like holy shit I got chills when I realised what was about to happen and that final fight scene was just a wonderful cap off to the movie
@@leithaziz2716It's definitely less "realism" and more "stylized groundedness." It's not "Batman must fit within the paradigms of the real world" of the Nolan movies, but rather "Batman film with the visual aesthetic of Se7en." Besides, the Riddler still gets to have his moments of hamminess when acting up his serial killer schtick, especially when broadcasting his murders to the city, but here it's more disturbing because it's less the campy, fun kind of hammy and more the emotionally unstable, "will kill you if you inadvertently insult him" hammy.
Kane from Command & Conquer is an absolute legend of a villain just hamming it up to the point of being incredibly engaging. Especially in the first one where his whole schtick is still largely unexplained and Joseph Kucan being pretty much the only person in the FMV cutscenes who had even the slightest bit of acting experience, he absolutely elevates the whole experience with his mere presence.
"Yes....power shifts more quickly than some people think."
@@paulgibbon5991 Bye Seth :)
"...pretty much the only person in the FMV cutscenes..."
How dare you not name drop Tim Curry mother fucker lmao
KANE LIVES IN DEATH. PEACE THROUGH POWER!
@@mjc0961 "Oh, and....congratulations on your promotion."
Raul Julia in Street Fighter was genuinely a top tier performance - he was one of the only people who took his role seriously. I'll always love the film, warts and all, because 5 year old me thought it was incredible and as I've gotten older I've learnt to just take it as a comedy and embrace the insansity.
EDIT: With regards to recent villians, while FF15 was terrible, Ardyn is a genuinely brilliant villain
Julia's performance is certainly helped by getting the best lines. Like his frank admission to Chun Li that he flat out doesn't remember killing her dad.
"For you, the day that Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life, but for me? It was Tuesday."
Yeah. Raul studied dictators to get the mannerisms right. And, despite being aware that he was dying, insisted on doing most of his own stunts. He knew that this would be his last film, and decided to just give it 110% and have a blast. And it is glorious!
@@Tzilandi One of the all-timer sick burns, in any medium.
Yeah, Raul Julia absolutely carried the Street Fighter movie. He understood exactly when Bison had to be played as calm and collected, like in the “for me it was Tuesday” scene, and when Bison had to be played as a cackling megalomaniac. My personal favorite scene from that movie will always be the “I BEHELD SATAN AS HE FELL FROM HEAVEN! LIKE! LIGHTNING!” speech. Raul Julia absolutely nailed the delivery of that scene!
Everybody loves Raul Julia.
His "For me, it was Tuesday" speech is unironically one of the most fire lines of dialogue you could give a villian.
My favourite trope is "I used to be nuanced until my backstory finished and my villainy began."
You know which villain ticks both boxes? Handsome Jack, in both Borderlands 2 and Tales from the Borderlands. He's hateable like all hell, and just as unhinged - but you can also see where he's coming from. He's just going through it in an entirely over the top fashion.
One quest in Borderlands 2 has you discover that he was brutally mistreated as a child by his grandmother.
Same sidequest has you having him sent you "rescuing" his grandma from bandits, before you realize it was actually assassins that Jack sent to murder her and then sent you afterwards so he doesn't have to pay them.
In the Pre-Sequel you get to see how he rose up the ranks in the corporation and also how he eventually became Handsome Jack. It's pretty interesting - especially since it also gives you a view of some other villains and side characters that show up in 2 and such.
God, Tales from the Borderlands is the best fucking telltale game and may be my favorite Borderlands story. It makes Telltale less serious, but adds some stakes and characters to truly give a shit about to Borderlands, it’s kindof the perfect compromise for both.
For me it was Lord Vauthry in FFXIV: Shadowbringers. He was the villain I longed to kill.
True, he was a bastard who was VERY effectively hateable, but that didn't stop Emet-Selch from straight-up stealing the show. Dude DOMINATED every scene he was in.
Agreed. While I enjoyed the actual villain of Shadowbringers more, it was still so satisfying to smack that fat bastard down. As Malcolm Reynolds said: "There ain't nothing worse than a monster that thinks he's right with God."
oh yeah sometimes you just want a villain that you hate and Vauthry is such a great example of that kind of villain done well.
One recent example of a memorable villain that comes to mind is Chronos from Hades 2. In sharp contrast to the antagonist of the first game (who was ultimately a sympathetic character who eventually got better as the game progressed), Chronos is an unrepentant dickhead right out of the gate. He imprisons some characters you came to care for in the first game, wages war on the Gods, and is deliciously smug with his taunts against the protagonist, building him up to be an insufferable megalomaniac who you WANT to see brought down a peg. He's such a good villain to hate, and reminds me of characters like Jack Horner from Puss In Boots in terms of how both characters are completely irredeemable douchebags who you nonetheless can't help but enjoy watching whenever they're on screen.
Hades 2 isn't out of Early Access yet though, so it doesn't count by Yahtzee's rules.
@@MeTheOneth Given Yahtzee sets his own rules, he can do whatever he wants if you recall Shadows of Doubt. I don't THINK Hades 2 is going to nerf Chronos' general assholery by the time it's out. I'd call him a real baby-eater but that's literally what he did in the myths.
And the funniest thing was that he contacted Melinoe as a shadowy old man to screw up with her. There is 1 good moment as well but I won't spoil it.
I love how the first line in the game is "kill Chronos" I hadn't even met the guy but by the time I was back at the camp the first time I already hated him.
I'm inclined to agree, but as far as I'm aware, we don't *actually* know how to story ends with Chronos because Supergiant haven't written it yet. I say as far as I'm aware because I've only beaten him once and I know you have to beat more than one run, but I believe they had a pop-up that said "great job! We don't have the rest written yet though, so check back later." Unless people who have beaten him more than once will tell me otherwise.
To be fair, I think you're probably right that it's not going to go the Hades cool original route with Hades' motivations changing by the end. Chronos seems like a real jackass. I'm just saying there's lots more game that we haven't seen yet.
And also, maybe some Greek mythology experts already know how this story goes... in which case don't spoil it for me lol
This is why I loved how they used V.II Snail in Armored Core VI. Very few characters in all of Armored Core are downright hateable because the world is typically a megacorp dystopia wherein rather than hating specific characters, you hate the megacorps themselves. Snail is refreshing because he channels the snooty arrogance of his predecessors in the greater genre to create a villain who is simultaneously absolutely hateable in his cockiness but the story makes it clear that this is someone who actually has the capabilities to back up most of his arrogance.
He's genuinely brilliant but his very first line of dialogue makes him immediately punchable, and as good as he is, he's still clearly not the best of the best - the top dog, and this fact *infuriates* him because the actual top dogs treat him like a nuisance at best. The story gives you so many reasons to hate him personally, but in one of the routes where you can get payback for a previous slight, you can just ignore him and he'll go out of his way to kill you *for* ignoring him.
It all creates this image of an ace with legit genius held back by an ego the size of Jupiter and the realization that as good as he actually is, there's still people in the story who are just way better than him no matter what how many unfair, monstrous advantages he stacks in his favor.
And the voice acting for both the English and Japanese tracks are the icing on the cake, especially when Snail has a meltdown. I loved hearing his pompous whining so much that I saved his voice lines to a wiki.
The Armored Core games and Sekiro show Fromsoft can do storytelling that's more organic than needing to read a thousand item descriptions.
And of course, he has the best death scream of any enemy in the game. Like he was choking on a hot pepper while also being kicked in the nuts. 😀 The actor knew how much the players would be looking forward to hearing it.
Give me the game where YOU are the flamboyant villain, and your score is based not just on how well you fight the hero, but how good you look doing it and the quality of your banter/monologues. Like a spectacle fighter mixed with guided writing.
Believe me, there are a bunch of games that copy that general premise, buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut
that's usually as close as they get. Evil Genius and (guttural disgust) Hunt Down the Freeman come to mind.
deception 1 to 4. you lure in warriors, set traps that target their physical or psychological weaknesses and gain a higher score based on how many traps you can make the hero trip in succession and how well you exploit their weakness.
Overlord, kind of? It's like Pikmin but edgy and less complex.
@@bottomlefto I more meant that you're judged on your "PRESENTATION!!!" as Megamind would say.
The Wii game Madworld is sort of built on that premise. Jack may look like a standard anti-hero, but as he said it best: "I don't help people. I kill them." And he followed through on it even at the end of the game.
Also the Black Baron (the Bishop of Blood and Carnage) is a joy to see on screen each time.
1:00 precisely why Gortash, orin and Kethric worked so well in Baldurs Gate 3
Jason Isaacs, JK Simmons and Maggie Robertson all hamming it up having fun as villains.
Kind of shocked that BG3 doesn't come up as a good recent example. Not only are they hamming it up, bombastic sneering over the top, they're...ALSO nuanced and more complex than you'd initially believe. They're memorable and provide some decent character development to chew into if so inclined.
Even Auntie Ethel provides some memorable theatrics.
Honestly my favorite type of Villain is the one that wants to make the world a better place but has crossed so many lines that even if he gets there.
He is fully aware he'll never be allowed in the "heaven" he helped create so is having the absolut time of his life in the descent to "hell" he is fully aware he has doomed himself to.
If you haven't, go watch the Serenity movie (the Joss Whedon one that was an ending to the show Firefly). You basically QUOTED the villain with this comment.
I also like it when that's just a front. Scorpius from Farscape comes to mind. Where he had higher ideals, he had a noble goal, he had a good justification, but you could tell deep down he fucking loved it when he could do something monstrous. There would be these grace notes of gratuitous cruelty thrown in, and you just knew "Ah, that's what this was for, really"
That pretty much describes Senator Armstrong
@@BlueGrimgrin That's actually new. I've never heard of THAT before. A lot of people don't mention that part when talking about Scorpius - does he enjoy these terrible acts?
@@Spino-hx2mr I'm thinking in particular of the scene where he licks a chunk of Crichton's brain off the neuro chip. With Scorpius, there's always a question of how much is performance, but he always seems to be enjoying those moments of cruelty a bit too much.
Junko Enoshima was a ridiculous psychopathic caricature so ever the top the Joker would tell her to turn it down a bit and she is honestly my favorite villain in the last fifteen years
Frfr, I wish I could rexperience the first time I played the game and saw that reveal~
One thing i think that’s important about villains in general: not every villain needs a redemption, even when they get a comeuppance. It just doesn’t work for some characters, and that’s okay.
FF14 comes to mind- major spoilers for Stormblood on, especially endwalker.
Everyone points to Emet-Selch as an exemplar villain and for good reason, but the best example of what Yahtzee talks about is Zenos. ESPECIALLY Endwalker Zenos, but Stormblood Zenos fits too. By the time Endwalker happens, he’s starting to realize he has something to do before he can get what he wants, has wanted since Ala Mhigo. But is he going to going to do it the way most people would, by offering his assistance? Fuck no he’s going to take the mothercrystal and eat it to turn himself back into Shinryu and make you ride on his back to fight against the cosmic horror trying to end the world. He sees the obstacle to his goal and breaks through it. And this is not going to earn him a redemption in the eyes of anyone- he’s still the general behind so much of what happened in Ala Mhigo and Doma, even if he’s long tired of the Garlean army’s bullshit (and they him). He doesn’t care. He just wants to fight. And that’s what he gets.
Zenos went from a character i got tired of to a character I appreciate more with everyday. He’s a shitheel and it’s great.
You're entitled to your opinion, but I couldn't agree less. I find him boring specifically because he DOESN'T revel in his villainy, his entire motivation is that he's bored. He winds up just being a bland, single minded villain who goes through the motions rather than inspire a memorable hatred.
Happy Chaos in Guilty Gear Strive is a pretty fun Villain from recent years. He's got a laidback attitude about everything while also having a god-like intelligence and understanding of the world that just makes him pretty fun to hang around. He's kind of like if the Joker wasnt focused on telling jokes and more just enjoying himself on a day-off, while also having a cosmic level understanding of the universe. He brings Nagoriyuki with him partly because Nago's one of the few people who knows his weakness, and he thinks having someone like that on set adds to the drama. I definitely feel he's memorable and he is a NEW villain since he was properly introduced in Strive (hinted at in Xrd but still).
Luca Blight from Suikoden 2 is extremely memorable and chilling and has no depth beyond impaling peasants for fun and cackling over his own death because it took so many men to kill him.
Well he does have some SLIGHT depth, with it implied that he was traumatised by seeing his mother raped by enemy soldiers when he was a child because his father was too cowardly or inept to be able to protect them, which is why he was so gleeful about killing his father, but it's not central to the character, who in general is just an irredeemable monster.
@@ArcaneAzmadi IIRC ultimately he's also possessed by the spirit of some evil rune, too, but as you say it doesn't really matter.
During the whole lament about there not being enough recent hateable villains, I kept thinking of Raphael from BG3.
A guy who spends the whole game oozing smugness because he’s convinced he holds all the cards, but then you get to turn the tables on him at the end. To cap it off, he gives you the toughest boss battle in the game, set to a Disney villain song. How much more classically villainous can you get?
"What value does realism really have in entertainment media?" followed by the graphics card manufacturer bit, love it.
Good point at the end, sometimes I just want a real evil villain that I don't need to feel empathy towards and look for deeper meaning.
Going back to your souls-like example, I’d say Elden Ring is full of evil bastards to beat up. Godrick performing horrendous acts of grafting just to compensate for his own incompetence, Rykard becoming Elden Ring’s version of Satan with a goofy voice to boot, Mohg starting a blood cult and kidnapping and actual child (who is his half brother btw) to have sex with, Gideon Ofnir being a condescending jerk who slaughtered an entire village just to get half of a dinner plate, and Dung Eater for being Dung Eater.
Why not both? The OG SW trilogy splits the difference. Vader comes to be a much more morally ambiguous and nuanced villain by the third film just in time for his boss to show up and be an outright cartoon character.
Palpatine is one of the greatest villains ever and he's over-the-top absurd in the best possible way. A classic example of how charisma and presentation surpass nuance.
5:05
There are DEFINITELY villains in Armored Core games who are enjoying themselves.
Was glad to see Kefka on that list - he's always first on MY list of people I just love to hate and find satisfying to finally crush.
But I was surprised to see Lavos there, since Lavos was very much the final threat of Chrono Trigger, but he always just sort of loomed in the background and acted as a macguffin to occasionally prod the story forward. He never really felt like a villain so much as he did this... weird force of nature void of personality. Antagonist, sure, but not a villain.
The most memorable villain is when you find out it's you, like in Spec Ops: The Line
The Alan Wake games are interesting because while the main "villain" is some abstract dark force hijacking artists' creative powers, it does also manifest as Mr. Scratch, a dark mirror of the protagonist. Scratch only really gets to headline Alan Wake's American Nightmare, the downloadable pseudo-sequel to the first game, but he is an absolute riot, both purely evil and clearly having the time of his life being a monster. I liked what they did with him in Alan Wake 2, but it did mean he wasn't nearly as delightfully hammy in that game.
I was giddy every single time I found a TV in American Nightmare. Both the actor and the voice actor were clearly having the time of their lives playing Mr. Scratch in those segments.
I love Councilor Vay Hek. He's insane, loud, murderous and constantly taunts you and screams at you. His voice actor is also amazing. He's just cartoonishly evil and mad. He might a backstory outside the game, but what you interact with is just a loud, insane psychopath in the form of a mechanical chicken.
Okay, lemme stop and give you a couple of memorable villains from recent games: The villains from Baldur's Gate 3 were certainly memorable, especially the psychotic Orrin, as was one from Another Crab's Treasure (Not named for spoiler reasons), and there's Doctor Nefarious from the Ratchet and Clank series who was in the most recent entry, Rift Apart. Nefarious is always a fun villain. The point is, we have had a few memorable villains recently, some as recently as within the last year.
Nefarious is great, but rift apart is a little weak for him cause his screen time is pretty small. The alternate version of him really could have used a bit more time to flex. I really wish the song in the credits had been in game.
BG3 is just chok full of memorable characters in general. It's just one larger than life egomaniac after the other, and that's just your party!
Davy Jones is an incredibly fun and underrated villain, just full of charisma and absolutely delighted by what he's doing. I can't help but love him.
I feel giving something too much nuance actually makes it so you don't think about it as much.
Because all of the answers are already there, by leaving a bit of mystery, it leaves more room for intrigue and allows time to linger in the mind.
I think that's only true if the nuance is explored explicitly and at length by the narrative, like if characters do a lot of talking about all the nuance. Then it feels like all that can be said has already been said. If it's more subtle, though, I think that problem doesn't emerge, but rather the opposite, where people might not bother to think more about it and not notice the complexities at play.
Right. The nuance isn't subtle anymore, because if you make it subtle half your dumb audience won't understand it.
@@melephs_cap Yeah, this. I was just discussing Kale from Hi-Fi Rush in another chat here. The game never tells you he's got insecurity about being a fraud. He just shows it by bullying everyone, losing his cool whenever anything hurts his "Competent Leader" image, and reacting with genuine anger and revulsion to "Losers". That's the kind of nuance that works.
Great take. I also think villain writers sometimes don’t take motivations like wealth and power seriously. Sure, maybe in one sense they’re shallow, but have you seen what they can do once you acquire them? Of course a villain would pursue them as the chief good.
It's an MMO, but FFXIV's villains have been pretty good. Emet-Selch has muscled his way onto "best FF character" lists since his inclusion and subsequent defeat in the game. And, he's actually dead dead, for real.
And on the flipside, we also have Athena and Valens for the irredeemably evil characters.
Kairos Theodosian, Tyrant of Helike, from A Practical Guide to Evil. In a world where storytelling tropes are literally forces of nature that are enforced by the world, Kairos revels in being as chaotically evil as he can. He doesn't even care that he's not the primary big bad, just as long as everyone sits up and pays attention when he does things.
Why not both? (FF14 Shadowbringers comes to mind)
Because the conversation gamers don't want to have is that many of them have the very selfish mindset of "There is only room in gaming for what I like, if I don't like it, it shouldn't be in gaming, at all."
There's absolutely room for both kinds of villains but we're gonna have this conversation like there's only room for the specific type I like and what you like is irrelevant.
It's really dumb. Hell Yatzees first example, Sentor Armstrong is extremely nuanced, he's just ALSO mustache twirlingly evil. He's literally both and Yatzee only sees the part he likes instead of the whole.
The victor shall write the tale and the vanquished become its villian.
Yeah while very hard to do, having that Villan that has a nuance side, but is very memorable and ham is possible. For example Bowser, especially when you played as him in games like boswer inside story. Sure he does has qualities like loving his child, showing true bravery and courage, and is trying to best run a kingdom when he not doing his kidnapping deeds. However he still a very impluses, anger issues , violence villain that will take not take no for a answer. Also in games like Bowser inside inside story, he also have this lunch to punch to play with it compare to Mario and Luigi. Again while it may seem like paradox, you can give your hammy villains some complexity and your nuance villains there hammy and memorable(usually given them a villainous poem about how they have fall).
I think the best example of what Yahtzee is getting at is Skeletor. In the original cartoon, the extent that we learn of his history is that he’s “a demon from another dimension” and that he used to work for Hordak, and Alan Oppenheimer played him in a deliciously over the top fashion, which has made the character iconic.
Then you have literally every depiction of the character AFTER the Filmation cartoons, where he’s played more down to Earth (with varying degrees of “grounded” variations on Oppenheimer’s work) and there’s this sob story about how he’s Randor’s brother who was disfigured……and it’s all tremendously tedious and acted by (except for Frank Langella) people who couldn’t even carry Alan Oppenheimer’s jock strap vocally.
(You can rinse and repeat this with a lot of villains from ‘80s cartoons, if we’re being honest, but Skeletor is the best example by far.)
There's Crimson 1 in Project Wingman as a recent example. He's an arrogant git that gets salty that you beat his squadron in a battle and becomes more and more unhinged every time you meet him later to the point he undermines his own side's war effort to be able to square up with you all while ranting over the radio. One of your wingmen even screams at him to shut up at a certain point.
then theres the finale where its as over the top as you can get for a plane game, unless the next time someone makes an ace combat involves flying to space to fight a robot angel
To quote Max0r, his entire character is based exclusively off of projection.
@@jonathandear4914 To be fair the finale reminded me in part of a less obnoxious version of the one in Ace Combat Zero, only rather than forcing you to hit from the front it opted for trying to turn the visual clutter from special attacks up to 11.
@@det.bullock4461 i more meant the visual spectacle and music on display while the villain monologues as you fight, hard not to be entranced by it, would personally like more stuff like this, aircraft games like this.
@@jonathandear4914It's not just that. The dude was huffing his own hype drugs way too much, thinking the Federation is invincible and the only way to achieve world peace... through subjugation.
By beating him back, you shattered the illusion of power, you destroyed the propaganda machine, and he has to deal with the fact that he betrayed his own country to a bunch of warmongers... for nothing.
Magnificent Bastard is the trope that seems to fit the best for your description.
Raphael from Baldurs gate 3 singing his own boss music was simultaneously hilarious and intimidating
I swear to god there's an alternate universe where Raph was voiced by Tim Curry and I wish I lived there
I had to put it on mute.
Seriously, that game does so many things right but the decisions with the music were - appropriately enough in this case - diabolical.
This was my first thought, he sits nicely between rational, well spoken villains and scenery chewing OTT villains.
I actually applauded when I got to his boss fight and he started singing his own boss music.
A memorable villain for me is Saints Row IV's Zinyak. My favorite moments with him are the mission when you're rescuing Matt & not only does he go on about Macbeth poetry, he also gives you a choice whether to continue rescuing the human race or sacrifice yourself. And then he shows you images of all past games, explaining that despite him destroying Earth, you were its greatest threat. Really makes you think if you really are a hero.
I know there's love for Kefka, Sephiroth, and the like, but you know who were surprisingly effective at their jobs for different reasons? Exdeath and Kuja. Look back at those games and you'd be amazed how many bodies were buried. My favorite FF villain is Ardyn though. Chews scenery and knows he has the finest drip in all of boyband land. Still gets shit done when he has to.
Thank you... As little respect as I have for the majority of XV, Ardyn is a strictly better version of the combination of Kefka and Barthandelus... evil for the sake of evil, but still RATIONAL and methodical. Evil for the sake of chaos is just unpredictable slop
My deeply closeted younger self thought Kuja was the greatest villain ever. ...No idea why... 🤔
I will never not be annoyed with FF9 redeeming Dagger's adoptive mother, though. A parent can be both beloved and a bastard.
It would have been so much more powerful had she just actually been/gotten that greedy herself, no manipulation whatsoever.
I just had this exact thought the other day. I actually care very little about the plot in a video game, preferring instead the presentation and overall experience. The key is to give me as a player something to drive me. Give me a clear goal right out the gate. Even if that goal later shifts, I need to feel like I have a reason to do something.
I don't think this is a nuance problem. You can have a character have plausible motives and great, operatic scenes. We humans just like melodrama,, and trying to shy away from it as much as you can isn't the way to go.
So making a villain that just feels boring is usually a bad idea - but that just means they are lacking presence. And there are a lot of ways you can build it. Graphical style, score, boss movesets. That's all on the table. The writing isn't the only way to do it.
For all the narrative issues of Elden Ring, the game still manages to create memorable bosses using the tools above. Yes, that is not exactly enough to make a villain, but it's a good start. Sekiro goes further with Genichiro, who has all of the above with decent motives and more dialogue - something that soulslikes usually lack, which makes creating memorable characters difficult.
And you can really have it all. Flowey is both nuanced and melodramatic. Hades, Jon Irenicus, Mr. House (debatably?), The Third Sith, Olgierd, all of those characters show that those qualities can coexist. It's just that most writers don't bother with writing an actual compelling character and presenting it to the player in an engaging way, they just slap together some cliches and call it a day. It's just that instead of "he wants to destroy the world" now it's "he felt bad once and it was the society's fault".
Disney been suffering from this for awhile. With their villains either being surprise/twist villains or nebulous concepts like family traditions.
The last really great villain that loved to roll in their villainy was Dr Facilier.
Gaunter o dim from witcher 3 comes to mind as a very memorable villan that clearly enjoys being evil, has no relatable or underestandable motives, but still is kinda nuanced because he represents an idea that humanity needs to fight against. Too bad yahtzee doesn't play dlc's...
Yup, he is cool. He only does what you wishes for, right? ;)
It really just comes down to the mood. Zany over-the-top villains are what you need for comedy and spectacle. A darker epic needs a properly scary villain. For something melancholy, though, you probably need an antagonist you feel some degree of empathy for and would rather not fight at all, if only they would stop trying to steal all of Earth's oxygen. So maybe the real problem is that too many games want to be dark, brooding, mature tales for grownups about real grownup stuff like disaster and suffering, not dumb kid stuff like joy, friendship, and hope for the future.
Audiences: "Stop treating us like idiots! Give us believable narratives with nuanced motives!"
The exact same audiences 10 years later: "Ugh, enough with the gritty realism and cynical both-sidesing! Give us fun and memorable villains!"
Rinse and repeat.
Seriously, look at comics from the 80's to the 2000's to today. Look at the fantasy genre pre-Game of Thrones, post-Game of Thrones, and post-post-Game of Thrones. Literally the exact same song and dance.
Its the story of literature as well, a constant oscilation between realism/complexity and fantasy/simplicity
It's almost as if the audience is made of millions upon millions of people, and people tend not to be quiet and content when they're getting what they want. The "exact same audience" is only complaining if you arbitrarily chuck an entire genre or medium together, all of whom enjoy it for different reasons. The same people aren't complaining, it's different sets of people. "I gave one classroom vanilla and there was a kid who wanted chocolate, so I gave another classroom chocolate and someone wanted vanilla, why can't the concept of schoolchildren make up thier mind!?!"
What a shocker, people have different opinions and perspectives and it might be worth acknowledging it.
song... of Ice and Fire more like
(i'll show myself out)
Simple, audiences are not legion. They are made up of millions of people at different times who think millions of different thoughts
Great video. I think the thing with realism of that kind - nuanced, understandable villains - in pop culture is that it’s just a half-assed version of the genre of realism in film in literature.
In realist film and literature the whole thing is about portraying how those societal forces Yahtzee talk about works, but actually putting the process of how they affect people’s lives on the page or screen. Not in a symbolic way, but literally showing what happens. To the extent that there are villains at all, they are bad because of the position they occupy in the structure of power and resources that does the harm, not because of who they are.
But present day pop culture including games doesn’t do that at all. The last mainstream thing that did was probably The Wire. Instead most of it just does normal, symbolic storytelling with good guys and bad guys there to represent abstract concepts - except the bad guys aren’t sharply defined enough to represent much of anything, because most writers have uncritically accepted the idea that nuance and complexity is good regardless of context or genre. So you don’t get proper realism *or* symbolic, operatic narratives, you just get a weird muddy mixture of both.
I don't think the two are mutually exclusive. There are villains that we can sympathize with on a philosophical or even emotional level, but are written in such a way as to make them still easily hateable in the here and now. And a complex, nuanced villain can still be memorable; charisma is not a trait exclusive to the one-dimensional. That said, a villain who's self-consciously evil and just hamming it up is usually more entertaining due to the lack of constraints necessary to keep a character sympathetic to the audience.
Although he’s not exactly a completely un-nuanced villain the most memorable moment of BG3 is definitely the villain introduction of Ketheric and in that moment at least the villainy doesn’t /feel/ nuanced, it’s beautifully dramatic
Dishonored 2's villains were quite memorable I think, all of them having a kind of pompous flair that makes them satisfying to take down.
Also, for a more recent example, Jedi: Fallen Order has a great villain who taunts you all throughout the game until your final confrontation.
It's interesting to think how ideas like "realism" and "naturalism" are fairly recent developments in 10,000+ year history of human storytelling. They only really emerged in the late 1800s and then took hold with the advent of film which, in contrast to theater which always necessitates some suspension of disbelief, allowed stories to be told literally.
It makes it harder to have a range of villains. There's a place for the antagonist who is the hero of their own story but there's also a place for characters like Aaron from "Titus Andronicus" who relishes in being a villain and is always on the lookout for ways to screw people over just for the hell of it.
*Yahtzee* "no fun modern video game villians."
*Raphael* "am i a joke to you?"
Feel like this is more of a preference for tone rather than an actual critcism of villains.
Maybe there's a lot of more 'nuanced' games now but its also been a pretty bad time for gaming altogether.
But this feels like its a tonal thing more than a villain thing. As you said with the Batman, its going for a more 'grounded' approach. So the villain has to meet that tone. Every example of villains that are memorable are extremely ecentric and their personalities are larger than life in a way. But I don't think memorable necessarily equals "good" either. It certainly doesn't make it bad, it just means that their impression made a lasting impact. And its a bit unfair to compare a work of art that's going for say, an abstract painting whose goal is to make you think about something, compared to a renaissance painting whose goal is to be as pretty and eye-catching as possible. Both have completely different goals, and getting on the abstract painting for not looking uber beautiful and realistic kinda misses the point of that painting entirely.
Games aren't paintings, but they're a form of art, and writing is a primary function of this process. And writing has this approach too; tonal consistency is a must, and that extends to the characters.
But I also think its just a bias we have in general. "We want unnuanced evil villains" well lets look back at all the forgettable one-off villains in superhero comics. There's a TON with completely outrageous designs, concepts, and characters that are frequently forgotten, and yet they meet your critera here; they're having a hell of a time, their personalities are outrageous, and they love being evil. But they didn't stick. They didn't stick because, at the time, ALL villains were like this, and only a few really rose after the rest were discarded or reworked. Ironically, a very similar situation we're seeing here with nuanced villains, I think.
But all in all, I don't think a villain that isn't one that sticks in your mind is a bad villain. In fact, I think the over obsession with villains being memorable is bound to do more damage to gaming and media, rather than less. The goal is to have a good, rounded story, and there are plenty of good experiences that occur in spite of villains, not because of them. It seems more like you're the one missing the forest for the tree here, respectfully.
There was a reason everyone loved Freeze's new origin in Batman The Animated Series. And at the same time, there's a reason Frieza is such a popular villain in Dragonball fandom.
There's nuance to why both methods can work and have a place in media.
Zee on his way to create a game just to beat his CEO.
"The world is nuanced."
"Yes...and I want my fictional world to be an ESCAPE from that, thank you!"
(See also: The reason no modern writer has a clue about what Superman is really about, save for whoever writes for "My Adventures with Superman" who actually gets it.)
Nuance is far from always a feel-bad thing, though, and it can coexist with escapism. In fact, you could say that some nuanced villains aid escapism by _not_ being the unbearable assholes you might face in real life.
I mean, I thought the villains from Hi-Fi RUSH were pretty memorable, and that only came out a year ago. I laughed so hard when Kale told Korsica that she was fired, shot at her with generic lasers, and after he thought she was dead goes "You're fired? Oh man, I shoulda used the FLAMETHROWERS! Oh well, there's always next time." lmao
I feel like the Mercenaries from Disco Elysium are pretty memorable villains. DE has immensely nuanced writing, but it goes out of its way to give an in-dialog content warning for the heinous shit that the Mercenaries had done. Really, it's just the one Merc who's a good villain as the others are working behind the scenes, just out of view.
Worth noting the "nuanced villian" thing has progressed so far, in most stories now, the "Bad guy" is actually the moral one and the "Good guy" are so gray that by any standards they would be regarded as an awful person, were it not for the audience's framing.
A great example of this was Disney's film Wish, where the "Bad guy" was framed as evil for having the power to grant wishes but not immediately granting every fickle desire presented to him. And the "Good guy" was framed as good for expecting and demanding that every single person is entitled to every single one of their desires unconditionally at all times. In any reasonable time, the roles would be reversed, and the position of reasoned, responsible restraint would be framed as good against a character embodying totalizing entitlement.
Two thirds through the film they had to have the "bad guy" suddenly flip into a derranged irrational maniac, completely divorced from everything we've seen of him previously, just to justify him being the antagonist. They also didn't show the consequences of granting every person's pettiest wish unconditionally forever, because if you did the whole thing would fall apart on the spot.
We're so far down the postmodernist line, evil is framed as good, good as evil, and the only "truth" or distinction between the two is in subjectivist framing. People were always sick of it, but the problem has gotten to the point where even the most disinterested people are picking up on it.
The Yakuza series seems like a reduct for this kind of villain, even if sometimes the final fight is reserved for someone else. And, as you say, it's still an old series... It's the same with movies; Disney ditched their classic villains for twist villains that feel absolutely stale.
Give me back my villains!
The Yakuza series also kind of gets to have its cake and eat it too, in this case. Usually the more honourable villains (the Ryuji style as opposed to the Munakata style) are characters that the player will end up liking by the end, but are still total fucking showstealers.
I recently finished Like A Dragon and loved how campy, yet earnest the game is? The Ben Shapiro standin feels great to fight.
My favorite Yakuza villians are Kuze, Ryuji and Ryo Aoki.
It's hard to explain Kuze, but he's the sort of antagonist that slowly grows to respect the main character.
Aoki is in my opinion just a really good "tragic backstory" type villain.
Ryuji is kinda evil, but he doesn't have any ulterior motives and faces things head-on. He saves a supporting character because he's above kidnapping and other underhanded tactics. His line "sometimes a man oughta be a little stupid" is one of my favorites. You just can't help but respect the guy in some form. He has a tragic backstory, but doesn't harbor any grudge for it.
The Mole (not saying the actual name to avoid spoilers) from Judgment is easily the best RGG Studio villain (and the best story), honestly
that game gets to keep its cake and to eat it, too, by simply having both a nuanced villain and a good old fashioned capital V psycho bad guy working together, it's great
@@ketrub Judgment villains are amazing. Him and a particular Lost Judgment character are amazing villains that chill you to the bone.
Zenos Yae Galvus from FFXIV is probably the Final Fantasy villain I've enjoyed sparring with the most. At first in the Stormblood expansion you think he's a bored tyrannical prince oppressing and abusing the people he rules because there's no one around who's as powerful as he is but then you start interacting with him and you realize he's an unhinged nihilistic psycho who just lives to kill and destroy because he sees that any meaning in life is absurd and his endless "hunt" is the one thing that brings him pleasure until he meets you and he wants to become even tougher to finally kill you.
He's right, we COULD skip the nuance and just create villains who are simple and know they are evil, but I want a villain who is nuanced and has good reasons for what they are doing... because it makes me reflect on myself and my own morality.
I think a villain I will never get over is Yuuki Terumi from BlazBlue. He's not just evil, he's gratuitously, deliberately excessively evil. He doesn't just beat people down, he plays around with them at length and creates excess suffering just because he loves to watch people suffer. He KNOWS he's one of the strongest beings in the setting and hides it or drives it into your skull at whatever level he feels like to have fun. He's a monster. He's one of my favourite characters in ages.
I think it really depends on the story what kind of villain works best (if one is needed at all). When we talk about "favorite villains", they are isolated from their context. There are a lot of stories with unmemorable villains that wouldn't be better served with a different one.
Love semi-ramblomatic, honestly moreso when I disagree, which I do wholeheartedly here. Obviously to each their own though. I am curious if another comment I spotted hit the nail on the head, those sorts of villains feel good right now because they are the exception rather than the rule.
For me, there is no actual joy in overcoming a villain who makes no rational sense. It is as fulfilling as beating up a pillow with a big frowny face drawn on it. If their actions make no sense, the story also likely makes no sense, and following suit my own actions make no sense and mean nothing. Obviously that is fine in some context, where the gameplay itself is more the point for example. I don't think Bowser would actually be improved by great introspection.
However I will never get the same *type* of joy beating up Bowser as I do knocking Kamoshida down a few pegs in Persona 5. Granted that actually brings up a bit of a funny point for me, Persona 5 gets to have its cake and eat it too. Kamoshida is a well written character (though a horrible horrible person). Yet thanks to the metaverse concept, the version we fight is the ridiculous super villain concept of the same person. Maybe that is why you like the Persona series so much.
Last bit, since I undercut my own point there a bit. While this is practically the dark ages of gaming, Dragon Age Inquisition had a pretty ok Super Villain you fight. It also had a really good nuanced villain behind the insane and stupid one. They are on a perfect foot to make a great game in Dread Wolf, I look forward to seeing the specific ways in which they fuck it up.
IMO, The Batman was as grounded as it needed to be, but it does have a hell of a lot of nuance behind its villains. And yeah, The Riddler was basically the concept of QAnnon, but Paul Dano gets some enjoyably hammy moment, notably singing the Ave Maria at an inopportune moments. Colin Ferrell’s Penguin was having the time of his life and was pitch perfect. I’m a little hesitant about the spin off TV series he’s attached to, but the trailers have made it clear he knows he’s the villain and he enjoys it.
Hey, Lies of P was a Soulslike with a flamboyant and operatic villain (two of them, really).
I liked the Handsome Jack storyline. Specifically how it was given to us. After spending the entirety of Borderlands 1 trouncing Atlas corp the number 2 company has stepped up and their president is a lunatic, going on a killing spree and calling everyone on Pandora a bandit and/or savage. He murders old characters and weaponizes his own family, torturing them to use their powers.
And then we can have his backstory in the pre-sequel. Where he, a low level coder, tried to help people and was consistently backstabbed by those in power. After so many betrayals and glimpsing into a vault he goes absolutely mad, and takes control for himself. Unfortunately he’s insane at this point and the nuance doesn’t matter anymore because you probably played 2 first but it gives you a slightly different experience when you play 2 again with more context
I played Borderlands 2 like very recently because my brother wanted me to play it and
I severely distrust the judgement of anyone who tries implying those games are at all well written. No offence to you as a person its just god I'm never playing Borderlands 2 ever again
@@Xenomorthian i didn't say it was well written. I said I like the villain. Ghoulish overkill and committing to the bit made him memorable. And I'll never forgive him for killing my Bloodwing.
The writing was always hot garbage and that was the point. Shoot and Loot. They just made the villains for 3 too cringe to enjoy the story at all.
What I hate most about this trend of 'complex' villains is that it isn't even realistic. All these game developers (both AAA and indie, unfortunately) think that by having a nuanced antagonist that they are creating a more realistic story, but real life is a lot dumber than that. Video games and media in general have this misconception that people in positions of power are incredibly intelligent, playing 4D chess and cooking up schemes that account for everything that you as the protagonist will do until you foil their plan right at the end. Real life on the other hand is plagued with stories of incompetent people in positions of power thanks to family or connections, who then make brain dead decisions that get them in trouble. And when details of just how inept their actions are come out in the news, people are left scratching their heads thinking, 'is this really the calibre of the people in charge?'
That's why I prefer a twirly mustache villain. Someone who revels in their evil deeds. Because at least that is fun. It doesn't come across as someone getting high off of their own farts showing off just deep and complex their story telling prowess is. Real life is pretty straight forward. Bad people do bad things. Or good people do bad things when they're presented with too good an opportunity. And if I want a realistic story about that, I'll watch a documentary.
Handsome Jack. Jon Irenicus. Albert Wesker. Sebastian LaCroix. All the best villains are well spoken, unrepentant assholes with a flair for the dramatic.
"Sebastian LaCroix"
Honestly, watching that asshole just laugh hysterically seconds before he goes sky-high is my favorite ending of that game. And the fact that it's the skuzzy Smiling Jack who gets him in the end is just beautiful.
@@Tzilandi That was the Camarilla ending right? I vaguely remember my Ventrue character being blown up. xD
@@PaladinCasdin The Anarch and the Independent ending, actually. Though the independent ending can also see you blown to smithereens, if you choose to try and usurp LaCroix's plan for your own instead of walking away.
@@Tzilandi Really? It's been a looooong time since I played VtM:B, but I thought the Anarch ending was the boss fight with LaCroix's enforcer on the roof? And the Camarilla ending had you opening the sarcophagus and finding Jack's bomb. Could be wrong, it's been ages - but I vaguely remember my Ventrue character who sided with the Camarilla getting blown up with LaCroix and my Tremere who preferred the Anarchs having to fight the enforcer - a fight which kicked my ass because I hadn't spec'ed at ALL well for it. xD
Could be wrong of course, it's been about 15 years at this point.
I think the last modern game villain I genuinely hated was Ted Faro from the Horizon series, and that hate honestly only builds between the two currently released games as you see more and more of the damage that psycho did.
Speaking of dramatic rooftop sword fights in the rain...where the hell is Vergil from the Devil May Cry Special Edition series?
Metroid Dread is a mixed example. Yahtzee didn't care for him but the big bad is beloved among Metroid fans who replayed the game since playing it while knowing the games big twist makes him absolutely wonderful.
It's not often I disagree with Mr. Croshaw, but I'm going to have to on this. I get we need memorable villains, but reducing villains to evil laughing Skeletor types, we're just going backwards aren't we? I agree we probably need a few more evil laughing Skeletor types, but I feel like having more villains like this will land us in a worse situation than the one we're in now!
I'm trying to think about modern villains that stick with me though. We don't *need* skeletor, but even the nuanced villains from back then seem to be better. Take Gregory (the dragon) from dragon's dogma 1 versus dogma 2. DD1 did it way better.
I mean, the thing is, are immediately hateful and obviously evil villains even unrealistic? Just watch Russian state TV, or listen to a crypto-bro talk about anarcho-capitalism. Heck, look up Project 2025 or listen to a Christian conservative talk about why women need to have their abortion rights stripped from them. If anything, we have too much moral relativism in the world right now, and it's stopping us from calling out the obviously evil people as they cackle and bwah-ha-ha about how evil they are.
@@Johnnyb3g00d Yeah, Dragon's Dogma 2 it barely even feels like you could pretend to call The Dragon an actual villain. It's just a fated encounter. The entire end portion, you just ride on his back as he monologues to you until the fight, rather than fighting your way through to face him in combat directly (after your choice). It doesn't feel like there is any gravity to it, it just has to happen.
This obviously not even to mention his pressence prior to the end, spent most of both games not actually present, but his appearance and speech when he killed the cult leader guy is a memorable one ("Heed the cultists lesson well, for those who seek death shall find it" or something like that, I still remember vaguely), while 2 he just feels like a plot device to explain some of how the world works.
You don't even directly play him attacking your home or taking your heart, just play out the wee flashback.
Part of this is franchisation: A straight forward cackling villain can carry a story or two but not an entire perpetual continuity
Likewise the more you know about a character the more complex and shaded they get. As a series goes on and on invariably we'll see other sides to them.
Star Wars is a pretty prime example with most every character having books and comics on their backstory