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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.
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.
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.
@@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 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.
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.
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.
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".
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 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
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
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.
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 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.
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.
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
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.
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.
@@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.
Furthermore, the funny thing is that Ganondorf pretends he is above it all but it is literally because he cannot get the Triforce. He was never free, just stalled. Meanwhile Link is technically not related to any other Link and Zelda is basically a new person, being a pirate until she has to be the princess Zelda again. Link also had to prove himself a worthy Triforce wielder and Skyward Sword’s retcon does not change that. Link and Zelda have their own lives; Ganondorf never has.
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.
Add to that when someone on the writing board is that person. Or worse, one of your higher ups is lol Jokes aside, video games rarely being the complete work of one single person/writer makes it easier for things to go sideways in the "what story are we ACTUALLY telling" department and then whoops, accidentally did an eugenics! And now the narrative is implying the nazis had a point. Oh no. On the other hand, realistic villains can be pretty effective BECAUSE they can be relatable, but sending the right message across is another whole mess. And hooo boy, do some writers get lost in the sauce when making their villains "badass bitches" (gender neutral) who "slay" (and slay). (Personally, I feel like mainstream narratives in general swing towards wild extremes and generally carry heavy "life/people suck" doom and gloom vibes. Give me less villains saying "we're similar you and I, feel bad and/or join me" and more heroes saying "we're similar you and I and there's things I should work on about myself. I empathize with your feelings but holy googly moogly my dude, this is Not acceptable in any way, shape or form". Idk, life's about learning and adapting, and no Fight For Good Things can sustain itself in misery and fear in having the bad guys say one (1) sentence that sounds mildly sensible)
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
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!"
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.
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).
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".
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.
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.
I also like that if you stretch it far enough, you can link Evil Doof’s and Doof’s shared backstory as to why Evil Doof’s loss of his train made him evil. It is repeatedly shown that Doofenshmirtz’s life is a tragedy after another. He literally has no break because he was forced to be a gnome before being a teenager and it factors into one other backstory of his - the Balloony story, where he could not grab Balloony because he had to be a gnome. It is also made clear that because Doofenshmirtz had such an abusive and absurd childhood he tried to look out for Vanessa even as he is separated from her. This can imply Evil Doofenshmirtz had a similar backstory to Doofenshmirtz but he had a train as the one constant toy in his life or Evil Doofenshmirtz was very entitled for some reason. But if Evil Doofenshmirtz had a similar life to normal Doofenshmirtz, this would totally align with the Balloony story. That train was equivalent to Balloony, and he snapped knowing his one constant was gone.
@@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!"
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
"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.
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.
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.
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!"
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
@@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.
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
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"
@@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.
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).
I think its also worth bringing up a prior Yahtzee-ism about Gris, the whole "meta-metaphor" thing. These complex villains are not boring because they are complex necessarily, but because they can't also be engaged with at a surface level. The ideal villain is both the protagonist of their own story and the enthusiastic villain in ours, and raw panache is the through line to turn them into a cohesive character.
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.
@@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.
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
Nuance makes sense for more fun bosses, but you still have to want to defeat them. Like "Sure, you have a good reason for wanting to rule the world, but you still killed my dog."
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.
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 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.
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 think something that you missed a little bit is that when the joker and the riddler etc were created, the hayes code was in place meaning if you wanted to put gay people or precieved gay people in at least tv they had to be villians - leading to a lot of villians being fun and flamboyant
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.
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.
Imo Good villains don’t always need to be sympathetic, but they do need to be humanised. You can’t just have them be assholes for no reason, you need to make the audience feel “yeah I totally understand them why they ended up like this”, being able to see some of yourself in a villain can be thought-provoking, even if it’s a petty childish motivation. I think this works even for the over the top, cartoony villains because their plans are often driven by the id. Like, even if Darth Vader killing off minions when they screw up is stupid for wasting talent, you can understand on an animal impulse level the solve a problem by hitting it.
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.
Then does Zoraal Ja make more sense as the uncomplicated memorable villain? Bakool Ja Ja and Sphene are those saddled with complex stories and philosophical dilemmas. Bakool really wants to resolve the issues of the Mamool Ja in the area he lives in since they live in impossible places where nothing can grow. Sphene is the FFXIV version of GladOS, but over the kingdom of Alexandria. Zoraal Ja just wants to be better than his father, and every time he thinks he’s had some achievement there is always an asterisk. Valigarmanda is dead? Nope, it was weak from 80 years of imprisonment. Even Galool Ja Ja, his very father, is killed by Zoraal Ja himself? Nope, Galool Ja Ja is literally at half of his strength since his Head of Reason is dead and Zoraal Ja had an auto-revive suit. So his memorability is how he goes completely unreasonable in trying to surpass his father, and even his last moment kindness towards Galool Ja and Wuk Lamat do not change that he had only one goal. It explains him, but it does not make Zoraal Ja redeemable in any means even if there is a chance of saving Zoraal Ja. I do say this knowing everything about the story of Dawntrail save the Arcadion so far is contentious, but Zoraal Ja fits the bill. He is evil, has an explanation but not an excuse and no moral quandaries, and is at least memorable come his boss battle.
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
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.
5:30 As a big fan of The batman, I can say with certainty it was not trying to be realistic. At best I could accept it being a heightened version of reality. But between the elaborateness of Riddler's plan, the freaking contact lense cameras, and what I still suspect was the freaking Bane Venom serum, It does not take place in a 100% realistic world. Also Paul Dano's Riddler was an awesomely memorable and unnuanced villain. Sure he thinks he's the good guy, but he's enjoying himself way too much to be called nuanced.
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
@@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.
Non-game example, but since you mentioned Hellsing Ultimate in one of the latest podcasts: The Major from that show was an incredibly memorable and well-written villain who very much fell into both categories: He had a complex and understandable motivation... yet that motivation didn't take anyting away from him being completely insane and irredeemably evil. The "I love war" speech is absolutely brilliant writng, a piece of propaganda that almost makes you cheer for the utterly insane mass-murderers.
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.
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 about the Count Duke from En Garde? He sneers every line of dialogue, sets a massive bonfire in the middle of the city to destroy all the art making fun of him, and you have to kick him into the bonfire to set his pants on fire in order to get all the challenges. He's as archetypal as they come!
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.
There's a great line from venture bros that villainy powered by tragic backstories and personal drama gets passe real fast, especially in a world where the protagonists are perpetrating violence as bad as the villain with as little regard to the consequences. A good villain has to have STYLE.
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.
You mentioned American Arcadia, I felt that had an interesting villain. We got the contrast of her projected image and her behind-the-scenes / personal perspective
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.
Sander Cohen, Andrew Ryan, GLADOS and Wheatley. I also like how in InFamous 2, at least this is the way I played, you end up going against the person you were backing the entire game at the end.
Superheroes might be the best example of a genre where you can have a flamboyant, scenery-chewing villain that you can beat the crap out of repeatedly only for them to show up later for you to do it again next week/month/whatever. I could imagine a live service game that rotated through the vast comic book rogue's gallery of whatever franchise they have the rights to so you have arcs with satisfying conclusions until the foe escapes prison in a month or two. Sort of like the major orders in Helldivers 2, I suppose. It might be difficult to generate suitably interesting plots/adventures/monologs/new assets so regularly, and you'd probably want some side villains to keep players who dislike the flavor of the week. You could have several active villains, but give one the spotlight for a month, culminating in their defeat and imprisonment. After defeat, they will be absent from the game for a period of time to give a sense of accomplishment until they escape again. There would still be an issue of mass multiplayer games where one's individual contribution against a big-bad would be much more limited than a solo story would allow. Still, a rotating villain could at least give the illusion of progress.
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.
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.
I feel like when you ask what your favorite villain was, a lot of people's minds go to these sorts of unambiguous but delightful villains because we enjoy them *for being villains* whereas sometimes you love a villain for being *a compelling character* and the fact that they're the villain is just a detail. Kreia from KotOR2 stands out in my mind, as does Hades from his self-titled roguelike. They're both really well-written characters with a lot of depth who happen to be the villains and final bosses of their games. They're two good but different tastes.
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.
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.
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.
while we're taking shots at Soulslike villains, I think it's worth noting that imo, From Software has delivered one really solid villain in the last few years: Lord Genichiro from Sekiro. I guess he loses points for not being the actual final boss, but he has a pretty major involvement in the game's plot compared to your average soulslike antagonist, and acts like a right bastard the whole time to boot. He doesn't spend a crazy amount of time chewing the scenery or anything, but he still feels pretty theatrical with his monologues about how he will use "any manner of heresy" to defend Ashina etc etc, and since you fight him multiple times throughout the game you get the satisfaction of seeing yourself completely eclipse him in terms of strength: he's a scripted loss the first time round, then a climactic bossfight signaling the end of the early-game, and then when you face him at the end the majority of players will immediately just annihilate him. That aspect of the story makes it so cathartic when I'm kicking his ass every time
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.
I actually remember a paper I had to write back in college where I argued that not every villain even needs to be complex at all. Sometimes the villain exists to oppose the hero and that's all they need to do. Sure, a complex villain can be interesting and I have my fair share of favs that make my list BECAUSE of their complexity but there's also plenty of stories that would have fallen apart if they'd tried to make the main villain more nuanced. If your hero is the player of a game, a blank slate occupied and controlled by whoever downloaded the files to do so, then having a villain that's very decidedly their own character can work wonders for getting you personally invested in kicking their ass.
Another factor is that in a video game, you're going to be the one kicking their ass, so you need to feel some sort of emotion about it, and that emotion should not be ambivalence and a feeling of "Well, is this enemy even a bad guy?"
So to callback to a game that you did play after starting Fully Ramblomatic, I'd like to point out Persona 5 Tactica. In the Persona games, Shadows, while usually not the MAIN villains, are perfectly hateable and delight in their cruelty, but it usually comes with a character having to accept them or them becoming the catalyst for being a better person in some way. But in Tactica, Marie, while again, not the MAIN villain, is delightful and clearly having fun from her position of power. She worked really well as an antagonist and that's probably why nearly half the game takes place in her kingdom. And in the DLC chapter, I personally LOVED Jerri for everything that you just described. She's this posh evil bird with godlike powers whose only really motivation seems to be spreading cruelty and corrupting those around her into being equally psychotic. She was one of the most memorable characters for me and hilariously enough ended up being FAR more memorable than the main villain of that game, who for some reason they decided to make Jerri an underling of.
Spoilers for persona 5 and persona 4 Also reminded of Maruki and adachi Maruki is a kind man and wanted to make his mind control dictator ship by giving people what they wanted, as long as it isn't too mess up. He forms a genuine bond towards joker and wants to see his ways that stopling the pain. However he doing it by control people minds and even doing it by changing people goals. He memorable because we did get to know what he went down this path. Adachi in persona 4 is a genuine bastard. Sure he made have nunaces like how got bad luck from the system and how hollow it can be. However hks response is killing women who turn down his advancments and starting a apocalypse in inaba because it might be interesting for him. His relationship with Yu is more "cat and mouse" or "2 enemies that like to hate each other". Also Adachi has shown his moment of chewing the scenry and milking cow. Ironically his "nuance moments" makes him more scary and evil. Again both Maruki and adachi work for they are doing.
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.
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.
I think part of it is that a greater cultural sensitivity to mental health makes writers more wary of having "he's mad!" be the motivation for a villain.
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.
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!?!"
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."
Pokey and Kefka are my most memorable RPG villains, and they were from the 90s. Cackletta was pretty memorable too, but even then she's from a game that's over twenty years old.
Heck, even the next most memorable villain, Fawful, was once Cackletta’s assistant in Superstar Saga. The next most memorable villain is Antasma, but his role is to be the villain that hides how effective Bowser has become. After that, it would be Elder Princess Shroob, but not because she is written well - it’s more so that in the international releases of Partners In Time, she has a massively inflated health pool so defeating her is a marathon. Everything else from the Mario and Luigi series is middling at best though with the caveat that that series is meant to be silly adventures first and deep stories second.
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.
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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
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 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".
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.
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.
That CEO joke at the end was more grounded in reality than we all thought...
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.
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
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.
@@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.
Furthermore, the funny thing is that Ganondorf pretends he is above it all but it is literally because he cannot get the Triforce. He was never free, just stalled. Meanwhile Link is technically not related to any other Link and Zelda is basically a new person, being a pirate until she has to be the princess Zelda again. Link also had to prove himself a worthy Triforce wielder and Skyward Sword’s retcon does not change that. Link and Zelda have their own lives; Ganondorf never has.
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 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.
Add to that when someone on the writing board is that person. Or worse, one of your higher ups is lol
Jokes aside, video games rarely being the complete work of one single person/writer makes it easier for things to go sideways in the "what story are we ACTUALLY telling" department and then whoops, accidentally did an eugenics! And now the narrative is implying the nazis had a point. Oh no.
On the other hand, realistic villains can be pretty effective BECAUSE they can be relatable, but sending the right message across is another whole mess.
And hooo boy, do some writers get lost in the sauce when making their villains "badass bitches" (gender neutral) who "slay" (and slay).
(Personally, I feel like mainstream narratives in general swing towards wild extremes and generally carry heavy "life/people suck" doom and gloom vibes. Give me less villains saying "we're similar you and I, feel bad and/or join me" and more heroes saying "we're similar you and I and there's things I should work on about myself. I empathize with your feelings but holy googly moogly my dude, this is Not acceptable in any way, shape or form". Idk, life's about learning and adapting, and no Fight For Good Things can sustain itself in misery and fear in having the bad guys say one (1) sentence that sounds mildly sensible)
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!!!
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.
6:41 that has aged fantastically in hindsight
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
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".
My favourite trope is "I used to be nuanced until my backstory finished and my villainy began."
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.
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."
I also like that if you stretch it far enough, you can link Evil Doof’s and Doof’s shared backstory as to why Evil Doof’s loss of his train made him evil.
It is repeatedly shown that Doofenshmirtz’s life is a tragedy after another. He literally has no break because he was forced to be a gnome before being a teenager and it factors into one other backstory of his - the Balloony story, where he could not grab Balloony because he had to be a gnome. It is also made clear that because Doofenshmirtz had such an abusive and absurd childhood he tried to look out for Vanessa even as he is separated from her. This can imply Evil Doofenshmirtz had a similar backstory to Doofenshmirtz but he had a train as the one constant toy in his life or Evil Doofenshmirtz was very entitled for some reason. But if Evil Doofenshmirtz had a similar life to normal Doofenshmirtz, this would totally align with the Balloony story. That train was equivalent to Balloony, and he snapped knowing his one constant was gone.
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
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
6:41 is weirdly topical these days lmao
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.
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.
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.
Magnificent Bastard is the trope that seems to fit the best for your description.
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
I was waiting for your comment regarding Tango Gameworks closure, and when I clicked on this video I got exactly what I needed.
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.
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).
Thanks!
I think its also worth bringing up a prior Yahtzee-ism about Gris, the whole "meta-metaphor" thing. These complex villains are not boring because they are complex necessarily, but because they can't also be engaged with at a surface level. The ideal villain is both the protagonist of their own story and the enthusiastic villain in ours, and raw panache is the through line to turn them into a cohesive character.
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.
@@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.
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
Nuance makes sense for more fun bosses, but you still have to want to defeat them. Like "Sure, you have a good reason for wanting to rule the world, but you still killed my dog."
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.
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 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.
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 think something that you missed a little bit is that when the joker and the riddler etc were created, the hayes code was in place meaning if you wanted to put gay people or precieved gay people in at least tv they had to be villians - leading to a lot of villians being fun and flamboyant
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.
What was that about Ivory Towers and CEOs dying? Hm.
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.
Imo Good villains don’t always need to be sympathetic, but they do need to be humanised.
You can’t just have them be assholes for no reason, you need to make the audience feel “yeah I totally understand them why they ended up like this”, being able to see some of yourself in a villain can be thought-provoking, even if it’s a petty childish motivation.
I think this works even for the over the top, cartoony villains because their plans are often driven by the id.
Like, even if Darth Vader killing off minions when they screw up is stupid for wasting talent, you can understand on an animal impulse level the solve a problem by
hitting it.
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.
Then does Zoraal Ja make more sense as the uncomplicated memorable villain? Bakool Ja Ja and Sphene are those saddled with complex stories and philosophical dilemmas. Bakool really wants to resolve the issues of the Mamool Ja in the area he lives in since they live in impossible places where nothing can grow. Sphene is the FFXIV version of GladOS, but over the kingdom of Alexandria. Zoraal Ja just wants to be better than his father, and every time he thinks he’s had some achievement there is always an asterisk. Valigarmanda is dead? Nope, it was weak from 80 years of imprisonment. Even Galool Ja Ja, his very father, is killed by Zoraal Ja himself? Nope, Galool Ja Ja is literally at half of his strength since his Head of Reason is dead and Zoraal Ja had an auto-revive suit. So his memorability is how he goes completely unreasonable in trying to surpass his father, and even his last moment kindness towards Galool Ja and Wuk Lamat do not change that he had only one goal. It explains him, but it does not make Zoraal Ja redeemable in any means even if there is a chance of saving Zoraal Ja.
I do say this knowing everything about the story of Dawntrail save the Arcadion so far is contentious, but Zoraal Ja fits the bill. He is evil, has an explanation but not an excuse and no moral quandaries, and is at least memorable come his boss battle.
I love how the koopas are represented by the dog sprite with a shell
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~
Second Wind, Wow, this made my day brighter! Thank you!
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.
5:30 As a big fan of The batman, I can say with certainty it was not trying to be realistic. At best I could accept it being a heightened version of reality. But between the elaborateness of Riddler's plan, the freaking contact lense cameras, and what I still suspect was the freaking Bane Venom serum, It does not take place in a 100% realistic world. Also Paul Dano's Riddler was an awesomely memorable and unnuanced villain. Sure he thinks he's the good guy, but he's enjoying himself way too much to be called nuanced.
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.
Non-game example, but since you mentioned Hellsing Ultimate in one of the latest podcasts:
The Major from that show was an incredibly memorable and well-written villain who very much fell into both categories:
He had a complex and understandable motivation... yet that motivation didn't take anyting away from him being completely insane and irredeemably evil.
The "I love war" speech is absolutely brilliant writng, a piece of propaganda that almost makes you cheer for the utterly insane mass-murderers.
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!
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 about the Count Duke from En Garde? He sneers every line of dialogue, sets a massive bonfire in the middle of the city to destroy all the art making fun of him, and you have to kick him into the bonfire to set his pants on fire in order to get all the challenges. He's as archetypal as they come!
I think Baldur's Gate 3 lands the memorable villains, but it's most memorable villain is probably the only optional one.
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.
There's a great line from venture bros that villainy powered by tragic backstories and personal drama gets passe real fast, especially in a world where the protagonists are perpetrating violence as bad as the villain with as little regard to the consequences. A good villain has to have STYLE.
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.
You mentioned American Arcadia, I felt that had an interesting villain. We got the contrast of her projected image and her behind-the-scenes / personal perspective
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.
Sander Cohen, Andrew Ryan, GLADOS and Wheatley.
I also like how in InFamous 2, at least this is the way I played, you end up going against the person you were backing the entire game at the end.
Superheroes might be the best example of a genre where you can have a flamboyant, scenery-chewing villain that you can beat the crap out of repeatedly only for them to show up later for you to do it again next week/month/whatever.
I could imagine a live service game that rotated through the vast comic book rogue's gallery of whatever franchise they have the rights to so you have arcs with satisfying conclusions until the foe escapes prison in a month or two. Sort of like the major orders in Helldivers 2, I suppose.
It might be difficult to generate suitably interesting plots/adventures/monologs/new assets so regularly, and you'd probably want some side villains to keep players who dislike the flavor of the week. You could have several active villains, but give one the spotlight for a month, culminating in their defeat and imprisonment. After defeat, they will be absent from the game for a period of time to give a sense of accomplishment until they escape again.
There would still be an issue of mass multiplayer games where one's individual contribution against a big-bad would be much more limited than a solo story would allow. Still, a rotating villain could at least give the illusion of progress.
I always love these vids, but I laughed quite loudly at the last line delivery. Well done Yahtz.
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.
Absolute facts; the best villains truly are the ones that are charismatic in their blatant villainess.
Speaking of dramatic rooftop sword fights in the rain...where the hell is Vergil from the Devil May Cry Special Edition series?
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.
Yahtzee 7 months ahead of his time with the CEO joke
I feel like when you ask what your favorite villain was, a lot of people's minds go to these sorts of unambiguous but delightful villains because we enjoy them *for being villains* whereas sometimes you love a villain for being *a compelling character* and the fact that they're the villain is just a detail. Kreia from KotOR2 stands out in my mind, as does Hades from his self-titled roguelike. They're both really well-written characters with a lot of depth who happen to be the villains and final bosses of their games.
They're two good but different tastes.
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.
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.
while we're taking shots at Soulslike villains, I think it's worth noting that imo, From Software has delivered one really solid villain in the last few years: Lord Genichiro from Sekiro. I guess he loses points for not being the actual final boss, but he has a pretty major involvement in the game's plot compared to your average soulslike antagonist, and acts like a right bastard the whole time to boot.
He doesn't spend a crazy amount of time chewing the scenery or anything, but he still feels pretty theatrical with his monologues about how he will use "any manner of heresy" to defend Ashina etc etc, and since you fight him multiple times throughout the game you get the satisfaction of seeing yourself completely eclipse him in terms of strength: he's a scripted loss the first time round, then a climactic bossfight signaling the end of the early-game, and then when you face him at the end the majority of players will immediately just annihilate him. That aspect of the story makes it so cathartic when I'm kicking his ass every time
I think Yahtz needs to go see The Batman just so that comparison he came up with is fully accountable.
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.
I actually remember a paper I had to write back in college where I argued that not every villain even needs to be complex at all. Sometimes the villain exists to oppose the hero and that's all they need to do. Sure, a complex villain can be interesting and I have my fair share of favs that make my list BECAUSE of their complexity but there's also plenty of stories that would have fallen apart if they'd tried to make the main villain more nuanced. If your hero is the player of a game, a blank slate occupied and controlled by whoever downloaded the files to do so, then having a villain that's very decidedly their own character can work wonders for getting you personally invested in kicking their ass.
Another factor is that in a video game, you're going to be the one kicking their ass, so you need to feel some sort of emotion about it, and that emotion should not be ambivalence and a feeling of "Well, is this enemy even a bad guy?"
So to callback to a game that you did play after starting Fully Ramblomatic, I'd like to point out Persona 5 Tactica. In the Persona games, Shadows, while usually not the MAIN villains, are perfectly hateable and delight in their cruelty, but it usually comes with a character having to accept them or them becoming the catalyst for being a better person in some way. But in Tactica, Marie, while again, not the MAIN villain, is delightful and clearly having fun from her position of power. She worked really well as an antagonist and that's probably why nearly half the game takes place in her kingdom.
And in the DLC chapter, I personally LOVED Jerri for everything that you just described. She's this posh evil bird with godlike powers whose only really motivation seems to be spreading cruelty and corrupting those around her into being equally psychotic. She was one of the most memorable characters for me and hilariously enough ended up being FAR more memorable than the main villain of that game, who for some reason they decided to make Jerri an underling of.
Spoilers for persona 5 and persona 4
Also reminded of Maruki and adachi
Maruki is a kind man and wanted to make his mind control dictator ship by giving people what they wanted, as long as it isn't too mess up. He forms a genuine bond towards joker and wants to see his ways that stopling the pain. However he doing it by control people minds and even doing it by changing people goals. He memorable because we did get to know what he went down this path.
Adachi in persona 4 is a genuine bastard. Sure he made have nunaces like how got bad luck from the system and how hollow it can be. However hks response is killing women who turn down his advancments and starting a apocalypse in inaba because it might be interesting for him. His relationship with Yu is more "cat and mouse" or "2 enemies that like to hate each other". Also Adachi has shown his moment of chewing the scenry and milking cow. Ironically his "nuance moments" makes him more scary and evil.
Again both Maruki and adachi work for they are doing.
Kane from the Command & Conquer games was a fun villain. A hammy mad scientist and cult leader with an air of mystery around him. I miss that series.
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.
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.
I think part of it is that a greater cultural sensitivity to mental health makes writers more wary of having "he's mad!" be the motivation for a villain.
3:11 Sorry, a manne-what now?
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
What about Unicorn Overlord from this year? It had the villain team of Galerius and Baltro, and I found them enjoyably hammy and memorable.
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.
Pokey and Kefka are my most memorable RPG villains, and they were from the 90s. Cackletta was pretty memorable too, but even then she's from a game that's over twenty years old.
Heck, even the next most memorable villain, Fawful, was once Cackletta’s assistant in Superstar Saga.
The next most memorable villain is Antasma, but his role is to be the villain that hides how effective Bowser has become. After that, it would be Elder Princess Shroob, but not because she is written well - it’s more so that in the international releases of Partners In Time, she has a massively inflated health pool so defeating her is a marathon. Everything else from the Mario and Luigi series is middling at best though with the caveat that that series is meant to be silly adventures first and deep stories second.
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.