I still like and consider Xehanort one of the best and biggest villains of KH. I know this is from your point of view and i respect your opinion but still i totally disagree with all those arguments and still preffer him the way he is in franchise even now. He is not the worst video game villain of all time. Kyric from Sonic Boom is the real worst of them all.
Josh im also a fan of Kingdom Hearts, and i know its story is a bt confusing but still i enjoy the main villain Xehanort, lore, battles, his impact, i don't see him as a bad villain, quite the opposite.
Fun fact - in Pokemon's manga, the energy crisis IS actually imminent, and though he pulls the whole '1000 years from now' line there too, it's revealed that it was him playing the villain because he wanted to solve it as soon as possible. He knows damn well it's a horrible plan, but he's more than willing to take the fall for pulling it off because in a few more years, there wouldn't be any more power - and society would be ripping itself apart. Yeah, it's stupid how he did it - but at least the manga pulls it off better than the games ever did.
@@GhostGuy99 More just pointing out that the manga expanded on the stupidity of the plot of the games and justified it a hell of a lot better. Less of an external source and more of a retelling that improves on the source material.
I was actually about to point that out too and apparently the reason he disowned bede is because he didn't want bede's name to be trashed like his would be if it was ever found out rose was behind everything they also brought up the darkest day plot earlier in the manga than the games too overall it's plot was still a bit stupid but was done a bit better there I think the anime did it a bit better too (key word think because I don't remember too much about it there)
I will always maintain that there’s nothing wrong with making a villain evil for the sake of it. But good writers know to make up for the lack of depth with entertainment. These villains must bring a certain degree of energy and personality to their actions. Great writers give both depth and entertainment factor to their villains, and that’s what makes them great. That’s why one of my top 3 is Handsome Jack
It sometimes helps if the villain is completely self aware what they doing is evil yet owns it and even mocks the protagonist/hero for trying to redeem them, a good example is Frieza from DBZ, he's willing to work with Goku for a common cause in the Tournament of Power arc yet when Frieza gets a get out of Hell card with a resurrection as a reward for participating in the tournament to save universe 7 (Goku and Frieza's home realm) he straight up admits he won't give up his evil ways and afterwards rebuilds his empire then terrorizes universe 7 once more.
Yep that is why I prefer villains like Joker or King Ghidorah and Endgame Thanos over villains like Infinity War Thanos. I feel a good villain can be an almost total monster but have one or two moments to show they aren't completely evil also works. For example, in Breaking Bad, The Cousins were great villains and regularly kill random people in the name of no witnesses, but when they test out the ballistic vests they buy from an arms dealer and by shooting him but when the vest saves, his life, they pay and leave.
For every Heath Ledger’s Joker, we get a Jared Leto, Villains in stories always leave an impression on the characters and viewers, some good, some terrible, these represent the latter.
@@ΑΡΙΣΤΟΤΕΛΗΣΛΑΧΑΝΟΠΟΥΛΟΣ No we did. A good actor would still deliver a good performance despite the editing. Henry Cavill still managed to play Superman despite a bad director and getting most of his scenes cut.
To be a little fair to Xehanort, from what I've read, part of his motivation issue was the result of a mistranslation between Japanese and English. His goal in the English version where he wants to bring "balance" to Light and Dark? In the original Japanese version of 3, his goal was ACTUALLY to restart the whole world from scratch to end the war of Light and Dark entirely. I'm guessing something got lost in translation, hence the goal we got in the English version.
@@floricel_112 So? At least one sounds more cohesive for a villain who just wants to end it all and remake the universe in his own image instead of "I'm actually a good guy on the side of light, guys, I actually hate darkness, light is way past cooler, darkness is for lamers!"
My biggest problem with the translation is it wouldn't make sense. Balance? Darkness is just shown to corrupt, kill, and destroy worlds. Meanwhile light is always portrayed as good, except when they try to take down darkness....the thing killing everyone...
They stole what could've been a great story for Zacian and Zamazenta just so Gamefreak can vent on critics by turning them into a character. Gotta love it. Flare, Macro Cosmos and them are the three villains the writers were butting heads on who should go on the list, and I'm the only one who voted for them.
Uggh, they were SO incredibly annoying. Going through the post story in Sword and Shield was SO grating because of them. I didn't even MIND Macro Cosmos, but those two were the absolute WORST.
What's funny is XY (the first 3D mainline Pokémon titles) had a far more cohesive postgame story with Looker and the remains of Team Flare without actually involving any legendary Pokémon and unlike Gen 8 didn't have the benefit of DLC nor an enhanced version like Gen 7. It makes you think.
the villians in gen 8 in general are probably the worst pokemon villains. and the fact that they make swordward and shielbert even worse than rose is an accomblishment in itself
To be fair to Rose, he is FAR better in the manga. He loves galar to the point that even if it's 1000 years in the future he still wants to help the future generations in the problem. Hell, he even confronted and fought Eternatus HIMSELF after the first plan with those two noble jerks failed. Even after he turned himself in he had Oleana and his people support the heroes with the problem. EDIT: Read more of the Manga and apparently it wasn't that it would collapse in 1000 in years, it would already be over by then because Galarian society would collapse in 20-30 YEARS! In 1000 ALL of humans and pokemon would be destroyed. Since they beat Eternatus and are now able to get more energy, HE WAS ACTUALLY F**KING RIGHT! HIS PLAN TO SAVE GALAR WORKED!
Tbf the Pokémon manga gets to have far more creative liberties to expand on world building as well as be more detailed on the storytelling due to being not a major focus of the franchise (unlike the games, anime and most importantly the merchandise). A blessing in disguise tbh.
@@saiyanscaris6530 your probably better off going to bulbapedia for info like that than serebii, cause serebii from my experience seems to be more hard focused on the games themselves than pokemon in general.
38:06 No, our player character wasn't Xehanort. We were led to believe that initially, but the end of Dark Road shows that our player character reincarnated into the elder who RAISED Xehanort on Destiny Islands
To be fair, it wasn't well portrayed that was the case until the end of Dark Road. So for about a year people were left dealing with poor foreshadowing.
@@thedothackerkeyblademaster Oh wow it has already been a year since it's finished up. I don't think it is right to discredit that confusion from still existing though. It was not a good way to convey that information.
@@ShadowEclipex I'm not discrediting anyone for being confused in the first place (hell, given Nomura, that was probably intentional), I'm criticizing a rant for containing misinformation, when the correct information has been available for a year. Even if Josh didn't play the Dark Road finale or watch it on YT, a quick trip to the KH wiki would've cleared this up.
Villains tend to be fascinating with a good backstory, motivation, or just being a very good at being bad job mentality. Not to mention they have to be memorable for the right reasons. When they're not however it ruins the emersion whether they too cliche or just boring overall.
Yep. There are so many ways to make Vilains interesting. You can make an just evil for the sake of it Villain who is interesting to watch like Jack Horner from the movie Puss in Boots: the last wish. Or you can make them Funny and loveable, like doctor Doofenschmitz from Phineas and Ferb serie. There si a wide spectrum of posiibilitis and one might be able to find a completly new one that hasnt ben used yet.
Back during the build-up to Sword and Shield’s release, I had my own predictions for how the Rose villain twist could’ve happened. It revolves around the whole Pokémon League was corrupted by money. All they care about isn’t the battles themselves, but more so the profits they own from the publicity and sponsorships. Leon is mentioned everywhere that he’s “The Undefeatable Champion”. That’s his brand, the identity that has earned him many sponsorships and money for the league, as shown by his cape literally coated in sponsors. And as a result Rose may have paid off previous challengers to intentionally lose and allow Leon to keep his title. Leon wouldn’t have been aware of this however, inflating his ego and giving Hop a fake hero to look up to. Spikemuth would’ve had a reason as to why it’s so run down and poor. Its lack of a Dynamax spot makes its battles uninteresting to the league. I mean, how can they bring in a crowd compared to the other cities? So all the league’s funding and publicity goes elsewhere, and the lack of tourism for Spikemuth caused it to crumble and do what it could to get by. With just a motivational change, not only could Rose improve as a villain significantly, but everyone else gets more interesting arcs as a result. Hop has to deal with his perfect brother being a fraud. Leon feels guilty for being used and goes to prove that he can be a real champion without Rose. Marnie has a sympathetic and rootable reason to go against Rose and resent him. And maybe the game can have an ending where someone (I’m not sure who) works to take over the league from scratch and work to fix Rose’s greedy mistakes and run true honest Pokémon battles. Heck it even works with the sports theme because corruption in important soccer matches where people are paid off DOES happen! Why didn’t this happen again??
I'm still floored on how SWSH managed to bomb their story. SM dealt with an abusive parent too obsessed in her own goals to properly take care of her Children. XY had a king who committed mass murder to end the war, and then had to deal with the consequences. SV engages in cover ups (admittedly only briefly, but still!) and the neglect of one's own child and the ramifications that ensue, up and including the Professor's downfall and said child almost being left with no one to turn to for emotional support. And Pokemon fans put Gen V on a pedestal for good reason. And stuck in between all this, is an impatient, ill-prepared idiot. Honestly Rose, not waiting was the worst thing you've done. Otherwise, your worst crime would've been manipulating Bede to your own ends. But no, the Pokemon Company decrees that there needs to be a big climax ever since Gen III. And unlike AZ, this is a legacy you can't redeem yourself from. And don't get me started on the postgame and those buffoons who dare call themselves antagonists! Honestly, Bede, Opal, and Piers were the saving graces of that mess of a so called a story, in my opinion. The DLC is exempt though. I don't care for the Dojo, but Peony, Peonia, and Calyrex were fun.
That would have been absolutely incredible. It really is amazing just how much gen 8's story was botched. That combined with the whole dexit thing has honestly landed SwSh at the bottom of pokemon games for me. Thankfully the writing seems to be a rare miss as most other recent titles and spin offs had pretty solid stories. Even the SwSh DLC was actually pretty good story wise (I never expected to like Calyrex that much).
Maybe that was the plan, but someone higher up quashed it because it would've essentially been commentary against the Pokémon franchise itself. Or maybe all that stuff's legit suggestion of the franchise losing its way alongside the big story Sw/Sh did get.
A friend of mine had this exact same suggestion. He even said that maybe Rose could tell the player to lose to Leon on purpose and unleashes Eternatus as a big "fuck you" for not losing to Leon. But nope. Apparently 1,000 years is too soon so he decided to unleash a cosmic radioactive dragon...and nearly destroyed the world.
38:09 no he wasn't. Most people of the fandom (including me) was assuming this. He is a descendant of Ephemer. The reincarnation of the player character was the guy in the blue robe, who raised Xehanort. This was explained at the ending in Dark Road.
Kingdom Hearts is why writing on improve is not a good idea if you plan to stretch out the series, on the same villain. If they wanted to make Xehanort sympathetic, they could have used the remakes to change the story of birth by sleep so that it actually shows the Darkness in a sympathetic light. Simply use Maleficent to goad Xehanort and Vantus into being as bad as they were by playing on their fears, with Xehanort seeing too much of himself to realize that she isn't just an outcast who has dark powers. It lets Malificent be the villain she was meant to be, while showing how Xehanort blinds himself to the flaws of people who use the power of Darkness in the same manner he claims Eraqus does with light.
im starting to think the Kingdom Hearts franchise is ending up like how josh said Xehanort ended up A loved franchise with weight and gravitas, slowly ended up as a joke
One thing I want to say is that Tsumugi's actions in the last trial in V3 were not the reason the outside world chose to end the killing games it was Shuichi's rebellion against the killing game and convincing the others not to vote and him directly countering the outside world controlling Kibo that made them change
the problem is that setting up a killing game that reveals the truth about danganronpa automatically gives the main cast and by extension the public the means to stop it.
Tsumugi before her death makes a small confession about her being "cosplaycat criminal" where there might be reasons why she is theorically doing things that in retrospect might not make sense logically. Though I might have a feeling Joshscorcher is part of the group of not liking V3's ending.
You know Sly 4 screwed up when a fanfic author pulled off it better than a whole team of writers! Paradox has a time machine; so therefor he can blackmail all his employees into submission by threatening to go back in time and murder someone they love. Therefor make Penelope a tragic villain forced to fight the love of her life to keep him from dying on the operating table.
PARADOX WAS GONNA KILL BENTLY MOMENTS AFTER HE HAD BEEN CRIPPLED...…. damn if that happened we could have said that all sly cooper villains are insane madmen
My money is on The Calypso Twins from Borderlands 3. With so much potential of not only being Sirens, but being the twin children of the first vault hunter, their personalities came off as cringy, annoying, and overall unlikable as opposed to the charismatic, manipulative genius that was Handsome Jack.
If I remember a single line from the Calypso Twins, it's because it was painfully groan-worthy. "Haha, streaming, social media, get it? How do you do fellow kids?"
Josh, the ending of Dark Road clarifies that Xehanort isn't us but the person who took him from his mother and looked after him on Destiny Islands until dying rather unceremoniously. Because Xehanort says he has dreams of our character and then makes the comment that the person in the robe looks like them.
He IS, however, Ephemer's great-grandson, which... I'm not sure what that actually adds beyond making his journal comment about Eraqus being a blueblood ironic.
It’s unbelievable that people are getting sick and tired of the constant retcons of Xehanort, a video game villain who carries the immortality of Lord Voldemort, the immense power and calculative mind of Emperor Palpatine and the world balance between Light and Darkness motivation of the MCU version of Thanos.
Tsumugi could’ve been much better if she was like Kaede- genuinely helpful and supporting, only to pull the rug at the last minute to reveal it was all an act. The idea that one of the survivors is the mastermind had SO MUCH potential.
@@shannonlewis2022 I have always felt this way towards Tsumugi. It doesn't help that it was severely predictable, considering her whole cosplay allergy thing... She just doesn't have the same surprise kick as Junko, like not even close. Thankfully Monokuma's characterization is more or less still excellent, but DRV3's ending just entirely causes the story to fall apart because it has to pull a lot of plot convenience out its ass and spend most of it on a character that isn't remotely as developed as the others. And then the ultimate twist which had no build-up either... Absolute ASS class of writing, and I'm shocked it came from a series with that much prestige. They could have just written it as an AU and played up Tsumugi more; after all, the cast is probably the most fleshed out we got of all DR games minus her.
Spoilers for Berseria And on top of that, the main protagonist is 'The Lord of Calamity' And they are also related and it's actually played for the tragedy that it is.
@@Hilversumborn yeah spoilers: Velvet isn't just a "Lord of Calamity" she's the reason people like Heldalf are called "lord of Calamity", it's also kinda amusing that the honestly kinda silly overdramatic title is a product of the rumour mill.
@@IliyaMoroumetz Well no "third" game was made so the good Shepard did not have a chance to save her. Also 1000 years are not enough for the changes seen!!!
I agree that Tsumugi could have been way better if she had been tired of the whole thing and wanted to end it by just pulling the curtain back and attempting to break the remaining characters. Hell, when she tells K1-B0 that his inner voice is the Audience answering survey questions, why not drive the knife even further by telling Shuichi that his actions aren’t even his own but the actions of a Player from another world? That way she could spit on Kaede’s grave *and* mock Shuichi’s efforts to improve as a person and become a better detective. That way when he goes into his “I can’t fight for a lie” breakdown, he’d go even further because how can he do a thing if his actions are all the result of someone else essentially puppeteering him? Hell, she could have even undermined the characters as they solve cases with some weird continuous mentioning of “it’ll all be worth nothing in the end or something like that.”
Could be both. Has elements heavily inspired from Danganronpa but wants to make a completely new world, new characters, and new way to solve cases. @@dubstepbee6892
If you remember Tsumugi's final confession of being a "cosplaycat criminal" before she dies you could see theoretically some explanations on why there are inconsistencies in the last class trial of V3.
that is even more retarded alternative since that would be meta and it isnt meant to be meta this is like the inferior trash thinking undertales determination(ability to save and reload and reset) is actually meta thing instead of a superpower because its treated as more of a superpower that was based on a meta concept reminder for Tsumugi and Audience of that world Danganronpa is a fictional world this doesnt mean all the stuff from previous games were fake/fictional they were in fact real to that universe heck what you suggest actually fucks with the message fiction can affect people and change you still felt something to that lie/fiction
I guess the biggest indictment of Lorithia as a villain is that when the entry settled on her, my reaction was "Who?" despite playing Xenoblade only a couple years ago.
Chairman Rose frustrates me because of exactly what you said; the pieces are there. I can see a CEO having a ridiculously stupid idea to preserve humanity or keep an eternal legacy. And hell, summoning a gigantic alien Pokémon that might as well be a continent-wide disaster is definitely impressive. But you know what he reminds me of? Gnome underpants logic. In an early South Park episode, gnomes steal underwear from the citizens of South Park for profit. Their plan is literally Step 1: steal, Step 2: ???, Step 3: Profit. Same thing here, but it’s *the* dynamax Pokémon which will apparently lead to preventing an energy crisis.
He could have been corrupt and pushed for dynamax energy, even "convincing" leaders and challengers on certain tasks, such as denounce another leader, or even throw a match to keep the status quo. It would have been interesting and somewhat realistic, but nope, he had to be someone with a plan that is comparable to either Aqua/Magma in Pokémon, or APEX in Godzilla vs Kong. The latter corporation having the bright idea of using one of the heads of freaking Ghidorah as a neural basis for Mechagodzilla.
Well on the plus side we got a difficult battle of that overly powerful legendary Pokemon and is able to catch it afterwards because of his screw up in the end, sooooooooo a win I guess!
I don't even think it would be that hard to fix his motivations, either. I even wrote a villain speech for him: "They say we have one thousand years now, but in 50 years they'll be saying we only have 500, give it a century and it'll only be 100, then 50, then 20, then 10. Soon, we'll be at death's door all because no one was willing to do the right thing! I'm not about to let that happen, not when I have this once-in-a-lifetime chance." This would require a bit of a rewrite, perhaps that the opportunity to summon Eternatus only comes about once every X amount of years and happens to coincide with the championship tournament. He tries to use his influence to delay the tournament in order to gather Eternatus' power, but no one listens to him since the problem he wants to solve is so far off. This greatly frustrates him, as even though someone down the line might be able to summon Eternatus later on, the fact that no one in the present day is taking this seriously proves that we as a species are near suicidally short-sighted. That we always pawn our problems off on someone else (perhaps he could even draw a parallel with how much work we force onto our pokemon, but maybe that's too much like Team Plasma). He decides to hijack the tournament in order to solve the problem himself, no matter the cost (and the cost is great, people aren't supposed to be around when Eternatus arrives!). Although we stop him and fight back Eternatus (for now), his point still stands, and we're left pondering if we should be taking the energy crisis more seriously even if the consequences only mete out far after our lifetime. It would provide commentary on humanity's potential for great good and (in his mind) great evil, as well as an indictment of human nature. After all, the energy crisis is essentially an allegory for global warming. For all our advancements, we need to be careful that we aren't making the world a worse place lest we ruin what's left. He could point out that we have no idea just how far we can go, citing how far we have come since the stone age. His criticism of our tendency to kick the can down the road in regards to important issues is also dead accurate. While his solution to these problems is extreme, he clearly has a point. Yet, he retains his villainous edge for how little he believes in humanity and pokemon as a whole. He fails to take into account how many problems we have with our ingenuity. The energy crisis, though harrowing, is just another one of those problems, and his willingness to sacrifice others in order to be the one to "save the world" definitely paints him with a bit of an undeserved savior complex. Even if it takes a rewrite of the plot, I would like this a lot more.
the thing that frustrates me more then anything about chairman rose is how he was begging leon for help with this supposed energy crisis. and you now what? Leon said "if you're really concerned, then sure. i'll help you with this energy crisis. let's just do it after this major battle everyone is looking forward to TOMOROW then we can work on it." chairman Rose couldn't wait 1 DAY to help solve a crisis that's not going to happen for 1000 years
@@Ori_Kohav i still say the authorization system could have easily just been "hey, samus. you work in a team now. could you tone down your weapons so you do not accidentally kill my squad?"
The Pokémon Adventures manga actually fixed Rose. Characters suspect him much earlier in the SwSh saga, his plans are a bit furthered (even including Sordward and Shielbert who are actually competent villains in the manga), and most importantly - the final chapter reveals that his whole "in 1000 years" spiel was an intentional mislead by him; the energy crisis was actually due to happen much sooner with "1000 years from now" being when the destruction of Galar would be OVER. Rose purposely hid that information to prevent a mass panic, while also making sure to disassociate his plans from everyone else in Macro Cosmos so that all of the blame for The Darkest Day would fall on himself.
One correction on the Xehannort thing. He isn't reincarnation of the player character from the mobile game. His CARETAKER was the reincarnation of the protagonist from the mobile game. Still super convoluted, but at least it isn't forcing the player to be the main villain of the series. (we just raised him, so yay our poor parenting!?) edit: I guess I could of held off on this comment based on how many other people brought this up.
I can see why Anankos(Fire Emblem Fates) wasn't there for design and fight. What he does to the other paths and how little screen time is there beyond ONE mention is infuriating. Making Garon even worse(Impressive!), taking up a fight with characters we'd love/hate to go through(Corrin's parents for example) and to make the Jagen of the game(Gunther) a twist villain that made even less sense....WHY?! Also being behind EVERYTHING like the Valla curse, that has more plot armor than most protagonists.
Let's not forget the rotten cherry on top of this burnt cake of FE Fate is even with the badly presented story, you still need to buy DLC for certain plot points to be explained aka preying on sunken costs. You could say there was an awakening of greed when FE stopped being a niche franchise outside the Smash community.
@@lynxfresh5214 intelligent systems, said the reason that the game has branching pathways is because they felt it was the only way to appeal to everyone. However, it also kind of made things more difficult on themselves, it shows.
It's very clear that selling the game in three pieces with one piece not even being physical was very much a higher-up choice. They straight up made the physical special edition that contains everything on the card, so they very clearly already developed it with this level of compatibility in mind, aswell as it physically being possible.
How ironic that one of Josh's favorite franchises that his talks about so much to death ends up having the main villain topping the list as his worst villain. (Though can you really blame him?)
Not really, Josh may call himself a KH fan but some of his opinions about it are... questionable. To the point where you start to wonder if he's really a fan at all or just likes the cool boss fights and music.
@@DarkOverlord96 There are 2 types of Kingdom Hearts fans: those who play the games for the story, characters, lore and worldbuilding, and those who play for the epic boss fights, kickass music and fun gameplay.
@@DarkOverlord96 It's possible to be an early fan and then become disillusioned with the franchise as it goes on. And goodness knows KH has made that very easy.
The honest problem with video game villains is that they tend to be saved for the very end, yet without any cutscenes throughout the game to showcase their villainy with the risk of making them flat and generic without proper characterisation.
19:22-19:25 i’m gonna hold you to that Josh. As much as I agree that Le Paradox deserves to be on this list, you could write an entire video essay about why Penelope being a villain in Sly 4 makes no sense! It genuinely made me angry the first time I played the game! Her boss fight was kinda fun though.
Is it crazy to say that even videogame itself anknowledge itself with those two things? Penelope's betrayal Bentley: Wow, and I thought you were smart. Le Paradox himself. Sly: Um, an idiot! You had it made! You could have been the biggest thief of all time, but you had to target my ancestors and blow your own cover! You exposed your operation because of you ego! No Cooper would've done that! And for the record, can you really say you stole the canes? Seems like your "friends" did all the real work!
@@ivanacurna6577 It doesn't change the fact that, regarding Penelope right now, some clown in the writing team thought it was smart to make her a money hungry backstabber... even though the previous game has shown not only the opposite, but also gave... how many hints of potential betrayal? ZERO. And as proven by ALL the previous games, Bentley would rather use his smarts for the things he wants to do: Helping Sly with heists using his technological know-how and his smarts, just as much as Murray would help Sly with anything involving more strength. Would his inventions earn him money? Yeah, but it wouldn't be what he WANTS to do. And Penelope NORMALLY should be aware of this. Heck, someone once told me that her betrayal COULD probably work if Penelope was, I dunno... MIND CONTROLLED BY MISS DECIBEL?! The elephant lady who could HYPNOTIZE people using that trumpet in her trunk?! Just have Le Paradox get Penelope mind controlled by Miss Decibel, get her to act like she did in the game, but hint at the mind control being in effect in some way... the rest can write itself easily.
Hmmmmmm what makes a worse Villain??? A character betrayal that is barely hinted at if not at all, and despite their being multiple ways to make this backstab work they decided the best solution was to butcher her character and drag Bentley down even more when our boi Literally has no legs to stand on, but comes with a good boss fight OR a pathetic attempt at making a true rival to our main lead by shoehorning in info that leads to nothing and all the while being an absolute chump compared to the threatening and conniving antagonists of previous games and who's big final encounter of a rival "equal" to ours is a bunch of QTE's
@@DoctorolivercookWell this might gonna sound farfecthed (and trust even I find it myself, hard to believe), but I think we were introduced to Penelope earlier before Sly 3 like in Sly 2 Band of Thieves. I had that suspision because I noticed something off after re-playing on 20th anniversary. Something that has been bothering me ever since. Can I share this to you?
I’ve suggested it myself, but one day, this SHOULD be reversed into Worst VG “Heroes/Protagonists”. (Balan Wonderworld, Bubsy, Richard Marcinko, etc.) So (sooner or later) make it happen, Josh. Make it happen…
Bubsy is a very interesting example. Despite being an arguably entertaining character, he isn't too interesting as a hero, even when compared to other vanilla protagonists I have more respect for, like Mario. The bigger problems come from, A. If you find his attempts at comedy or his voice to be irritating, B. He is very egotistical, especially in the cartoon, to the point where he treats others like trash, and C. Despite his impressive abilities like his power-ups, gliding, and apparently Fourth Wall awareness, the games themselves gave him next to no legs to stand on. Mostly due to me not having the same personal experience with Bubsy as others do, I don't hate him, but there are definitely good reasons why he's a good contender for Worst Video Game Heroes.
10:28 I honestly agree with that statement. Jimmy Crystal was a great villain who was willing to kill Buster Moon to protect his reputation as an entertainment mogul.
Number 6 is actually the start of a pretty compelling villain, a person who's "villainy" starts purely on accident, but becomes so ostracized by the people that he becomes the villain that everyone sees him as. So now, he 'plays his part." for the hope that someone will finally "fix the mistake."
The Chairman Rose and the Macros Cosmos reveal as villains could’ve easily worked not on if they were behind more of the evil stuff in Sword and Shield, but also if Leon and the gym leaders were involved in secretly investigating them. It would’ve pressured Rose to speed up his plans to mine the Dynamax energy from Eternarus and advance his company’s success, rather than trying to fix a problem that wouldn’t occur for another 1,000 years
And people think that this is a valid reason to hate SwSh entirely. Bro, the story just had a bunch of holes in it. That's it. It's a game, not an interactive movie.
I’m not saying every villain has to be senator Armstrong level funny or diabolical like ghetis, or be unexpected like Wheatley But I think this can be the checklist for how to fail on a tragic level, comedic level, and epic level
@@emberfist8347 Agreed. Everyone expected a politician bad guy to fight in a giant robot, but nobody expected the best part to be when he got out of the giant robot.
All this reminded me of the episode of Phineas and Ferb when Doofenshmirtz was teaching someone with real evil aspirations how to be a proper villain. Also the episode when he taught Peter the Panda’s nemesis that he can’t just be a compete mystery about everything.
More convoluted than complex. Complex van be good because it has multiple elements giving it depth, convoluted is bad because the parts become so tangled together or are so vague that you can no longer keep track of what's going on.
@@FF-tp7qs the creator of Final Fantasy, motivated the creator of kingdom hearts, to make the story more complicated because he felt it was the only way for it to succeed. Unfortunately, the kingdom hearts creator took his advice way too seriously.
Somehow, I wonder if even Xehanort lost track of his overly complex plans and just pulled the misunderstood declaration out of his ass because even he couldn't keep up with the story.
@@lightyearpig12 what about the whole Master of Masters and his bizarre plot to make the Foretellers fight each other with a story about a book of prophecy with an extra page. I can't think of any logical reason why he wanted that to happen. In any case, just take the story with a grain of salt and enjoy the combat. The combat is probably the real reason people like the games
@@FF-tp7qs hey i love the story of kingdom hearts! But even i have to admit it can get...real messy, especially after birth. After birth by sleep things...problematic, blame dream drop distance, seriously, that games nobody reveal made me so angry!
@@smashmaster521 Its not really our faults. We had to raise him on destiny island alone because its thought that Xehanort is a child of fate and needs to be protected from corruption. From what I've seen in the cutscenes is that we where great parents and Xehanort absolutely adored us. But I think his resentment of being trapped on a island took over because by the time pass away. He doesn't really bother with mourning.
LeParadox was terrible throughout with no redeeming qualities. But I understand why he isn’t number 1. The worst villains are those with the greatest potential, only to be severely wasted due to poor writing of motivation, characterization, impact, etc. They brought us hope for something devilish, only to throw deviled eggs spoiled under the light of expectation.
Sorry to add to your confusion, Josh, but the end of Dark Road confirmed that Xehanort wasn't the reincarnation of the Player Character from Union Cross, but he is a descendant of Ephemer. His mentor (withy that cloak on) is the Player Character.
Uhhhh Josh? V3 IS a seprate continutity. It was confirmed by Kodaka himself. It was even called NEW Danganronpa V3 to emphasize it. The title, and by extention the separate continutity thing, just didn't come to the west because of frustratingly classic western branch "Change for the sake of Change" crap. I'm not even joking.
I'm not gonna pretend Lorathia is a good villain, but there's a couple points you made that I disagree with: First one is minor, but we learn as she dies that Zanza had promised her immortality, so it's fairly obvious what her motivation was. It's not a strong motivation, but one nonetheless The second one is where you mentioned she could've taken over the power vacuum after the death of the Emperor. To that I say: what power vacuum? Melia had already been selected as heir to the throne and her brother Kalian was appointed regent. So there never was a power vacuum for her to exploit, as the High Entian Empire had a clear-cut line of succession
I'd argue Zanza is the worst villain in XC1. Causes mass genocide so that he can live forever, but in the end spouts some nonsense that all he wanted in the end was friends. Legit said out loud "Get the fuck out of here" when he said that. Also yes, Melia is selected as the heir to the throne, don't know how Josh missed that given that it's a major plot point.
Additionally why would Lorathia aim for the throne. She already has power, she's just waiting for Zanza to return, turn the High Entia to turn in Telethia and then continue on into the next world. I mean Lorithia isn't deep or well developed but I wouldn't say she is a bad villain. Honestly I hate Xenoblade Villains like Z more for being a more "important" threat that just fails in execution for me (despite having hilarious memes).
@@okagronZanza accidentally exploded his own universe, becoming a god in the new universe. His friends are dead, and he believes this world is a fake with nothing worth existing in it, so he will do with it as he wills - but he's still miserable about it. That Shulk can actually fight him risks elevating him to the level of 'person', and he'd like to have people to interact with... but unfortunately he still sees everyone else as insignificant while Shulk, critically, does not. It's a "Whoa, you're cool enough to matter. We should be tormenting these ants together." sort of thing.
@@basedeltazero714Nothing in the game implies this. It's just some throwaway line to make him seem deeper than he actually is, which is barely nothing. He's fine when he's in his giant form, but as soon as he returns to his original form, he becomes boring as shit.
Funnily enough, Garon being one-dimensional is a result of the localization. In the original Japanese story, Garon at least wears the face of a kind leader
Even then, with a scrotum face like that, everyone would still seem stupid for buying into his ruse. Kozaki's habit of drawing hideous villains is almost as bad as how he draws female clothing.
@@CountShaman After futher research, we do get a glimpse of Garon’s former self in the manga. Such as one scene of him being nice to Leo. I noticed your disappointment of modern FE, I recommend the game the Last Spell as an alternative option.
Xehanort wasn't the Reincarnation of X's Player. It was his caretaker on the island. He just instructed Xehanort because he thought Xehanort was the prophecied Child of Destiny and also a Descendant of Ephemer.
Funny how Metal Face does literally everything Lorithia does better as a twist villain; Metal Face's twist works because he actually is essential to the plot by moving it forward because Mumkhar is an AWFUL person seduced by the power of a god and would do anything to spite the one person who could wield said power. Lorithia's doesn't because there's not enough motivation or reason to justify her backstabbing the High Entia...not to mention, how is it that thing she does to turn the High Entia in to Telethia doesn't affect her? She said it affects full-blood High Entia, i.e. the ones with long wings...LIKE HER!? Uhm...game...EXPLAIN, PLEASE!? Not to mention she has almost as much screentime as the more interesting High Entia antagonists in Tyrea & Yumea, the former of whom gets a heart-warming redemption and resolution arc in the Switch remake's extra story "Futures Connected". >.>
i wouldn't even call lorithia a twist villain, she was pretty much screaming at the screen "I AM GOING TO BETRAY YOU" form the moment she showed up. her betrayal itself is treated the same- the cutscene doesn't act like it's huge reveal like metal face, or seven, or zanza's revival, or dickson. the scene just keeps on going and barely acknowledges her at all, because even if it's a surprise to the characters, it's clearly *not* a surprise to you, the player. as for her not transforming, lorithia says when she dies "i was promised immortality"- seems clear to me that zanza specifically exempted her from the transformation. he probably turned her genetic switch off back before he was sealed away
@@heathersmith4042 Ya know, given how long the High Entia live for, lady's kinda ridiculously greedy and self-entitled if you think about it. Either way, that could have been better alluded to with more screen-time to flesh her out more. That said, I don't agree that her being obvious DOESN'T make her a twist villain, just look at what I said about Mumkhar. He LITERALLY says he's going to pick Dunban's corpse clean after the Battle at Sword Valley so he can steal the Monado for himself. The story gives enough time between his "death" and his resurgence to put the idea of him being a surprise twist villain at the back of your mind, but every time you see Metal Face, something about this...thing...it just feels off, so when the reveal is finally made, it's a serious "Oh, shit!" moment because his motivations, and how he's set about them, are made clear. Dramatic irony is when we, the audience, possess knowledge that the characters don't, thus increasing the tension for the inevitable moment where shit hits the fan. It's a wonderful literary tool that Xenoblade Chronicles 1 alone uses to great effect. Lorithia is still a twist villain by definition; she's not a bad twist villain because she's obvious, she's a bad twist villain because there's not enough justification in the story for her to BE a villain in the first place; sure, you could make the argument that she's obvious because she always appears to have an ulterior motive, but then again, you could extend that to the whole of the High Entia: the story makes it clear, when you're first introduced to them, that they're a people shrouded in mystery living atop the Bionis' Head. For all we know, Lorithia's attitude isn't out of the ordinary; she's Head of the Ministry of Research, a science division, after all...she has her reasons to be secretive: knowledge, in the wrong hands, can be dangerous. With more screen-time, maybe we could have started to better understand what her deal is... Something Dickson has basically everything of, does better than, and then some.
I think we know who is going to appear on this list, given that this Josh... (Jasper Batt Jr.) For me, a bad villain is one that sits in the background and doesn't do anything when they're supposed to be the main focus. If I don't feel threatened by them, that's a failure in my eyes. Of course, this rule is void when the villain is unclear or shows up at the last second - in which case it's more about how well I think they fit the role. I'm not sure people would agree with me when I say who I think the worst villain is, so I'll instead go with someone people will agree with. The Viscout from *Crash Boom Bang!* is just a 'there' villain. Take them out, nothing changes.
There are ways to make background villains more threatening; Handsome Jack is the perfect example. Despite not seeing him in the flesh until about 3/4th of the way through the game, he is a constant presence throughout. Between his constant taunts over the Echo, witnessing his "heroics" in action, and hearing about how he has affected the people of Pandora you can feel his influence all over the world.
To be fair Batt wanted to avenge the loss of his family so he took the life of Bishop just to get even. This whole concept of revenge could’ve worked if they didn’t drop the ball at the very end.
"Aren't you going to wash your hands...?" "No... because I'm evil." -Flash as Lex Luthor, JLU (So surprised that clip didn't get worked into half these entries.)
In corypheus' defense he had one line I really liked for his villain act: "beg that I succeed, for I have seen the throne of the gods and it was empty." Oh, wait you talked about it.
9:26 I kind of felt that way about Zestria and Berseria. I liked the story but took issue more so with how the world 'works'. People/things can generate malevolence and their isn't any way to stop it because it's like CHAOS in Warhammer 40k. Everything that makes humanity good and bad can feed it. Your world is essentially in a endless cycle of war against the Malevolence and the only real way to stop it would be to wipe all humanity from the world which the Sheperd tried to do in Berseria. In that case Helmdalf doesn't NEED to do anything, just his existence marches the world to conflict. Which in the grand scheme of things doesn't make that great a villain.
Le Paradox is also a bit of a tragedy -- in how disappointing he ended up being -- for how it did have a bit of potential. Upon finding out that he was behind all this nonsense, Carmelita (in an internal monologue) remarks on how Le Paradox did some criminal activity in his youth, but (supposedly) had a completely clean record after that. Since the game was trying to go for some parallel between Cyrille and Sly, that could have been something to play off of. That both of these criminals had a chance to leave their criminal pasts/family histories behind and have a genuinely good life (Cyrille as an art curator, Sly as Carmelita's partner), but just couldn't resist, which leads to dire consequences for them both. Or heck, leave out the Carmelita monologue about how Sly still had that thieving urge and would never really give up that lifestyle, and have that be the parallel. That Sly, despite liking being the next Master Thief of the Cooper Clan -- and finally having access to the breadth of his family's legacy through the Cooper Vault -- was willing to abandon all of it behind for the sake of love, sincerity, and being his own raccoon; and that Le Paradox had a similar chance to leave his family's criminal past behind him, but chose to continue down the same path, and paid for it. (maybe note that his family never really hit big as thieves and always got caught and punished, as a sorta-parallel to Sly's ancestors all being hunted down by Clockwerk) As for fixing the boss battle... I think just dropping the quick-time events would do, maybe add a platform or two for direct combat. No major fixes needed other than that.
I honestly kinda disagree about Validar in Awakening being incompetent because the good guys predicted his every move. The good guys had the advantage of being protected by people from the future who knew Validar's plans because they came from a timeline where all his plans succeeded and he won. Validar eventually gained that same knowledge, but that wasn't until after they'd already disrupted his plans and pretty much left him at death's door. The one time they really outsmarted him outright was when Validar tried to make Robin kill Crom, and even then, they still made use of knowledge from the future to prevent it, which was accidentally given to them by Grima at the start of the game through Ronin dreaming about the Crom betrayal before even meeting the man.
I gotta say, Tsumugi has the best line in the entire series Tsumugi: "It's Junko Enoshima" Shuichi: "Huh" Tsumugi: "Because... it's always Junko Enoshima"
The MOMENT Pokemon came up, I immediately thought "Chairman Rose." HORRIBLE villains, came COMPLETELY out of nowhere, no buildup, no effect on any point of the plot until they get dropped in randomly at the end, flimsy justification and motives, and just as quickly as they appear, once you beat them and the death dragon they spawned, he basically turns himself in and that's a wrap for their entire team. Garbage. They didn't even take the "twist villain" approach, as there was no mystique about the evil actions going on in the game...because there were no evil actions going on. It truly felt like the writers got like 99% through making the games and realized they were missing a real villain, so someone said "Uhhh...corporations are evil, so let's just make Rose the bad guy" and then spent like 10 minutes writing his motives and subplot. In fact, ALL of Sw/Sh feels that way, which sucks, because many features in the game were great and it truly felt fresh, yet unfinished.
To be fair, I can kinda respect Rose trying to be proactive regarding the eventual energy crisis as opposed to kicking the can down the road. That being said, it still doesn't excuse how bland he is and how stupid his "solution" was, especially when Regieleki is just chilling on a nearby island.
@@toumabyakuya Hmmm, let's see. A living apocalypse that nearly wiped out the region once before, or a sapient generator strong enough to power a country with little risk aside from not removing it's rings... which one is the safer and more reliable energy source, I wonder?
@@timmyreobed5043 *"which one is the safer and more reliable energy source, I wonder?"* The one that can last you the longest. Otherwise, all you are doing is covering the problem instead of fixing it.
@@toumabyakuya did you not read the part that eternatus is a living apocalypse that almost destroyed a region. I’d rather pick the legendary made out of pure energy than eternatus
@@Bloody_Carnage Yes, I did. But again, post-poning the inevibatable for 100 years or more is not a good solution. So, albeit it is the most dangerous appraoch, catching Eternatus is the best approach because it brings a definitive solution to the energy crisis.
Modern Fire Emblem has problems but Garon is the one I can’t look past. In the case of Validar it’s pretty easy to see he’s neither the power or brains behind the operation. He’s the fall guy who lets Grima act with minimal scrutiny, and we’re aware of this since his first near-death. Thales and the Agarthans are very much a splintered group but their lack of cohesion and how much they stick into the background works with the lore between the lines… but puts one large final nail in Edelgard’s coffin of justifying herself. Beyond the fact that the children of Nabatea deceived Fòdlan she hasn’t got a polished turd for a point that isn’t acting far beyond her purview, but allying with the obviously evil albino people that are responsible for her personal strife to begin with just hammers home how wrong she is. But that rant is for another time… Garon, to me, is the prime example of Fates’ fouling up its concept. It presented itself as a choice driven narrative between two difficult personal decisions and ideals. And promptly screwed it up with the demonstrably and pointlessly evil, manipulative evil king, especially in contrast to the noblebright other half of the story which has nary a blemish to drive any suspicion of morally grey areas. It’s too easy to make a moral choice. Garon is an evil dickhead, his kids are myopic idiots and Corrin does absolutely nothing to make things better by returning to Nohr. Frankly the fact that Xander inadvertently kills Elise was the only time I felt Fates had some balls to show off the family tragedy. On top of the blatant subtext of the peace-loving legally distinct not-feudal-Japan being compared to the obviously evil European-esque Nohr comes off as rewriting history.
making garon work as a villain was so easy. nohr has no resources. hoshido has lots of resources, but is not sharing. that is a perfectly good explanation for nohr invading hoshido, yet they go the "king conquers because he is evil but was actually a puppet controlled by another villain" route. make garon. they even explained away garons personality by saying that he became hardened after his lovers killed each other and most of his kids. anyone would be miserable and cynical after an experience like that all they had to do was make him nicer to his kids, explain clearly why he invades hoshido, and show (not tell) how he was before he became a villain. instead the story was handled so clumsily it just became "bad guy does bad things to be bad. he was a nice guy. not gonna show it, but trust us, he was nice. oh, and he was actually a puppet the whole time"
@@Underworlder5 Indeed, and if you had to work in the third faction for whatever reason, make it less blatant. Make it seem like there isn’t a viable recourse. Make them set up things that lead to hostility. Sabotage peace talks, ensure Nohr’s scarcity by sabotaging any food efforts and have some agents (like say Iago) make suggestions to lead to war, (again if you have to make Valla a player in this situation) It would have been so much more interesting and not that hard.
You could’ve even kept the pure evil Garon and made him effective by showing how he’s directly too intimidating for the Nohr royals to stand up to. Follow through on the Anankos who’s possessing him wanting to corrupt Corrin and have him repeatedly confront and cause strife to Corrin during their attempts to deceive Garon. Make him seem like an indomitable obstacle that is cathartic to overcome in the end, and prove that he is everything holding Nohr back from being better (a little more grey from Hoshido would be nice, but it does not need to be 50:50 to be good). Garon’s dialogue is just so bad that any threat he objectively presents isn’t actually felt
@DarkOverlord96 No. KEEP pointing out the holes in his rants. Josh's deserves to be criticized for his misconstrued statements that have more overblown style than genuine substance.
One thing I will give Xehanort though: Even after everything, (most of) his fights are, at least, GREAT. And now, I can actually say that at least Young Xehanort is fun to play as, now that the Young Xehanort mod, “KH3: Another Road”, is finally out.
Perosnally I like Tsumugi. She's a delsusional fangirl of both Danganronpa and Junko Enoshima and wants the killing game to continue out of a twisted devotion to the concept of Dangaronpa as a work of fiction, and wants to devolve real peopl into characters for the sake of her obsession with 'real fiction'. Plus its implied some of her claims about what was going on were lies so we can't take ehr FULLY at face value. Of course she thinks the audience will side with her. She's not DIRECTLY INSULTING THEM, they ARE the reason the killing games got to this point and why Danganronpa continues. Sure she want despair to win, but she also doesn'e care if hope wins, because either way Danganronpa continues. She loses becaue despite her madness she still doesn't care that much about Danganronpa, not enough to realise that people DO care about 'fiction' beyond a momentary enjoyment.
Dishonorable Mentions: *Atoq Navarro - Uncharted: Drake's Fortune -He's so bland that his page on the Uncharted Wiki LITERALLY DOESN'T HAVE A PERSONALITY SECTION! Not even his voice actor, Robert Atkin Downes (The voice of Travis Touchdown, The Medic, and Luxord from Kingdom Hearts) could salvage this character. *Xande - Final Fantasy 3 -Give Exdeath credit, at least he has the excuse of being a parody of a villain. Whereas Final Fantasy 3 played it's tropes straight with it's main villain, Xande, and he comits the sin of being unmemorable. So much so that when Dissidia was released, Cloud of Darkness was chosen as the FFIII rep instead of him. *Lyric - Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric -I haven't played Rise of Lyric, but going off of what I know, it's a shame because the elements to make Lyric a good villain ARE THERE. His backstory and design are interesting enough, but they squandered all that potential. And arguably the biggest problem, Lyric barely does anything and barely puts up a fight. *The Viscount - Crash Boom Bang -It should come as no surprise that the worst Crash Bandicoot game in the franchise should also have the worst villain in the franchise. Basically, The Viscount hosts an amazing race style contest but in reality, he's using the contestants to do all the dirty work in hopes of uncovering a wish-granting treasure called (and I am NOT joking here) "The Super Big Power Crystal." What a ridiculous plan! This isn't helped by the fact that he's easily the most boring and unremarkable villain in the entire series. So much so that he didn't even make a cameo in CTR Nitro Fueled, and that game has characters as obscure as Yaya Panda and Megamix in its roster!
That's about how I interpreted the ending. I didn't see it really much as this whole "meta" thing, as the game explicitly called the previous Killing Games "seasons" rather than games. Audience interaction was SUPPOSED to be unique to V3. But if that wasn't the case for games 1 and 2... Why bother emphasizing that? And Keebo was the character said to be the vessel for the Audience interaction anyway, being the robot, it's why the last minigame is against him as you're fighting all the rabid fans. Cause a controller will typically have more influence over a medium than a remote. Though yeah, Tsumugi herself is a bad villain.
@@waferdaze8017 honestly those who saw it as a meta thing are being stupid and have bad reading compherension skills just like how undertales determination save and load and reset is seen as a Meta thing instead of it being a superpower that was based on a meta thing to fuck with players specifically
My pick for the worst/disappointing video game villain would be the Black Hand of Sauron from Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor (SPOILERS!!!). The leader of the black captains, the guy who directly killed Talion (the protagonist) and his family and the main source of our thirst for revenge. He is built up to be the most dangerous and scariest of all the Sauron's soldiers, being described as the personification of Sauron's deceptive and cunning nature. There was some potential for a baddass rival or something and yet we only see him twice: at the very beginning and at the very end of the game; the only thing he does in the meantime, that being the destruction of the village we were allied with, happens near the end and off-screen and when we finally confront him - we defeat him in a QTE that requires only two or three button presses. Very unsatisfying way to end a revenge story.
i say the rules for that one should be for one per media. one per book one per show one per cartoon, one per anime, one per game, one per manga and so on
Yeah that whole part was unclear to me. Not helped by the fact that the game hid it by not even showing what happened after the explosion, just cuts to everyone back at base.
Yeah, the whole thing is honestly kind of a mess. I've heard a theory that Spider was originally his own person, and died when Wild Jango captured him. The reason we can't write Spider off as always having been Redips is simply because of how the copy chip works - it's shown with Axl that he has to have the DNA of the target in order to copy them. In other words, the target has to have existed. Spider sacrificing himself later on is unclear, but there are a number of different (possible) explanations. It's certainly one of the weaker plot points in Command Mission.
Rose's plan makes perfect sense...when you remember that Rose is an egomaniac. He genuinely cares for Galar and wants it to prosper, but he also has a pathological need to be the hero, to be the one remembered as the savior of Galar. And that's why he can't wait one more day--because Leon, the "brave knight" (Rose's words) he's raised for years for this, may no longer be champion in one more day. That's why Rose can't wait. Rose is a very romantic man. Not in the sense of love, but in the sense of having a grand view of of things. He sees himself as nobility and that it's both his and Leon's duty to defeat the dragon that threatens Galar's safety. That's his "romantic dream" (if I may borrow the words of Seifer Almasay). When you view Rose in that mindset....well, he's not much better as a villain, but he's a better *character*. Macro Cosmos seems to be evil through and through though, entirely without him. Look at the PokéJobs listings. They have a finger in every pie, and a stranglehold on the Galar economy, and it continues long after Rose goes to prison. They never needed him. If anything, his moral compass was holding them back. He comes off pretty well in Masters. It shows off that he's smarter than people think, including the people who know him best. He revealed that he was using Giovanni, implying that he was just playing naive when Gio came to him with his own offer. His "day with" event shows a lot about his character--he's charitable and loves showing off his money, he cares for his brother Peony but fears they may never be able to mend their rift, and so on. The anime also gave him a past that REALLY should have been part of the games--the thing that pushes him to save Galar from this crisis is that his father died on the mines when Rose was a child, and Rose can't tolerate the notion that anybody else could suffer the same loss he did. It REALLY should have been part of game canon because it makes his impulsiveness make so much more sense (and explains why brother Peony is so clingy with his daughter if he knows those bonds can be broken in an instant). But yeah, all that is about Rose as a character, not as a villain. Heck, (gen 9 spoilers you already covered in the Best AI video) Sada and Turo were better villains than he was and they're dead before the game even starts.
I think the worst thing a game can do with a villian is do the tell not show thing. I hate hearing about how bad a villian is only to actually get to them and they're completely underwhelming. Show me a villian doing evil stuff. Don't tell me they're bad. It's like if they just told you how evil Clive's mom is in ff16 instead of letting us see how completely psychotic she is
What about Ultima from Final Fantasy 16? He was basically the worst part of the game as his motivations are barely explored, he barely has any screen time and he’s one of those bad guys who sits on his ass and does nothing while his lieutenants do all of the hard work.
Honestly, I think Gael'gar should've been the Xenoblade rep instead of Lorithia. At least Lorithia is a minor villain in the long run and the worst thing about her is her boss fight. Gael'gar is a racist High Entia who destroys Tyrea's lab because reasons I forgot and eventually tries to kill Melia so he can become the ruler of the High Entia. He's so forgettable that you probably forgot about him until I mentioned him, and he's also the only villain in Future Connected aside from the Fog King who's just the final boss for final bosses sake. At least Lorithia blends into a sea of more memorable villains like Metal Face and Dickson
Here's my take on how to fix the Spider/Redips thing in Command Mission. Why not have Spider and Redips be connected without being the same character? Make Spider be a separate character and he makes a return not as the bad guy, but revealing that Redips decided to use his DNA core to pose as him, and rejoins X and the gang, albeit banged up in a similar way to how he joined up with X against Wild Jango? Definitely makes it worth actually getting his ultimate weapon when he's not on the team. And, yes... *I AM STILL SALTY ABOUT IT!*
The thing is that Spider couldn't have been Redips from the start because that isn't how the copy chip works. It _copies_ a reploid that already exists. In other words, it's *factually guaranteed* that Spider existed as a separate reploid from Redips at some point. Whether the original is dead or not is up for debate - it's been theorized by some that he died when Wild Jango captured him. I like the idea of Spider still being alive, though. And it would have fixed the problem of him leaving the party permanently...
Personally I Love Number 8 for 3 reasons… none of them having anything to do with his character or writing: 1: His English VA rules. 2: His final boss fight is my favorite of all time. 3: His design looks like a Regal Leomon and I LOVE IT!!!
@@samflood5631 Volrhan was a good villain that served his purpose as a counterpoint to the MC, he wasn't the toughest boss, but i consider the fight good, The other Lords except Almedreia had at least one good quality and were being conned by the true villain, that was doing everything for the sake of it's own survival.
I always figured Xehanort's Heartless insisting on calling himself Ansem was more of an ego trip, that it was only near the end that Organization XIII had hearts because the process of regrowing them takes time, and Master Xehanort's 'I was a good guy all along' bit at the end was more ego. Honestly, headcanons are sometimes the only reason Kingdom Hearts makes any sense. Lord knows Nomura isn't going to explain it.
Nomura really doesn't have the easiest hand to deal with. He must deal with not only one but TWO big corporations zealous over their IPs. Xehanort seems to be result of grandiose recipe which just ends undercooked. Xehanort saga has interesting ideas but it does only the barest minimum with it. Xehanort really could have been just Kefkaesque sociopath with Hojoesque scientist nuances. Trying to make him more philosophical/deeper character was doomed cause Nomura really couldn't or didn't know how to present it. At least as unapologetic egomaniac with tinge of entertaining presentation had made him classic Disney Villain with anime flavours (Part of reason why I prefer SoD version).
Okay, not saying he isnt allowed to put his #1 as his #1. I personally wouldnt put him anywhere on this list, but list are based on opinion. But when some of your opinion are based on false information, it warrents pointing out. 1) Nobodies did not have hearts the whole time. They just had the compacity to "grow" new ones overtime due to possessing all the memories/souls of their original hearts. The memories both old and new would eventually form a new heart. 2) Young Xehanort literally has a line in BBS when he first appears about wanting more in life ("this island is a prison"), Dark Road didn't make that up in response to the KH3 ending (which despite me loving that game, even I will admitt that part was forced.) 3) He isn't the Chi player reincarnated. The person in the cloak in that scene is.
Josh has always stood by his views on certain KH plot points even when people point him out that they're innacurate. He's been doing it for over 10 years.
@@DarkOverlord96 this does reduce my respect of him a quite a bit and it makes me realise he truly is a manchild that is stuck in the past repeating the same shit and never moving on
Paradox from sly cooper could’ve been a better villain if they made him controlled by someone worse, with the person controlling them being the actual main villain. Have paradox be given lies about his family past and bring up the fact that no one has actually heard of him before as a hint to the truth.
They coulda brought back Clockwerk! After all, the whole game is about going back in time to help Sly's predecessors, and every one of them fought Clockwerk! Where the hell was he all that time? And the game could end with Sly realizing that even though Clockwerk will fight all his ancestors if he doesn't kill him, doing so would have unintended consequences on the timeline. But no, stereotypical coward French man. Or maybe have the villain be a wolf and call him Arsene Lupine! Woulda at least been better than Cyrille!
@@WillieMangaSorry for the long reply but i wrote a summary for what they couldve done for a better story. Clockwerk makes Cyrille believe he came from a long line of thieves and makes Cyrille mad at the Cooper family. Cyrille tries to avenge his family so Sly goes back in time to stop him. Sly helps his ancestors while investigating Cyrilles past before having it revealed that Cyrille wasnt truly from a thief family, but it is too late then as Clockwerk already is back but more powerful from time magic or something (doesn't need to make that much sense here) The ending could go different ways but a fitting one would be that Cyrille and Sly team up to stop Clockwerk and reverse the damage. Cyrille either stops trying to be a master thief at the end and decides to do his own thing, ending that character arc, or he becomes the first actual master thief in his family line without all the time stuff.
Regarding that thing about Xehanort being the reincarnation of the player from Kingdom Hearts X, that is not true. If you played the Dark Road story part of the game and saw the post credits scene, you would know that the player does not reincarnate as Xehanort. The player ends up being reincarnated as the elderly hooded mentor who raised Xehanort on Destiny Islands and that all of the memories Xehanort sees regarding the player from Kingdom Hearts X actually belonged to the mentor. It is also revealed that Xehanort is the descendent of Ephemer.
I would’ve had Kronika from Mortal Kombat 11 on this list. SPOILERS She makes no attempt to hide her plan, she brings back good versions of the heroes, and the only reason she has her pawns are because they’re complete idiots.
The only memorable thing about Lorithia is that she had the audacity to make out with Melia’s brother while he wasn’t fully conscious like that pretty escalated to outright irredeemable villain. As for Macro is kind of just feels he is a twist villain purely for the sake of having a big villain to fight alongside a legendary in climatic moment after the made the decision not have the evil organization being seen through the game.
Honestly, the funny thing about Rose is that in Pokemon Masters, as part of their recently finished villain arc, manages to make him... kinda better without reworking what was already in place. It's very obvious the 1000 years timeframe is the biggest issue with his motivations, and since they can't walk back on that, they make his actions much less severe. In Masters, a version of him from before the Darkest Day shows up on Pasio with Oleana and he immediately takes an interest in the "Sync Stones" that are integral to Masters. He sees them as an opportunity for unlimited energy and campaigns for Macro Cosmos to take over Sync Stone research, focusing entirely on the energy aspect while ignoring their uses in battle. He gets a lot of people to support him for legitimate reasons, and it creates a decently interesting clash of ideals. It's incredibly impressive that the writing team for Masters managed to salvage him at least a little bit... and also incredibly weird that they kinda botched the Unova villain arc. Masters' writing quality can be pretty all over the place... Also, very much agree on Tsumugi being at #2. God, I hate V3. Maybe in some other timeline, we got a good version of that game with a better ending (and one where Kaede was the protagonist the whole time... That would've been, y'know, somewhat unique.)
I actually like Xehanort in KH. He's like Thanos from infinity war. Xehanort was not being sympathetic or understandable in that cutscene by the way. Dark road did give him at least some level of sympathy, but it doesn't excuse his actions. Kh3 didn't make him sympathetic in that scene. Xehanort was being proven wrong. Everyone has their opinion though. This list was a fun watch.
The only thing I feel is worse than just messing up a villain? Intentionally making them bad. Like, yes, you're not supposed to LIKE a villain, but the role has to come with a certain respect that is easy to gloss over if you are aiming for hated character. Some villains can work if they're cowardly when the push comes to shove. It's what makes it so satisfying to see them bite off more than they can chew, but don't entertain the thought that they could ever be more than that cause that just leaves someone who honestly is more sad but deranged. Lying is fine, proposing ANY legitimate comparison to another more competent character is disingenuous. Aside from them turning practically RAVENOUS when on the back foot, they're not really worth trying to make look competent. If you're making someone just plain awful to be condescending or that they "rightly" stand above everyone else, then you are making the most honest political figure of a character. They're right, but it creates this problem where you feel like you lose regardless. If the villain doesn't treat the cast with some integrity or is just never bested at their own games, then it's BAD. You don't get the satisfaction of feeling like you won in anyway because they literally push the player and characters out of their own game. 343 Guilty Spark is a piece of shit that the games never just honestly prove wrong. By all accounts, the only way he gets defeated is like most of the other problems, shooting it. It's a solution, but that it was your ONLY solution to shut him up feels like a loss, you never win at the antagonist's game. There HAS to feel like some kind of pay-off after all of it, but it doesn't.
I disagree with Xehanort on the list, i think he is awesome and has a great backstory and boss battle. Dangaroppa on the other hand is way worse and way more confusing.
I think apprentice Xehanort *did* lose his memories, and when he split into heartless and nobody he was envious of master Ansem, taking the name to make himself feel better. And then they kept the names because they had the names for 10~ years
Which kinda sucks cause it had made it interesting conundrum in KH3 where some parts of Xehanort aren't really digging their original self and old Xehanort is kinda bamboozled how he can't see himself in SoD or Xemnas. It is kinda shame that Xehanort splits himself to many parts and story doesn't really do anything with it.
It's neither funny nor accurate. Josh is genuinely wrong with several of his statements and now he's spreading misinformation... then again, this is Josh Scorcher, it's nothing new.
My first video that you were involved was the Top 15 Disrturbing Bosses in Non-Horror Games with Alex, thats what got me into watching your videos as well as his. Its good to see you're still uploading new Top Lists. I was not even a teenager when I saw that collab 2 part video with you and Alex.
@funcoolfunfun Hey hey, another trial 3 fan! I love to see it. I really like that whole chapter in general because though there was so much missed potential, what we got was so bat shit insane that it made me love it. Plus, the seance scene is one my favourite moments in the whole series (Rip Tenko :( )
Ironically, this one V3 fic made Tsumugi so much more interesting to me by focusing on how she views herself as a fictional character as well, and actively wants to die to end the game, as that's how it's supposed to go, and feels she has no purpose outside of it.
Here's what they should have done with Cyrille; Should have 1: Made him an actual threat. 2: Turned him into a wolf instead. 3: Called him Arsene. Get it? Arsene Lupine? That way they could have made him French, but also a worthy foe. I don't know why they went the racist route when they had the perfect opportunity to make him a nice reference to French literature.
20:00 I completely agree with this entry That boss just did nothing outside of get better thieves to do his dirty work It could have been improved if we saw his supposed ancestors throughout the game teaming up with the future vilians but no Why bother mentioning his ancestry in a TIME TRAVEL PLOT if you are going to do nothing with it
IMO, clockwerk is by far the best main sly cooper villain. Clockwerk went out like a chad in both sly 1 and 2, had a cool design, cool intro, interesting background that gives sly some serious motivation, has a cool boss fight and oh yeah *HE’S A GIANT OWL TURNED MEGA SIZED ROBO OWL*
Honestly, I was expecting a sorta ‘Team Alpha’ villain group in Sword and Shield that Hyped STRENGTH and believes that the world belongs only to the strong and should only belong to the STRONK! -Then it’s elaborated on that they believe in different forms of strength…
![[MV] A leap of faith...ความเชื่อใจครั้งสุดท้าย (From "Petrichor the series")](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/U1piZH2CNXA/mqdefault.jpg)
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I still like and consider Xehanort one of the best and biggest villains of KH. I know this is from your point of view and i respect your opinion but still i totally disagree with all those arguments and still preffer him the way he is in franchise even now. He is not the worst video game villain of all time. Kyric from Sonic Boom is the real worst of them all.
Josh im also a fan of Kingdom Hearts, and i know its story is a bt confusing but still i enjoy the main villain Xehanort, lore, battles, his impact, i don't see him as a bad villain, quite the opposite.
@@centurynerdbr Excuse me, can you
Calm down
We get it the first time
Overall really solid list josh but I am kinda suprised that navarro and xande didn't make up
Still a better ad sponsor than Raid Shadow Legends.
Fun fact - in Pokemon's manga, the energy crisis IS actually imminent, and though he pulls the whole '1000 years from now' line there too, it's revealed that it was him playing the villain because he wanted to solve it as soon as possible. He knows damn well it's a horrible plan, but he's more than willing to take the fall for pulling it off because in a few more years, there wouldn't be any more power - and society would be ripping itself apart. Yeah, it's stupid how he did it - but at least the manga pulls it off better than the games ever did.
But to quote Charriii5: "If I have to consult to an external source to understand the plot of something, that's bad storytelling."
@@GhostGuy99 More just pointing out that the manga expanded on the stupidity of the plot of the games and justified it a hell of a lot better. Less of an external source and more of a retelling that improves on the source material.
I was actually about to point that out too and apparently the reason he disowned bede is because he didn't want bede's name to be trashed like his would be if it was ever found out rose was behind everything they also brought up the darkest day plot earlier in the manga than the games too overall it's plot was still a bit stupid but was done a bit better there I think the anime did it a bit better too (key word think because I don't remember too much about it there)
@@GhostGuy99 That does not apply here tho. The manga is its own story, it does not give further understanding of the games.
The funniest part is how his brother helps the player find Regieleki, which would have solved Rose's problems.
I will always maintain that there’s nothing wrong with making a villain evil for the sake of it. But good writers know to make up for the lack of depth with entertainment. These villains must bring a certain degree of energy and personality to their actions.
Great writers give both depth and entertainment factor to their villains, and that’s what makes them great. That’s why one of my top 3 is Handsome Jack
That's why Yuuki Terumi is my favorite Blazblue character. He's absolutely vile but he's so entertaining to watch that you almost overlook it.
It sometimes helps if the villain is completely self aware what they doing is evil yet owns it and even mocks the protagonist/hero for trying to redeem them, a good example is Frieza from DBZ, he's willing to work with Goku for a common cause in the Tournament of Power arc yet when Frieza gets a get out of Hell card with a resurrection as a reward for participating in the tournament to save universe 7 (Goku and Frieza's home realm) he straight up admits he won't give up his evil ways and afterwards rebuilds his empire then terrorizes universe 7 once more.
Another great example is ‘Big’ Jack Horner from PIB: TLW
Yep that is why I prefer villains like Joker or King Ghidorah and Endgame Thanos over villains like Infinity War Thanos.
I feel a good villain can be an almost total monster but have one or two moments to show they aren't completely evil also works. For example, in Breaking Bad, The Cousins were great villains and regularly kill random people in the name of no witnesses, but when they test out the ballistic vests they buy from an arms dealer and by shooting him but when the vest saves, his life, they pay and leave.
@@lynxfresh5214 Agreed. That is why William Dafoe's Green Goblin was great.
For every Heath Ledger’s Joker, we get a Jared Leto, Villains in stories always leave an impression on the characters and viewers, some good, some terrible, these represent the latter.
That's a very unfair comparison when all of Leto's scenes were butchered out of the movie by the studio.
We never actually got him.
@@ΑΡΙΣΤΟΤΕΛΗΣΛΑΧΑΝΟΠΟΥΛΟΣ No we did. A good actor would still deliver a good performance despite the editing. Henry Cavill still managed to play Superman despite a bad director and getting most of his scenes cut.
@@emberfist8347 When did Henry have his scenes cut?
@@ΑΡΙΣΤΟΤΕΛΗΣΛΑΧΑΝΟΠΟΥΛΟΣ BvS there was significant cuts to the scenes of Superman.
Why do I keep finding you everywhere?
To be a little fair to Xehanort, from what I've read, part of his motivation issue was the result of a mistranslation between Japanese and English. His goal in the English version where he wants to bring "balance" to Light and Dark? In the original Japanese version of 3, his goal was ACTUALLY to restart the whole world from scratch to end the war of Light and Dark entirely. I'm guessing something got lost in translation, hence the goal we got in the English version.
I'm pretty sure people have pointed out that to Josh ever since KH3 was released but apparently he doesn't care.
@@DarkOverlord96Oh. So I'm late to that party.
...crud.
That's still "destroying the world to save it"
@@floricel_112 So? At least one sounds more cohesive for a villain who just wants to end it all and remake the universe in his own image instead of "I'm actually a good guy on the side of light, guys, I actually hate darkness, light is way past cooler, darkness is for lamers!"
My biggest problem with the translation is it wouldn't make sense.
Balance? Darkness is just shown to corrupt, kill, and destroy worlds.
Meanwhile light is always portrayed as good, except when they try to take down darkness....the thing killing everyone...
Swordward and Shielbert are still the absolute worst excuses for Pokemon villains ever and nothing can convince me otherwise.
They stole what could've been a great story for Zacian and Zamazenta just so Gamefreak can vent on critics by turning them into a character. Gotta love it.
Flare, Macro Cosmos and them are the three villains the writers were butting heads on who should go on the list, and I'm the only one who voted for them.
Uggh, they were SO incredibly annoying. Going through the post story in Sword and Shield was SO grating because of them. I didn't even MIND Macro Cosmos, but those two were the absolute WORST.
Yeah if I could have a free nut shot I would do a mid air split to get them both
What's funny is XY (the first 3D mainline Pokémon titles) had a far more cohesive postgame story with Looker and the remains of Team Flare without actually involving any legendary Pokémon and unlike Gen 8 didn't have the benefit of DLC nor an enhanced version like Gen 7.
It makes you think.
the villians in gen 8 in general are probably the worst pokemon villains. and the fact that they make swordward and shielbert even worse than rose is an accomblishment in itself
To be fair to Rose, he is FAR better in the manga. He loves galar to the point that even if it's 1000 years in the future he still wants to help the future generations in the problem. Hell, he even confronted and fought Eternatus HIMSELF after the first plan with those two noble jerks failed. Even after he turned himself in he had Oleana and his people support the heroes with the problem.
EDIT: Read more of the Manga and apparently it wasn't that it would collapse in 1000 in years, it would already be over by then because Galarian society would collapse in 20-30 YEARS! In 1000 ALL of humans and pokemon would be destroyed. Since they beat Eternatus and are now able to get more energy, HE WAS ACTUALLY F**KING RIGHT! HIS PLAN TO SAVE GALAR WORKED!
Tbf the Pokémon manga gets to have far more creative liberties to expand on world building as well as be more detailed on the storytelling due to being not a major focus of the franchise (unlike the games, anime and most importantly the merchandise).
A blessing in disguise tbh.
didnt even know they had a manga for that yet. on serebii they just started the x and y or black and white manga
@@saiyanscaris6530 your probably better off going to bulbapedia for info like that than serebii, cause serebii from my experience seems to be more hard focused on the games themselves than pokemon in general.
Much better than in the anime where Rose was malicious about his motives, and instead of turning himself in, HE AND OLEANA WENT INTO HIDING
Pokémon Adventures, right? Because I love this this manga. I mean... GIOVANNI KILLING TWO MAGMARS without hesitation. That happened in the manga.
38:06 No, our player character wasn't Xehanort.
We were led to believe that initially, but the end of Dark Road shows that our player character reincarnated into the elder who RAISED Xehanort on Destiny Islands
To be fair, it wasn't well portrayed that was the case until the end of Dark Road. So for about a year people were left dealing with poor foreshadowing.
Thank you N
@@ShadowEclipex Maybe so, but the ending to Dark Road has been out for a year now, so that's not really an excuse for getting it wrong at this point.
@@thedothackerkeyblademaster Oh wow it has already been a year since it's finished up.
I don't think it is right to discredit that confusion from still existing though. It was not a good way to convey that information.
@@ShadowEclipex I'm not discrediting anyone for being confused in the first place (hell, given Nomura, that was probably intentional), I'm criticizing a rant for containing misinformation, when the correct information has been available for a year. Even if Josh didn't play the Dark Road finale or watch it on YT, a quick trip to the KH wiki would've cleared this up.
Villains tend to be fascinating with a good backstory, motivation, or just being a very good at being bad job mentality. Not to mention they have to be memorable for the right reasons. When they're not however it ruins the emersion whether they too cliche or just boring overall.
Yep. There are so many ways to make Vilains interesting. You can make an just evil for the sake of it Villain who is interesting to watch like Jack Horner from the movie Puss in Boots: the last wish. Or you can make them Funny and loveable, like doctor Doofenschmitz from Phineas and Ferb serie. There si a wide spectrum of posiibilitis and one might be able to find a completly new one that hasnt ben used yet.
agreed, a villian has to work for what you're trying to write. It's not one size fit all shoe and I've begun to believe this as I've gotten older.
Back during the build-up to Sword and Shield’s release, I had my own predictions for how the Rose villain twist could’ve happened.
It revolves around the whole Pokémon League was corrupted by money. All they care about isn’t the battles themselves, but more so the profits they own from the publicity and sponsorships.
Leon is mentioned everywhere that he’s “The Undefeatable Champion”. That’s his brand, the identity that has earned him many sponsorships and money for the league, as shown by his cape literally coated in sponsors. And as a result Rose may have paid off previous challengers to intentionally lose and allow Leon to keep his title. Leon wouldn’t have been aware of this however, inflating his ego and giving Hop a fake hero to look up to.
Spikemuth would’ve had a reason as to why it’s so run down and poor. Its lack of a Dynamax spot makes its battles uninteresting to the league. I mean, how can they bring in a crowd compared to the other cities? So all the league’s funding and publicity goes elsewhere, and the lack of tourism for Spikemuth caused it to crumble and do what it could to get by.
With just a motivational change, not only could Rose improve as a villain significantly, but everyone else gets more interesting arcs as a result. Hop has to deal with his perfect brother being a fraud. Leon feels guilty for being used and goes to prove that he can be a real champion without Rose. Marnie has a sympathetic and rootable reason to go against Rose and resent him. And maybe the game can have an ending where someone (I’m not sure who) works to take over the league from scratch and work to fix Rose’s greedy mistakes and run true honest Pokémon battles. Heck it even works with the sports theme because corruption in important soccer matches where people are paid off DOES happen!
Why didn’t this happen again??
I'm still floored on how SWSH managed to bomb their story. SM dealt with an abusive parent too obsessed in her own goals to properly take care of her Children. XY had a king who committed mass murder to end the war, and then had to deal with the consequences. SV engages in cover ups (admittedly only briefly, but still!) and the neglect of one's own child and the ramifications that ensue, up and including the Professor's downfall and said child almost being left with no one to turn to for emotional support. And Pokemon fans put Gen V on a pedestal for good reason.
And stuck in between all this, is an impatient, ill-prepared idiot. Honestly Rose, not waiting was the worst thing you've done. Otherwise, your worst crime would've been manipulating Bede to your own ends. But no, the Pokemon Company decrees that there needs to be a big climax ever since Gen III. And unlike AZ, this is a legacy you can't redeem yourself from.
And don't get me started on the postgame and those buffoons who dare call themselves antagonists!
Honestly, Bede, Opal, and Piers were the saving graces of that mess of a so called a story, in my opinion.
The DLC is exempt though. I don't care for the Dojo, but Peony, Peonia, and Calyrex were fun.
That would have been absolutely incredible. It really is amazing just how much gen 8's story was botched. That combined with the whole dexit thing has honestly landed SwSh at the bottom of pokemon games for me. Thankfully the writing seems to be a rare miss as most other recent titles and spin offs had pretty solid stories. Even the SwSh DLC was actually pretty good story wise (I never expected to like Calyrex that much).
That what I thought was going to happen.
Maybe that was the plan, but someone higher up quashed it because it would've essentially been commentary against the Pokémon franchise itself. Or maybe all that stuff's legit suggestion of the franchise losing its way alongside the big story Sw/Sh did get.
A friend of mine had this exact same suggestion.
He even said that maybe Rose could tell the player to lose to Leon on purpose and unleashes Eternatus as a big "fuck you" for not losing to Leon.
But nope.
Apparently 1,000 years is too soon so he decided to unleash a cosmic radioactive dragon...and nearly destroyed the world.
"Lorithia, what are your thoughts on universal healthcare?"
"You will pay for your insulin."
38:09 no he wasn't. Most people of the fandom (including me) was assuming this. He is a descendant of Ephemer. The reincarnation of the player character was the guy in the blue robe, who raised Xehanort. This was explained at the ending in Dark Road.
Kingdom Hearts is why writing on improve is not a good idea if you plan to stretch out the series, on the same villain. If they wanted to make Xehanort sympathetic, they could have used the remakes to change the story of birth by sleep so that it actually shows the Darkness in a sympathetic light. Simply use Maleficent to goad Xehanort and Vantus into being as bad as they were by playing on their fears, with Xehanort seeing too much of himself to realize that she isn't just an outcast who has dark powers. It lets Malificent be the villain she was meant to be, while showing how Xehanort blinds himself to the flaws of people who use the power of Darkness in the same manner he claims Eraqus does with light.
im starting to think the Kingdom Hearts franchise is ending up like how josh said Xehanort ended up
A loved franchise with weight and gravitas, slowly ended up as a joke
One thing I want to say is that Tsumugi's actions in the last trial in V3 were not the reason the outside world chose to end the killing games it was Shuichi's rebellion against the killing game and convincing the others not to vote and him directly countering the outside world controlling Kibo that made them change
yeah it wasnt tsusmugi insulting them or something (she wasn't), it was the ehroes remidning them that, oh wait, these are PEOPLE we wanna see die.
the problem is that setting up a killing game that reveals the truth about danganronpa automatically gives the main cast and by extension the public the means to stop it.
Tsumugi before her death makes a small confession about her being "cosplaycat criminal" where there might be reasons why she is theorically doing things that in retrospect might not make sense logically. Though I might have a feeling Joshscorcher is part of the group of not liking V3's ending.
@@barneypurple3435🍆
You know Sly 4 screwed up when a fanfic author pulled off it better than a whole team of writers! Paradox has a time machine; so therefor he can blackmail all his employees into submission by threatening to go back in time and murder someone they love. Therefor make Penelope a tragic villain forced to fight the love of her life to keep him from dying on the operating table.
PARADOX WAS GONNA KILL BENTLY MOMENTS AFTER HE HAD BEEN CRIPPLED...….
damn if that happened we could have said that all sly cooper villains are insane madmen
Name? Please?
@@motherfuckingenterprises7436 Dressed to steal by Tatsurou. Just a heads up it's a MLP crossover.
@@ratatoskrdfimbulventr773 is it good in general?
@@motherfuckingenterprises7436 Yes, it motivated me to pick up the Sly franchise.
My money is on The Calypso Twins from Borderlands 3.
With so much potential of not only being Sirens, but being the twin children of the first vault hunter, their personalities came off as cringy, annoying, and overall unlikable as opposed to the charismatic, manipulative genius that was Handsome Jack.
I thought they were funny yet threatening, certainly better then the first games villain.
@@raoullupin5412 I thought they were interesting.
I'll be honest. I actually really liked the Calypsos.
To be fair Jack is a tall bar too cross.
If I remember a single line from the Calypso Twins, it's because it was painfully groan-worthy.
"Haha, streaming, social media, get it? How do you do fellow kids?"
Josh, the ending of Dark Road clarifies that Xehanort isn't us but the person who took him from his mother and looked after him on Destiny Islands until dying rather unceremoniously. Because Xehanort says he has dreams of our character and then makes the comment that the person in the robe looks like them.
He IS, however, Ephemer's great-grandson, which... I'm not sure what that actually adds beyond making his journal comment about Eraqus being a blueblood ironic.
@StretchDude Well some speculate that Xehanort and Eraqus may actually be brothers.
It’s unbelievable that people are getting sick and tired of the constant retcons of Xehanort, a video game villain who carries the immortality of Lord Voldemort, the immense power and calculative mind of Emperor Palpatine and the world balance between Light and Darkness motivation of the MCU version of Thanos.
I get it................. I don't get it.
Tsumugi could’ve been much better if she was like Kaede- genuinely helpful and supporting, only to pull the rug at the last minute to reveal it was all an act. The idea that one of the survivors is the mastermind had SO MUCH potential.
@@shannonlewis2022 I have always felt this way towards Tsumugi. It doesn't help that it was severely predictable, considering her whole cosplay allergy thing... She just doesn't have the same surprise kick as Junko, like not even close. Thankfully Monokuma's characterization is more or less still excellent, but DRV3's ending just entirely causes the story to fall apart because it has to pull a lot of plot convenience out its ass and spend most of it on a character that isn't remotely as developed as the others. And then the ultimate twist which had no build-up either... Absolute ASS class of writing, and I'm shocked it came from a series with that much prestige. They could have just written it as an AU and played up Tsumugi more; after all, the cast is probably the most fleshed out we got of all DR games minus her.
What makes Heldalf hilarious is that Berseria takes Zesteria's story, turns it on it's head, and makes the "shepherd" a way better villain.
Spoilers for Berseria
And on top of that, the main protagonist is 'The Lord of Calamity'
And they are also related and it's actually played for the tragedy that it is.
@@Hilversumborn yeah spoilers:
Velvet isn't just a "Lord of Calamity" she's the reason people like Heldalf are called "lord of Calamity", it's also kinda amusing that the honestly kinda silly overdramatic title is a product of the rumour mill.
VELVET CROWE DESERVED BETTER!
@@IliyaMoroumetz
Well no "third" game was made so the good Shepard did not have a chance to save her.
Also 1000 years are not enough for the changes seen!!!
I agree that Tsumugi could have been way better if she had been tired of the whole thing and wanted to end it by just pulling the curtain back and attempting to break the remaining characters. Hell, when she tells K1-B0 that his inner voice is the Audience answering survey questions, why not drive the knife even further by telling Shuichi that his actions aren’t even his own but the actions of a Player from another world? That way she could spit on Kaede’s grave *and* mock Shuichi’s efforts to improve as a person and become a better detective. That way when he goes into his “I can’t fight for a lie” breakdown, he’d go even further because how can he do a thing if his actions are all the result of someone else essentially puppeteering him? Hell, she could have even undermined the characters as they solve cases with some weird continuous mentioning of “it’ll all be worth nothing in the end or something like that.”
Yknow Tsumugi is one of the many reasons I believe MDA: Raincode isnt Danganronpa's spiritual succsesor
Raincode is Danganronpas replacement
Could be both. Has elements heavily inspired from Danganronpa but wants to make a completely new world, new characters, and new way to solve cases. @@dubstepbee6892
If you remember Tsumugi's final confession of being a "cosplaycat criminal" before she dies you could see theoretically some explanations on why there are inconsistencies in the last class trial of V3.
that is even more retarded alternative
since that would be meta and it isnt meant to be meta this is like the inferior trash thinking undertales determination(ability to save and reload and reset) is actually meta thing instead of a superpower because its treated as more of a superpower that was based on a meta concept
reminder for Tsumugi and Audience of that world Danganronpa is a fictional world this doesnt mean all the stuff from previous games were fake/fictional they were in fact real to that universe
heck what you suggest actually fucks with the message fiction can affect people and change you still felt something to that lie/fiction
@@dubstepbee6892 Its not. Kodaka said both series are the 2D and 3D cornerstones of his corner of Spike Chunsoft.
I guess the biggest indictment of Lorithia as a villain is that when the entry settled on her, my reaction was "Who?" despite playing Xenoblade only a couple years ago.
Chairman Rose frustrates me because of exactly what you said; the pieces are there. I can see a CEO having a ridiculously stupid idea to preserve humanity or keep an eternal legacy. And hell, summoning a gigantic alien Pokémon that might as well be a continent-wide disaster is definitely impressive. But you know what he reminds me of? Gnome underpants logic.
In an early South Park episode, gnomes steal underwear from the citizens of South Park for profit. Their plan is literally Step 1: steal, Step 2: ???, Step 3: Profit. Same thing here, but it’s *the* dynamax Pokémon which will apparently lead to preventing an energy crisis.
He could have been corrupt and pushed for dynamax energy, even "convincing" leaders and challengers on certain tasks, such as denounce another leader, or even throw a match to keep the status quo.
It would have been interesting and somewhat realistic, but nope, he had to be someone with a plan that is comparable to either Aqua/Magma in Pokémon, or APEX in Godzilla vs Kong. The latter corporation having the bright idea of using one of the heads of freaking Ghidorah as a neural basis for Mechagodzilla.
Well on the plus side we got a difficult battle of that overly powerful legendary Pokemon and is able to catch it afterwards because of his screw up in the end, sooooooooo a win I guess!
I don't even think it would be that hard to fix his motivations, either. I even wrote a villain speech for him:
"They say we have one thousand years now, but in 50 years they'll be saying we only have 500, give it a century and it'll only be 100, then 50, then 20, then 10. Soon, we'll be at death's door all because no one was willing to do the right thing! I'm not about to let that happen, not when I have this once-in-a-lifetime chance."
This would require a bit of a rewrite, perhaps that the opportunity to summon Eternatus only comes about once every X amount of years and happens to coincide with the championship tournament. He tries to use his influence to delay the tournament in order to gather Eternatus' power, but no one listens to him since the problem he wants to solve is so far off. This greatly frustrates him, as even though someone down the line might be able to summon Eternatus later on, the fact that no one in the present day is taking this seriously proves that we as a species are near suicidally short-sighted. That we always pawn our problems off on someone else (perhaps he could even draw a parallel with how much work we force onto our pokemon, but maybe that's too much like Team Plasma). He decides to hijack the tournament in order to solve the problem himself, no matter the cost (and the cost is great, people aren't supposed to be around when Eternatus arrives!). Although we stop him and fight back Eternatus (for now), his point still stands, and we're left pondering if we should be taking the energy crisis more seriously even if the consequences only mete out far after our lifetime.
It would provide commentary on humanity's potential for great good and (in his mind) great evil, as well as an indictment of human nature. After all, the energy crisis is essentially an allegory for global warming. For all our advancements, we need to be careful that we aren't making the world a worse place lest we ruin what's left. He could point out that we have no idea just how far we can go, citing how far we have come since the stone age. His criticism of our tendency to kick the can down the road in regards to important issues is also dead accurate. While his solution to these problems is extreme, he clearly has a point.
Yet, he retains his villainous edge for how little he believes in humanity and pokemon as a whole. He fails to take into account how many problems we have with our ingenuity. The energy crisis, though harrowing, is just another one of those problems, and his willingness to sacrifice others in order to be the one to "save the world" definitely paints him with a bit of an undeserved savior complex.
Even if it takes a rewrite of the plot, I would like this a lot more.
@@akilcharles3473Eternatus isn't even difficult though. Zacian can basically solo that battle. It's far more harder to lose that battle.
the thing that frustrates me more then anything about chairman rose is how he was begging leon for help with this supposed energy crisis. and you now what? Leon said "if you're really concerned, then sure. i'll help you with this energy crisis. let's just do it after this major battle everyone is looking forward to TOMOROW then we can work on it." chairman Rose couldn't wait 1 DAY to help solve a crisis that's not going to happen for 1000 years
Ever notice how often there’s an obvious fix to make a villain good?
It's very often easier to see the problems in a story in retrospect. Hindsight is 20/20, as they say.
Not just villains. That’s often the case with any poorly executed character. Adam in Metroid Other M comes to mind, as does Anders from Dragon Age
@@Ori_Kohav i still say the authorization system could have easily just been "hey, samus. you work in a team now. could you tone down your weapons so you do not accidentally kill my squad?"
@@Underworlder5 Josh mentioned a similar idea while talking about Adam in his video about hated characters you’re supposed to like.
@@basedeltazero714, doesn't help that crunch culture aims for the brain first
The Pokémon Adventures manga actually fixed Rose. Characters suspect him much earlier in the SwSh saga, his plans are a bit furthered (even including Sordward and Shielbert who are actually competent villains in the manga), and most importantly - the final chapter reveals that his whole "in 1000 years" spiel was an intentional mislead by him; the energy crisis was actually due to happen much sooner with "1000 years from now" being when the destruction of Galar would be OVER. Rose purposely hid that information to prevent a mass panic, while also making sure to disassociate his plans from everyone else in Macro Cosmos so that all of the blame for The Darkest Day would fall on himself.
One correction on the Xehannort thing. He isn't reincarnation of the player character from the mobile game. His CARETAKER was the reincarnation of the protagonist from the mobile game.
Still super convoluted, but at least it isn't forcing the player to be the main villain of the series. (we just raised him, so yay our poor parenting!?)
edit: I guess I could of held off on this comment based on how many other people brought this up.
I can see why Anankos(Fire Emblem Fates) wasn't there for design and fight. What he does to the other paths and how little screen time is there beyond ONE mention is infuriating. Making Garon even worse(Impressive!), taking up a fight with characters we'd love/hate to go through(Corrin's parents for example) and to make the Jagen of the game(Gunther) a twist villain that made even less sense....WHY?! Also being behind EVERYTHING like the Valla curse, that has more plot armor than most protagonists.
Let's not forget the rotten cherry on top of this burnt cake of FE Fate is even with the badly presented story, you still need to buy DLC for certain plot points to be explained aka preying on sunken costs.
You could say there was an awakening of greed when FE stopped being a niche franchise outside the Smash community.
@@lynxfresh5214 intelligent systems, said the reason that the game has branching pathways is because they felt it was the only way to appeal to everyone. However, it also kind of made things more difficult on themselves, it shows.
It's very clear that selling the game in three pieces with one piece not even being physical was very much a higher-up choice. They straight up made the physical special edition that contains everything on the card, so they very clearly already developed it with this level of compatibility in mind, aswell as it physically being possible.
@@lynxfresh5214And even with ALL THAT DLC they STILL couldn't make any time to show us the man Garon used to be. This fucking story man.
@@Superluigi881 Fun Fact: King Garon is actually pretty intimidating in the Fire Emblem Fates Manga.
The Chuggaconroy footage from Lorithea killed me XD
Also the XB2 meme guards made that funnier XD
Thanks Mr. Conroy for your humor!
4:28
There, left a time stamp
Thank you for bringing an army of views for the many Chuggaconroy fans@@jordanhunter3375
All it needed was one last Mor Ardain guard saying Yer Done?! and the joke would be complete XD
DON'T FORGET ME
How ironic that one of Josh's favorite franchises that his talks about so much to death ends up having the main villain topping the list as his worst villain. (Though can you really blame him?)
Not really, Josh may call himself a KH fan but some of his opinions about it are... questionable.
To the point where you start to wonder if he's really a fan at all or just likes the cool boss fights and music.
@@DarkOverlord96 There are 2 types of Kingdom Hearts fans: those who play the games for the story, characters, lore and worldbuilding, and those who play for the epic boss fights, kickass music and fun gameplay.
ashitty redemption ruins evrything i my opinion
@@DarkOverlord96 It's possible to be an early fan and then become disillusioned with the franchise as it goes on. And goodness knows KH has made that very easy.
Well when a game sucks overall the villain stands out less as an issue.
The honest problem with video game villains is that they tend to be saved for the very end, yet without any cutscenes throughout the game to showcase their villainy with the risk of making them flat and generic without proper characterisation.
19:22-19:25 i’m gonna hold you to that Josh. As much as I agree that Le Paradox deserves to be on this list, you could write an entire video essay about why Penelope being a villain in Sly 4 makes no sense! It genuinely made me angry the first time I played the game! Her boss fight was kinda fun though.
Is it crazy to say that even videogame itself anknowledge itself with those two things?
Penelope's betrayal
Bentley: Wow, and I thought you were smart.
Le Paradox himself.
Sly: Um, an idiot! You had it made! You could have been the biggest thief of all time, but you had to target my ancestors and blow your own cover! You exposed your operation because of you ego! No Cooper would've done that! And for the record, can you really say you stole the canes? Seems like your "friends" did all the real work!
@@ivanacurna6577 It doesn't change the fact that, regarding Penelope right now, some clown in the writing team thought it was smart to make her a money hungry backstabber... even though the previous game has shown not only the opposite, but also gave... how many hints of potential betrayal? ZERO. And as proven by ALL the previous games, Bentley would rather use his smarts for the things he wants to do: Helping Sly with heists using his technological know-how and his smarts, just as much as Murray would help Sly with anything involving more strength. Would his inventions earn him money? Yeah, but it wouldn't be what he WANTS to do. And Penelope NORMALLY should be aware of this. Heck, someone once told me that her betrayal COULD probably work if Penelope was, I dunno... MIND CONTROLLED BY MISS DECIBEL?! The elephant lady who could HYPNOTIZE people using that trumpet in her trunk?! Just have Le Paradox get Penelope mind controlled by Miss Decibel, get her to act like she did in the game, but hint at the mind control being in effect in some way... the rest can write itself easily.
Hmmmmmm what makes a worse Villain???
A character betrayal that is barely hinted at if not at all, and despite their being multiple ways to make this backstab work they decided the best solution was to butcher her character and drag Bentley down even more when our boi Literally has no legs to stand on, but comes with a good boss fight
OR a pathetic attempt at making a true rival to our main lead by shoehorning in info that leads to nothing and all the while being an absolute chump compared to the threatening and conniving antagonists of previous games and who's big final encounter of a rival "equal" to ours is a bunch of QTE's
@@DoctorolivercookWell this might gonna sound farfecthed (and trust even I find it myself, hard to believe), but I think we were introduced to Penelope earlier before Sly 3 like in Sly 2 Band of Thieves. I had that suspision because I noticed something off after re-playing on 20th anniversary. Something that has been bothering me ever since. Can I share this to you?
@@ivanacurna6577 What are you talking about? Penelope was first introduced in Sly 3. And don't expect me not to know, I have played the ps2 game.
I’ve suggested it myself, but one day, this SHOULD be reversed into Worst VG “Heroes/Protagonists”. (Balan Wonderworld, Bubsy, Richard Marcinko, etc.)
So (sooner or later) make it happen, Josh. Make it happen…
Bubsy is a very interesting example. Despite being an arguably entertaining character, he isn't too interesting as a hero, even when compared to other vanilla protagonists I have more respect for, like Mario. The bigger problems come from, A. If you find his attempts at comedy or his voice to be irritating, B. He is very egotistical, especially in the cartoon, to the point where he treats others like trash, and C. Despite his impressive abilities like his power-ups, gliding, and apparently Fourth Wall awareness, the games themselves gave him next to no legs to stand on.
Mostly due to me not having the same personal experience with Bubsy as others do, I don't hate him, but there are definitely good reasons why he's a good contender for Worst Video Game Heroes.
I can see Corrin being on that list already. XD
Conker from CONKER'S BAD FUR DAY?
Don't forget Patroklos, Awesome Possum and Yaiba Kamikaze!
@@apollorock3r244 good news Corrin is actually lovable in the fire emblem, fates manga.
10:28 I honestly agree with that statement. Jimmy Crystal was a great villain who was willing to kill Buster Moon to protect his reputation as an entertainment mogul.
Number 6 is actually the start of a pretty compelling villain, a person who's "villainy" starts purely on accident, but becomes so ostracized by the people that he becomes the villain that everyone sees him as. So now, he 'plays his part." for the hope that someone will finally "fix the mistake."
you just described the villain of live a live. well, not the "hoping somone else will fix the mistake" part, but otherwise a perfect description
@@Underworlder5 Oersted, a.k.a. Odio?!
@@NoelJohnCarlo exactly. did not want to name names because spoilers, but you guessed correctly
The Chairman Rose and the Macros Cosmos reveal as villains could’ve easily worked not on if they were behind more of the evil stuff in Sword and Shield, but also if Leon and the gym leaders were involved in secretly investigating them. It would’ve pressured Rose to speed up his plans to mine the Dynamax energy from Eternarus and advance his company’s success, rather than trying to fix a problem that wouldn’t occur for another 1,000 years
And people think that this is a valid reason to hate SwSh entirely.
Bro, the story just had a bunch of holes in it. That's it. It's a game, not an interactive movie.
I’m not saying every villain has to be senator Armstrong level funny or diabolical like ghetis, or be unexpected like Wheatley
But I think this can be the checklist for how to fail on a tragic level, comedic level, and epic level
For Armstrong he wouldn't have worked if he wasn't also strong enough to beat Raiden like a ragdoll through his monologue.
@@emberfist8347 Agreed. Everyone expected a politician bad guy to fight in a giant robot, but nobody expected the best part to be when he got out of the giant robot.
All this reminded me of the episode of Phineas and Ferb when Doofenshmirtz was teaching someone with real evil aspirations how to be a proper villain. Also the episode when he taught Peter the Panda’s nemesis that he can’t just be a compete mystery about everything.
Are you referring to the episode, Minor Monogram?
My final words for number 1.
Complex does not equal good writing!
More convoluted than complex.
Complex van be good because it has multiple elements giving it depth, convoluted is bad because the parts become so tangled together or are so vague that you can no longer keep track of what's going on.
@@FF-tp7qs the creator of Final Fantasy, motivated the creator of kingdom hearts, to make the story more complicated because he felt it was the only way for it to succeed. Unfortunately, the kingdom hearts creator took his advice way too seriously.
Somehow, I wonder if even Xehanort lost track of his overly complex plans and just pulled the misunderstood declaration out of his ass because even he couldn't keep up with the story.
@@lightyearpig12 what about the whole Master of Masters and his bizarre plot to make the Foretellers fight each other with a story about a book of prophecy with an extra page. I can't think of any logical reason why he wanted that to happen.
In any case, just take the story with a grain of salt and enjoy the combat. The combat is probably the real reason people like the games
@@FF-tp7qs hey i love the story of kingdom hearts! But even i have to admit it can get...real messy, especially after birth. After birth by sleep things...problematic, blame dream drop distance, seriously, that games nobody reveal made me so angry!
Ok friendo. Not to be picky but it was revealed we aren't Xehanort. We're the dude in the blue robe that raised him.
Wow...We suck as parents if he turned out like that. XD
@@smashmaster521 Its not really our faults. We had to raise him on destiny island alone because its thought that Xehanort is a child of fate and needs to be protected from corruption. From what I've seen in the cutscenes is that we where great parents and Xehanort absolutely adored us. But I think his resentment of being trapped on a island took over because by the time pass away. He doesn't really bother with mourning.
LeParadox was terrible throughout with no redeeming qualities. But I understand why he isn’t number 1. The worst villains are those with the greatest potential, only to be severely wasted due to poor writing of motivation, characterization, impact, etc. They brought us hope for something devilish, only to throw deviled eggs spoiled under the light of expectation.
Sorry to add to your confusion, Josh, but the end of Dark Road confirmed that Xehanort wasn't the reincarnation of the Player Character from Union Cross, but he is a descendant of Ephemer. His mentor (withy that cloak on) is the Player Character.
Uhhhh Josh? V3 IS a seprate continutity. It was confirmed by Kodaka himself. It was even called NEW Danganronpa V3 to emphasize it. The title, and by extention the separate continutity thing, just didn't come to the west because of frustratingly classic western branch "Change for the sake of Change" crap. I'm not even joking.
V3's dub as a whole is like that, changing so many characters.
they have implied it so many times that it was a seperate things and people with low reading compherension skill still fail to get that
@@LTDLetsPlays🍆
18:52 Josh, I’m so happy to hear you talk about Sly Cooper. I love those games.
I'm not gonna pretend Lorathia is a good villain, but there's a couple points you made that I disagree with:
First one is minor, but we learn as she dies that Zanza had promised her immortality, so it's fairly obvious what her motivation was. It's not a strong motivation, but one nonetheless
The second one is where you mentioned she could've taken over the power vacuum after the death of the Emperor. To that I say: what power vacuum? Melia had already been selected as heir to the throne and her brother Kalian was appointed regent. So there never was a power vacuum for her to exploit, as the High Entian Empire had a clear-cut line of succession
she wanted to kill melia to gain the throne i believe
I'd argue Zanza is the worst villain in XC1. Causes mass genocide so that he can live forever, but in the end spouts some nonsense that all he wanted in the end was friends. Legit said out loud "Get the fuck out of here" when he said that.
Also yes, Melia is selected as the heir to the throne, don't know how Josh missed that given that it's a major plot point.
Additionally why would Lorathia aim for the throne. She already has power, she's just waiting for Zanza to return, turn the High Entia to turn in Telethia and then continue on into the next world. I mean Lorithia isn't deep or well developed but I wouldn't say she is a bad villain. Honestly I hate Xenoblade Villains like Z more for being a more "important" threat that just fails in execution for me (despite having hilarious memes).
@@okagronZanza accidentally exploded his own universe, becoming a god in the new universe. His friends are dead, and he believes this world is a fake with nothing worth existing in it, so he will do with it as he wills - but he's still miserable about it. That Shulk can actually fight him risks elevating him to the level of 'person', and he'd like to have people to interact with... but unfortunately he still sees everyone else as insignificant while Shulk, critically, does not.
It's a "Whoa, you're cool enough to matter. We should be tormenting these ants together." sort of thing.
@@basedeltazero714Nothing in the game implies this. It's just some throwaway line to make him seem deeper than he actually is, which is barely nothing. He's fine when he's in his giant form, but as soon as he returns to his original form, he becomes boring as shit.
Funnily enough, Garon being one-dimensional is a result of the localization. In the original Japanese story, Garon at least wears the face of a kind leader
Even then, with a scrotum face like that, everyone would still seem stupid for buying into his ruse.
Kozaki's habit of drawing hideous villains is almost as bad as how he draws female clothing.
Good news king Garon is actually kind of intimidating in the FE Fates Manga.
@@orangeslash1667 The problem with Garon is that him being evil and intimidating is exactly why he doesn't work.
@@CountShaman After futher research, we do get a glimpse of Garon’s former self in the manga. Such as one scene of him being nice to Leo.
I noticed your disappointment of modern FE, I recommend the game the Last Spell as an alternative option.
@@orangeslash1667 Oh no, I love modern FE. I just hate the villains most of the time.
Xehanort wasn't the Reincarnation of X's Player. It was his caretaker on the island. He just instructed Xehanort because he thought Xehanort was the prophecied Child of Destiny and also a Descendant of Ephemer.
Funny how Metal Face does literally everything Lorithia does better as a twist villain; Metal Face's twist works because he actually is essential to the plot by moving it forward because Mumkhar is an AWFUL person seduced by the power of a god and would do anything to spite the one person who could wield said power. Lorithia's doesn't because there's not enough motivation or reason to justify her backstabbing the High Entia...not to mention, how is it that thing she does to turn the High Entia in to Telethia doesn't affect her? She said it affects full-blood High Entia, i.e. the ones with long wings...LIKE HER!? Uhm...game...EXPLAIN, PLEASE!? Not to mention she has almost as much screentime as the more interesting High Entia antagonists in Tyrea & Yumea, the former of whom gets a heart-warming redemption and resolution arc in the Switch remake's extra story "Futures Connected". >.>
i wouldn't even call lorithia a twist villain, she was pretty much screaming at the screen "I AM GOING TO BETRAY YOU" form the moment she showed up. her betrayal itself is treated the same- the cutscene doesn't act like it's huge reveal like metal face, or seven, or zanza's revival, or dickson. the scene just keeps on going and barely acknowledges her at all, because even if it's a surprise to the characters, it's clearly *not* a surprise to you, the player.
as for her not transforming, lorithia says when she dies "i was promised immortality"- seems clear to me that zanza specifically exempted her from the transformation. he probably turned her genetic switch off back before he was sealed away
@@heathersmith4042 Ya know, given how long the High Entia live for, lady's kinda ridiculously greedy and self-entitled if you think about it. Either way, that could have been better alluded to with more screen-time to flesh her out more. That said, I don't agree that her being obvious DOESN'T make her a twist villain, just look at what I said about Mumkhar. He LITERALLY says he's going to pick Dunban's corpse clean after the Battle at Sword Valley so he can steal the Monado for himself. The story gives enough time between his "death" and his resurgence to put the idea of him being a surprise twist villain at the back of your mind, but every time you see Metal Face, something about this...thing...it just feels off, so when the reveal is finally made, it's a serious "Oh, shit!" moment because his motivations, and how he's set about them, are made clear. Dramatic irony is when we, the audience, possess knowledge that the characters don't, thus increasing the tension for the inevitable moment where shit hits the fan. It's a wonderful literary tool that Xenoblade Chronicles 1 alone uses to great effect. Lorithia is still a twist villain by definition; she's not a bad twist villain because she's obvious, she's a bad twist villain because there's not enough justification in the story for her to BE a villain in the first place; sure, you could make the argument that she's obvious because she always appears to have an ulterior motive, but then again, you could extend that to the whole of the High Entia: the story makes it clear, when you're first introduced to them, that they're a people shrouded in mystery living atop the Bionis' Head. For all we know, Lorithia's attitude isn't out of the ordinary; she's Head of the Ministry of Research, a science division, after all...she has her reasons to be secretive: knowledge, in the wrong hands, can be dangerous. With more screen-time, maybe we could have started to better understand what her deal is... Something Dickson has basically everything of, does better than, and then some.
I think we know who is going to appear on this list, given that this Josh... (Jasper Batt Jr.)
For me, a bad villain is one that sits in the background and doesn't do anything when they're supposed to be the main focus. If I don't feel threatened by them, that's a failure in my eyes.
Of course, this rule is void when the villain is unclear or shows up at the last second - in which case it's more about how well I think they fit the role.
I'm not sure people would agree with me when I say who I think the worst villain is, so I'll instead go with someone people will agree with. The Viscout from *Crash Boom Bang!* is just a 'there' villain. Take them out, nothing changes.
And Batt Jr. has… as a dishonorable mention!
Xanthe from Final Fantasy 3 was the first person to come to mind with that description.
There are ways to make background villains more threatening; Handsome Jack is the perfect example. Despite not seeing him in the flesh until about 3/4th of the way through the game, he is a constant presence throughout. Between his constant taunts over the Echo, witnessing his "heroics" in action, and hearing about how he has affected the people of Pandora you can feel his influence all over the world.
To be fair Batt wanted to avenge the loss of his family so he took the life of Bishop just to get even. This whole concept of revenge could’ve worked if they didn’t drop the ball at the very end.
@@voltingmaster5458 It's very clear that Yuri Lowenthal was not a good fit for him, I think Richard Steven Horvitz would have been a better fit.
"Aren't you going to wash your hands...?"
"No... because I'm evil."
-Flash as Lex Luthor, JLU
(So surprised that clip didn't get worked into half these entries.)
In corypheus' defense he had one line I really liked for his villain act: "beg that I succeed, for I have seen the throne of the gods and it was empty."
Oh, wait you talked about it.
9:26 I kind of felt that way about Zestria and Berseria. I liked the story but took issue more so with how the world 'works'. People/things can generate malevolence and their isn't any way to stop it because it's like CHAOS in Warhammer 40k. Everything that makes humanity good and bad can feed it. Your world is essentially in a endless cycle of war against the Malevolence and the only real way to stop it would be to wipe all humanity from the world which the Sheperd tried to do in Berseria. In that case Helmdalf doesn't NEED to do anything, just his existence marches the world to conflict. Which in the grand scheme of things doesn't make that great a villain.
What about the Villains from Tales of Arise?
Le Paradox is also a bit of a tragedy -- in how disappointing he ended up being -- for how it did have a bit of potential.
Upon finding out that he was behind all this nonsense, Carmelita (in an internal monologue) remarks on how Le Paradox did some criminal activity in his youth, but (supposedly) had a completely clean record after that.
Since the game was trying to go for some parallel between Cyrille and Sly, that could have been something to play off of. That both of these criminals had a chance to leave their criminal pasts/family histories behind and have a genuinely good life (Cyrille as an art curator, Sly as Carmelita's partner), but just couldn't resist, which leads to dire consequences for them both.
Or heck, leave out the Carmelita monologue about how Sly still had that thieving urge and would never really give up that lifestyle, and have that be the parallel. That Sly, despite liking being the next Master Thief of the Cooper Clan -- and finally having access to the breadth of his family's legacy through the Cooper Vault -- was willing to abandon all of it behind for the sake of love, sincerity, and being his own raccoon; and that Le Paradox had a similar chance to leave his family's criminal past behind him, but chose to continue down the same path, and paid for it. (maybe note that his family never really hit big as thieves and always got caught and punished, as a sorta-parallel to Sly's ancestors all being hunted down by Clockwerk)
As for fixing the boss battle... I think just dropping the quick-time events would do, maybe add a platform or two for direct combat. No major fixes needed other than that.
I honestly kinda disagree about Validar in Awakening being incompetent because the good guys predicted his every move. The good guys had the advantage of being protected by people from the future who knew Validar's plans because they came from a timeline where all his plans succeeded and he won. Validar eventually gained that same knowledge, but that wasn't until after they'd already disrupted his plans and pretty much left him at death's door. The one time they really outsmarted him outright was when Validar tried to make Robin kill Crom, and even then, they still made use of knowledge from the future to prevent it, which was accidentally given to them by Grima at the start of the game through Ronin dreaming about the Crom betrayal before even meeting the man.
I gotta say, Tsumugi has the best line in the entire series
Tsumugi: "It's Junko Enoshima"
Shuichi: "Huh"
Tsumugi: "Because... it's always Junko Enoshima"
Lol I remember when nicob played this and he laughed hard and mention that she has a good point
@@Yoshixandir my fellow PickyPenguin
You know, I'd like to see a video on character assassination in games.
that's probably where Penelope comes into play
The MOMENT Pokemon came up, I immediately thought "Chairman Rose." HORRIBLE villains, came COMPLETELY out of nowhere, no buildup, no effect on any point of the plot until they get dropped in randomly at the end, flimsy justification and motives, and just as quickly as they appear, once you beat them and the death dragon they spawned, he basically turns himself in and that's a wrap for their entire team. Garbage. They didn't even take the "twist villain" approach, as there was no mystique about the evil actions going on in the game...because there were no evil actions going on. It truly felt like the writers got like 99% through making the games and realized they were missing a real villain, so someone said "Uhhh...corporations are evil, so let's just make Rose the bad guy" and then spent like 10 minutes writing his motives and subplot. In fact, ALL of Sw/Sh feels that way, which sucks, because many features in the game were great and it truly felt fresh, yet unfinished.
Correction: Xehanort isn't the reencarnation of the player in Union X
He is a descendant from Ephemer, which IDK if it's worse or not
direct descendant**
To be fair, I can kinda respect Rose trying to be proactive regarding the eventual energy crisis as opposed to kicking the can down the road. That being said, it still doesn't excuse how bland he is and how stupid his "solution" was, especially when Regieleki is just chilling on a nearby island.
*"especially when Regieleki is just chilling on a nearby island."*
Dude, Eternatus is a way better energy source than a glorified light bulb.
@@toumabyakuya
Hmmm, let's see. A living apocalypse that nearly wiped out the region once before, or a sapient generator strong enough to power a country with little risk aside from not removing it's rings... which one is the safer and more reliable energy source, I wonder?
@@timmyreobed5043 *"which one is the safer and more reliable energy source, I wonder?"*
The one that can last you the longest. Otherwise, all you are doing is covering the problem instead of fixing it.
@@toumabyakuya did you not read the part that eternatus is a living apocalypse that almost destroyed a region.
I’d rather pick the legendary made out of pure energy than eternatus
@@Bloody_Carnage Yes, I did. But again, post-poning the inevibatable for 100 years or more is not a good solution. So, albeit it is the most dangerous appraoch, catching Eternatus is the best approach because it brings a definitive solution to the energy crisis.
Modern Fire Emblem has problems but Garon is the one I can’t look past.
In the case of Validar it’s pretty easy to see he’s neither the power or brains behind the operation.
He’s the fall guy who lets Grima act with minimal scrutiny, and we’re aware of this since his first near-death.
Thales and the Agarthans are very much a splintered group but their lack of cohesion and how much they stick into the background works with the lore between the lines… but puts one large final nail in Edelgard’s coffin of justifying herself.
Beyond the fact that the children of Nabatea deceived Fòdlan she hasn’t got a polished turd for a point that isn’t acting far beyond her purview, but allying with the obviously evil albino people that are responsible for her personal strife to begin with just hammers home how wrong she is.
But that rant is for another time…
Garon, to me, is the prime example of Fates’ fouling up its concept.
It presented itself as a choice driven narrative between two difficult personal decisions and ideals.
And promptly screwed it up with the demonstrably and pointlessly evil, manipulative evil king, especially in contrast to the noblebright other half of the story which has nary a blemish to drive any suspicion of morally grey areas.
It’s too easy to make a moral choice.
Garon is an evil dickhead, his kids are myopic idiots and Corrin does absolutely nothing to make things better by returning to Nohr.
Frankly the fact that Xander inadvertently kills Elise was the only time I felt Fates had some balls to show off the family tragedy.
On top of the blatant subtext of the peace-loving legally distinct not-feudal-Japan being compared to the obviously evil European-esque Nohr comes off as rewriting history.
making garon work as a villain was so easy. nohr has no resources. hoshido has lots of resources, but is not sharing. that is a perfectly good explanation for nohr invading hoshido, yet they go the "king conquers because he is evil but was actually a puppet controlled by another villain" route. make garon. they even explained away garons personality by saying that he became hardened after his lovers killed each other and most of his kids. anyone would be miserable and cynical after an experience like that
all they had to do was make him nicer to his kids, explain clearly why he invades hoshido, and show (not tell) how he was before he became a villain. instead the story was handled so clumsily it just became "bad guy does bad things to be bad. he was a nice guy. not gonna show it, but trust us, he was nice. oh, and he was actually a puppet the whole time"
@@Underworlder5
Indeed, and if you had to work in the third faction for whatever reason, make it less blatant. Make it seem like there isn’t a viable recourse.
Make them set up things that lead to hostility. Sabotage peace talks, ensure Nohr’s scarcity by sabotaging any food efforts and have some agents (like say Iago) make suggestions to lead to war, (again if you have to make Valla a player in this situation)
It would have been so much more interesting and not that hard.
You could’ve even kept the pure evil Garon and made him effective by showing how he’s directly too intimidating for the Nohr royals to stand up to. Follow through on the Anankos who’s possessing him wanting to corrupt Corrin and have him repeatedly confront and cause strife to Corrin during their attempts to deceive Garon. Make him seem like an indomitable obstacle that is cathartic to overcome in the end, and prove that he is everything holding Nohr back from being better (a little more grey from Hoshido would be nice, but it does not need to be 50:50 to be good).
Garon’s dialogue is just so bad that any threat he objectively presents isn’t actually felt
@@rustkarl Good news, Garon is actually kinda threatening in the Fates Manga.
Uhhhh Josh... Xehanort was not the reincarnation of the player from KH Chi. His caretaker in the cloak was.
Shhh, don't point out the holes in his rant!
@@DarkOverlord96I guess he doesn't listen to them.
sshhh let him live in his deluded reality
@DarkOverlord96 No. KEEP pointing out the holes in his rants. Josh's deserves to be criticized for his misconstrued statements that have more overblown style than genuine substance.
I doubt he's listening. XD
One thing I will give Xehanort though: Even after everything, (most of) his fights are, at least, GREAT. And now, I can actually say that at least Young Xehanort is fun to play as, now that the Young Xehanort mod, “KH3: Another Road”, is finally out.
Perosnally I like Tsumugi. She's a delsusional fangirl of both Danganronpa and Junko Enoshima and wants the killing game to continue out of a twisted devotion to the concept of Dangaronpa as a work of fiction, and wants to devolve real peopl into characters for the sake of her obsession with 'real fiction'. Plus its implied some of her claims about what was going on were lies so we can't take ehr FULLY at face value.
Of course she thinks the audience will side with her. She's not DIRECTLY INSULTING THEM, they ARE the reason the killing games got to this point and why Danganronpa continues. Sure she want despair to win, but she also doesn'e care if hope wins, because either way Danganronpa continues.
She loses becaue despite her madness she still doesn't care that much about Danganronpa, not enough to realise that people DO care about 'fiction' beyond a momentary enjoyment.
I feel the same way.
Dishonorable Mentions:
*Atoq Navarro - Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
-He's so bland that his page on the Uncharted Wiki LITERALLY DOESN'T HAVE A PERSONALITY SECTION! Not even his voice actor, Robert Atkin Downes (The voice of Travis Touchdown, The Medic, and Luxord from Kingdom Hearts) could salvage this character.
*Xande - Final Fantasy 3
-Give Exdeath credit, at least he has the excuse of being a parody of a villain. Whereas Final Fantasy 3 played it's tropes straight with it's main villain, Xande, and he comits the sin of being unmemorable. So much so that when Dissidia was released, Cloud of Darkness was chosen as the FFIII rep instead of him.
*Lyric - Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric
-I haven't played Rise of Lyric, but going off of what I know, it's a shame because the elements to make Lyric a good villain ARE THERE. His backstory and design are interesting enough, but they squandered all that potential. And arguably the biggest problem, Lyric barely does anything and barely puts up a fight.
*The Viscount - Crash Boom Bang
-It should come as no surprise that the worst Crash Bandicoot game in the franchise should also have the worst villain in the franchise. Basically, The Viscount hosts an amazing race style contest but in reality, he's using the contestants to do all the dirty work in hopes of uncovering a wish-granting treasure called (and I am NOT joking here) "The Super Big Power Crystal." What a ridiculous plan! This isn't helped by the fact that he's easily the most boring and unremarkable villain in the entire series. So much so that he didn't even make a cameo in CTR Nitro Fueled, and that game has characters as obscure as Yaya Panda and Megamix in its roster!
Someone watched a LOT of benjamage, apparently... Cool.
Holy $#!t...
Your hypothetical version of V3's ending sounds legit fire.
And I'm not even a hater of V3's ending.
Your idea sounds incredible!
I helped wrote some of it. Was worried if the takes are a tad harsh, but glad to see some people like it.
That's about how I interpreted the ending. I didn't see it really much as this whole "meta" thing, as the game explicitly called the previous Killing Games "seasons" rather than games. Audience interaction was SUPPOSED to be unique to V3. But if that wasn't the case for games 1 and 2... Why bother emphasizing that? And Keebo was the character said to be the vessel for the Audience interaction anyway, being the robot, it's why the last minigame is against him as you're fighting all the rabid fans. Cause a controller will typically have more influence over a medium than a remote.
Though yeah, Tsumugi herself is a bad villain.
@@CountShamanreally. What was it like making it.
@@disneyboy3030 You mean being a writer?
@@waferdaze8017 honestly those who saw it as a meta thing are being stupid and have bad reading compherension skills just like how undertales determination save and load and reset is seen as a Meta thing instead of it being a superpower that was based on a meta thing to fuck with players specifically
My pick for the worst/disappointing video game villain would be the Black Hand of Sauron from Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor (SPOILERS!!!). The leader of the black captains, the guy who directly killed Talion (the protagonist) and his family and the main source of our thirst for revenge. He is built up to be the most dangerous and scariest of all the Sauron's soldiers, being described as the personification of Sauron's deceptive and cunning nature. There was some potential for a baddass rival or something and yet we only see him twice: at the very beginning and at the very end of the game; the only thing he does in the meantime, that being the destruction of the village we were allied with, happens near the end and off-screen and when we finally confront him - we defeat him in a QTE that requires only two or three button presses. Very unsatisfying way to end a revenge story.
now i kinda want to know Josh's top 10 worst villians across all media: movies, games, tv shows, cartoons, anime
i say the rules for that one should be for one per media. one per book one per show one per cartoon, one per anime, one per game, one per manga and so on
"I will destroy the world to save it" Said every Pokémon villain ever.
OK, I thought for a while that Spider sacrificed himself to save the crew, and Redips disguised himself as Spider to make it seem like he survived.
Yeah that whole part was unclear to me. Not helped by the fact that the game hid it by not even showing what happened after the explosion, just cuts to everyone back at base.
Yeah, the whole thing is honestly kind of a mess. I've heard a theory that Spider was originally his own person, and died when Wild Jango captured him. The reason we can't write Spider off as always having been Redips is simply because of how the copy chip works - it's shown with Axl that he has to have the DNA of the target in order to copy them. In other words, the target has to have existed.
Spider sacrificing himself later on is unclear, but there are a number of different (possible) explanations. It's certainly one of the weaker plot points in Command Mission.
Rose's plan makes perfect sense...when you remember that Rose is an egomaniac. He genuinely cares for Galar and wants it to prosper, but he also has a pathological need to be the hero, to be the one remembered as the savior of Galar. And that's why he can't wait one more day--because Leon, the "brave knight" (Rose's words) he's raised for years for this, may no longer be champion in one more day. That's why Rose can't wait.
Rose is a very romantic man. Not in the sense of love, but in the sense of having a grand view of of things. He sees himself as nobility and that it's both his and Leon's duty to defeat the dragon that threatens Galar's safety. That's his "romantic dream" (if I may borrow the words of Seifer Almasay). When you view Rose in that mindset....well, he's not much better as a villain, but he's a better *character*.
Macro Cosmos seems to be evil through and through though, entirely without him. Look at the PokéJobs listings. They have a finger in every pie, and a stranglehold on the Galar economy, and it continues long after Rose goes to prison. They never needed him. If anything, his moral compass was holding them back.
He comes off pretty well in Masters. It shows off that he's smarter than people think, including the people who know him best. He revealed that he was using Giovanni, implying that he was just playing naive when Gio came to him with his own offer. His "day with" event shows a lot about his character--he's charitable and loves showing off his money, he cares for his brother Peony but fears they may never be able to mend their rift, and so on. The anime also gave him a past that REALLY should have been part of the games--the thing that pushes him to save Galar from this crisis is that his father died on the mines when Rose was a child, and Rose can't tolerate the notion that anybody else could suffer the same loss he did. It REALLY should have been part of game canon because it makes his impulsiveness make so much more sense (and explains why brother Peony is so clingy with his daughter if he knows those bonds can be broken in an instant).
But yeah, all that is about Rose as a character, not as a villain. Heck, (gen 9 spoilers you already covered in the Best AI video)
Sada and Turo were better villains than he was and they're dead before the game even starts.
I think the worst thing a game can do with a villian is do the tell not show thing. I hate hearing about how bad a villian is only to actually get to them and they're completely underwhelming. Show me a villian doing evil stuff. Don't tell me they're bad. It's like if they just told you how evil Clive's mom is in ff16 instead of letting us see how completely psychotic she is
What about Ultima from Final Fantasy 16? He was basically the worst part of the game as his motivations are barely explored, he barely has any screen time and he’s one of those bad guys who sits on his ass and does nothing while his lieutenants do all of the hard work.
Honestly, I think Gael'gar should've been the Xenoblade rep instead of Lorithia. At least Lorithia is a minor villain in the long run and the worst thing about her is her boss fight. Gael'gar is a racist High Entia who destroys Tyrea's lab because reasons I forgot and eventually tries to kill Melia so he can become the ruler of the High Entia. He's so forgettable that you probably forgot about him until I mentioned him, and he's also the only villain in Future Connected aside from the Fog King who's just the final boss for final bosses sake. At least Lorithia blends into a sea of more memorable villains like Metal Face and Dickson
Here's my take on how to fix the Spider/Redips thing in Command Mission. Why not have Spider and Redips be connected without being the same character? Make Spider be a separate character and he makes a return not as the bad guy, but revealing that Redips decided to use his DNA core to pose as him, and rejoins X and the gang, albeit banged up in a similar way to how he joined up with X against Wild Jango? Definitely makes it worth actually getting his ultimate weapon when he's not on the team. And, yes... *I AM STILL SALTY ABOUT IT!*
The thing is that Spider couldn't have been Redips from the start because that isn't how the copy chip works. It _copies_ a reploid that already exists. In other words, it's *factually guaranteed* that Spider existed as a separate reploid from Redips at some point. Whether the original is dead or not is up for debate - it's been theorized by some that he died when Wild Jango captured him.
I like the idea of Spider still being alive, though. And it would have fixed the problem of him leaving the party permanently...
Hope we get more elemental bosses lists soon. Including Undead, Magic and Tech elemental bosses.
You just reminded me of Skylanders with those elements.
Personally I Love Number 8 for 3 reasons… none of them having anything to do with his character or writing:
1: His English VA rules.
2: His final boss fight is my favorite of all time.
3: His design looks like a Regal Leomon and I LOVE IT!!!
Yeah, I personally consider V3 to be an AU. It just makes more sense with how ridiculous everything is compared to the other games.
That Sing 2 comment makes me want to see a Top Ten Worst Animated Villains list
The problems with Zestiria were fixed in the prequel, Berseria, where you play with Velvet Crowe (Spoilers)
The first Lord of Calamity (Lady)
What about the Villains from Tales of Arise?
@@samflood5631 Volrhan was a good villain that served his purpose as a counterpoint to the MC, he wasn't the toughest boss, but i consider the fight good, The other Lords except Almedreia had at least one good quality and were being conned by the true villain, that was doing everything for the sake of it's own survival.
I always figured Xehanort's Heartless insisting on calling himself Ansem was more of an ego trip, that it was only near the end that Organization XIII had hearts because the process of regrowing them takes time, and Master Xehanort's 'I was a good guy all along' bit at the end was more ego.
Honestly, headcanons are sometimes the only reason Kingdom Hearts makes any sense. Lord knows Nomura isn't going to explain it.
Nomura really doesn't have the easiest hand to deal with. He must deal with not only one but TWO big corporations zealous over their IPs. Xehanort seems to be result of grandiose recipe which just ends undercooked. Xehanort saga has interesting ideas but it does only the barest minimum with it. Xehanort really could have been just Kefkaesque sociopath with Hojoesque scientist nuances. Trying to make him more philosophical/deeper character was doomed cause Nomura really couldn't or didn't know how to present it. At least as unapologetic egomaniac with tinge of entertaining presentation had made him classic Disney Villain with anime flavours (Part of reason why I prefer SoD version).
I like how some of the intro to the entries are Josh explaining the better villains and then basically saying, "Then there's this f***er."
Okay, not saying he isnt allowed to put his #1 as his #1. I personally wouldnt put him anywhere on this list, but list are based on opinion. But when some of your opinion are based on false information, it warrents pointing out.
1) Nobodies did not have hearts the whole time. They just had the compacity to "grow" new ones overtime due to possessing all the memories/souls of their original hearts. The memories both old and new would eventually form a new heart.
2) Young Xehanort literally has a line in BBS when he first appears about wanting more in life ("this island is a prison"), Dark Road didn't make that up in response to the KH3 ending (which despite me loving that game, even I will admitt that part was forced.)
3) He isn't the Chi player reincarnated. The person in the cloak in that scene is.
Josh has always stood by his views on certain KH plot points even when people point him out that they're innacurate.
He's been doing it for over 10 years.
@@DarkOverlord96really. Man that is hard. I would me more flexible to changes.
@@DarkOverlord96 this does reduce my respect of him a quite a bit and it makes me realise he truly is a manchild that is stuck in the past repeating the same shit and never moving on
That's a tad extreme.
Lorithia: You'll pay for your insolence!
What I'm hearing: you'll pay for your Insulin.
Damn girl you doing a side job for insurance 😅
Paradox from sly cooper could’ve been a better villain if they made him controlled by someone worse, with the person controlling them being the actual main villain.
Have paradox be given lies about his family past and bring up the fact that no one has actually heard of him before as a hint to the truth.
They coulda brought back Clockwerk! After all, the whole game is about going back in time to help Sly's predecessors, and every one of them fought Clockwerk! Where the hell was he all that time? And the game could end with Sly realizing that even though Clockwerk will fight all his ancestors if he doesn't kill him, doing so would have unintended consequences on the timeline. But no, stereotypical coward French man. Or maybe have the villain be a wolf and call him Arsene Lupine! Woulda at least been better than Cyrille!
@@WillieMangaSorry for the long reply but i wrote a summary for what they couldve done for a better story.
Clockwerk makes Cyrille believe he came from a long line of thieves and makes Cyrille mad at the Cooper family. Cyrille tries to avenge his family so Sly goes back in time to stop him. Sly helps his ancestors while investigating Cyrilles past before having it revealed that Cyrille wasnt truly from a thief family, but it is too late then as Clockwerk already is back but more powerful from time magic or something (doesn't need to make that much sense here)
The ending could go different ways but a fitting one would be that Cyrille and Sly team up to stop Clockwerk and reverse the damage.
Cyrille either stops trying to be a master thief at the end and decides to do his own thing, ending that character arc, or he becomes the first actual master thief in his family line without all the time stuff.
@@alyx8815 Sly 4 has one problem, Suck Punch had no involvement with this one. It was made and written by someone else and it shows.
Regarding that thing about Xehanort being the reincarnation of the player from Kingdom Hearts X, that is not true. If you played the Dark Road story part of the game and saw the post credits scene, you would know that the player does not reincarnate as Xehanort. The player ends up being reincarnated as the elderly hooded mentor who raised Xehanort on Destiny Islands and that all of the memories Xehanort sees regarding the player from Kingdom Hearts X actually belonged to the mentor. It is also revealed that Xehanort is the descendent of Ephemer.
I would’ve had Kronika from Mortal Kombat 11 on this list. SPOILERS
She makes no attempt to hide her plan, she brings back good versions of the heroes, and the only reason she has her pawns are because they’re complete idiots.
Kronika's an objectively worse villain than Xehanort.
Exactly. Kronika should be the Number 1 Worst Boss on this list. Xehanort doesn't deserve to be a dishonorable mention, letalone the number 1 spot.
The only memorable thing about Lorithia is that she had the audacity to make out with Melia’s brother while he wasn’t fully conscious like that pretty escalated to outright irredeemable villain. As for Macro is kind of just feels he is a twist villain purely for the sake of having a big villain to fight alongside a legendary in climatic moment after the made the decision not have the evil organization being seen through the game.
Honestly, the funny thing about Rose is that in Pokemon Masters, as part of their recently finished villain arc, manages to make him... kinda better without reworking what was already in place. It's very obvious the 1000 years timeframe is the biggest issue with his motivations, and since they can't walk back on that, they make his actions much less severe. In Masters, a version of him from before the Darkest Day shows up on Pasio with Oleana and he immediately takes an interest in the "Sync Stones" that are integral to Masters. He sees them as an opportunity for unlimited energy and campaigns for Macro Cosmos to take over Sync Stone research, focusing entirely on the energy aspect while ignoring their uses in battle. He gets a lot of people to support him for legitimate reasons, and it creates a decently interesting clash of ideals. It's incredibly impressive that the writing team for Masters managed to salvage him at least a little bit... and also incredibly weird that they kinda botched the Unova villain arc. Masters' writing quality can be pretty all over the place...
Also, very much agree on Tsumugi being at #2. God, I hate V3. Maybe in some other timeline, we got a good version of that game with a better ending (and one where Kaede was the protagonist the whole time... That would've been, y'know, somewhat unique.)
The writing in masters has no right to be as good as it is by modern Pokemon standards, but it feels so nice
I actually like Xehanort in KH. He's like Thanos from infinity war. Xehanort was not being sympathetic or understandable in that cutscene by the way. Dark road did give him at least some level of sympathy, but it doesn't excuse his actions. Kh3 didn't make him sympathetic in that scene. Xehanort was being proven wrong. Everyone has their opinion though. This list was a fun watch.
The only thing I feel is worse than just messing up a villain? Intentionally making them bad. Like, yes, you're not supposed to LIKE a villain, but the role has to come with a certain respect that is easy to gloss over if you are aiming for hated character. Some villains can work if they're cowardly when the push comes to shove. It's what makes it so satisfying to see them bite off more than they can chew, but don't entertain the thought that they could ever be more than that cause that just leaves someone who honestly is more sad but deranged. Lying is fine, proposing ANY legitimate comparison to another more competent character is disingenuous. Aside from them turning practically RAVENOUS when on the back foot, they're not really worth trying to make look competent.
If you're making someone just plain awful to be condescending or that they "rightly" stand above everyone else, then you are making the most honest political figure of a character. They're right, but it creates this problem where you feel like you lose regardless. If the villain doesn't treat the cast with some integrity or is just never bested at their own games, then it's BAD. You don't get the satisfaction of feeling like you won in anyway because they literally push the player and characters out of their own game. 343 Guilty Spark is a piece of shit that the games never just honestly prove wrong. By all accounts, the only way he gets defeated is like most of the other problems, shooting it. It's a solution, but that it was your ONLY solution to shut him up feels like a loss, you never win at the antagonist's game. There HAS to feel like some kind of pay-off after all of it, but it doesn't.
I disagree with Xehanort on the list, i think he is awesome and has a great backstory and boss battle. Dangaroppa on the other hand is way worse and way more confusing.
Good lord ive never played KH but that bit about Xenahort was mind numbing. How does one even make sense of all that??
Then congratulations, Josh is feeding you misinformation. Likes he's done to countless people for years.
I think apprentice Xehanort *did* lose his memories, and when he split into heartless and nobody he was envious of master Ansem, taking the name to make himself feel better. And then they kept the names because they had the names for 10~ years
Which kinda sucks cause it had made it interesting conundrum in KH3 where some parts of Xehanort aren't really digging their original self and old Xehanort is kinda bamboozled how he can't see himself in SoD or Xemnas.
It is kinda shame that Xehanort splits himself to many parts and story doesn't really do anything with it.
How in the hell is he always able to find a way to squeeze in Kingdom Hearts? That's just impressive. And funny.
In this case it's more "FORCED IN" than "SQUEEZE IN."
Also, the only thing that's funny is that he referenced JustAPancake.
It's neither funny nor accurate. Josh is genuinely wrong with several of his statements and now he's spreading misinformation... then again, this is Josh Scorcher, it's nothing new.
My first video that you were involved was the Top 15 Disrturbing Bosses in Non-Horror Games with Alex, thats what got me into watching your videos as well as his. Its good to see you're still uploading new Top Lists. I was not even a teenager when I saw that collab 2 part video with you and Alex.
Redips somehow makes Dr. Regal look good. Dear god
I actually really like Tsumugi as a villain
V3's trial 6 is my favorite
I think trial 5 is my favorite in the game, but 6 is a close second.
@@simpsonsfanatic777 My favorite trial in the game is actually 3, but 6 is my favorite of the three final trials of each game
@@funcoolfunfunV3s chapter 3 was your favorite? That's an unpopular opinion.
@@billiezeiszler608 It's hilarious and I love Kokichi's speeches to Himiko
@funcoolfunfun Hey hey, another trial 3 fan! I love to see it. I really like that whole chapter in general because though there was so much missed potential, what we got was so bat shit insane that it made me love it. Plus, the seance scene is one my favourite moments in the whole series (Rip Tenko :( )
Ironically, this one V3 fic made Tsumugi so much more interesting to me by focusing on how she views herself as a fictional character as well, and actively wants to die to end the game, as that's how it's supposed to go, and feels she has no purpose outside of it.
bro "this one fic" doesnt count for crap, ESPECIALLY when you dont even give any source or name on it, come on
I love how literally every other Sly villain but Pardox dies. Dr M? Dead. Neyla? Dead. Clockwerk? SUPER dead but nah paradox gets to live
Here's what they should have done with Cyrille; Should have 1: Made him an actual threat. 2: Turned him into a wolf instead. 3: Called him Arsene. Get it? Arsene Lupine? That way they could have made him French, but also a worthy foe. I don't know why they went the racist route when they had the perfect opportunity to make him a nice reference to French literature.
20:00
I completely agree with this entry
That boss just did nothing outside of get better thieves to do his dirty work
It could have been improved if we saw his supposed ancestors throughout the game teaming up with the future vilians but no
Why bother mentioning his ancestry in a TIME TRAVEL PLOT if you are going to do nothing with it
IMO, clockwerk is by far the best main sly cooper villain. Clockwerk went out like a chad in both sly 1 and 2, had a cool design, cool intro, interesting background that gives sly some serious motivation, has a cool boss fight and oh yeah *HE’S A GIANT OWL TURNED MEGA SIZED ROBO OWL*
Comic MODOK might work in that case
MCU MODOK not a chance in Hell
Honestly, I was expecting a sorta ‘Team Alpha’ villain group in Sword and Shield that Hyped STRENGTH and believes that the world belongs only to the strong and should only belong to the STRONK! -Then it’s elaborated on that they believe in different forms of strength…