Villains and depth in videogames

[Ultress]

I'm going to offer up Mithos from Tales of Symphonia,Yeah he's a villain but he's more a product of his world .He wants to make a world where he and all his kind can leave with out discrimination like his sister wants but he goes about it completely the wrong way.The good 4000 years focusing on resurrecting his sister has driven him off the deep end and caused his two friends to betray him.Unfortunately by the time he reaches his goal and is rejected by his sister,he loses what little grasp of reality he has left.

On top of this the years have made him manipulative and cunning, going so far as too kill his friend's wife just to get him back.

I don't know if this is what your looking for or I'm spouting bullshit but I really do like Mithos as a villain

 

[Irridium]

Saren from Mass Effect is a pretty good one. Hell I wouldn't even call him a villain, he's an antagonist. An antagonist with a plan, a reason for doing what he's doing, and eventually realizes what he became.

Great antagonist.

The human foiled my plans?

ROOOOOOOAR! ROAR SAREN SMASH ROAR FLIP THINGS ROAR MAKE ANGRY FACE

This is not how an antagonist should behave.

You activated the beacon, learning what he knows, and now he knows he'll have to deal with you and all the problems you'd eventually cause to him.

I'd say he has a decent reason to be seriously pissed off.

 

[RemytheNinja]

I'm really surprised no one mentioned the Illusive Man. Sure he's helping you fight the Collectors, but its for his agenda and his alone. He may not be an antagonist in ME2, but he is a damn fine villain.
And he smokes so he is evil incarnate, haha!

 

[NeutralDrow]

Iago? Complex? His entire motivation is jealousy of Othello, and for that he wrecks everyone's shit while basically admitting "I do it because I'm a complete bastard." He is cartoonishly evil.

Really, if he's anywhere near the baseline, you won't have far to look for decent video game villains. He's frankly outclassed by, say...Yggdrasil and Richter from the Tales of Symphonia games, Baelheit from Baten Kaitos Origins, or Kotomine from Fate/Stay Night.

 

[Zaik]

Saren from Mass Effect is a pretty good one. Hell I wouldn't even call him a villain, he's an antagonist. An antagonist with a plan, a reason for doing what he's doing, and eventually realizes what he became.

Great antagonist.

The human foiled my plans?

ROOOOOOOAR! ROAR SAREN SMASH ROAR FLIP THINGS ROAR MAKE ANGRY FACE

This is not how an antagonist should behave.

What you are referring to is foreshadowing. Saren isn't the one that gets angry, Sovereign is, which is represended by all the lighting going red and flashing irregularly. The whole point was that Saren was just acting as Sovereign's mouthpiece the entire time. It's one of those things you see, but don't properly understand until you're on your second playthrough, and you're like "Oh, how did I miss that?".

 

[AnonymousTipster]

Iago? Complex? His entire motivation is jealousy of Othello, and for that he wrecks everyone's shit while basically admitting "I do it because I'm a complete bastard." He is cartoonishly evil.

Really, if he's anywhere near the baseline, you won't have far to look for decent video game villains. He's frankly outclassed by, say...Yggdrasil and Richter from the Tales of Symphonia games, Baelheit from Baten Kaitos Origins, or Kotomine from Fate/Stay Night.

Methinks thou hast misinterpreted much.

Anyway I'm not going to go rewriting past essays right here but you've grossly over-simplified Iago's character.

 

[NeutralDrow]

Iago? Complex? His entire motivation is jealousy of Othello, and for that he wrecks everyone's shit while basically admitting "I do it because I'm a complete bastard." He is cartoonishly evil.

Really, if he's anywhere near the baseline, you won't have far to look for decent video game villains. He's frankly outclassed by, say...Yggdrasil and Richter from the Tales of Symphonia games, Baelheit from Baten Kaitos Origins, or Kotomine from Fate/Stay Night.

Methinks thou hast misinterpreted much.

Anyway I'm not going to go rewriting past essays right here but you've grossly over-simplified Iago's character.

How is that oversimplified? He gets passed up for a promotion he thought he deserved more and doesn't like Othello and Desdemona's relationship. However complex his actual actions are, his motives are either just that simple (i.e. his own soliloquized words), or completely unexplained.

 

[AlkalineGamer]

The antagonists are (in my opinion) vey often much more interesting that the protagonist, i think games should go into more detail about the villains story.

OT: i don't really know, so i'll just say Liquid, it seems his lot in life was determined before birth, genetically cursed yet he overcomes his birth right and becomes very powerful.

 

[chozo_hybrid]

I nominate Sephiroth!

Also, the Origami Killer from Heavy Rain. Seriously though, if anyone responds to this, do NOT post his identity. That simply cannot be spoiled.

Oh you XD

Playing through Heavy Rain with my girlfriend, so thanks for the no spoilers =D (Finally got a PS3, and it's backwards compatible ^^)

I would have to nominate Dracula from the Castlevania games, no matter how many times you defeat the bugger, he always comes back.

Saren from Mass Effect is a pretty good one. Hell I wouldn't even call him a villain, he's an antagonist. An antagonist with a plan, a reason for doing what he's doing, and eventually realizes what he became.

Great antagonist.

The human foiled my plans?

ROOOOOOOAR! ROAR SAREN SMASH ROAR FLIP THINGS ROAR MAKE ANGRY FACE

This is not how an antagonist should behave.

Why not? Is there a guide book to being a villain/antagonist? Not all of them are the John Travolta "I'll remain calm in all situations" type. The scene however, when I first saw it, made me laugh nervously XD

 

[OmegaZXA]

The problem with video game villains is that either they're too evil to be believable or they become such good characters that the designers wimp out and turn them into anti-heroes during the final battle. A few of you mentioned Logain, who perfectly mirrors this: he's a mostly-decent guy who thought his king was a glory-seeking nutjob, decided he wasn't quite ready to die and pulled his forces out of what was already a losing battle. If he hadn't pushed the blame on the Grey Wardens then chances are the heroes would've let him keep the throne and plan a more successful attack. And even then, when you've publicly humiliated him in front of the nobles you can decide to forgive everything and let him join up.

As far as good villains go, I'd have to say the Templars from Assassin's Creed. Sure they have their "cartoonishly evil" moments but as a group they betray each other and seek to usurp the power of the gods while enslaving humanity through ignorance. Any group that can last millennia and still have the same mission is a group that has plenty of secrets.

Another good non-standard villain...any dark-alignment Hero in the Fable series. Seriously, think about it: unlike other villains their goal is to save the world from their competition, and going into a random town to kill all the police officers is neither a long-standing objective or too cartoonish.

 

[Littaly]

Which is one reasons I was disappointed with ME2. We went from such a great antagonist like Saren to some race of bug-looking people.

Nice to see somebody else agreeing with me on that point. One of the biggest flaws with the story in Mass Effect 2 was the lack of a clear villain. If you were going up against somebody instead of a chain of factions controlled by each other, that might actually have given the game some direction.

But then again, the problem with all Bioware villains is that no matter how good they are, they just aren't...

Jon Irenicus, Baldur's Gate 2. I could write volumes on the guy. He's the type of intellectual enemy you come to respect for his ruthless ambition and no-nonsense personality. The only reason he fails is because he didn't account for you turning into a horrible demonic death monster, which is a reasonable oversight. Otherwise, his reasons, his philosophies and his motives are almost understandable from a pragmatic point of view.

Now there is a villain! Just the sheer amounts of reasons he gives you to go after him and the equal amounts of reasons to convince you doing so is suicide is enough to make him one of the best video game villains ever. And that's only scratching the surface.

But I think Sarevok deserves a mention too. He may not be as interesting as a character, but I like how on one hand he needs to be stopped because he threatens the entire region, and at the same time his motives are connected to the personal struggles of your character. You go after him because he is big and evil, but in the en he turns out to be much more relevant to the story than you initially thought.

 

[katsumoto03]

Kreia in KotOR 2 is very complex full of a lot of really complicated characters who are not easily called "good guys"--I'm thinking a Kreia and Atris specifically.

I would have liked her if her entire "Good deeds aren't the best solution" wasn't the entire story of the game.

OT: I though that Ayn Rand Andrew Ryan was a pretty cool villain. It's not only Andrew himself, but his entire underwater civilization that I found to be an interesting adversary. The entire "objectivist paradise gone wrong" angle was really interesting...

So yeah, I guess Rapture is my answer...

 

[babinro]

Tiger Woods from Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11.

 

[darth.pixie]

Nice to see somebody else agreeing with me on that point. One of the biggest flaws with the story in Mass Effect 2 was the lack of a clear villain. If you were going up against somebody instead of a chain of factions controlled by each other, that might actually have given the game some direction.

But then again, the problem with all Bioware villains is that no matter how good they are, they just aren't...

Not all games have clear villains. Mask of the Betrayer lacked an obvious one and still ended up being quite great.

As for other villains...

How about the Shadow King from NWN 2? A hero still trying to protect the empire that spawned him?

And Kerghan from Arcanum. He was not even evil. He wanted to stop the suffering of souls.

 

[WorldCritic]

Meh, from my perspective Iago was only seen as having depth because everyone else in Othello was boring. And I ignore your eyeroll and nominate Revolver Ocelot anyway. Why? I'm too lazy to explain.

 

[Bullfrog1983]

The Origami Killer.

 

[SilverUchiha]

GLaDOS, as far as I know, doesn't fit either of those categories. It's just a super-computer that lost its artificial mind.

(that's the best example I currently have, unfortunately)

 

[SilverUchiha]

Nice to see somebody else agreeing with me on that point. One of the biggest flaws with the story in Mass Effect 2 was the lack of a clear villain. If you were going up against somebody instead of a chain of factions controlled by each other, that might actually have given the game some direction.

Why does the villain always need to be clear and defined? There is an anime called "Death Note" in which a character kills people who are criminals in hopes to make a better world. His motives are pure but his actions aren't. Likewise, the detective trying to stop his has good motives to stop a serial killer, but takes bold and unconventional actions to get close to the killer. Neither one is pure good or pure evil in what the do. It's unclear, but the morality behind the series is left for the reader to figure on their own. I see nothing wrong with having an unclear villain.

 

[Sonicron]

You want character depth in a bad guy? Go play/replay the Legacy of Kain games.

And no, I won't list the 'bad guys'. Maybe some folks here still haven't played the games and need to rectify that RIGHT NOW. Don't want to spoil anything.