Author's Notes: Hey guys, David here. For this particular list, I want to try it in the style of JoshScorcher or the Fiery Joker. Now, if you watch his video of Worst Video Game Villains, you'll see that not only does he have a lot of villains that we encountered, but they're also ones that I also feel the same way about. So, don't be surprised if we start to sound similar in a lot of cases.
Great villains can add to a story, but in the same vein, a poor villain can easily subtract from one. These are the villains that are hated not because of the stuff they did, but are written or executed so poorly that they bring down the whole experience. What are the reasons for this? To be honest, this is EXTREMELY SUBJECTIVE, but I have noticed some patterns in not only I react, but how others react.
One, They are a twist villain, and it either didn't make sense, you saw it coming from a mile away, or the story would've been more interesting without the twist.
Two, Their motivations suck. Eg. "I will destroy the world to save it!"
Three, Their plans either make no sense, shouldn't have worked, or just complex for no reason.
Four, They don't serve as a legitimate threat or obstacle to the heroes if we are supposed to take them seriously.
Five, If we are supposed to find them charming and/or silly, they're found more insufferable.
Six, The story focuses on them a lot, but you're left wondering things like "Why weren't they at this plot point?" or "If you take them out, does the story change like…at all, or if you defeat them, they feel like a bump in the road in terms of how they affect the heroes?"
Seven, Their fights suck. No matter how great the writing is, it doesn't save them from that.
The way these guys are gonna be ranked is based on how much they detract from the overall experience. If a lousy villain is so minor that they can just be ignored, they'll be ranked lower. Same principle applies to if the story was already a mess before they came along.
And no, despite my very tempting urge to, I am not going to put Amadeus Flux on this list. It's probably because he fills almost all of the criteria I just listed that he would be way too easy to mock. And not only that, but his subordinates actually serve as legitimate threats in their respective canon, and he actually pulls off some funny moments at times, so… He gets a pass, albeit reluctantly. And that criminal mastermind that he constantly tries to play himself up as? The people on this list make him LOOK like a criminal mastermind in comparison. And that is by far the biggest sin here. Not to mention, anything I could say about Flux would already be covered on the people of this list anyway. So, yeah, he would be worth an entire essay all to himself. Not sure if he'd like that, but I'm just gonna say that if your villany is so contrived and nonsensical that Flux is a better choice by comparison… That's how you know you suck as a villain. And man do these guys SUCK?
Now, with that spiel out of the way, let's get on with this list, shall we?
#10- Velasco- Dragon Quest Heroes
The Dragon Quest series is considered by most to be the pioneer of JRPGs. Charming environments, lovable casts, and the monsters actually have some form of personality. The latter of which is more than I can say for most games. But Heroes is built up to be a spinoff crossover that brings beloved heroes from different worlds together. Surely the big bad of this game is gonna be an awesome threat that meets the spectacle!
*Sees two minutes of screen time of Velasco and his speech*
*Sigh* This is what I get for setting my expectations high. Meet Velasco, a dark wizard that seeks to plunge the land of Arba into darkness and despair, and resurrect the Dark Dragon! That's pretty much all you get from this guy besides "I'm the Dark Wizard, and I want to do Dark Wizard stuff! Nyehehehehe!" You know, your run-of-the-mill cliche bad guy shlop. It feels… Obligatory. He was only put there just so the story can have a villain. Brian from Family Guy said it best when describing Penelope. She creates chaos for the sake of chaos. And those kinds of villains can work if they are considered threatening or entertaining. It worked for people like Joker and Cheetah in DC Comics because they are considered legitimate threats and have the guts, methods and wit to back up their talk, and are not above some witty banter every now and then. Velasco has NONE of that! I don't think you understand. Right off the bat, this guy was just so irritating to listen to! He perpetually sounds like a snob, and it kind of feels like he's choosing his words carefully so he can sound as condescending as possible! I'm not saying that having an annoying villain is a bad thing. It is admittedly a perilous line to straddle. But intentionally insufferable… IS STILL INSUFFERABLE! Yes, he is intended to be hated. It's clear… But, I think they overdid it.
There was also this thing about being ostracized by his tribe that makes some people want to sympathize with him. But really, no one cares about that. So, here's an idea. Why not do something with that? He is a sorcerer of unmatched talent, right? So…why not have his people be envious of that? Why not have him be so isolated from his peers because of his obsession with perfecting his craft, that whenever he does come across dark magic, his mind gets so warped that he stopped thinking about what his magic should be used for. And when he razed his village was razed to the ground, he gets so distraught over the way he accidentally killed his people that he flees to the mountainside and comes across the tome containing the spell to resurrect Shadroth through the misguided belief of wanting a companion, while the tome conveniently leaves out the whole "cloak the world in darkness" thing, and therefore giving him a reason to possess Luceus and Aurora so that he could have some stalwart knights by his side. At least then he would have something that resembles CHARACTER DEPTH!
I feel like I can't pick on this guy too much as he is originally considered a spinoff villain and is therefore not meant to be taken seriously. And as a spinoff, Dragon Quest Heroes is considered non-canon to the mainline games, so you can just ignore it and you wouldn't have to put up with him, and it would also make him look like a chump in comparison if you mess around with the scaling. So, he's actually inoffensive. That's…pretty much the best thing I can say about him. He is constantly overshadowed by other big threats in the mainline games that have a lot more gravitas and motivations to their methods. I shouldn't be praising that, but… Here we are.
#9- Esmeralda- Octopath Traveler
Okay, for this one… I need to talk about Esmeralda. Hey-hey-hey-hey! Put down your pitchforks and torches. I'm not talking about the White Tigress Beastman. I'm talking about the one from Octopath Traveler 1. The Octopath Traveler series is actually quite the gem of an RPG. You get to pick one of the eight available characters to serve as the main protagonist, pick the others up and you are free to tackle their tales at their leisure. However, as you would expect, not all paths were created equally. The Obsidians are a major mercenary group in Orsterra whose main motivation is to resurrect Galdera. And while they're only prominent in three of the characters' stories, their attention towards Graham Crossroad piques their interest. And throughout all eight of the characters' journeys, you catch glimpses of their influence and what they did to Graham. And now to resurrect Galdera, they need the blood of Graham's son, Kit. And who do they send to find how whereabouts? Esmeralda. And what does she do? Trail Tressa so that she can get her hands on Graham's notebook, which is in Tressa's possession, and with Tressa not knowing anything about what's going on, it would've been easy to swipe it from her and get the info at anytime. But… Nope! She decides to sit on her ass until she swoops in at Tressa's final chapter to swipe it. And once she found out that the notebook is useless due to it finishing before Graham's involvement with Lybac, she…refuses to give it back to Tressa and fights her anyway.
Don't get me wrong, the fight against her is great as she constantly throws her weaknesses around after she recovers from break so that she can test the characters' mettle of making sure they always have the right tools or magic for the job. However, Esmeralda feels so shoehorned in that her presence feels too sad to be comical. Her associates Simeon and Mattias are big threats to Primrose and Ophelia respectively and they were big presences in their stories. That is what made them compelling battles. Esmeralda… Eh, she kind of only exists so that Tressa can have a final boss. Normally this wouldn't be so bad, but considering that you have to clear all 8 stories to get to the final dungeon, is it really worth the wasted potential? Her boss fight isn't even all that hard either since you can just spam wind spells until she eventually goes down.
The reason why the limited screen time worked for Vaas from Far Cry 3 is because with what little screen time he had, he showed why people are so afraid of him. He's charismatic, he's unhinged, he's unpredictable! Whereas Esmeralda is just a flunky that feels like she missed her cues several times and decided to make up for it by being a complete psychopath.
All of this is why I am so glad that the White Tigress Beastman Esmeralda is just so endearing that it's hard to be mad at her. And at least this Esmeralda is spared at the end of Tressa's story, so that she can contemplate how much of a screwup she is!
#8- Heldalf- Tales of Zestiria
One of the things I love about the Tales series aside from their memorable casts and banger music is the worldbuilding. And for the most part, they have a very good track record when it comes to villains. True, usually they're of the more sympathetic variety, or genuinely want to help the world but are going about it in the wrong way. Not to mention, they have interesting backstories, good dynamics with the heroes, and…at the very least, understandable motivations. So, this makes Heldalf from Tales of Zestiria all the more terrible by comparison.
The biggest problem with Heldalf as a villain is that…he barely does anything villainous. Yes, he kicks off the plot by starting the spread of Malevolence, but… He barely does anything after that. Also half the time, it's like the game forgets he even exists. You'd really think the "Lord of Calamity" would be more active in spreading malevolence, and even when he tries to make trouble for the heroes, it almost always completely backfires! Yes, he has subordinates, but… They barely try to get in your way. As for his backstory, it's essentially a poor man's Oersted from Live a Live and Arthus from World of Warcraft. The whole "Fallen Betrayed Hero" bit. But while their descent into villany came from being forced to make horrible desicions, Heldalf was just a guy at the wrong place at the wrong time, and because a guy gave him a ridiculously contrived curse.
And then there's his dynamic with the heroes, or lack thereof. Where previous villains may have actually shared motivations or pasts with them, Heldalf has none of that! Heldalf wants to stop Sorey because he's the Lord of Calamity. Sorey wants to stop Heldalf because he's the Shepherd. It's just roles that require them to hate each other. Now, if that was a major theme, like the Zelda animation "A Hero's Purpose" (which you should check out by the way, I heard it's really good) deconstructs, maybe I'd cut it some slack. But…no. Dawn of the New World had a better hero-villain dynamic than Zestiria. Heck, Sing 2 had a better hero-villain dynamic than Zestiria. Heck, JEXI AND FLUX have a better hero-villain dynamic than Zestiria! As for how I would suggest improvements… Grab some popcorn because we're gonna be here for a while.
First off, make Heldalf actually proactive in the story. If he wants to contaminate the world with malevolence, have him… You know, actually TRY to do so. Have him instigate conflicts, manipulate people in power, tempt others to his side. The big war between Highland and Rolance? Have him be the one who started it! As for his backstory, here's the thing. In the manga, it's implied that Heldalf and Sorey were secretly father and son, yet neither of them were aware of it. There it is! Go somewhere with that! Have him be the father to Sorey, but they got separated after the whole Camlann incident! But while Sorey forgets due to trauma-induced amnesia, Heldalf remembers. Now, Heldalf has an actual reason to want Sorey by his side. He wants to "rule together as father and son!" And now Sorey has an actual reason to want to purify Heldalf other than "That's what heroes do!" Then at the final battle, Sorey refuses to kill him, wanting to give Heldalf a chance to redeem himself. Or…you could just watch the anime… Where they actually did do that.
I'd like to believe that there is no bad Tales game, but there are reasons why I have to face facts and admit that Zestiria is easily the worst out of the mainline games. It's because the dynamic between Sorey and Heldalf is so razor thin it would make cardboard envious! And you wonder why Zestiria has been critically panned amongst the fanbase…
#7- Tsumugi Shirogane- Danganronpa V3
Danganronpa V3 garnered quite a…divisive following. Part of that is from how bizarre and controversal the ending is. To the uninitiated, it's a "Haha! Everything you loved about our series is a lie!" shtick. Or at least… That's what it seems. Some people have interpreted that the ending doesn't ruin the other games, moreso that it's a different timeline that treats the other games as fiction. And yes, there is some evidence to support this. And honestly, with how much the series thrives on its characters, the implications on this ending were likely not that honest to begin with. So, if you really, REALLY squint hard enough that it would make Clint Eastwood jealous, you can still enjoy the series. However, even if you don't think the ending is that bad, there's no denying that the mastermind… still… SUCKS!
I don't like to bash on my guys, but… I gotta face facts where facts are due. If I can aptly describe what Tsumugi was like during V3, she's the equivalent of submitting a 5-hour long clip of a black screen to a film festival and claiming she's an artist. Seriously, her entire character is pre-reveal is just a geek who makes anime references and points out the obvious. Her sense of humor boils down to making puns about how plain she is, and she has no defined chemistry with the cast, making her completely interchangeable. "Gee, I wonder who they're gonna make into the main villain?"
A big reason why this is so frustrating is because V3 is a LONG game! We spend so much time putting up with this cardboard cutout, while interesting characters with a ton of potential get snuffed out from us one by one. She makes a big chunk of the game feel like it's just dragging her, waiting to get to Chapter 6 so she can just laugh at our faces already! But surely the twist is worth it, right? This is what she's been building up to, so it has to be great, right? If you call ripping off Junko and doing everything worse great, then…more power to you, happy you enjoyed. But we don't do that here!
Tsumugi is yet another cocky, crazy mastermind who repeatedly chants her obsession for a whole hour until she inevitably gets her butt kicked by the protagonist shouting his lungs out. Whoa! Where have I seen that before? And her debacle? She's the surrogate host of Team Danganronpa. She exposed the truth that everyone in the game is fake, and they all exist for other people's amusement. Oh, but that's not all, she makes fun of how fake and powerless the main characters are before the show's will…in front of the audience that are rooting for them and wanting them to succeed. She plans to have the protagonist accept their graduation so that the killing game may continue as usual, but when the audience realized how messed up the killing game is for treating real people like fictional characters, they helped the main characters give up and end the killing game for good. And Tsumugi is…surprised that this happened?!
Tsumugi, I like you, but… Real talk. You deliberately created a setup where you break the immersion of the game by revealing it's a show, make fun of your audience for liking your show, and giving the main characters the key they needed to figure out how to beat you…and somehow didn't think ANY of this would backfire?
And you know what's funny? This would've worked if Tsumugi actually WANTED to ruin the game. If she's tired of hosting these dozens of killing games and wanted it to end, it actually makes sense why she'd set all of this up. Heck, it can even play into how bland her character is, showing that she's tired of putting in effort, so she just becomes as uninteresting as possible. But no. It wasn't deliberate. She really thought she could keep going after all of this. Well, you gotta at least admire her dedication.
Okay, okay, if you wanted to paint Tsumugi as the unsympathetic villain, why not switch the dynamic? Have the protagonist be the one to tell the audience that he and his friends are fake, and that their existence is a waste of time. That way, there's a legit reason to abstain from voting and commit suicide so he can stop giving the fans what they want. Meanwhile, Tsumugi would be the one who's obsessed with how the game feels just as the audience is. It's a great way to build a twisted world where people parasocially obsessed with fictional characters and would probably be a proper way to do an extreme version of the series' actual fans. There are webcomics out there that do this sort of story way better in a shorter length.
But regardless of how you look at it, Tsumugi makes no sense. Apparently the writer passes off the negative feedback her character gets as the "Intended Reception." Well, to quote myself from earlier: "Intentionally insufferable… IS STILL INSUFFERABLE!" It's one thing to intentionally make a bad character. It's a different thing to make a bad character on purpose and pass it off as something profound. That's what Tsumugi is. She's a lousy attempt at being ironically artsy.
Thankfully, in our series, there is a silver lining, which is why she's ranked lower than where she would normally be. Not only did she become a student at UA, but with the Law of Cosplay, she is now a Mimic Fighter. You know, the one character in fighting games that replicate other characters' movesets? Yeah, she went the Shang Tsung route with this one. She is also able to replicate that character's appearance and personality, and replicate their moves almost perfectly, making her a multi-purpose combatant. Proud of you girl, because seriously, the less people that go through your villain phase…the better.
#6- Chairman Rose- Sword and Shield
Ah, the innocent world of Pokemon. A world where you are free to leave your home and get roped into diabolical schemes concocted by environmental terrorists, animal rights extremists, gangsters, cults, and theatre improv Team Mafia. Like the rivals, villain teams are a staple of the Pokemon franchise for better… Or for worse. Fans have said that Team Flare is the worst among them, and… I can see it. Their goal of "beautifying the world" was groan-worthy. Moreso considering these guys probably got dressed blindfolded in the dark. However, their methods to reach it were actually effective and dangerous. Not to mention, Lysandre is objectively terrifying, albeit obvious. To fit that bill, we focused on another black sheep of the franchise: Sword and Shield.
No, no, no. I don't mean Team Yell. Yeah, they're marketed as the main bad guys, but they're just obnoxious and overbearing football fans dedicated to one of our rivals, Marnie. Which is…actually more admirable than contrived. Can't really place them on the same pedestal as say… Aqua, Magma, Galactic or Plasma. No. I'm talking about the actual villains of these games, Macro Cosmos. And even *I* didn't consider them villains, so that's really saying something.
Chairman Rose has an actual reason for what he's doing. Actually, a great reason. But it just makes no sense! He's basically risking bringing about the apocalypse to try and solve an energy crisis that's probably 1000 years in the future, as literally EVERYONE keeps pointing out to him! Unless he's got some kind of side project where he's making a Life Extender like in Team Fortress 2, why is this suddenly HIS problem? I mean, if it were happening sooner like in 10 years, or in 1 year, or heck even months, maybe I can understand his urgency! But no, he takes advantage of a young Trainer, summons freaking Azatoth, and nearly causes the apocalypse…for something that could've been fixed LONG after he is dead, and/or cryogenically frozen. I don't know, I just see him as being that kind of guy.
You can see they tried to do the "Evil Corporation Bad" story, but they handled it in a bizarre way. They couldn't decide whether we were supposed to sympathize or hate him, and we're stuck in a weird position where we can't do either. Like, the pieces are there. His boss theme is pretty cool, and trying to fight the economic equivalent of Exelon and Disney combined has potential. Notice how I'm talking mostly about Rose, and not Macro Cosmos itself. There's because there isn't really anything to discuss. You don't even get to fight them until near the end of the game. At least the Aether Foundation reveal in the Sun and Moon games has a decent excuse. They weren't evil at first, so their early appearance made the surprise work more. But we're supposed to believe that these corporate flunkies were the true villains all along when they don't pop up until near the end? Yeah, no thanks. At the very least, make these guys less shoehorned. Have an early buildup, let them be marketed as the Big Bads, and make dealing with them feel more natural. Argh! They took a page from Disney's Twist Villain handbook, didn't they?!
#5- King Olly- Origami King
Hey, guys… Um… This is gonna sound weird. But I don't see any bad villains from the Mario series to cover. Quick, someone find something that gives me a direction to go to!
*is shown an image of King Olly and an origami'd Peach*
Phew… That was a close one. I almost had to let them off scot-free.
Origami King is not the best in the Paper Mario series, but after the travesties that were Sticker Star and Color Splash, they were actually a step in the right direction. The combat is intuitive, the bosses challenged you in ways unexpected. As long as you can ignore that they're basically sentient arts and crafts tools. And then… There is Olly. He seeks to destroy all the Toads and turn the Mushroom Kingdom into a kingdom of origami by folding 1000 paper cranes and wishing upon them. So far, not so contrived. He even turns Bowser's minions and Peach into his folded soldiers to keep anyone from interfering. But his backstory is… Yeah, there's no way to sugarcoat it, it's one of the dumbest. He was originally made by a craftsman and granted sentience when he used the Fold of Life. The craftsman even wrote a little message on him, wishing he could grow into a great king. However, King Olly misinterpreted the message as "careless scrawl" became embittered, and sought to destroy all the Toads.
The most insulting thing is that the craftsman wrote a very heartwarming message, and Olly took at as being tainted and sought to destroy everything that is flat paper all because he couldn't take a joke or understand what it was until it was pointed out to him. It really takes away alot of his gravitas when he ended up kickstarting the plot and almost ruined everything… BY. ACCIDENT!
It's sad because the dynamic he has with his sister Olivia has so much potential. Especially when you consider that he was the reason that Olivia even had sentience in the first place. I mean, sure there is that little heartwarming moment at the ending shot, but… Does he even deserve that? I get that they're trying to make a bookend thing that he was supposed to be happy that Olivia is by his side again, but when you consider everything that happened to get there… It really feels more shoehorned than anything. Especially when the story just kept spelling out how he's evil without any substance. At the very least, make him a competent strategist or, you know, tune up his dialogue. As I said with Velasco, villains that are evil for the sake of being evil can work if they are threatening or entertaining. But I guess the feeling of melancholy works considering that all of his subordinates tend to be super-hammy.
#4- Cyrille Le Paradox- Thieves In Time
I think one of the most underappreciated aspects about the Sly Trilogy is the main villains. Even Neyla, who is arguably the weakest of the three, is still a back-stabbing, conniving psycho who toyed with Sly's heart and made people love to hate her. And just like so many other things, Sly 4 came along to ruin everything. Oh trust me, it was so… SO tempting to put Penelope on here. She was a mediocre antagonist in Sly 3, and her character assassination in Sly 4 is just… You know what, that is a can of worms I'd rather not get into. Today, we're talking about Cyrille Le Paradox. It's difficult to truly convey how much of a downgrade this guy is from the rest of the Sly series. Honestly, how did we go from Clockwerk, to Neyla, to Dr. M… to Cyrille?
Le Paradox is pathetic, and not even in an enjoyable way either. The guy does nothing for himself the whole game, leaving his lackeys to do all the real work, taking all the credit, acting like he is somehow Sly's rival, and this worthless sack of stink is the one that gets the honor of defeating Sly… In a quick-time event. There really is no justice in this world… So what's this skunk about? As far as we know, Sly's dad beat Le Paradox's dad to a heist, got him thrown in the slammer, and Le Paradox grew up to be a failure of a thief and blamed the Coopers. In a handfisted attempt to make Sly and Le Paradox comparable, apparently Le Paradox too comes from a long line of thieves. Yeah, um… I don't see any immortal ancient robotic owls coming after HIS family line, so they probably weren't too great at it anyway.
Probably doesn't help that this guy has the most GRATING French accent I have ever heard, with his whiny high-pitched voice. Yeah, Pepe Le Pew would call for copyright infringement, but… Yeah, he's been cancelled. And the worst part, the absolute WORST of it all. Even after getting one over Sly, he still goes down like a chump! He doesn't even have the decency to be dead after that. He's just carted off to jail like all the other low-level baddies Sly beats on the way to the final boss. I wish I could talk more about the boss fight itself, but the whole thing is just a quick-time event! There's actually nothing to talk about. Everything about Le Paradox is unsatisfying. From his backstory, to the fight, to what happens afterwards. Man, this guy stinks! And I mean that both figuratively…AND literally.
#3- Garon- Fire Emblem Fates
**WARNING: Slight Spoilers for Fire Emblem Engage**
Before Fire Emblem Engage came in and gave us some traditional villains that are actually decent again, a lot of the titular villains in modern Fire Emblem have been…less than remarkable. It's jarring that for everything that modern Fire Emblem got right, the villains have…kind of sucked for a while. This is a lot considering that the older games had a fantastic track record with this. Arvis, Zephiel, Nergal, Lyon and the Black Knight! In these ones, Validar is an evil wizard so incompetent that the heroes foresaw his every move. Garon is an evil king so boring that it's aggravating when the story keeps trying to make him seem complex. And the Agarthans, while being science molemen is interesting on paper, are treated as a generic cult that makes the story so black and white that it makes Edelgard look stupid because of it. All three of them deserve to be on this list. But if I were to pick the objectively worst… I'd have to go with Garon.
Evil kings in Fire Emblem are nothing new, let alone brainwashed ones. But each one always has something to add to the table, especially when tragedy is involved. Garon had none of that! He's a bland evil antagonist that does bland evil things, and yet his children are constantly trying to defend his every action because… "He USED to be a good guy!" It wouldn't be so bad if you didn't have to put up with this shtick for THREE STORYLINES! All the stuff we know about Garon as this "good king" is spent on supports and exposition. But since we don't see any proof of this in the main story, it just feels like our Nohrian friends are caressing a rabid grizzly they call a teddy bear. It's frustrating how Xander, while otherwise a very noble and likable character, behaves like an idiot for not putting two and two together that his father is COMPLETELY DERANGED!
As Gordon Ramsey said in Kitchen Nightmares: "You are so in denial, you need therapy!"
And while I'm at it, why does Fates have a central villain? Wouldn't it be better if the main authorities of Nohr and Hoshido are good people with opposing ideals instead? The fact that they are trying to make the story seem deep by letting you pick which faction you want to make the best out of, yet still painted as an angel-devil situation is just disingenuous. Heck, you can't even call Garon a cool villain. He just rips off other evil kings by being a big armor guy, his dragon form sucks, he's just Anankos' puppet, so his evil deeds can't even be accredited to him. And his design… Ugh… The less I say about that, the better.
Garon fails on so many levels, I can't even call it comical! He just looks like an afterthought made out of copying past games' homework without understanding why they're as good as they are. Fortunately, there's a silver lining. Hyacinth from Engage does everything Garon did but better in every way. He's got unique flair as a combatant, he's killed off early enough that he doesn't suck up too much screentime, and his daughters actually grow out of denial to accept that he is long gone. There's an actual emphasis on tragedy here that's accomplished in just half a story versus three bloated ones. Hopefully this is a sign that these old villain archetypes can and will be handled better in the future.
#2- Redips- Megaman X Command Mission
Megaman RPGs gave the series a much-needed spin from the original formula. Battle Network and StarForce especially have a lot of solid mechanics and story beats that hold up to this day. As for Command Mission… Okay, it has great mechanics, and it has fantastic characters. But the slow gameplay and stilted cutscenes made it age a bit worse than the other two.
"Alright, fine! The game is way more stupid than I remember it being as a kid, but why do you care so much?"
"Because I am also the Dark Lord with no foreshadowing!"
"Argh… God damn it!"
Yep. Even the story doesn't help much because we got a crappy twist villain on our hands! Colonel Redips is the enforcer who orders X and the crew to fight Epsilon's Rebellion Army. In the final chapter, he's revealed to be the main antagonist who plotted to steal the Supra-Force Metal so he can take over the world! *groans a bit* It's so painfully generic… Say what we may about Flux, Eggman, Wily and Sigma. It may be annoying that they try to be twist villains so many times a baby can see them coming. But at least their characters are decent. The first three at least have some depth to show that they are not just all evil, and Sigma's backstory is legimately interesting. Redips has none of that. He also takes away from characters that DO have them!
First, There's Epsilon. An extremist who attacks Giga City to obtain what he needs to help his kin evolve, but avoids senseless violence and spares the innocent. We could've gotten a compelling final confrontation with him and perhaps even offer him a chance at redemption. But…Nope. He dies, and Redips takes over with his by-the-books spiel.
Second, Spider. A bounty hunter who shares a background with the Command Center of Giga City, but had a falling out with them. He's got a cool design, a fun poker motif, and even puts aside his beef for the sake of an old friend, to the point where he grows intimate enough with X to protect him at any given step. He's just Redips in disguise. Yep. All that flair and investment, and our beloved bounty hunter isn't even real! He never cared about his colleagues in the Command Center. He's just a greedy punk!
Now sure, I tend to praise twist villains that put spins on an existing character most of the time. But there's a difference between this and something like the Phantom in Ace Attorney! The Phantom works because the character they're revealed to be doesn't have a fully established backstory. They won us over by personality alone, which makes it all the more frightening when we see how well the Phantom mimics that character, considering they're a villain themed around falsifying personality. Redips actively sabotages Spider's character without any thematic significance to the story. It's just a twist for the sake of a twist.
Add an uninspiring final battle, and a PAINFUL boss gauntlet just to get to him, and you're better off pretending the story ended in Chapter 9.
Could Redips have worked? Surprisingly, yes. In fact, it's not even that hard to fix. Just make Spider the real villain and Redips as the fake identity. Give more gravity to how Spider hated people who sit back and let others risk their lives for them, use that to emphasize his desire to steal the Supra-Force Metal so he can reshape Reploid society and make them more independent. That would actually be an interesting parallel to Epsilon's motives, as they both share noble goals, but pursue them differently. Heck, we could even get a cool gambler-themed final boss out of it! To paraphrase myself from the preview, if you make us rather have Sigma as the villain again, then you know you failed as a villain. Considering this may be why Spider never appears in any future promotions and spinoffs to date, that's even less reason to forgive Colonel Dragneck here for what he did!
Dishonorable Mentions:
Validar- Fire Emblem Awakening
He's destined to win so watch as he does nothing while the heroes outsmart and humiliate him.
Team Flare- Pokemon X & Y
*sigh* I missed Team Dim Sum…
Darklaw- Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright
How NOT to make a sympathetic villain… Give her no personality.
Deadly Six- Various
Sonic tried to copy Mario's Koopalings… It didn't work.
Jimiken- Cyber Sleuth
Let's be honest, that Gene Simmons cosplay is all anybody knows him for.
#1- Xehanort- Kingdom Hearts series
*sigh* …Xehanort. Where do I even begin with you? No, seriously. It's the Kingdom Hearts franchise, I don't actually know! You started out fine. A once noble scientist king who let curiosity get the better of him. Simple, nice, serviceable, 7 out of 10. Then we find out it wasn't him, but his apprentice, and then we find out that the apprentice became a Heartless and a Nobody, and then we find out the apprentice is actually an old Keyblade Master that was inhabiting the body of a younger Keyblade Master, who lost his memories…or did he? Also, the old Keyblade Master is actually not evil, and apparently he's been good the whole time? Just… Somebody, ANYBODY, tell me what the hell is going on!
There are as many Xehanorts as there are plotholes in his character. We started with Ansem and Xemnas who were both fun and hammy in their own ways. Though now that I think about it, why does Ansem, or Xehanort's Heartless, call himself Ansem in the first place? If you really think about it, he didn't need to pretend to be Ansem. He could've done literally everything he did without it. And while Xemnas was super hammy, my opinion of how he really feels like someone without a heart goes out the window when we find out they had hearts the whole time. Like, seriously Nomura? Even after we find out that they had hearts, we still get that "No emotions" shtick from Xemnas. Though now it's more comical than intimidating.
Seriously, why did they go out of their way to make interesting motivations of two good villains just non-existant? No pun intended. Okay, maybe we can salvage things with Master Xehanort. And yeah, the old master wasn't bad either…at first. He was a calculating and manipulative man who was intimidating. Even in Kingdom Hearts 3, he was shown to be quite conniving. But then… He tries to say that he's a misguided good guy the whole time, and he expects everyone to believe him.
Every attempt to make him more deep and sympathetic just made him worse. Like, he kills Kairi (Theo in our version), and then he tried to pull the "I was a hero the whole time" bullcrap an hour of gameplay later? I mean, come on! And the culmination of all this horsecrap is his twerpy younger self. No, really. They gave his younger version WAY too much screen time, even giving him his own mobile game. Oh yeah, let me talk about that.
So remember that scene in Kingdom Hearts 3 that tries to pass him off as understandable? I guess people got mad, so they made a whole mobile spinoff with Dark Road to really double down on that sympathy. He turned into a Disney Princess just "wanting more than what I have". And when that didn't work, they gave him friends, killed them all off, and made him into a bitter loner. To quote Abridged Alucard: "It didn't work. It did not work." Okay, so a 2000s Square Protag. These guys didn't become villains, what's your excuse?! Well, I will say that line where Woody said he doesn't have friends does ring a different light now. That's one good thing that came out of it. Oh yeah, and Luxu was there the whole time, also… Xehanort was also…the adoptive child of the protagonist…from the first mobile game…
…I don't even… How is it possible that he gets progressively WORSE each game?! Even games that are devoted to "fixing" him just make him seem worse in comparison! He is a big part of all of the retcons and last-minute heel-turns that make the storyline of the whole series into a mess! Even visual novels with ridiculous lore like Umineko and Tsukuhime, and even comics like Marvel and DC have less confusing characters with MULTIPLE VERSIONS! And the visual novels have 15 and 19 apiece, while Marvel and DC have so many characters that you'd be hard-pressed to keep track of them all, and they're STILL less convoluted than Xehanort!
"Hocus Pocus, these games have no focus!"
It's interesting how the fandom's opinion on Xehanort has shifted. He's gone from a villain with gravitas, weight and personality… To a punchline. I feel like if they didn't go out of their way to make him sympathetic, or didn't change his backstory more than a League of Legends champion, he would've been consistent and ergo, more effective as a result. But that's Kingdom Hearts for you. Gotta love it.
This has been David Ishihara, and I guess us being our own worst enemy isn't always the case. Sometimes it's whenever Nomura has a fever dream…
And there you have it, ten villains that make Flux look like a decent villain by comparison. Now I just need to find a way to stop complimenting him…
In any case, if you like what you see, just make sure to leave a favorite, a follow to our accounts, a comment and share it around, and I'll see you guys in our next caper.