dknight99

My personal favorite is in Oblivion's Dark Brotherhood quest in which you're in a house with six other people trying to survive the night and you can pick them off one by one and the other people start panicking. One of the most satisfying quest in my mind.

I picked no for all of them because I don't want a system that tells me being a wimp, not killing ****, and being Mr. "Fetch me that" is good because that is definitely not my definition of being a good guy.

Who sez you MUST have a Big Boss Fight? What makes you think that is a requirement? In Fallout you could convince the Big Bad he was wrong, and he would kill himself. You could avoid him completely and arm the nuke in his base, killing him without ever talking to him. I didn't felt cheated after that. I felt smart. You could even agree with him and join him. Why not? Give us damn options as to how to handle the villain(s). I disagree about the Big Boss Fight because I believe there needs to be a final confrontation in the climax in the narrative structure. There needs to be that confrontation that leads to the resolution. However that 'fight' does not need to be combat as demonstrated in the Phoenix Wright series, you can have wonderful pacing, confrontation and reveal through just dialogue. Who doesn't like a good back and forth with objections with good evidence? There's a problem with the balance between player choice vs telling a story and Obsidion needs to know the line. How much freedom should they be giving the player as oppose to their need to tell a story. Good stuff

Oh yeah! XD Won't steal my pikachu 'Cause I don't use one :| Kefka was great. Unlike a lot of villains who do nothing but talk and scheme and manipulate people, Kefka actually trashed the place and drove everyone to despair. Most scheming villains... scheme and scheme and scheme until the moment of their ascension comes around -- wheeen they're suddenly stopped by the heros. -__-' An enormous display of evilness - that's what Kefka had. Also Irenicus was whiny. After listening to his speeches, I just wanted to curb stomp him - but he'd run off on me. :/ He never felt like a threat, because he never threatened me in-game with his power (I mean by trouncing my party in a battle) or even did anything other than defeat a few low level mooks in cutscenes. A competent villain would also get in the party's face a lot. Not just once or twice or even three times. Not, 'the villain does something bad in the first quarter of the game yet we don't see him again until the finale'. Try to stop the party from messing up his plans. Be nasty about it - no weak assassin or underlying attacks. Come after the heros! I like villains that - threaten me with their power. Makes me respect their power. - do some big bad - not just 'almost' do big bad. - get in my face a lot. Don't ignore me. Yup ^-^ That was all totally coherent. EDIT - Zero, "Blah McEvilPants" is the best villain name ever. ;3 That list is pretty much what I want to see in my villain. I think a villain needs to do bad things, not almost doing it or accidentily did it or even for the greater good or whatever.

@ogrezilla I agree absolutely. It's the same as the Alien Queen in Aliens. The real villain really was Burke and the Corporation trying to make the Aliens a biological weapon, and Ripley even asked, "Who is worse? Us or them?" Despite Burke getting killed earlier in the story it doesn't make the ending any less satisfying with that end fight. There was so many elements at work in that movie and I think at the end it's just really good story telling. I really do believe that great villains help drive a narrative and stories do not need to limit themselves to only needing one villain. There can be multiple villains who serves in different roles with different motivations. The different villains can work against each other because after all an enemy of my enemy is an ally. Perhaps the PC is actually the villain if looked on from a different set of eyes like in Blade Runner.

I would say the Alien there wasn't the real villain in that story, though. The alien was just an "elemental" force, providing a background for the conflict with the true villain - the "company" acting through the android character (forogt his name). Villains (in my mind) cannot be inhuman - otherwise they become just another force of nature, like hurricanes or disease. Elemental forces can make for very effective 'things that work against you', though. Say what you will about FFX, but Sin was fascinating and terrifying when it was just an unexplainable force of nature, lashing out and destroying everything with no reason, pity nor mercy, rich and poor alike. The real villains in that game were silly and lackluster, but Sin, Sin. Sin was wonderful, and I'm sure many people bought the game because of its powerful imagery. At least until they reveal what it actually is. Sin was great, but that kind of threat needs to be used properly. The part of that story that really stuck out to me was how the entire world was just refined to the idea that the best they could do was temporarily defeat it. If the story was just about some monster that they all agreed they needed to destroy I think a lot of the emotion would have been taken out of it. But everyone had to be convinced that they didn't have to repeat history over again; they could stand up and actually defeat it. But I do agree. Sin was great. It was just a constant feeling of looming defeat. Similar to Lavos in Chrono Trigger. Completely flat "character" but it didn't matter. It destroyed the world. I never hated Lavos yet it was a very effective big bad threat. Funny you mention Lavos and Sin because I remember both of those villains / force of nature well and I thought they were wonderful antagonists when I was playing those games. They were the end boss but there were other villains to take of as well. DA: Origins also had a force of nature enemy at the end with the Scourge / horde dragon thing but I didn't have the same feeling for that enemy as compared to Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy X. My biggest problem with DA: Origins was that it felt like it was only Act 1 of a three Act play and it just left me hanging after I defeated the dragon. I was like that's it? It's like playing BG2 and getting to Spellhold and beating Irenicus there and the game is over. BG2 would not have been as well beloved if the game simply ended there and that was the feeling I got when I finished DA: Origins.

I love me a good old mystery. Who wouldn't want a little Ace Attorney in my CRPG?

I love how you brought up aliens and how there is no shade of grey but it's the Alien Queen was a formidable and memorable villain. I also agree with incubus9 and how it's more important to understand their motivation rather than sympathizing with the character. I also think it's why it's so neccesary to have secondary villains. I have maxim when things are going this bad, it's rarely one person's fault. Back to the Aliens, I really enjoyed the Burke character and how Ripley commented "I don't know which is worse, us or them. You don't see them f'king each other over a damn percentage." When you think about it Burke was the real villain in Aliens because he sent a whole group of colonists to die for his own selfish greed while the Aliens are just there to survive.

I absolutely agree, making a villain you hate is easy to accomplish. Make him annoying as hell and be a buffoon but doesn't go away would be an easy villain to make. Making a villain that can outshine your protagonists now that is something difficult to do. More often than not villains exist only because of the hero, it's difficult to make a villain exist despite the hero and make the player looking forward to the villain's next appearance than groaning everytime he / she shows up.

Magneto is a good example. He would argue he is liberating the mutants from the oppressive humans. Ozymandias from Watchmen is another that could fall into that category. I love Magneto as a villain and he's very similar to Magnus from Chrono Trigger in the term of doing bad things for the greater good. However I would argue although both Magento and Magnus were wonderful villains they also didn't pose as a credible threat to the world when compared to Apocalypse. I would love to have Magento on my side against Apocalypse and I would enjoy having him for the main villain at the end and having Magneto as a redeemable villain. There's definitely no reason why there can't be more than one villain in a story and I think it's better that way. Darth Vader was a main villain in the first Star Wars, but The Emperor was the bigger threat behind the redeemable villain.

A villain should absolutely have motives and motivation but I disagree with villains suck at being bad just for the sake of being bad. Kefka was bad because he wanted to be god. He was insane, but it worked because he made it personal. I don't know who Kefka is, but doesn't your description of insanity dovetail with my inclusion of madness as a personality trait? The trick is that a villain usually doesn't see themselves as evil, the best ones usually think they are serving some greater good by serving their own ends -- i.e. saving the world from itself, purging some hated enemy from the land, etc. A villain should absolutely have motives and motivation but I disagree with villains suck at being bad just for the sake of being bad. Kefka was bad because he wanted to be god. He was insane, but it worked because he made it personal. I don't know who Kefka is, but doesn't your description of insanity dovetail with my inclusion of madness as a personality trait? The trick is that a villain usually doesn't see themselves as evil, the best ones usually think they are serving some greater good by serving their own ends -- i.e. saving the world from itself, purging some hated enemy from the land, etc. I'm really sorry that you haven't heard of Kefka, he was such an incredible villain that really drove the plot in Final Fantasy. I suppose the problem is we need a better definition of what is insanity. To me insanity is being absolute irrational despite the consequences. You can have motivations but those motivations can be absolutely irrational at the same time. Kefka is very similar to the Joker in how he just wanted to see the world burn and he succeeded. In terms of the bests ones are the ones who serve some greater good, I don't know of any good ones. Could you name some of your best villains for me?

I winced when I think about Loghain cause he had so much potential in the beginning and he just didn't deliver as a character. Not only is he not the main villain he also didn't do that much after the initial betrayal. He also didn't make it that personal. So his betrayal led to the deaths of almost all the wardens, I don't care the wardens didn't do that much anyway and I just joined it so why should I care and he was doing so to because in his mind was for the good of the kingdom. So I can't hate him that much either and he can join my party at the end at the expense of the whiny Alaster! Just so much potential but failed for me as a bad guy.

A villain should absolutely have motives and motivation but I disagree with villains suck at being bad just for the sake of being bad. Kefka was bad because he wanted to be god. He was insane, but it worked because he made it personal.

Absolutely. The Joker doesn't think he's a bad guy at all. He would argue that "He's just ahead of the curve" in this dog eat dog world of survival of the fittest.

Absolutely in agreement with this. It has to be personal if not directly to the PC but to a companion. That may lead to darker themes though. One scenario is if one companion joined you and then she / he was captured and raped. He / she rejoins your party and is scarred. Question is do we as gamers want to go to such dark themes? I mean the question is where should the line be for a villain?