[deleted]

[Fredward]

Reeeaaalllyy looking forward to Solas as a villain, hoping they don't turn him into something completely without nuance like Corypheus.

 

[Wayward Son]

I wasn't a big fan of Loghain, mostly because I never actually felt motivated to fight him. He felt like he was just the excuse to get the story going.

Now Sarevok was a good antagonist. He was always in the shadows and doing shit to fuck with you, and he had actual motivations that you had to piece together until at almost the endgame. And then his fight was reasonably difficult even on my overlevelled overgeared solo fighter/thief. Also, being in the better game and setting prolly had something to do with it.

 

[Bleed the Man]

Reeeaaalllyy looking forward to Solas as a villain, hoping they don't turn him into something completely without nuance like Corypheus.

Honestly, as much as I dislike Inquisition, and even didn't like Solas that much in the game, the DLC Trespasser did a hell of a job introducing Solas as a villain (sadly, not much else. The qunari plot is very bland and disjointed and it's still a chore to play).

The potential is there for a compelling antagonist and conflict, but it's hard to not be very skeptical that they'll pull it off.

 

[Azarkon]

Best: David Gaider - he sort of stood up for what he believed in

Worst: Chris Priestly - had to apologize for comparing GamerGate to KKK, still got fired in the end

 

[Volourn]

Worst - the stupid medusa from SOU

Best - Irenicus from BG2

Underappreciated - Morag from NWN OC

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

Worst: Terminator robot. So unimaginative. A terrible end to an otherwise incline of the series in terms of having the game focus on character development and interesting quests rather than "stop the big bad".

Best: Irenicus, though Loghain was actually decent because he wasn't the generic megalomaniacal villain they painted him as at first. And the traitorous duke side-villain was also decent. Liked the different reasons the player could have to hate his guts.

 

[cruelio]

I would like to address anyone who didn't vote for the Illusive Man. Some people here seem to think he and his organization were at some point good villains, or even competent. There are many reasons why this is wrong, which are evident to people with eyes and ears capable of intaking information from the environment and sending that information to the brain for processing:

- Like half the side quests in the first game are foiling the various cartoonishly evil and stupid experiments and shenanigans his organization gets into. For example, what happens if you lure people to where a sand worm lives? Hypothesis: I think they will get eaten. Result: they got eaten. What happens if we get a bunch of rachni and put them on a random ship? Hypothesis: I don't think they'll break out and kill everyone and spread across the galaxy. Result: they broke out and killed everyone and spread across the galaxy. Who comes up with this shit?

- He, according to him himself, spent like half the organizations resources on figuring out how to bring Shepard back from the dead. HE DID THIS FOR NO REASON. Listen. I get that he's looking for someone who can get things done. People who can get things done are useful. But think. Right now planet earth has like 7 billion people on it. I'm sure future earth space empire has many more billions of humans running around. YOU CAN FIND SOMEONE FROM THESE BILLIONS WHO CAN ALSO GET THINGS DONE WHO HASN'T SPENT ALL THEIR TIME BECOMING FAMILIAR WITH HOW STUPID AND EVIL YOUR ORGANIZATION IS. It will be much cheaper. If you're so insistent on spending so much resources, you can even make an actual army for yourself. Which by Mass Effect 3 we learn he was doing anyway (where does all this money come from?). But that's not even the worst part. The worst part is after almost driving his organization to ruin trying to rez one fucking dude who has every reason to tell him to fuck off, Jon Illusive Man fucks up the security and almost gets everyone killed by his own robots including Jon Rezzed Man. He's so stupid.

- His ultimate plan is to mind control the mind control robots who show up and mind control and kill everyone whenever they feel like it. There is a flaw in his plan. Its that he immediately got mind controlled before he could use his own mind control. Because that's what the mind control robots do. He knows this because he's been researching their mind control tech. What a fucking moron.

So this is my 200 word essay one why Illusive Man deserves to be the worst Bioware, and indeed general, villain of all time. At least the skeleton didn't have a choice in being a stupid skeleton. He was made that way. By idiots. And if you didn't get a laugh out of a big schlocky Contra skeleton showing up out of nowhere then I dunno what to tell you.

Also you aren't going to convince me that Bioware didn't mean "elusive" but decided "Illusive" was so much cooler.

 

[Freddie]

I would like to address anyone who didn't vote for the Illusive Man. [...]

Those are very good points but I think it's like TIM fits in the (post ME1) universe so well. I mean the world where nothing makes sense, everything is actually pretty fucked up, Reapers were just playing with humanity, Collectors, if you think of it, they were useless, Cerberus everywhere. etc.

TIM, like you pointed out, is kind kind of epitome of all that and that's why he just doesn't stick out enough. If super genius had even ploys which would be believable and were actually worked it would be different, but that's what not happened.

 

[Mustawd]

Why are any of you even playing Bioware games?

 

[RPGMasterLvl2]

I would like to address anyone who didn't vote for the Illusive Man. Some people here who seem to think he and his organization were at some point good villains, or even competent. There are many reasons why this is wrong, which are evident to people with eyes and ears capable of intaking information from the environment and sending that information to the brain for processing:

- Like half the side quests in the first game are foiling the various cartoonishly evil and stupid experiments and shenanigans his organization gets into. For example, what happens if you lure people to where a sand worm lives? Hypothesis: I think they will get eaten. Result: they got eaten. What happens if we get a bunch of rachni and put them on a random ship? Hypothesis: I don't think they'll break out and kill everyone and spread across the galaxy. Result: they broke out and killed everyone and spread across the galaxy. Who comes up with this shit?

Mac Walters. He wrote all the Cerberus stuff for ME1. His reward was promotion to lead writer for 2&3. The result was fatal decline for the series.

 

[cruelio]

I would like to address anyone who didn't vote for the Illusive Man. Some people here who seem to think he and his organization were at some point good villains, or even competent. There are many reasons why this is wrong, which are evident to people with eyes and ears capable of intaking information from the environment and sending that information to the brain for processing:

- Like half the side quests in the first game are foiling the various cartoonishly evil and stupid experiments and shenanigans his organization gets into. For example, what happens if you lure people to where a sand worm lives? Hypothesis: I think they will get eaten. Result: they got eaten. What happens if we get a bunch of rachni and put them on a random ship? Hypothesis: I don't think they'll break out and kill everyone and spread across the galaxy. Result: they broke out and killed everyone and spread across the galaxy. Who comes up with this shit?

Mac Walters. He wrote all the Cerberus stuff for ME1. His reward was promotion to lead writer for 2&3. The result was fatal decline for the series.

It suddenly makes so much more sense.

 

[Lhynn]

Sarevok, Irenicus, Sovereign and Amelyssan are pretty decent. They are not the master from fallout, but they are good to great when compared to almost everything else.

Worst is Meredith, TIM or harbinger, they shit all over the games they are on (not that the game themselves arent shit on their own)

 

[Nutria]

There are so many to choose from just in ME2-3, but I have to pick TIM. The writers clearly expected the player to be just blown away by how cool this guy is. I found it really insulting to my intelligence. They took a character from the X-Files, tried to put an exact copy of him in their game, failed miserably at it, and then they expect me to be impressed? I guess I was supposed to be in awe of Martin Sheen's voice too. But all I thought when I heard him was, "Wow, they spent a lot of money getting Martin Sheen to do an impression of that actor on the X-Files."

I hated that character as soon as I saw him. The moment when I found out I had to be his errand boy was when Mass Effect died for me.

And then in ME3 he needs a henchman. Do they make up a henchman who makes sense in Mass Effect? No. Do they at least bring in Alex Krycek from the X-Files? No. They bring in Kai Leng, a ninja in a goofy costume. Presumably he's stolen from some other media like the Cigarette Smoking Man was, because he doesn't fit into the ME universe in any way. So now you have a Mass Effect where game where the Star Child is controlling the Cigarette Smoking Man who is sending a ninja to attack you with a katana.

 

[Volourn]

" They are not the master from fallout, but they are good to great when compared to almost everything else. "

The Master is alright but is overrated.

 

[Harry Easter]

" They are not the master from fallout, but they are good to great when compared to almost everything else. "

The Master is alright but is overrated.

I liked Frank Horrigan more. He was just a big bully, but that made him the perfect representation of the Enclave and you had enough reasons to hate him.

But this interests me:

Underappreciated - Morag from NWN OC

Please explain!


cruelio

Sums up everything what I hate about TIM, good job!


As for best Bioware villain, I think I will go with ... Meredith from Dragon Age 2. I thought long about it and as badass Sarevoks spicky armour still is, he could have been just another henchmen for the big bad. Meredith has a good build up: everybody trembles in fear when they hear of her name, people talk a lot about her misdeeds and it is ambigious how much of the cruelties of the Templars are done with her approval. Her ending is weak, but so is the ending of Dragon Age 2, but I still like what she represents.

 

[Atlantico]

I was totally sure who I was going to vote for before I opened this thread and saw the list of candidates. To be fair, many of those mentioned aren't even proper antagonists, they're either plot devices, henchmen or minor characters.

I was going to vote for Corypheus, but after reading through that list, Jonoleth gets my vote. They're basically the same character, Cory's just less emo.

 

[Freddie]

... So now you have a Mass Effect where game where the Star Child is controlling the Cigarette Smoking Man who is sending a ninja to attack you with a katana.

That was beautifully put. Would brofist if I could.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Voted for Sarevok. Another shitty non-character, like Irenicus, but with a good VA that elevates the character. But the real villain here is obviously

 

[RuySan]

Sarevok and Irenicus are appropriate and don't offend me at all.

Everything else is risible. The worst is that deformed silly guy from Dragon Age Inquisition. I hated him so much just because he looked and sounded so stupid. So i suppose he was a good villain to bring out those feelings in me.

 

[Lhynn]

Voted for Sarevok. Another shitty non-character

Sarevok is a pretty good villain, a mysterious and intimidating man that took everything from you. a machiavellian figure that is plunging two kingdoms into chaos, a great leader that commands the respect and undying loyalty of his allies, a clever and educated gentleman that is at home both in the court and in academic circles.
Sadly we didnt get to interact much with him, but he was a pretty good villain/rival for an epic tale of medieval fantasy.

 

[Talby]

 

[Sarmatian]

Bioware in general has shitty antagonists, but Irenicus was actually quite good. Ambition that grew into obsession and a horrible punishment that stripped him of everything to the point that he had only revenge left.

Sarevok was good also. Not just a typical bully, but a competent mastermind with a clear goal. It took real effort to stop him.

Longhain could have been great, but there was nothing about it in the game. The whole concept that he wasn't really a traitor (in his mind) and was making all the hard choices because no one else would and because he felt it was ultimately for the good of his country was interesting. Unfortunately, in the game, he comes of like an entitled incompetent fuck.

What's good about TIM was actually Martin Sheen. The rest range between mediocre and "oh, my God, I'm in physical pain" bad.

 

[Sykar]

Archdemon, because it was the most uninpsired, trite, boring and idiotic character ever. The story never tells you why he attacks, you learn nothing of his motivations, etc. No one else is blander or more forgetable among Bioware's antagonist, albeit they have quite a few shitty ones.

Ultimately, you cannot even call it a "character" since it is closer to a lego brick Bioderp needed to fill that big gaping hole in their story with a big bad.

 

[Sykar]

It still functions as an antagonist

Yeah, the lego brick big evil.

 

[platypusbutter]

Archdemon, because it was the most uninpsired, trite, boring and idiotic character ever. The story never tells you why he attacks, you learn nothing of his motivations, etc. No one else is blander or more forgetable among Bioware's antagonist, albeit they have quite a few shitty ones.

Ultimately, you cannot even call it a "character" since it is closer to a lego brick Bioderp needed to fill that big gaping hole in their story with a big bad.

It's a big fucking diseased dragon, what sort of motivation does it need? The reason for it attacking is kinda the whole mystery of the series.