The best RPG villain

[curry]

What's so good in Irenicus? The voice actor did a good job but otherwise the character is fucking boring and the story is bland. Stop sucking that BioWare cock already.

 

[Satori (original)]

Kerghan. He was the only villain I actually understood and wanted to win. Which Arcanum let happen. Like a fucking Boss, mate.

 

[Black]

Apparently bald elves that are mad with REVENGE are hot stuff nowadays. That, and apparently people like having encounters with the villains that in a "shocking" turn of events turn out to not be their last encounters.

Irenicus > The Master > LaCroix

Hey, aren't you that flaming faggot who also thinks ME2 is a good game?

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

It's a toss-up between Kreia, The Master and The Transcended One.

What's so good in Irenicus? The voice actor did a good job but otherwise the character is fucking boring and the story is bland. Stop sucking that BioWare cock already.

+1

 

[Roguey]

What's so good in Irenicus? The voice actor did a good job but otherwise the character is fucking boring and the story is bland. Stop sucking that BioWare cock already.

What's worse is that Gaider wrote most of Irenicus so they're sucking Gaider cock. He probably gets a thrill out of people who unknowingly praise him while tearing him down elsewhere.

 

[Aldebaran]

Apparently bald elves that are mad with REVENGE are hot stuff nowadays. That, and apparently people like having encounters with the villains that in a "shocking" turn of events turn out to not be their last encounters.

I don't think it is that, so much as David Warner could make a Uwe Boll script sound good.

 

[Black]

"Thankfully" I played the potato version of BG2, so I took Irenicus for who he was. A jrpg villain.

 

[abnaxus]

 

[Sceptic]

I don't think it is that, so much as David Warner could make a Uwe Boll script sound good.

This, but that's also the reason I conspicuously left Irenicus out of my own list. I LOVE listening to him talk, but he's not a terribly good villain at the end of the day. Which is a shame because there were lots of nice touches in the early game that made him seem like he would be so much more.

What kind of a man baits two kingdoms into war, tricks away one of the most powerful magicians, and sitrs up the Nighthawks against certain factions just to distract everybody in order to destroy a Valheru lifestone? An extremely dedicated and farsighted person

This is I think made ironic (and even better) because he's so focused on his goal that he can make extremely clever farsighted plans within plans, but still, everything past achieving his goals is incredibly short-sighted. Hey guys, I just found The Enemy, let's poke and study their prison even though there's a risk they'll get free!

Wouldn't MoTB's villain be Myrkul? He was good too.

Yeah I guess. In terms of the more immediate antagonist, I always thought it was the Curse you're fighting against, with Myrkul the one who sits in the background watching the events he set in motion as they unravel.

 

[Erebus]

Kerghan. He was the only villain I actually understood and wanted to win.

Meh. He has an interesting and original goal, but he's not developed enough throughout the game to be a good villain. The twist that he's the real villain - and not Arronax - comes much too late and out of nowhere.

 

[Aldebaran]

While I don't consider him to be that great of a villain--the nature of Morrowind makes the story take back seat to exploration when I play--I do like the ambiguous/friendly direction Bethesda went with his voice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPAuvfqocFY

Kerghan. He was the only villain I actually understood and wanted to win.

Meh. He has an interesting and original goal, but he's not developed enough throughout the game to be a good villain. The twist that he's the real villain - and not Arronax - comes much too late and out of nowhere.

Agreed, and another thing that always irked me about Kerghan was his motive. This guy just pops out of nowhere (or rather, from a few passing mentions in exposition), starts rambling on about the metaphysics of death and why he is right, but the player/character has no experience in this area of Arcanum. Unless I missed something, they just introduced this whole concept of the lake of the dead/eternal peace on the spot and expected it to hold staying power. If the player had been given a chance to read hints about this (again, maybe I just missed it) or even get a glimpse of this world at some point of the game, Kerghan would have been improved tremendously.

It is like some guy walking up to you and starting a vigorous debate on the nature of the Szchengi civilization of Artaunok Prime. Maybe he is right, but I have no god damn clue.

As it is, Kerghan just seems like a plot twist delivering a plot twist. But an interesting one.

 

[Gregz]

Jon Irenicus from BG2, he perfectly embodied Raistlin from the Dragonlance novels. A formidible and intimidating foe.

My 2nd choice would probably be Shodan.

The Portal 1 & 2 'villains' are probably the funniest. (I know, not a RPG)

 

[Esquilax]

Honestly, LaCroix wasn't much of a villain. I think that was the whole point. You've got this guy who's a complete pussy, smug, incapable of making a friend in the whole fucking city, and unable to think about anything but how to make himself more powerful.

Spoiler

Smiling Jack is the real villain here. When you finish the game, it's only then that you realize how well he's been playing you the whole time. Throughout the whole game, he's been manipulating you by making you think that he's got no stake in the fate of L.A. - he's cool, he's badass, he helps you out and he's just about the only one telling you to think for yourself instead of ordering you around.

He subtly tells you about how the Camarilla is corrupt, LaCroix intends to use the sarcophagus for diablerie, then immediately he backs off by saying "oh it's cool, it's your choice, y'know?" Meanwhile he knows all along that you're going to be dancing to his tune. Besides, he doesn't care if you give LaCroix the sarcophagus anyways, because he knows that he'll just get blown up.

The fact that everybody in this thread considers LaCroix the real villain of the game is a testament to how skilled Jack really was. Truly an awesome villain.

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

What about Loghain? Saren? Harbinger?

 

[Black]

What about Loghain? Saren? Harbinger?

Sephiroth > them

 

[Raghar]

Do you remember Midboss?
It didn't harmed me because I'm pure.
Laharl: It's a pure stupidity.

In Disgaea you play as a villain.

FF V had interesting "villain".

 

[LibertyRansom]

it's a stretch to say that Star Control 2 was an RPG. Still, the UR-QUAN were one of the most original villains. They didn't have shady ulterior motives and they weren't even "evil". They just wanted to make sure nobody ever fucked them.

 

[Sacculina]

In my talons, I shape clay, crafting life forms as I please. If I wish, I can smash it all. Around me is a burgeoning empire of steel. From my throne room, lines of power careen into the skies of Earth. My whims will become lightning bolts that raze the mounds of humanity. Out of the chaos, they will run and whimper, praying for me to end their tedious anarchy. I am drunk with this vision. God: the title suits me well.

Or, if System Shock 2 doesn't qualify as an RPG,

When I design characters, I usually approach it in the following way (I’ll use Kreia in Knights of the Old Republic II for this example).

-Examine their role in the story. Kreia in KOTORII serves multiple purposes: companion, foil, and a means of acting as a sounding board for the game theme (the role of the Jedi and the nature of the Force in a living galaxy).

-Name them properly. This is more important than it may seem. Kreia, for example, was consciously intended as a twist on Leia with a harsher prefix-she basically acts as an ally as Leia does in Star Wars, but her life before she met you was…well…brutal.

-Set up a visual signature for the character with the concept artist. Kreia blends elements of the wise mentor (Obi-Wan’s robe) mixed with the Dark Side elements (Palpatine’s hood design).

 

[RK47]

Master Sun - Jade Empire.

 

[Aldebaran]

it's a stretch to say that Star Control 2 was an RPG. Still, the UR-QUAN were one of the most original villains. They didn't have shady ulterior motives and they weren't even "evil". They just wanted to make sure nobody ever fucked them.

Yes, they were indeed awesome, made all the more interesting by the fact that they are one of the few races that aren't cartoonishly wacky or are unrelatable in human terms. Speaking "the words" to them (especially the Kohr-Ah) was one of the highlights of the game.

I also vaguely recall the Kzer-Za warning you to flee for your own safety if the Kohr-Ah were successful in the doctrinal conflict. It is very hard to call the Kzer-Za evil, they were certainly totalitarian, but they did provide a great deal of protection for the races they conquered and even went through the trouble of relocating the space hookers.

 

[Sacculina]

Unless things take a dramatic turn for the better in your ADwR LP (which includes gutting and feeding him his own testicles), Vico.

 

[sea]

The Practical Incarnation is a pretty good villain. He's both very evil and very smart ; he's done some horrible things, but they make sense for someone who has no empathy whatsoever ; throughout the game, we often follow his trail, which is both impressive and horrifying. He's really someone we can hate... and we have to accept the fact that he's us.

The best part about him isn't so much that he's an evil asshole, it's that we witness very personal and very well-developed effects of his involvement with the world first-hand, built up over the course of the entire game. So many awful things came down to him, but it was only at the very end that you pieced it together and realised just how many things you'd encounted in the game previously were his work. The practical Nameless One would have been so much less effective if he'd just been depicting doing bad things, like dropping a schoolbus of orphans over a cliff. The subtlety of the reveal makes the impact that much stronger.

 

[RK47]

Unless things take a dramatic turn for the better in your ADwR LP (which includes gutting and feeding him his own testicles), Vico.

I really doubt he's a villain, more like ...an anti-hero. I doubt villains let their raped captives roam free...they'd probably keep her chained in the basement for training sessions and such...

 

[CrazyLoon]

And Kerghan as well.

 

[Cynic]

Come on codex you know in your weaboo heart that it is Sephiroth