After-Thoughts Rant: What makes a good video game villain?

As I start writing this, Team Four Star just announced DBcember Top 24 Dragon Ball Villains and, since their site is currently down and I'm unable to see who the first contestant is, I'm going to take this time to outline what I think makes a good villain. . . In video games.

It's easy to talk about what you think makes a good villain to you in any other medium because they're mostly personality, actions, and character traits. But, the interactivity of a video game means that a villain can be a lot stronger or weaker in this medium depending on what they mean to you as the player.

In a book or TV series, a villain is a threat to the protagonist, and, for the most part, that's also true in video games. However, in video games, you are the protagonist. Sure, character creation and mods aside, you may not be a canon character within the game you are playing but you are the one who is ultimately going against the villain, hence the fact that you are the one fighting this villain means that they will have a larger impact on you than they would if they were delivered in a non-interactive medium.

Since Team Four Star is what sparked this, I would like to highlight my point by using the villain that I personally enjoy the most from Dragon Ball but who also, character-wise, is considered and probably is quite shallow: Broly.

Team Four Star and others have talked about Broly at length as to why he's a shallow character, so I won't be covering that too much. But I want to illustrate why Broly made an impact on me even though he might not be that good of a characterized villain all things considered.

Broly appears in a lot of the Dragon Ball video games. Obviously, games that take place before he's introduced won't have him at all but many of the games that do feature him show him off as a Super Boss or Enemy that is particularly powerful in comparison to everybody else.

Though Omega Shenron is stronger depending on the game, Broly always had the biggest impact because of what he represented. Though different games will handle him differently, for the purposes of this I will use DBZ Budokai 3.

In Budokai 3 Broly, like most of the movie villains, can only be fought on alternate story paths and only on repeat playthroughs, except for Meta Cooler, who you can fight immediately in the Cell Saga of Goku's story before you fight Cell if you go to the forest surrounding Korin's Tower. Because of that, these villains are stronger than the villains you should be fighting at around that time.

What makes Broly interesting is how he's characterized by Budokai 3's stories. He appears in 3 alternate paths, one for Goku, one for Vegeta, and one for Adult Gohan but I think Adult Gohan's interpretation lends the most weight to the character even if Goku is the one I have the most fun fighting with.

In Gohan's Alternate Story Path, when Majin Buu is awakened, he appears in his original form, known in the game as Kid Buu, rather than the Fat, Baby-Like version he's introduced as in the story. So, already, Gohan is fighting Kid Buu and we notice something's not right, something that Supreme Kai even says himself.

After defeating Kid Buu, we run into Broly, who Supreme Kai not only describes as even more sinister than Kid Buu but also as the most likely reason that Kid Buu is in his Pure Form. So already, we have some heavy implications for what it means if we don't defeat Broly:

1. The fact that he is as powerful and more sinister than Kid Buu means that he would likely cause as much destruction to the universe if left alone.
2. The fact that his mere presence can do more to Buu than even Babidi's Mind Control Spells suggests that characters that are not pure good or close to it, could also become major dangers to the Universe as well. To put it another way, the fact that Kid Buu lost the good he received from the previously absorbed Supreme Kais due to Broly's presence means that, his presence is too powerful for even the creators of the universe.
3. And lastly, look at his face in the form you're fighting, does it look like the face of mercy to you?!

This pretty heavily indicates that Broly is going to be a major threat that you have to take down. And, the fact that he is a super boss intended to take the place of Kid Buu means that he's going to be tough.

This, with very little characterization, sets stakes for the fight that are pretty heavy, far heavier than a lot of video games ever get to have. Even if villains like Vergil or Ganondorf are better characterized, you cannot deny just how much this gets across that you have to take him down much better than a lot of games are able to.

So, now that I've ranted for a while about Broly, the question remains, what makes a good villain? And, the first and most obvious answer is build-up. Broly benefits a lot from being an established villain that was altered enough to make the story change believable and show just how important that fight is but there are other ways of accomplishing this.

One thing that I think Final Fantasy VII did really well in the execution of Sephiroth was how much he was built up throughout the course of the game. These days, a lot of people think of Sephiroth as just a Momma's Boy with a God Complex but, at the time, he was far more sinister than that would imply. Sephiroth was barely present throughout most of the game but, when he did show up, it was an event and you knew something was going to happen. Just to list off what Sephiroth does, here's what he did throughout the game:

1. He killed Aerith. Everybody who is even remotely into video games is probably well aware of that death scene by now so I'm not going into too much detail about that. However, he kills Aerith because she is the only one that possesses the only Spell that has any chance of actually stopping him.
2. He manipulated Cloud into giving him the Black Materia so he could summon Meteor to break the planet. His reason for doing this was to force the Life Stream, the Planet's Life Force basically, out of the Planet so he could absorb it and become the most powerful being in the universe, something that he would later reattempt in a different context in Dissidia Duodecim: Final Fantasy.

And that about covers it. Not a whole lot but these small actions had some pretty significant consequences. In fact it was to the point that even when he was beaten, it was the Life-Stream itself that blocked Meteor long enough to break it and save everyone that inhabited Gaia.

Where is Sephiroth the rest of the time? Well, for the rest of the time, Sephiroth is just biding his time, letting the mystery of his existence perplex and scare people as they go about their own goals. Sephiroth is built up by pretty much everyone affiliated with SOLDIER as the strongest of them even before it's revealed he died. And the fear only crops up from there.

There are other villains in the Final Fantasy series that are touted as just as good or better, usually it's Kefka, but while those people may or may not be right, Kefka achieves his status as a great villain in a much different way.

As I said before, Sephiroth lives and dies by his ability to be built up, which is also part of his presence in Advent Children on top of the original game. Kefka relies on this a lot less. Kefka is constantly on-screen in Final Fantasy VI, and I mean that in a very different way from Sephiroth. Sephiroth is ever-present in a very ghostly "he's around but we can't see him" kind of way while Kefka is shown in person what he's doing at several points in the game. Kefka relies much more on his ability to be characterized due to lack of build-up, which is the reason his Final Boss fight is as impactful as it is. You've built up hate for this psychopath over the course of the game and you want to take him down so he doesn't harm anyone else.

Sure, he becomes the God of Magic but, if that has any impact at all, it's because of how much damage he will do with that power due to being a psychopath rather than trying to stop an indomitable force. Ultimately, I don't think Kefka becoming a God of Magic would've had anywhere near as much impact as it did if he were not shown to the player at several points in the game. I also believe Kefka is a bit of an overrated villain but I suppose that's a discussion for another time.

In terms of Final Fantasy Villains, Jecht from Final Fantasy X was more or less a mixture of build-up and characterization. Build-up in the form of having to defeat Sinn, the thing that threatens everything, and characterization in the form of Jecht's Memories from back when he was around, which both lead up to the final battle at the end, where it's revealed that Jecht became Sinn to give Tidus the chance to kill the damn thing.

In terms of which works better, that's up to debate somewhat. I personally believe that build-up is easier to achieve but also easier to ruin if one of two things happens or doesn't, depending on how you look at it: either the boss fight is terrible and not worth going through with, or the villain is killed in some way outside of a boss fight.

In terms of terrible boss fights, Mundus, the main villain of DmC: Devil May Cry had quite a bit of build-up but the fight itself wasn't that good. Admittedly, that may just be Ninja Theory's design philosophy on boss fights, since even factoring out Vergil as the final, the dual-sword wielding teleporting enemies as mini-bosses achieve what most of the bosses in the game do not so maybe it's just bad prioritizing rather than actual inability to design games.

An example of the latter comes from Fable II, where the final villain can be killed one of two ways: either you shoot him while he's talking, or you wait for him to finish talking and Reaver will kill him instead. This particular enemy, to my understanding, was relatively good at being characterized as a villain you want to kill and built up as someone you want to kill as well, and the fact that you don't get a proper boss fight shatters everyone's expectations in the worst way.

I think one boss fight that's, if not the best ever, then at least the most polished and well-balanced villain I've ever seen in a video game has to be Kessler from the first InFamous. Kessler is the boss equivalent of The Sixth Sense. You see his actions and, initially, you just think he's a bad guy who's just experimenting on people for no good reason, then you fight him and, it's a legitimately good boss, so you can have fun fighting him. But, when you defeat him, you see a twist about his backstory that puts everything in the game that's happened so far into context.

In the same way that Bruce Willis was dead made you rethink your opinion of the Sixth Sense, Kessler's reveal, while a bit over-the-top by comparison, nonetheless achieves the same effect.

From the same series, Augustine from InFamous: Second Son, does something quite similar and a bit less well but her reveal is still quite interesting like Kessler's.

Mundus from the original Devil May Cry, the one by Little Red Devils not Ninja Theory, was a bit of an interesting case of build-up. We don't see a whole lot of Mundus throughout the game but we do know that he has it in for Dante and is the King of the Underworld. His minions killed Dante's mother, and Trish, her recreation by Mundus, was used to lure Dante over to the island. That's all the excuse I need to kick some demon ass.

Of course, speaking strictly about the original Devil May Cry, everybody believes that Nelo Angelo was a much better boss fight than Mundus, and they're not wrong about that, which is why it's good that Vergil is actually an antagonist in Devil May Cry 3.

Of course, for video games, the characterization and build-up don't have to be that good or obvious as long as the boss fight itself is good. The Ninja Gaiden games benefit a lot from this, where the characters for the most part are so memorable because of design, both character and battle, even if the writing is incredibly weak in most of these games. There are a number of examples from the first 3 Ninja Gaiden games alone but I think my favorite example has to be Genshin from Ninja Gaiden 2.

He's designed as a rival super ninja from an evil clan that's working with demons. Not particularly deep, no, but his boss fight is good enough that it's forgivable. Though I do honestly believe that a major portion of the Ninja Gaiden games' success is how much they rip off from other titles, particularly Devil May Cry.

So, in short, build-up, characterization, and providing a good boss fight, or even just an average boss fight are enough to make a villain worth dealing with. Generally, I would recommend most people only try to get two of the three right. The Boss fight should always be present so that you can get your climactic finish. As for the build-up and characterization, it's not easy to do both together and, most people who try, generally get one better than the other because of the focus of any given story.

I know there's probably more to writing a good boss than that that I have not covered but this should get you started.