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One other interesting thing to note about Handsome Jack is that as much as he directly opposes and attacks the player, the player also gets constant opportunities to piss him off. He gets very frustrated at you for not dying at a few points, not to mention the whole Angel thing. But there's also a few sidequests whose entire purpose seems to be pushing Jack's buttons--you can kill his girlfriend in a duel, earning an immediate reaction, and the entirety of Claptraps statue-destroying quest is just Jack becoming more and more enraged at your pointless vandalism. You're not just encouraged to hate him, you're encouraged to think of him as your rival through this back-and-forth.
Compare that to the Calypsos who seem happy that you do anything. Combined with an anti-climatic death there's no satisfaction in your rivalry relationship
Maiq The Liar not quite correctly. After the grave ward fight, you steal the opportunity for them to absorb its power. And they are massively pissed of by that. Still it’s not much
Well apart from just being a ganeplay challenge it would probably have them oppose what the player wants from the game. As AFG said, in Borderlands that is just the looter shooter part. In other games the developers would have to be aware what it is players want from it. Example: A Mario Villain who temporarily took away your ability to jump (if made in a way that isn't too frustrating) would also oppose the player, since they want to play a platformer about jumping. A villain who interacted with essential NPCs might also work. An example on this front is Lautrec from DS1 who just straight up kills the Firelink Shrine Firekeeper and thus the respective hub bonfire. Since he can even pose a gameplay challenge on attempting to reclaim the firekeepers soul (though this heavily depends on your build) he works on that level too. Further example: An enemy could take an upgrade and keep it until defeated. If said upgrade was really fun (perhaps the player could have experimented with it a little at the beginning) it might be satisfying to get it back and finally be able to use it to its full extent. Though depending on execution this could also backfire (the whole "having powers taken away at the beginning" part can seriously suck sometimes, especially in sequels).
Uhm? No haha its not about focusing in on the player or the character its about doing both, what you are saying is exactly what he wants game developers to stop thinking, that its one or the other, that one is more important, that they are seperate and cant be fused. They are different sides of the same coin but because each side looks different people think they are different, some might even prefer one side but try cutting a quarter in half see how much itll get you.
The player and player character must be united in purpose, or the former must genuinely care for the latter due to their charisma, character, and investment in those things. Therefore, the best villains challenge both the protagonist, and the player. This is even true in other mediums Darth Vader directly opposes Luke, but his obstinance opposes the audience's desire to see him redeemed, to believe that one one is ever truly beyond saving.
It really tells you something that when Maya dies it doesn't really make you hate the Calypso twins more as much as it just makes you hate Ava even more.
I honestly just hit the mute button whenever Ava said anything and have ignored every quest she gives you. Her character just doesn't grow and the fact she is supposed to be the Tiny Tina of BL3 makes it worse.
Another important bit is Jack actually does stuff that feels like it's targeting you, with a tangible effect on the ingame world. He strips away your home base, forces you to kill side characters, and locks routes from you. The calypsos never actually create any barriers aside from sending in fodder.
Except killing and kidnapping your allies. Granted, those two instances feel quite contrived as they happen, but it's still putting more barriers in front of your progress than just sending in fodder
They shouldve made Troy the main bad guy. He killed Maya, and him betraying Tyreen. Boom, a character who is charismatic and have a reason to be hated, unlike Tyreen.
Yeah handsome Jack was the best feeling in borderlands 4 they need to have him like come back like he downloaded his brain into AI and then I was like a robot body badass
This was really interesting, it certainly makes sense that villains need an opposing relation specifically with the player's goals in some way, not just the protagonist's or of some faction in the setting. One example not specifically brought up in the video was what Sephiroth does during That Moment: obviously he kills a character that many players will be emotionally invested in, but he *also* removes a potentially valuable party member from your team, one that you may have even relied on during the gameplay, and almost certainly invested at least some effort into upgrading and improving them. Reducing all that effort and emotional investment to nothing in a single moment is a great way to get a player personally dedicated to getting their revenge.
I saw a video analysing "the last jedi" that mentioned 2 opposing forces. The want and the need. Those could be interesting villains too. They can both appear on the same level (both on the player or both on the charatcter), but they can also appear on different levels, but harder to pull of (the only game that I have seen is "Spec Ops the line"; where the player want to feel like a hero, but the other characters really just want peace and go home. This diconomy is what makes the character crazy at the end).
@@Haannibal777 It is iconic, that's for sure. And it never felt forced. Sometimes writers will have characters die just for you to try to care/get angry. And it rarely work the way they intend it to go.
One of the big reasons that Sephiroth's big villain moment is so powerful is that Aerith is important to your whole party whether you were leaning more towards her as your video game waifu or not. She's the cornerstone of your group as the healer and is really the only character who is built specifically for that role. There are other characters that can fill it, but none as well as she can. So even if you weren't more invested in her as a character than anyone else, her loss is still something that will hurt you as a player. This makes the portions of the game immediately after you lose her much harder to deal with, as she's probably been keeping you alive in tougher fights for most of the game up to that point. Making it so you don't find her best weapon until after she is gone was a brilliant way to twist the knife as well. Given how they're approaching the remake, one of the most interesting things about the game is that it is not just an updated retelling of FFVII exactly as it was, and it is not certain that things will play out the same way.
@@contrabardus Finding her ultimate weapon after she was gone was nasty. It gave everyone the hope that she might come back at some point. IIRC, it was hinted that the materia she had in her hair (the one that falls in the water) was some sort of Life materia. It gave players the hope that, maybe, we'd go get it at some point in the following 3 disks.
They aren't just bad villains- they're barely functioning stand-ins for a nonexistent plot. The Calypso twins' entire role can be summed up as: Your princess is in another castle. Want MacGuffin. Go to planet X for MacGuffin. Calypso twins: OHOHO TRAVELLER THANKS FOR GETTING THE STAFF OF MAGNUS-I mean MacGuffin FOR ME I'LL BE TAKING THAT. Oh no! The calypso twins have teleported in and ruined everything you've been working toward for the last hour! Let's make another plan! Want MacGuffin 2.0. Go to planet Y for MacGuffin. Calypso twins: OHOHO TRAVELLER THANKS FOR GETTING THE OVERUSED TROPE FOR ME I'LL BE TAKING THAT. Oh no! The calypso twins have teleported in and ruined everything you've been working toward for the last hour! Let's make another plan! Repeat, literally half a dozen times. Nothing about the Calypso twins is interesting, or intimidating, or scary, they don't have hidden depths, they don't communicate with you, or develop in any real way other than MAH POWERLEVELS ARE GROWING YOU CANNOT POSSIBLY WIN EXCEPT THROUGH THE POWER OF GAMEPLAY. The one scene you watch where it looks like the plot might actually go somewhere, to Troy betraying his sister, and then you think you'll be picking up quests from each of them to sabotage the other's plans to take over the nope that was a red herring and they're back doing the exact same thing they've done the last ten plot relevant areas. They barely exist except to stop you from progressing the plot so the game can shove another level under your nose. Compare that with Handsome Jack. First appearance: Blowing up the train your characters are on. You pick up an Echo tape between him and the lady robbing a train for supplies that's equal parts horrifying and hilarious. Second appearance: He lets you in on his worldview. He's the saviour of the planet, and you're the murderous vagrants he's removing. He buys a diamond pony and calls it Buttstallion, literally just because he can. You kill his daughter, and there are issues galore between him and her. You get Echoes of his past, just another cog in the corporate machine, till he murders his boss and replaces him. He gives you a quest to kill yourselves. He also gives you a quest to kill his grandma, and you can't tell whether he's being 100% serious, or whether he planted that shack, complete with all the fake evidence of him having a pretty goddamn disturbing childhood, just to fuck with you. There are probably a bajillion more points to be made here, but I don't even remember the games that well- I'll bet other people could come up with so many more points here.
Handsome Jack was written by a true writer. The forgettable twins were written by an intern who was only hired because he was related to the sister of the CEO’s wife.
@@sheldonmearow1339 me neither but on repeated playturoughs I started appreciating the story and characters more in bl2, bl3 though I had to block out so much as background noise and just kept reminding myself, "the shooting is fun, the shooting is fun", that barely got me through finishing the game once, which from a progression standpoint was complete bs imo and felt like padding to stretch out play time, bl3 does definitely not have 4x the content of bl2, as Randy stated
One thing that pisses me off about the Calypsos is the fact that, essentially, they don't really suffer their loss. They're both smug assholes right up until the end, and you never stop seeing them being smug assholes. Handsome Jack was a smug asshole, but you had tons of opportunities to see him lose his cool - like when you kill his girlfriend or deface his dream city. After you kill Angel, his whole tone shifts. He goes from wanting you to die, but being pretty good-natured about it, to being actively incredibly hostile towards you whenever you interact, even threatening all of Pandora to not kill you before he has the chance to do it personally. When you finally kill the Warrior and stop his plans, you see him at his absolute lowest, screaming in anguish about how he should have won. He cries, he screams, he bitches about how unfair it is that you're so powerful. At last, after a whole game's worth of him being a horrible person, karma now has it's due. That theme of villains meeting an awful end holds true for Atlas and Commandant Steele, too. Atlas is completely destroyed by the events of Borderlands 1 for their pursuit of the Vault, and we see Steele, confident that she's won the universe, immediately die her deserved death, and then be tossed aside, meaning nothing to the monster she just woke up. That's one of the main themes of the Borderlands series as a whole. The rampant greed and pursuit of power that the villains set out to satisfy only leaves them suffering a horrible, meaningless end on a backwater planet full of murderers and psychopaths, having ultimately accomplished nothing and dying horribly. How does Borderlands 3 end? Tyreen lords over you about how she's won, she turns into a giant monster, and then you kill her. The end. No suffering, no anger, no anguish. We don't get to see her or Troy reckon with the horrible atrocities they've wrought upon the Six Galaxies and properly suffer for them. They just both die, with no fanfare, and with both of them never having stopped being smug brats who think they're entitled to the universe. In truth, I was just annoyed by the end of Borderlands 3, and not seeing either of these homicidal psychopaths suffer horrible for their actions just left a bad taste in my mouth. (Especially given that they then completely undermine your victory by handing it to Lilith and Ava, but that's a whole 'nother problem.)
My favorite villain is the Master in Fallout 1. It amazes me that you can talk him down by showing him the flaws in his plan. That sequence makes him more real than just about any other antagonist.
It's even better when you think how many games you just convince the villain that doing bad is bad. You can't talk the master out of killing humans, because he thinks that's a small price for the evolution of human race. You have to convince him of the flaw on his plan, not his ethics.
Immersive and intriguing? Yes. But real? No. I mean have you ever tried talking down a real life evil mastermind, like El Chapo, Settimino Mineo, Jair Bolsonaro, Xi Jinping, Ulf Mark Schneider, Tim Sweeney, Martin Shkreli, or Mark Zuckerberg? Not gonna work.
He is not wrong, sure we learned more about Ornstein, Smough later on, but originally we didn't know much and well the Nameless King remains nameless, with allot of implications, but not much tangible information. Compared to some characters, who we can almost write a detailed biography of.
GamePodify that’s not exactly a lot of lore, or depth. it’s all surface level because dark souls doesn’t really have an active villain, just different antagonists with a little bit of hidden lore to frame them in the world.
@@MrRaziza with the nameless king though, his fight just has so much character and the mystery surrounding him feel like they add depth even though him being the son should make his identity obvious, his disappearance from the surface world make it feel like there's more to know about him. Any concrete lore just for the sake of uncovering his story, i feel, would ruin his biggest charm at this point. ornstein and smough are pretty barebones though, still not dull of course, because the fights. a lot of darksouls basically feels like you're an archeologist digging up the ruins of the world, somehow the emptiness of a lot of the lore, with you filling in a bit of it, makes it feel realistic and secretly quite grand. its definitely most important as the frame of your world but calling it just that seems to be cutting it short, just miyazaki's explanation and his history of his obsession with unclear stories, justifies the idea that dark souls can be considered to have good lore. this is kind of not the video's point so it's perfectly fair to not consider it.
I was really hoping that Troy would betray Tyreen and become the main villain with a much more serious personality. I am not sure about other people's view, but I think that would have been a really cool twist.
I was expecting the same.. at least troy were as annoyings as tyreen. I mean she is just that girly woman who was born to be annoyed!! That mision when you can suicide or destroy the cameras... i prefer to destroy the camera. Is like "no the only villan i'll suicide for is jack because he deserve it" not you tyreen
This is what I hoped would happen as well. Also wish that they would've made the ending more culminative instead of just going "Oh she's on Pandora now. Ok cool you killed her roll credits with some cutscenes of characters doing things"
I said it before,but his hatred of his sister still doesn't make sense.His only role pre-maya's power was to stand around with a camera and look pretty.The sudden shift to "NOW I'M THE KING,FUCK EVERYONE ELSE" is so bizarre that him killing Tyreen would have needed better writing.
There's another thing to the twins. They just aren't actually charismatic. They're losers with little to no self-confidence, lack of social skills and no grander vision. It's not about the conflict only, they're just bad characters.
I also had an issue with there being setup for Troy to turn on COV that was never used. At first I just thought they seemed bad because of the tendency to compare them to Jack (who isn't getting topped anytime soon), but after more playthroughs, they are just bad.
I feel like they also missed out on the Twins’ relationship with their dad. We get told a lot of stuff about it in the game but really it could’ve used more. Their dad is one of the best established characters in the game and they explore a lot of interesting places with him but they don’t quite go up through the events of the game and get cut off in a pretty bad setup imo
i am compelled... once again... to state that the cake was in fact, real. the offering of said cake to the player is the lie (more specifically its thematically important that what she offers you is real, but her deception of the player, namely: betrayal. which always was and still is a core theme of the portal franchise in general and glados in specific).
Well in other fiction a villain has to communicate through the protagonist. In videogames the villain can directly hinder the player which makes them slightly different.
"Apply the new learned skills to image the twins as better villains" Rather than saying what would make the twins better this video is better this way. Perhaps the title would be differently worded to fit the content but generally this video was good.
The Trickster in Destiny 2: Forsaken is a better villain than the Calypso twins. The fake exotic engram was better than a hundred Calypso cut-scenes at making me want to personally hunt down this villain.
You know I hope that Savathun is a thousand times worse. While I am already invested in her character because of the lore, when we fight her we need to have more direct interactions than we had with Ghaul or Uldren. Uldren gets a pass for being supported by his Barons and replaced by Riven, who interact with us interesting ways, but Ghaul is a pretty poor villain because he leaves us alone except for the first and last missions.
I remember getting really excited during the Jakobs Manor mission, with Troy getting really agitated when Wainwright was mocking him. The drop of his streamer facade got me interested and I hoped we'd get more moments like that with the Twin's. Either that or have some event that made them change their relationship with the vault hunters like we had in bl2.
My thoughts exactly. Even though "show, don't tell" fits better with movies the same principle goes with cut scenes. Specially when it's about the baddies that you can't just yet get your hands on. "Im evil very evil" doesn't work as well as burning up an orphanage ..
@@nefelibatacomingthrough2707 And "seeing the villain burn down an orphanage" doesn't hit as hard unless you feel the impact. It's the difference between "he did a bad thing" and "permanently losing access to a key area full of likeable and useful NPCs because the villain fucking murdered them." After that, it's personal.
Very basic, but the Creeper in Minecraft. The point is to build, it blows up. The very way it interacts with the player and world runs counter to the single goal of the game.
But by hunting and defeating them, you acquire the resources needed to do the same thing to terrain you don't like. By doing so, you as a player have conquered an enemy, and therefore the environment.
What a coincidence! I, too, was struggling with an antagonist in my game (though this video wasn’t too helpful, I need some tips on how to make a villain the player would find appealing. The old routine of “you thought you were serving the greater good, but forgot to think two steps ahead”)
@@VsevolodKhusid Another reliable trope is to have the player and some companions fight along to fight some stereotypical muhahaha big bad. Then once they're beaten one of your "loyal" companions turns traitor on you. And now they have all the abilities and info on how you do things. Motivations for them doing this can range from secret mission from a secret cabal evil mind control magic from said defeated big bad they were lying all along just to earn your trust It's not complicated, but it works and it helps hook the player into the game a bit. From there you can progress the game to them sabotaging your relations with your friends to them framing you as the real villain. Anything that flips what the player thought they were doing is a nice twist to throw out there.
I really like how they handled the story of the illusive man in Mass Effect 2 and 3. In ME2 you are allies because he saved your life and in ME3 he is your enemy because you have different visions of how to save the galaxy. He also cares more for humanity than for other species, while you care for every organic species the same. Not only do you need to fight the reapers, which are a threat to every organic creature in the galaxy, but you also need to stop the illusive man. With some philosophy mixed in, you create a really interesting and unique story.
I dunno, I feel like you could see that coming from a mile away. Cerberus are villains in ME1, too. Making the Illusive Man become a villain is kind of generic and boring. Also they don't ever discuss the philosophy of racism.
@@cloud_and_proud I would also add that it wasn't even that well implemented in the third game, starting the game already on opposite sides of the spectrum like if they had had development outside camera was very jarring, especially considering that you could end Mass Effect 2 while not being on horrible terms with the man. And as a matter of fact there wasn't even that big of a reason to immediately put them against each other from the beginning, as a matter of fact given how the second game ends he should be one of Shepard's biggest aids, since not many more people are willing to acknowledge the "reapers". It would certainly have been *much* more interesting if they had started together but slowly drifted apart throughout the game until their eventual breakdown (or maybe not with the right choices?). Would have been infinitely better than immediately going "Yup, Cerberus bad doodooheads, ignore the good things that made them greyish on Mass Effect 2 now they just terrorists without any qualms. You see? They even attack the good people that was in Cerverus before coz they bad 'gasp'!!" Tim is slightly better than the organisation as a whole in Mass Effect 3, but not by much being honest :S.
@@craylik5589 Ok, I agree with you. It would have been much better when you were still allies at the beginning of ME3 but slowly drift away from each other.
I think the reason villains in video games are iconic are because so often the player character is a vessel the the player while the villains take centre stage
MartianSanta's Meat Wagon O' Fun As someone who mostly enjoyed it and am tired of hearing how it’s “awful” I’m cautiously optimistic that they’ll admit there’s positives and point out the negatives and how to fix them, instead of just bashing the game
I played my first BL3 runthrough specifically as a siren cos I naively thought it'd be thematically more satisfying or something...the scenes with all the sirens sans me felt really crappy.
I actually really liked Troy, he stats out as the sidekick that only gets a few lines of dialogue every once in a while, but once he gets powers of his own he starts to become more and more confident, to the point where he breaks off and becomes his own character with an actual personality. He gets a decent amount of character development throughout the story
I liked the video simply for you including Kreia. She may be the true final "antagonist" behind the scenes, but throughout your journey if you listen to her she basically tells you that she is. Not only that, everything she says is true. Her philosophy is literally the antithesis of Star Wars. She doesn't entirely manipulate you, she just teaches you the truth. Most people just overlook her because they don't listen to her and call her annoying because they lose influence with her. When she is one of the most well written characters in all of Star Wars.
Sephiroth is an interesting one because he doesn't oppose the player, and realistically he doesn't care about the player's party (other than THAT scene), but his history with Cloud makes him a compelling force alongside the fact that right after midgar your very first interaction with in is as a guest ally in your party The story being told by Cloud makes it clear that Sephi is not on good terms with Cloud and the presentation backs that up (the dark background to the fights and the ominous "those chosen by the planet" playing), but the most important thing is that you know this guy is a villain from the start of his guest appearance and you can check his inventory to see how screwed you'd be facing him at that point in the game It makes him more of a bar to be reached in terms of your party's power progression rather than a driving antagonistic force
I didnt know I was into this kind of videos about analyzing videogames characters until now, thanks for making me discover a new genre! I love the way you talk, explain and analyze characters, and describe perfectly and objectively. It was very interesting to watch! (Also I died at "Herr fuckboy" near Frau Engel lmao)
This reminds me of Sony exclusive games a lot, their game is so focused on telling memorable hero stories and rarely has any villain I has deep connection to. Story is well and good but I missed those visceral connection to the villian that keep me playing. Sometimes it feels like a chore or doing someone else's work for them
I also think that Jack insisting he's the hero even till the end helps. I just finished Borderlands 3 and the Calypso Twins aren't my favorite(although I do prefer them to the one from 1 and Zarpedon from the pre-sequel, mostly because Zarpedon was pretty boring) and they're like "Lol we're evil and kinda just want power to take over the universe". I can understand why Jack does all the evil shit he does. He wants to get rid of the bandits, which if he weren't a genocidal corporate lunatic, would be an admirable goal. The most evil people in the world have almost always thought they were the heroes, even till the end. Hitler even in the bunker while the Red Army was going through Berlin thought he was.
I mean, its a bit refreshing to see some villains being bad "just because" lol. Like, everyone wants some deep reasoning and profound motivation for a villain to be bad, when it could be just some lunatic going "I like doing bad stuff lol"
To be fair, Zarpedon thought she was saving the universe or something since she had premonitions of the Warrior being awoken thanks to the power of the vault. It's a hell of a lot better than the glorified space influencers.
Vergil is another great example *wow who would’ve guessed* when you first fight he is so powerful and rocks your shit, steals the amulet, steals Beowulf from you! The whole time your playing the game you just build your character up just to have a badass final showdown.
I hope with the release of the Command & Conquer Remasters, the depiction of Kane and Stalin as seen in those games and what great villains they were (including Red Alert's Stalin being one of the best depictions of the dictators outside of the Death of Stalin).
"Sid Meier's Civilization VI for interesting characters or Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri for downright memorable characters?" - President Nwabudike Morgan
Comeback bosses done right can be super memorable. I remember Breath of Fire 3 fighting Balio and Sunder at the beginning and then running into over and over while Ryu is too weak to do anything about them. It made it so that finally getting to beat them felt super meaningful. It was true justice.
I recently took an intro to game design course and even though the next course was about narrative design, they still made sure to start teaching narrative elements halfway through the course. Story and gameplay are intertwined.
This was brilliant and timely. Can anyone think of a successful antagonist that is the environment itself? Rather than personas, a combination of level design, weather, flora etc
The rain in Death Stranding; the electric storms in Mad Max fury road; the natural features in that one game were the universe resets after 20 minutes; water in Subnautica; the ooze from Tereria; lava in Minecraft...as I'm typing this, I realize that your setup of this question makes it impossible to elicit anything that constitutes an antagonist.
@@anthonynorman7545 I don't think it's impossible. There must be a game where the world itself is out to get you. Not a single villain but the entire construct. Such as a planet falling apart.
I want the next villain in the franchise to be a Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Charlemagne, Ceaser, Trajann, Saladin esk character named General Unitatem Concordia (General “unity” “live in harmony” in Latin) or something like that. Someone who wants to unite the wastelands and bring peace and harmony to it. We come to blows with him and fight against him. But as we do, we come to learn of his backstory. As a child the warbands and vault hunters destroyed his home killed his parents and violated him and others before taking them as slaves. As a slave he worked up to be a general in the warlords army before killing and usurping him. Now he seeks to create a Pandora where people don’t have to live in fear that what happened to him will happen to them. Additionally he treats his underlining a well and as family. And despite being a tyrant he is very fair and benevolent for a warlord. Eventually we come to face him, and after seeing the kind of world he rules, a place where you don’t need to kill everyone you meet, we are given a choice… Join him a create a Pandora where true peace and exists at the cost of what makes the planet “fun”, or fight and let Pandora remain a hell hole no sane person would ever want to live in. All you lose is anarchy type freedom the games are known for in exchange for lawful order if you join. If you resist, all the other factions immediately turn on each other to fill the power vacuum as the Generals last words are “ Congratulations, you condemned us all forever.” United Pandora, or Lawless wastelands, being ruled by planet wide military dictatorship vs local warlords, a unified world free of psycho marauders vs a divided hellscape where you live in fear… Lawless freedom or Peaceful tyranny, which is better? Now that I think of it, he wouldn’t be the villain, he’s straight up the good guy.
That ending got me. xD For real though, this is very interesting and valuable knowledge. Thank you for making this video. I am a huge critic myself Borderlands storytelling and a big fan of handsome jack. This question was bugging me for a while, and a few people have tried to answer this question too. But it was always a "He was one of the greatest and it's not that easy to impersonate him" and "the twins were annoying" from most people, which i couldn't find practically applicable. But your take has been informative, funny and very interactive.
Honestly the video game villains I like are the ones that could challenge you, the player, but I like it when you interact with the surrounding characters especially if the villain, Jack in this case, gets colorful and shows deeper emotion rather than “I’m the main villain, Bleuh!” Plus the cockiness/jabs from Jack towards you. Also we get introduced to the cast of BL2 like Roland and, spoiler alert, you get to learn and hangout with Roland and then he dies.
One of my favorite villains of all time: Firkraag from Baldur's Gate 2. Hired me to clean his land of Ogres, a side quest! Promises 10000 gold early in the game for the task. Ogres turn out to be Paladin order and they see you as Ogres just as you see them that way due to high level illusion magic. You end up on odds with highly respected order and Firkraag never gives you the promised gold. After going through a very hard dungeoun to kill him it turns out he is just way much powerful than entire player's party. In my first playtrough I didn't care about the main antagonist Irenicus - just about leveling up high enough to be able to kill that traitorous Firkraag. Twenty years later, and no villain made me want to kill him as bad as he did, while having to wait and work for the right time and my own power level for such a long time in the game. In the end, he immunized me against any similar characters - those that lead you into a trap and break promises while you are still forced to back down from even trying to fight them at the first opportunity.
I really enjoyed this analysis of villains and their roles/how they influence the drive of the player and the types of players looking for different things when they play and engage in narrative. It's really cool and you made a lot of interesting points. 13:14 That makes a lot of sense and explains why some game stories just fumble sometimes, however, I think the flaws of the twins runs even deeper than failing as the concept of the villain role. Everything about them is just written poorly, their motivations are insignificant and "plot convenient" at best and they aren't that likable. At all. They had potential that the writers themselves squandered. Tyreen is a cardboard cutout of over-the-top voice acting and Troy, while he had potential, was basically killed before it could be reached. The twins displayed interesting dynamics that were left up in the air and we as the player never got to fight them bother separately (at least not Tyreen before she goes Destroyer) or together. They show signs of conflict when Troy learns independence from her yet it never goes anywhere. I seriously thought they'd have a fallout and split the cult giving the player two separate forces or something cool or at least develop the twins more and their personal lives but nah, too much work. Their dynamics shift (Tyreen starting as the dominant one then it reverses when Troy and Tyreen power the vault key) and yet it's never taken anywhere. he writers wanted to critique streaming media yet did nothing with that. I felt like something interesting could've been done with their quirk of being streamers but it was nothing short of just annoying. Their back stories are also weak. Very, very weak. They decided to become gods because their dad wouldn't let them leave their planet and he told him about his and their mother's adventures or something but...what? Why? How did that motivate them to become gods? While they could've done something really interesting with talking about overly protective parents or their need to stream comes from something missing from their childhood would've been interesting. They also lack a lot of charm or able to make us care about them because they are not charismatic or funny or anything. They offer nothing to the game but being visually interesting. Nothing about the twins is clear or concise and they just existed to be something to kill since the plot was very weak (which aligns with what the video mentions about motivations between protagonist and antagonist needs to be set to create a force of progression that is natural and interesting). The poor writing in every regard just made the twins flaws more noticeable. A lot of character were sat on the backburner to place a few "chosen ones" on a pedestal. You as the VH/player is absolutely ignored and not given an ounce of credit for anything you accomplish. All the characters in the game that existed prior were in some ways regressed/downgraded from their prior appearances and the lore was just fucked. A lot of prior canon was flat out ignored (especially TPS and the limited lore in BL1) or changed to serve this awful plot BL3 forces on the player and it favors a new character and breaks down older characters to make it work. There's so much wrong with BL3 for a narrative perspective that the twins is the least of our worries but them being stale af didn't help. As someone who was deeply disappointed by BL3's retconned lore, new lore, poor plot and failed villains I can easily say writing stories for games is a rare art. Some franchises never lose it and other fumble with new writing teams that failed to understand not only what made the franchise they wrote for special/loved but proceed to not know basic writing rules either. It's sad. I really wish the old writing team would come back for the next game to fix everything wrong with BL3.
In the first scenario of the game Creepy Castle, the build up to the antagonist Dark King is great. You start the scenario investigating his castle because there are rumor he is up to no good and learn that he intend to use the Heartbreaker, a device that make people emotionless. As you keep investigating, you learn that his goal is world peace through forced removal of emotions to people of the whole planet. He also has started experimenting on people as he work toward that goal. You also find out that he was a respected ruler loved by all but something happened and then he changed. Speaking of which, you don't have as much opposition on your way as there should be. Because of Dark King new goal, several of his subject disapprove him and start to help you including Butterfly who is, oh, I don't know, one of his top general! Other intruder have also invaded the castle and you eventually find out that some of the stuff you intended to do was already done! And then there is the big buildup just before Dark King where you fight every type of regular opponent you fought one after the other which culminate with a rematch with the first boss of the game. And then you finally meet him. To stop his plan you fight him. He claim that his plan is the best thing for the world but you're not impressed. And then... interesting stuff happen that I don't want to spoil. :P
i played both borderlands 2 and the pre sequel, and i genuinely do understand how good and well written of a villain handsome jack is. however, ive played through borderlands 3, and i really don’t get what people are on about? like apart from the pretty ‘meh’ ending, the calypso twins are honestly pretty decent, with whimsical humour, not taking much seriously and generally having a laugh. they made me laugh more times than handsome jack. okay that’s a lie, but still! they’re honestly perfectly acceptable villains, with a fair bit of wit and sass to em, obviously not the grand scale of glaDOS, andrew ryan or handsome jack.
The final antagonist of Persona 5 royal is amazingly written and challenges the players thoughts about the characters they’ve spent 80 hours growing to love. He provides two choices to two different endings, of which neither are considered a bad ending ( even if one is the true ending). In my opinion, he’s one of the greatest written antagonists.
10:34 Lol I'm german and I have to say it's a really good pun, it took my a few seconds to actually get it. Well done. Also, no offense but you kinda butchered the pronounciation for "Frau Engel" a bit 10:32 Just a side note: I absolutely love your videos. I love hearing people analyse video games or other pieces of media and I think you're doing a fantastic job.
Tyreen as a character isn't horrible, but it felt empty like "Ooo, I know players like funny quips and jokes about murder." For the most part, she doesn't care about you. You're her super fan, and shes steps ahead - but it doesn't feel earned. Simply put, she feels like the game company filling out a check list of things they know we like, then trying to shove them into a character. Jack wasn't a check list, he was organic.
I feel like the amount of presence player has in the game as the character also effects how much impact the villain has. Comparing BL 2&3 again, in the second game jack often monologues at you-the character or the person, it doesn't matter. You kill angel and he stares right at you, he talks about you, the vault hunter doing the things against him. In BL 3 you are this weird observer, any time a plot bit happens its like the 1-4 of your are just warped out of there while the villains talk at and interact with the supporting characters (with that one weirdly noticeable exception where troy bubbles you in the mansion and auralia talks about trapping you). It leaves the player feeling removed from the game, and like there are no stakes for the person you are playing as.
hmmm now I think I need to show off the main bady of my pen and paper campaign instead of only having him pull the strings and getting this conflict right in
Man for a good villain from recent games, look no further than FFxiv shadowbringers and its villain Emet-Selch. Man fighting him was definitely difficult, especially when you empathise with the bad guy.
My favourite type of bad guy is the one that, were the circumstances any different, you'd gladly be fighting beside. Both him and the Warrior of Light/Darkness have the same goal, to save those they care about. It just so happens that they can only achieve that goal by going against eachother. It helps that he personally cares for your character greatly as well, even though you are not the same person he once knew. A large part of why he's doing what he's doing is out of a genuine desire to help *you*. ...and then there's the trainwreck that is Zenos. I don't know why they let Oda write his own OC as a recurring villain, but it really is pathethic.
FF6's Kefka always comes to mind when I think of great video game villains. I think he works because the game makes us hate him, but also underestimate him to a certain extent. It establishes early that he's a vile monster, clearly worse than the rest of the Empire, but he doesn't start out as invincible. Edgar tricks him at Figaro Castle, and we defeat him at Narshe. And then as he becomes more and more successful, we hate him not just because of the things that he does, but because our heroes seem increasingly unable to stop him.
The Nameless King is pretty much canon the firstborn Son of Lord Gwyn. I think it is important to distinguish between how much lore there are about a character (which lord Gwyn errased from history) and how much impact a characters have to lore. Nameless King enrich other characters (Gwyn and Orstein) and the general lore of world (the war vs the dragons and drakes). There is relatively a lot of lore on how the Nameless king have impacted other characters and the world, but less about the character itself.
Before watching this btw I had the idea they put more focus on troy and making him the true last villain as he monologs how he was always in his sister’s shadow Nd waited for his moment to be on top, only to be consumed by the destroyer or whatever and fighting the actual boss . However we learn he is alive and escaped
GLaDOS works on another level as well. She constantly toys with the player, speaking and acting in ways that reinforce the player's lack of autonomy and her own control. This is at it's most cruel and extreme when you're given the companion cube, run through puzzles designed to get you attached, then made to destroy it. And you don't destroy it for gameplay reasons, but because GLaDOS refuses to open the door until you do. Escaping puzzle 19 and making your way to GLaDOS, while no less scripted or linear than any other part of the game, gives you the feeling of finally being in control.
Well um, great video but the title is kind of misleading given you make no attempt to propose an alternative to BL3s story. Obviously not every bad story deserves a fix, the video works great but the title... yeah.
They should have done a villain that's the head of a weapons manufacturer. Like they've done with borderlands 1 and 2. Being in that position would give the villain a more threatening presence.
The nameless king, firstborn son of gwyn, traitor to the throne of fire, choosing the ancient enemy and despots of the old word in darkness over his own father and the work he had done to cleanse the dragons, yet he doesn't have a lot of lore attached?
I think the overlooked Pathologic 2 is a fantastic example of marriage between gameplay and story, and as you play the game it's almost as if the game itself is the villain
A good example I can think of is The King in Armello. He's not much compared to the legnedary villains discussed in the video, but his little quips and chortles in your demise throughout the game make him the best character by a country mile.
Fume Knight also had some pretty interesting backstory, being the former knight of King Vendrick and Veldstat's bro before getting his ass kicked and heading to the ash lands
Well Jack is right He is the Hero and We were playing the Bandit in Borderlands 2. He is my Favourite character of all and for a simple reason of his Ideology. And the Twin Calypso are just annoying to hear and wish to mute em while going to the Last Vault But at the other had,the DLC for Moxxies Handsome Jack Casino Heist was one of the best one I've saw. I am glad they got that Part right and It was fun Playing Borderlands Series while Jack was there. And THATS what I was Predicting whit Borderlands 3 when they Killed Handsome Jack in Tell Tales Story of the Borderlands. But as far from the Annoying and out right Boring Villains in Borderlands 3,the game itself has improved whit everything and everyone in it.
I will never forget Dr Nakayama from Borderlands 2. Not only is the final Bossfight absolutly fantastic, his story-arc also contains unbelievable sexual tension.
