Under-appreciated retro villains?

[Scawt]

The just don't make villains like they used to. These days it's all about multi-dimensionality and many shades of gray; is he really evil or just misunderstood? Bah! I like my villains dark as night and occasionally with a side of cheese. Sure, we all love Bowser, Dr. Wily or Dracula, but who else tickles your fancy?

I'd have to say my number one favorite is Luca Blight from Suikoden II. Not terribly retro, but the man is definitely terrible. The scene with him burning and slaughtering the townsfolk of [I think] Ryube Village... ouch. That made the exceptionally difficult fight with him all the more vengeful and sweet.

On-top of him being a ruthless character in the story, it takes three fully-leveled up parties, a one-on-one duel AND a barrage of arrows to take the man down in an epic climax to that arc in the story. Definitely a fantastic villain that has stuck with me.

[SpaceHarrier]

Evil the Cat - Earthworm Jim

If you are of the feline persuasion and your name is Evil, you are probably pretty one dimensional as a character. Still, I despised his masochistic level full of chomping demons, fire, and elevator muzak -- all the while he just gets his groove on in the background. Then, once you reach him, you have to shoot the nine lives out of him while he stalks you from the shadows.. He was quite the nefarious little plotter in the WB cartoon series too, if I remember correctly.

Magic Emperor - Lunar Silver Star Story Complete

If you haven't played Lunar, I won't spoil the identity of the Magic Emperor, but suffice it to say -- until this game, I really didn't believe the clothes made the man. Such a badass, with all his sacred-dragon crushing power, corrupting young summoners and the like.

[Gameguy]

Evil Otto from Berzerk. He's undestroyable, and people actually died while playing the game(I suspect it's because of him, at least partially).

Berzerk was the first video game known to have been involved in the death of a player. In January 1981, 19-year-old Jeff Dailey died of a heart attack soon after posting a score of 16,660 on Berzerk. In October of the following year, Peter Burkowski made the Berzerk top-ten list twice in fifteen minutes, just a few seconds before also dying of a heart attack at the age of 18. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berzerk#Problems_and_player_death_toll)


Beware the true face of evil.
http://img384.imageshack.us/img384/3495/staffonlyevilottooz6.gif

[Sniderman]

http://i33.tinypic.com/1415py1.jpg

Dr. Hellman from Corpse Killer. The man was raising a zombie army! What's not to love?

[MrSparkle]

Ooh lets see pure evil bosses no shades of gray:

Garland - Final Fantasy 1
Dr Wily - MegaMan Series
King Koopa aka Bowser - Mario Series
Kefka - Final Fantasy 6 (aka 3 in the US)
Zemus - Final Fantasy 4 (aka 2 in the US) This dude especially

Pretty much every bad guy before the 16 bit era actually i guess i could sit here and list every nes game with a boss in it but you get the point.

[kaedesdisciple]

The Dragonlord from DW1. Did anyone actually choose to join him and end the game?

[otoko]

The Dragonlord from DW1. Did anyone actually choose to join him and end the game?

Maybe to see what would happen..

[Draven]

I always liked the henchmen from Rolling Thunder. NES version, not arcade. It was always funny seeing these guys in brightly colored outfits. WTF?

[chrisbid]

wart from smb2

[tom]

Mario from DK Junior. He should have been bad more often, and not Wario.

[megasdkirby]

My vote will always go for Evil Otto.

Smiley Face of Doom. Yeah, he means bussiness.

[tcv]

I was waiting for someone to offer good ol' Mr. Donkey Kong from the original Donkey Kong. Interestingly, there is a comic floating around out there -- can't find it -- that shows the original DK as a boy with no girl experience. He's extremely nervous and is not attractive. He finally gets the nerve up to talk to a girl named Pauline. She gets a bit scared and a beefy guy freaks out and starts to threaten him. He panics, grabs the girl and runs to the top of a construction site. The punch-line is: Do A Barrel Roll.

I suppose the point is that every villian has a story that may make them sympathetic. Remember: According to the Empire, Luke Skywalker was a terrorist. ;)

[InsaneDavid]

I'd have to go with the Jeweler Gem from my all time favorite game, Illusion of Gaia. What's the reward for doing all his dirty work? Why, nothing except the most difficult boss in the game.

[staxx]

CATS (Zero Wing) nuff said :)

[Tron 2.0]

Geese Howard from the fatal fury serise given he killed terry&andy father.It's some thing how many times he has supose to die,but shows up again any ways.Not to mention later in the serise he becomes a playable character even showing up in the vs serise and in kof96 as well.Sure some think rugal as one of the many villains in snk fighters.Still to me at least geese howard is still the man ;)

[j_factor]

Mario in Donkey Kong Jr. I wish they'd made more games with Mario as the villain.

[tcv]

Heh. Here's the comic I mentioned.

http://usera.imagecave.com/tcv/barrelroll.gif

[Haoie]

Umm, CATS?

[kupomogli]

Lans Tartare from Tactics Ogre Let Us Cling Together.

Lans is one of the most underappreciated villians and easily my favorite. Even as an enemy, alot of his loyalty is still to his fellow Roslolian Knights, though he is the leader of them, so he's actually a character you'd actually be pretty fond of even with all the things he's done in the game. His knights end up turning on him and tying him and a few other followers of him up, but never kill them, which after that you don't know what happens to him.

Lans is such an amazing character that Quest ended up making a prequel named Tactics Ogre Knight of Lodis, featuring Alphonse Loeher. The real ending shows that he took the name Lans Tartare. This shows that even Quest thought of him as a favorite. Though Yasumi Matsuno was not a part of this game, I've heard rumor that he had the storylines all written out.

Vice Bozeg from Tactics Ogre Let Us Cling Together.

Vice Bozeg is a friend part of the game, though an enemy regardless which way into the game you go, though he will ally with Denim if you choose to go the Lawful route and kill the villagers(Lawful and kill the villagers? Yup.) Either way, both stories point that Vice is trying to help the Walstanians just as much as Denim is, though taking the advice of Leonard and Ronway to kill them to get the others to band together(if you go one route.) It's really sad when he's killed on that Chaos route.

Luca Blight from Suikoden 2.

This is really only for the people who haven't played Suikoden 2, as he definitely won't be underappreciated for those of us who have. If you ask me, the game pretty much ends once Luca Blight gets killed as the storyline just starts to drag. Luca Blight is possibly the most evil person I've seen in a game. It's not someone you'd care for or feel sorry for. It's a character that is completely badass. He is so badass that he gets shot full of arrows, takes three different parties of six characters to fight him, he gets shot with more arrows, and then your leader has to finish him off.

Kain from the Legacy of Kain series.

Video gamings best anti-hero. The series has quite a few very good games but not a really good fanbase. This character is both good and evil in many different situations.

Hugh Baldwin from Castlevania Circle of the Moon.

Retconned game in the Castlevania series. Hugh is Nathan's training partner and rival in the game due to him thinking he deserved to carry the whip. Dracula eventually controlled him in his anger. I like the character himself as he's just awesome.

Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus from Wild ARMs 2.

Awesome character from Wild ARMs 2. Even though the leader of the terrorist group Odessa, he's a character you'd end up liking. The entire game you have no doubt in your mind that he'd be the last boss, until you get to the end of the first disc in which you're in for a pretty good plot twist.

Hikawa from Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne.

His goal in essence is to make a perfect world, one where there is no conflict, and is the entire reason SMT3 even takes place. The character is very intellectual and knows what he's after. Even though there are other main characters and enemies introduced, he is really the main one as he puts everything into motion and everything from the beginning of the conception all the way to the fall of Ikebukuro, etc. He mainly pushed everything for it to be as he wanted it(there are some minor changes, he didn't expect, but overall everything was his doing.)


The Dragonlord from DW1. Did anyone actually choose to join him and end the game?

The screen turns red and the game freezes after he says something. I think from what he says and the screen turning red, I think it tries pushing off the idea that he kills you.

*edit*

I know it's not retro, but I decided to add Hikawa from SMT3(PS2.) I know PSX isn't retro either though still posted. Alot of people would say retro is only NES and sooner. I decided to go with all my absolute favorite enemies that are underappreciated.

There are some characters I would have added like Marguls(Xenosaga,) Grahf(Xenogears,) Gafgarion(FFT,) Delita(FFT,) and others, but the majority of these are pretty well known.

I didn't add anything anything really retro due to the fact that they're not too awesome in my opinion. They're cool, but I like alot of newer enemies over them. They just don't stand out as much as some of the newer enemies do.

[NickyT]

I definitely agree with the Wart from SMB2 nomination, I always wondered why Nintendo hasn't done anything else with him lately. And I also agree with Jeweler Gem from Illusion of Gaia. When I ended up fighting that boss, I was like WTF?!?!?

[staxx]

Umm, CATS?

Wow you haven't seen Zero Wing?

[scooterb23]

The dragon from Adventure. Bastard will eat you! How many of these bad guys will EAT YOU?

[Streetball 21]

The bosses from Final Fight. Especially Edi. E.

[Aussie2B]

The dragon from Adventure. Bastard will eat you! How many of these bad guys will EAT YOU?

The aliens in Heiankyo Alien will. :)

http://www.mobygames.com/images/shots/original/1075923806-00.png

[Ruudos]

Kakos from Rad Gravity
Malkil from Wizards & Warriors
Jacquio from Ninja Gaiden
Mike Tyson from Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!
Zoda from Star Tropics

And that bad guy from Secret of Mana, but I don't remember his name.

[Wraith Storm]

Zio (Phantasy Star IV)

Zio was just a bad ass! They certainly don't do character designs like him anymore.

[Sword_Of_Vermilion]

Galam from Cosmic Fantasy 2
Lassic from Phantasy Star
Darksol from Shining Force
Tsarkon from Sword of Vermilion
Zeon from Shining Force II

[darkhades]

Eggplant Wizard from Kid Icarus, he's such a douche bag!

[k8track]

Fried egg.

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

Bongo from Congo Bongo

Sure, Donkey Kong hogged all the giant ape glory in the 80s, but I always found Sega's mischevious ape (and game) more entertaining then and now.

[bangtango]

Just a couple examples.

-Ninja Gaiden series (NES): With all of the plot twists, double crosses and shady characters introduced, there isn't a single person who I can think of that was introduced during the series that you knew from the very outset was on Ryu's side. Irene Lew was probably his closest "friend" and she introduced herself to Ryu by shooting him. Robert T.S. from NG2 had a murky air about him. That Foster guy passed himself off as a friend for the better part of the series. It goes on and on.

Castlevania II (NES): I always sensed that ferryman was evil, from the way he'd speak to you when boarding.

[Nirvana]

Hardman (Mega Man 3)
Hojo (Final Fantasy VII)
Orlouge (SaGa Frontier)

Actually, pretty much any of the villians in SaGa Frontier were pretty awesome. Unfortunately no one played the game :(