Dave

After playing Sombra a few times, I've come to enjoy her play style.

Myles accepted with an airy wave of his hand. "Drive on, my dear, and fear no red lights, for flattening a plebeian pedestrian would be considered no loss at all." He savored a self contented grin across his lips. Riding in a car with a complete stranger or not, the artist felt that the blessing of being able to revel in a sense of accomplishment, passing quaint house after quaint house as they drove further into the doldrums' belly, was well worth the possible risk of abduction. "The greatest thing to come out of this town was the groundbreaking scientific discovery that walking and breathing was, in fact, a possibility."

Miyazaki said that Dark Souls was finished, but I would be hype for a Bloodborne sequel.

The fight takes nearly a decade, but we only get to see bits of it, and in the end, it's finished by someone else.

Vaan is definately the odd man out in the game. I personally think XII has the best fleshed out and complex universe for its characters and world, yet Vaan manages to be surprisingly typical and is lost among the strength of the cast.

I'm not getting audio in Dark Souls 3. This is a sad day.

Alberta, Canada. There's actually a fair amount of fans here.

I kind of read that his helping Noctis along had two end goals. The first is that he wants to 1v1 Noctis at his full strength so he could actually get some satisfaction out of his revenge, and second, even if he lost as a result, he got to die, given that he doesn't seem overly fond of being immortal in the first place. Also, I loved his constant trolling. It actually gave him an antagonistic relationship to Noctis specifically rather than just being the big bad that needed to be defeated.

2016 gave us Dark Souls 3 and Overwatch, and for that at least, I am grateful.

I don't think it would work out; this guy seems to know how a zipper functions, and that already makes him overqualified for the job.

I wouldn't mind still staying involved.

Number VII: The Emperor (Final Fantasy II) There’s a reason why the much used story arc of a small rebellion fighting against a greater power works so well and stands the test of time: it provides an active quest to both the heroes and the villains, with the heroes trying to topple the regime and the antagonists being forced to constantly try and hinder those efforts. Though the Emperor has achieved great power and can summon demons, he still has something to work towards in suppressing what remaining kingdoms there are, as well as constantly fighting back the Wild Rose rebellion. The reason why this matters so much is that it makes the plot more dynamic and engaging; no story is made interesting by having the characters sit back and rest on their laurels, and that goes for both the protagonist and antagonists alike. If we, as the player, can manage to have an impact on the villains plot as it unfolds, it makes it feel as though our actions actually have ramifications, as opposed to constantly be in a state of reaction, not to mention that it gives the Emperor something to do other than just wait for us to arrive and defeat him. Keeping him active in the plot also makes it easier to identify him personally as the thing we are fighting against, rather than an abstract idea or someone who is so far behind the curtain that we don’t really know who it is we are fighting towards. Although the Emperor doesn’t take center stage very often for the obvious reason that he has people who do that for him, he is still identifiable enough during the story that we know who to blame, and can still identify him as the villain. Not to mention that, as the bodies pile up from the characters we have come to know, it creates even more of a sense that this man must be stopped, that he has not only transgressed against the world, but has now made this entirely personal. Considering that there is still limited technology and precedence at this point towards fleshing out your own party characters, it helps that the Emperor’s antagonism can make you feel more attached to them if only because he has shown himself to have the ability to take them away. I had mentioned that one of the problems Garland ran into is that he arrived in an age where the villains weren’t expected to be particularly complicated, making it all the more impressive that his immediate successor manages to be as complex as he is. Though the idea of someone trying to take over all the land and crush a rebellion certainly isn’t new, the Emperor is able to add his own angle to it. He’s a condescending, aloof, and refuses to let himself be rattled, even when Firion and co. are actively messing up his plans. It isn’t just that he’s an elitist member of the ruling class; it stems from his own refusal to admit that anyone can be on his level, that there is anyone on the planet who is worthy of his concern. All of this ego winds up tying into the thing that makes the Emperor all the more interesting. Unlike Vayne, whose quest for Empire involves the greater goal of trying to bring free will back to mankind, or perhaps even the financial empire of Shinra simply doing it for the money, the Emperor wants to be in control because he can’t stand the thought of someone else being in such a position of power other than him. While some might want to be center stage for the adoration, the Emperor seems to actively dislike the people he rules over; he comments at one point how mankind “deals in false justice and forsaken love,” as though they are doing it wrong and only he truly understands how the virtue of love and justice works. Which, considering he spends most of the game spreading destruction and death, paints a bizarre picture of what he must imagine love to be. He firmly believes that he is the only one who gets it, that knows what must be done, and that the loss of human life is no loss at all because they have no virtues worth protecting. It’s not as though his sense of superiority comes without something to back it up, either. Far from being one to rely on others (which makes sense, considering he doesn’t seem to like them very much), the Emperor shows himself to be a one man army, bring forth the demons that wreck the world on his behalf, and conquering kingdoms with his own magic. But most impressive of all, even death is something that has limited consequences against him. His body isn’t even cold before he manages to destroy Satan himself and take over Hell, and threatens to take down the rest of the world with him. This was the perfect way to emphasize the Emperor as the type of Final Fantasy villain we could come to expect. He wasn’t going to just hide behind armies and rule from afar, but was able to take center stage and exude powers that threatened existence in ways that made his defeat seem impossible. Naturally, the bigger the threat, the bigger the satisfaction when you do manage to defeat him, and by acting as a mountain of a roadblock on the path to beating the game, it’s hard to understate how well the Emperor played his role as villain.

Neither is pretending that the complaints don't possess points that need addressing.

Positivity alone cannot fix the problems that we face.

Praise the sun!

Happy holidays to you as well.

Some days, you feel like no one really cares about what you have to say.

Peace on Earth, and goodwill towards men.

Number VIII: Yu Yevon (Final Fantasy X) While Seymour is the more active antagonist in the story who constantly interferes with Tidus and friends and tries to stop their meddling, and Jecht acts as an emotional antagonist for Tidus who probably drives our hero’s character to grow the most, I consider Yu Yevon to be the true villain of Final Fantasy X if only because everything is his fault. Yu Yevon is something of a Sauron style of character; their physical presence in the story is kept to a minimum, yet they are still omnipresent simply through the scale of their influence and how much direct effect they have had on the world. The Spira that we find ourself in has been molded almost entirely by the actions of Yevon. Their culture, technology, and fates are dictated by Sin and the millenia of destruction that he rains. In essence, Yu Yevon has already won: he’s managed to shape the world in his style, he has a church that worships him, and his goal of more or less enforcing a luddite state is cemented, either through the loyalty of his followers, or because any time people threaten to become more advanced, he returns with a new Sin armor and destroys what they have made. And in this style, he provides a constant, albeit passive, antagonism towards the main party of heroes. He’s the reason that Yuna has to take on the burden of saving the world, and worse yet, he’s also the reason her sacrifice will ultimately be in vain. While we don’t know much about him when he was still a person, we get enough info on Yevon’s background that we get a good insight into where he’s coming from. His goal is simultaneously understandable, somewhat tragic, and still villainous. Having seen technology advance to a point where his Zanarkand is on the verge of destruction, he not only tries to preserve the memory of the city he lost, but tries to avoid the world ever reaching that point again. So he creates a pseudo Zanarkand, wraps himself up in his Sin armor, and proceeds to scare off the attacking Bevelle hordes. Of course, in the process of doing so, he also destroys the real Zanarkand, and gives Sin the mantra of destroying anyone who delves into technology or any civilization that threatens to become advanced. Whatever noble thoughts he might have had are lost as his single tracked mind forces the world into stagnation, and any attempt at saving a civilization are muddled as he tries to actively destroy others. His plan involves constant sacrifice of others to his end, from the people he runs roughshod over as Sin, to the Summoners and Aeons he needs to make himself a new body. As much as some people feel let down when encountering the meek, bug-like thing as the de facto final boss in X, I actually really like the decision to make Yu Yevon an unintimidating presence on his own. He’s guarded by Seymour and Jecht, wrapped inside a monstrous Sin that is protected by Yunalesca’s machinations, and is worshipped by a church that praises him as a saviour, but ultimately, Yu Yevon is a small, meek, broken thing that needs all of these other people in order to be thought of as great. He’s not a god, great warrior, or a sorcerer; he’s just a wretched creature clinging to life, and once you’ve gotten past all of his walls, there’s nothing left to protect him from his fate. It kind of puts the final nail in the coffin of Yu Yevon as a pitiable figure. He might have started with the best of intentions, but there is nothing left of the man that indicates the humanity that might have set Spira on this crash course. Praise be to Yevon. At least, that’s what I’d say, if I were a follower of Yevon.

"Cheers, love! The cavalry's here!"

I actually really love getting socks, because I hate buying clothes, and so when I get holes in my socks, I just don't buy any.

Once I realized how broken so many characters were, I no longer felt bad about using Bastion.

Rapture as a world for KH3. Make it happen.

Number IX: Garland (Final Fantasy I) Poor Garland; most of the things that I hold against him aren’t so much about him as a character, but how he’s a product of the time he was made. It’s hard to rank Garland much higher than this when compared to the other villains in the series, not because he’s necessarily bad, but because a lot of the things he did, others had the technology, precedence, and experience to do just a little better. In a time where villains in video games weren’t really expected to be complex or fleshed out (neither Ganon nor Bowser do any talking in their first appearances, after all), Garland doesn’t do a whole lot to shake things up. He gets a grand total of five lines during his first appearance, and doesn’t do a whole lot to make it sound as though he’s anything more than a thug. There’s a piece of dialogue somewhere that mentions that Garland was once a trusted knight that went rogue, which is interesting, but is never really developed on or given any particular reason for occuring. Not to mention that his disappearing for about 95% of the game doesn’t really give him a chance to add onto himself and make his character more compelling. But while I usually complain about villains not making enough of an appearance in order to make an impact, Garland’s absence from the majority of the story actually works in the game's favor, bookending the plot as being bother the first and final boss. Not only is it kind of a cool measuring stick to think about how far you’ve come, but it works as a good reveal, as the lack of teasing his return makes for a greater shock when you discover he wasn’t finished off at all. And while his appearance at the end of the game kind of has the same issue, with his minimal dialogue doing more to provide exposition than actually develop him, there’s still a lot going on with it. Garland’s reveal as the man who has stuck the world in a 2000 year time loop sets a precedence not only for the villains to come, but for Final Fantasy as a whole. It’s no longer enough to kidnap a princess or threaten a kingdom; suddenly, there is a threat to space and time, existence itself, and whatever lies beyond our physical plane. He raises the stakes to new heights, and all of the entries in the series are compelled to live up to that legacy. Ultimately, the only reason why he winds up being this low is because he leaves you wanting more, but doesn’t really have a way to deliver it. It’s actually one of the few cases where Dissidia managed to do someone's character a favor and develop them more. I really liked the idea of Garland regretting his decision to create a time loop, as two thousand years starts to drain on his will, and his being a willing servant of Chaos, loyal to his master while also pitying him, gives him a really great complexity that helps flesh out a knight formerly limited to a handful of lines. Garland manages to do a lot with a little, and creates a precedence that the rest of the villains on this list are obligated to match.

To think it was under our noses the whole time.