Not going to be updated often, but when it does it's going to blow your mind!

• 24Sep 07

  Villains

  I was browsing through a FFXI forum earlier that was talking about something completely off topic. It was a topic in regards to best/favorite villains and heroes from gaming history. Surely each point differed because of the person's preferences and experiences, but I thought I'd give it a whirl elsewhere (because I hate posting on that particular forum). It should be noted (and assumed) that everything I'm writing is based off my experience and there will be spoilers.

  10. Bowser, and if you don't know where he's from you need to stop gaming right now:

  Everybody knows the not so lovable King of the Koopas. Ever since the days when this antagonist was first introduced, he's always been one step ahead of Mario by having the damsel in distress transfered to the next castle. Every time we thought we caught up, he proved to be ever the wiser (faster? I dunno). He's always been in our (or his) face about it too, unless of course the unthinkable happens and we rescue Peach. In the original Mario platformers, how many times have you wanted to punch the machine because you thought you had her this time?

  Unfortunately for Bowser and the main reason for his low seed is because of his flirtings with the good side, even if that was just for his greed to be the ultimate villain.

  9. Vulcanus, from Disgaea: Hour of Darkness:

  It's kind of hard to take Disgaea seriously and if you've played it you'll know why right off the bat. The game does have it's select few serious characters, Vulcanus being one of them, sort of. The premise and underlying message (if you believe in that stuff) is the main focus of his villainy. He plays off the high and mighty angels, because they are supposed to be infallible, being angels and all. This viewpoint leads to extreme arrogance and thus leads him to believe in all these crazy things being cooked up in his mind, like Flonne coming from hell with legions of demons to take over heaven. Even though he isn't the final fight of the game, the stage and music in which all the fighting takes place could easily be mistaken as a final fight. The music is still the same as the rest of heaven, it's that badass and awesome. On the stage note, it's not a flat area, because it's an SRPG final areas SHOULD be more about using tactics than brute force, which this stage certainly leans towards (being a set of spiral stairs).

  8. X-Death, from Final Fantasy V:

  X-Death is fun to play against in the story of 5 because it encompasses most of the varying plotlines of today's RPGs. A villain was sealed away many years ago, mysterious events have been happening that will break the seal, the seal breaks, he pushes the world to oblivion. X-Death was great because of a couple of things. 1. He killed Galuf! What the hell? Galuf was the best protagonist in FF5 and he died! When a villain can stir emotions similar to that of perplexed anger, you just have to want to kill him at that point. 2. He was just like some extremely small amount of time from achieving his goal of complete destruction, but then the heroes came and screwed it all up. Lastly, he died and came back to life, damn! Not only all of those things, he was just insane, he had no reason for being a psycho he just was. He's almost like a toned down Kefka, which I will get to later.

  7. Osmund Saddler, from Resident Evil 4:

  By now, everybody and their grandparents has played Resident Evil 4, so he needs no real introduction. Although, I have mixed reactions about Saddler. He did play a pretty good villain, especially near the end of the game, but there were some parts early on that just troubled me about him. Most notably, the part where he kills Luis. I'm sure by this point in the plot, Leon was enough of a threat to make Saddler worry just the slightest bit. So why not use your tentacle of piercing doom to kill Leon there, as well as Luis? it would have worked out perfectly, your threats have been killed, you have the sample, and Ashley is downstairs easily retrieved and sent back to the President. That mistake cost him the whole operation surely made smart people everywhere look down on him.

  6. Albedo, from the Xenosga series:

  Albedo was great because of his insanity and constant search of beauty in the Realians. Not only that his goal was completely different than any other villain ever. He wanted to die. He still underwent all those actions to kill our heroes in Xenosaga, because of his main target. That's a pretty twisted goal, I want to die because I can't, but in order to actually die I need to kill my brother, who has my heart. Damn...

  5. King Valentine, from Odin Sphere:

  King Valentine is an interesting character. First off, he's undead which immediately places him in the "be wary" category. Secondly, he is the way he is because of the curse of the Cauldron, which he placed on it, partially so that he might "live" forever. The cause of this act of placing the curse is flabbergasting by today's villainy, because they aren't really evil enough to do it. It was typical life in the kingdom, when one day Valentine finds out that his daughter is pregnant, with the children of an enemy nation. After learning of this, what does he do? He kills his daughter, by stangling her to death, after she's had the children (twins) and they are capable of understanding what he is doing to her. If that's not enough revenge, after he returns from the netherworld, he goes on to torment the children's father with the children via emotional manipulation. After all this, King Valentine's thirst for vengeance is not quenched, so he sets in motion the resurrection of the Cauldron and the birth of the dragon that will devour the world. During this last section, though he is quite aware that he can stop at any point and some instances it looks like his granddaughter's words are getting to him, but he resolves himself to the prophecies of destroying the world.

  Yeah, I'd say he's a sick individual.

  4. Sakaki, from the .hack//G.U. series:

  Sakaki is just an antagonist that you want to kill immediately when you figure out his stance and intentions, well that's how I felt. He willing let's himself get infected by AIDA (the virus plaguing the game) so that it could increase his chances at a successful revenge against our hero, Haseo. Nothing stands in Sakaki's quest for revenge, nothing whatsoever, the other players, the status of the networks, the people in the real world, the company that runs the game, nothing. He will use anything at his disposal, manipulation, direct contact (only twice, sadly), indirect contact. Sakaki always seems to get on your nerves too, constantly refering to Haseo as his title "The Terror of Death" rather than as his screen name. His voice actor plays an excellent role in portraying the sadistic nature that he seems to have, for a 10 year old kid with a voice changer.

  3. Dracula, from the Castlevania (Lament of Innocence's version) series:

  Matthias might seem very bland, but since the situation is based off a real world setting, 11th or 12th century Europe, you need to take in the setting to understand his vile nature. It's a Christian controlled Europe. The church controls pretty much everything; to go against the church means to go against everything. His wife died of illness, an act of God. Because her passing was an act of God, he must have some sort of vendetta against Matthias (his reasoning). Forsaking God and everything else in the world to prove God wrong (attaining immortality) would be the ultimate revenge. Using your best friend, making a pact with the demons of Hell, such heretical thinking in the past is a travesty to society and the reason he is such a despicable villain.

  2. Ganon(dorf), from the Zelda (Ocarina's rendition) series:

  Ganon's other incarnations in the Zelda series are all poorly introduced and played out. He constantly is introduced through backstory and only really ever comes into play at all until the very end of the game, when the fight takes place. Ocarina of Time does the best job at portraying his villainy, because it also lets you see the beginnings of his rise to power as the King of Evil.

  Because Nintendo has confirmed that Zelda follows a certain continuity, it leads me to believe that Ganon(dorf) is the same one throughout the entire series, it adds to his longevity that he is seemingly immortal, which is a pretty badass trait for a villain to have.

  1. Kefka, from Final Fantasy VI:

  A villain list is absolutely not complete if Kefka isn't the number 1. He's the worst of everything put together and to top it all off he has a little trait that every villain SHOULD have but usually doesn't (sort of), misanthropy. Kefka manipulated everything from behind the scenes, playing the (slightly) innocent court jester of Gestahl, until the floating continent appeared. Once that place showed up he let loose and destroyed everything. Not many villains get to destroy and rule over the world, and he had the capability to do it. Kefka also mocked the player characters in instances where he got the chance, sadly they were quite funny. Kefka still holds the place of number 1 most dastardly deed in the history of games. He poisoned the water of the dying people of Cyan's home (if I remember right). Even after the mythos of the world is revealed that the goddess statues are the source of magic the world and subsequently destroyed, magic still exists. You know why? Because Kefka became God in a sense, he absorbed all the power of the goddess statues and reigned until the heroes came and defeated him atop the tower, in the final battle.

  These aren't the best arguments, mainly because I'm not doing this for school or money so my real effort is absent. I'll tackle the issue of my top 10 heroes/heroines sometime soon, so don't get yourselves worried.

  • Posted Sep 24, 2007 4:30 pm PT
  • Category: Games
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• 9Aug 07

  Difficulty (continued)

  A while ago I made a blog post complaining about the increasing simplicity of games. That was mostly sparked by Zelda: Twilight Princess, which posed no real challenge to me at all, even playing through with just three hearts.

  I took about a week off from starting any games, after I finished Odin Sphere. I played through Odin Sphere - my closest friends playing it at the same time - on hard, whilst they played it on normal because they simply wanted to enjoy the story it offered. I started after they did and still finished before them, while all of us pretty much playing the same amount each day. I guess they were farming for materials and foods, those wusses. The challenge posed by hard mode appeased me for quite some time, until the end where it became almost typical RPG fare, my numbers were too high for the opponents and I could obliterate them without breaking a sweat. While I did love Odin Sphere for being an "RPG" with selectable difficulty, I still hated the fact that with enough bulk time spent killing things (not that I went out of my way to do that) I could still finish it pretty easily.

  Now here's a big change for me. A few months ago (like May) I imported Kingdom Hearts 2: Final Mix+ and started RE: Chain of Memories, but never got around to actually playing through it because of the fact that I already had beaten the American GBA game. Now that I have really started to sink my teeth into all of Final Mix's features (both 2 and RE:CoM) I have to say that I am finally satisfied with a game. Final Mix+ has the selectable difficulties present in both sets: Easy, Normal, Proud in RE:CoM and Easy, Normal, Proud, Critical in KH2. All of the fights in this edition have everything I've really ever wanted. All the bosses are challenging, but not so over powered that you can die in the first two hits. They also aren't so easy that you can go into a fight and expect to win first go. Even going around pretty under-leveled in both games is very fun, giving me that added factor of fun challenges in the light hearted world of Kingdom Hearts. It's such a shame that Square still hasn't localized it to America, I'd buy it again, considering the scenes in Chain of Memories are now accompanied with voice actors, which are just as well done this time around.

  This is easily the most fun I've had with a video game, way more fun than what I said about anything else *coughmytwilightprincessreviewcough*.

  • Posted Aug 9, 2007 9:28 pm PT
  • Category: Games
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• 20Jun 07

  Pokemon Rules

  

  I've been playing Diamond much, I mean a butt load.

  Current stats regarding Diamond:

  Elite Four defeated: 29

  Wifi Battles: 3 wins

  Trades: 275

  Hatched Eggs: 305

  Seen: 483

  Obtained: 483

  Time: 350:47

  Score: 31704

  Current as of: August 12

  • Posted Jun 20, 2007 11:13 am PT
  • Category: Games
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