The Side Villains

[FranklinX 78]

Everyone often thinks about a RPG game's final boss. He or she is the final villain to defeat in the game. Sometimes the side villains do not get a lot of love and attention unless their battle is really fun. I picture side villains as members of the final boss's party. They will not be in the final fight. However, they are his or her supporting cast. 

 

It is very important to give a good personality and motives for the side villains. Why are they supporting the final boss? What are they hoping to achieve? I forget most side villains in RPG games because they don't offer anything to the story. You go from point A to point B, and encounter this boss for the game's story to progress. That's very boring to me. 

 

 Gilgamesh from Final Fantasy V and Jr. Troopa from Paper Mario are examples of side villains with more personality and story. Gilgamesh is a more fleshed out character. You have a reason to care about these characters. You interact with them throughout the game. Multiple battles against a particular enemy makes the player realize this is an important character. This enemy adds more value to the story than the average boss. 

 

Have you thought about your side villains? Do you have reoccurring villains as bosses? I'm currently developing at least 5 villains who will have at least two important battles against them. One character will appear as a boss in the story for at least four times.

[Yharnam 1]

I agree with you, the villains have great relevance in some games (But if you only do puzzles it would almost make no sense to put a villain here, I think so), for example in my game, Dzarov, the main companion of the protagonist, warns that when Get what you want, you'll stab us in the back. However, it has a development behind it (which, in my opinion, of all the sketches of the character, I liked the most).

Villains have their relevance, they almost always have a parallel development with the protagonist, which makes it more dynamic when it comes to revealing (Sephirot is a clear example of this)

But, you can have a rich and rich history for the players, but if the final boss comes out of nowhere and does not match the entire game (See here Fontaine / Atlas de Bioshock 1, final part), it is to throw everything automatically overboard.

[Kayzee 4,032]

Hehe... My game has a trio of side villain fairy girls that are introduced pretty near the start of the game. Not sure how much plot relevance they will have in the end, but I do plan on making them show up throughout the game. They mostly show up as unique randomly spawning miniboss encounters in my game's roguelike dungeons. Each one has a slightly different personality and set of abilities. One can steal your items and teleport away, one can turn invisible and hunt you, and the third... Well I am not quite done with that one yet, but I plan to make her possibly alert monsters or use staus effects. They even have their own special music that plays when they spot you!

[Chaos Krux 29]

Chaos can be an excellent plot-developer, you know... I like to have multiple villains or teams of villains that are all against the player, but also do not get along with each other. Having two different villains be at odds with each other can make for some interesting plot points and character development. It's also somewhat easier to tie the side villains into the overarching plot this way, I think. That and the fact that having villains be against each other allows you to create unlikely alliances between them and either other villains or the main party. In my game specifically, most of the side villains have a legitimate reason for whatever nefarious thing they're doing, most of which are caused by one villain in particular who pops up about a quarter through the game to replace the previous main bad guy, who then turns into somewhat of a side-threat himself. Then by the end the one who's responsible for all that turns out to have been served an even worse fate by a character who, up until that point, had been an ally to you. It may be cliché, but I always like to mess around with villains.

Edited October 18, 2019 by Chaos Krux

[Kayzee 4,032]

Yay for Chaos! I do like to see plots where multiple plots are being launched by different factions for sure! Though I think I prefer a something a little more ambiguous. I mean, not all antagonists have to be villains, not all villains need to be antagonists, and sometimes it's hard to tell or at least describe what role a character even plays! My game is not really that plot heavy, but what plot there is/will be oven revolves around the idea that most of the characters the player runs into are pretty amoral. That is to say not necessarily immoral (as in actively going out and doing evil things) but still amoral (as in concepts like 'right' and 'wrong' don't really mean anything to them).

 

For example, the trio of fairies I talked about before are really more interested in playing with the player then anything else (of course at least one is a sadist, so yeah). When you first meet them they really don't react to you that much and just sort of hang around doing their own thing. You can talk to them (and two of them even have a secret item they can give you if you figure out how to get them to give it to you), and they pretty much act like random NPCs. It's only after the player leaves the map they meet the trio on to press forward that a cut scene plays where the trio decides the player is interesting enough to play with. They aren't really what most people would think of as 'villians' exactly, just kinda playful bullies that like to mess with you a bit. Of them only one tries to actually straight up attack the player without being attacked first, the other two mostly just use their special actions to prank the player and run away until they take damage.

 

Another example is, well, me! You see I, Kayzee, am responsible for spiriting the player away to fairyland in the first place! Why? I was bored of course! But I am helpful, honest! I will explain lotsa stuff, and will let you stay in my house, and will give you a cool book, and... I am cute! And I will just sit back and let you pretty much do what you want most of the time too! What's the catch? Oh, don't worry about that... Just relax! Look into my eyes... Just think of all the fun we will have! Just relax more and more... You wanna be my plaything, don't you? That's a good pet...

Edited October 19, 2019 by Kayzee

[PhoenixSoul 1,404]

I had a run-in with some very interesting side villains in the second Half Minute Hero game recently (via Goddess' Treasure DLC), that of which the content in question is trying to be cute and not too NSFW, but failing. Badly, lolz
 

I won't get into the details too much, but let us just say that the implications are super dirty and definitely sexually charged. However, this is not surprising because this is a JRPG+parody of JRPGs+comedy+fanservice all in one package, even more so than the first game. Oh, and don't even get me started with the user-made stuffs (level editor), because there's plenty of lewd to be found there, lolz
 

Aside from that encounter...
I tend to believe that all characters should be given the same amount of effort, even @That One NPC that almost always gets ignored and/or is plot armor/throwaway. However, going further into that would require going completely out of scope, so I'll avoid it.

My usual approach to antagonists is never actually truly defining who/what is the main antagonist, until I've fleshed out the story and the setting and all that, and even then, there are times when it's never clear even to me, so why should it be so, to the player/reader?

[That One NPC 321]

It's good to put a lot of detail and development into every character. And I think it has a lot to do with the writing and development style of the game as well. Many games, even great ones, had a very point A to B structure. FF6, despite being amazing in so many different ways, had a very A to B style. I forget a lot of the side villains and bosses, but one that always resonates with everyone is Ultros. He's not particularly developed and has no real impact on the story line, but through his comedic relief and recurring appearances, he becomes one of the most memorable, well known bosses of the entire game.

 

Then you look at a game like Earthbound which feels much less A to B. When you land in a town, they didn't want it to be a quick stop to buy armor, talk to a few key NPCs, and go off to battle. This allowed them to flesh out entire towns, and the bosses like Frank, the leader of the Street Shark gang in the first town. Most of them aren't extremely developed, but you still remember every one of them because of the way the game is structured and paced.

 

So I think it depends on how A to B the pace is, and how much development they have vs how often they actually appear in the plot, not even just battle.

Edited October 25, 2019 by That One NPC

[PhoenixSoul 1,404]

I actually will admit that sometimes, the best antagonists/deuteragonists are unresolved tensions and emotions of any given main character, like lust.

 

I mean lust in any given shape or form, not just the kind some dumb blonde 'Barbie Bitch' has for their chosen love, lolololololol

 

[FranklinX 78]

3 hours ago, PhoenixSoul said:

I actually will admit that sometimes, the best antagonists/deuteragonists are unresolved tensions and emotions of any given main character, like lust.

 

I mean lust in any given shape or form, not just the kind some dumb blonde 'Barbie Bitch' has for their chosen love, lolololololol

 

 

I'm actually writing the concept of a game with lust as one of the focal points for emotions for the main characters. It's not like a game with monsters or a much of female characters in love with the main hero. My idea deals with people's emotions and what they truly desire or secretly desire. Those emotions or desires could be lust, love (from a family or friend), acceptance, fame, money, etc.

[Kayzee 4,032]

On 10/25/2019 at 8:33 AM, That One NPC said:

It's good to put a lot of detail and development into every character. And I think it has a lot to do with the writing and development style of the game as well. Many games, even great ones, had a very point A to B structure. FF6, despite being amazing in so many different ways, had a very A to B style. I forget a lot of the side villains and bosses, but one that always resonates with everyone is Ultros. He's not particularly developed and has no real impact on the story line, but through his comedic relief and recurring appearances, he becomes one of the most memorable, well known bosses of the entire game.

 

Then you look at a game like Earthbound which feels much less A to B. When you land in a town, they didn't want it to be a quick stop to buy armor, talk to a few key NPCs, and go off to battle. This allowed them to flesh out entire towns, and the bosses like Frank, the leader of the Street Shark gang in the first town. Most of them aren't extremely developed, but you still remember every one of them because of the way the game is structured and paced.

 

So I think it depends on how A to B the pace is, and how much development they have vs how often they actually appear in the plot, not even just battle.

 

Everyone loves Ultros! He can use tentacle on me any time.

 

Also, I kind of disagree about Earthbound. It also had almost as much of a A to B structure if you ask me. The real difference between FF6 and Earthbound is that FF6 followed a formula where 'dungeon' areas and town areas were usually distinctly segregated, while towns in Earthbound more or less always also functioned as dungeons of a sort. Earthbound's minor bosses weren't really more memorable to me, but I can see how they might be to others. Because FF6 tended to segregate it's gameplay and story a lot more, a lot of the bosses were just kind of disposable and not important. Earthbound at least tried to integrate them together somewhat I think, which is why I think you found Earthbound's bosses more memorable. Though really I haven't played Earthbound for a while and never played it all the way though, so I might be wrong.

 

There aren't a lot of JRPG-style games that don't have a strong A to B structure really. Most of them rely on the plot pushing the player forward from area to area. Heck maybe most games in general do that. There are really four main "plot integration" structures that most games tend to take I think.  In addition to the A to B structure, there are the Open World structure (where the player explores a large area and finds stuff mostly on their own with minimal plot pushing them forward), the Hub structure (where there are areas the player keeps coming back to between more episodic segments), or the event driven structure (where plot progression is mostly a matter of triggering the right event flags). These structures can often be mixed up and combined, but I can't think of very many games that don't use at least one of them (FF6 might actually use all four at various points, but it's mostly A to B).

 

I think the main strategy to create memorial side villains (or any character really) really does depend on what plot integration structure a game is doing. For the more episodic A to B structure most JRPG-style games have (as well as games that use the Hub structure for similar reasons), I think that usually is taken to mean either a villain who is an important central character to the 'episode' in question (but only if the episode it's self is done well), and/or an "Arc Villain" that shows up time and time again who might not be that important to the over all episode but has more to do with the story over all (but only if the over all story is done well). But it's also possible to have a good villain who is kinda somewhere in between.

 

Ultros is actually a pretty good example of that. If he had shown up only once when encountered during the river raft ride, he would probobly be sort of forgettable. He is passable as far as forgettable episodic filler villains go I suppose, but he really doesn't have much character except for being the obligatory boss fight and some comedic relief. That didn't really matter at the time, because he was entertaining enough. Still if that was the only time he showed up, he probobly would have been forgotten. But he didn't show up just once. He came back just around the time some players might have started to forget about him and was just as if not more entertaining. And then after a bit he did it again!

 

In some ways it's kind of a cheap writing trick. Ultros became memorable not because he was a deep and compelling character, but because he was just entertaining enough and showed up just often enough to endear himself to players anyway. It's possible that if he had shown up any more people would have thought he was somewhat annoying, as people often do when a joke is repeated too much. If he had shown up that much less a lot of players might have completely forgotten about him. So even if he wasn't really that memorable as a pure episodic villain or as a pure arc villain, he still worked as a quirky miniboss villain.

Edited October 27, 2019 by Kayzee

[PhoenixSoul 1,404]

Speaking of Ultros...
I recently saw a post of an Ultros Happy Meal, lolz
(it was bizarre and hilarious)

Also, Ultros is seen elsewhere, actually, in many FF entries past VI. Definitely endearing enough to be a recurring character.

[That One NPC 321]

13 hours ago, Kayzee said:

 

Everyone loves Ultros! He can use tentacle on me any time.

 

Also, I kind of disagree about Earthbound. It also had almost as much of a A to B structure if you ask me. The real difference between FF6 and Earthbound is that FF6 followed a formula where 'dungeon' areas and town areas were usually distinctly segregated, while towns in Earthbound more or less always also functioned as dungeons of a sort. Earthbound's minor bosses weren't really more memorable to me, but I can see how they might be to others. Because FF6 tended to segregate it's gameplay and story a lot more, a lot of the bosses were just kind of disposable and not important. Earthbound at least tried to integrate them together somewhat I think, which is why I think you found Earthbound's bosses more memorable. Though really I haven't played Earthbound for a while and never played it all the way though, so I might be wrong.

 

Every old rpg is A to B, but Earthound structured it differently. The key to me was removing the overworld map; that's where it began. Instead of hopping around the world map, you hopped from building to build, town to an area outside of town, through a valley, a cave, etc. You spent considerably longer in every town so that it became more familiar an acquainted to the player. There are times in games like Suikoden when I did my last run through of 1, npcs would mention some old 4 shack town and I'm like where is that? Which one is that? My memory is a bit bad, but it also has to do with generic towns you spend 10-20 minutes total in. Earthbound eliminated this by making every town a longer experience. Instead of a town representing point a A or B, it's a cluster of A to Bs.

 

What you said is essentially a elaboration of what I was saying. The structure and pacing made each major event of a given area that much more defined and memorable.

 

It goes without saying that if you develop a side villain or boss, it will be more memorable and resonate with players. When I think of FF6 antags, my mind goes to Leo first. To be fair, that's mainly because I hate Kefka. He's just so weak, cowardly and annoying. The popular consensus became that he was some kind of horrifying, Sephirothian monster; a variable prince of darkness. I think he's a literal jester of fuckery. All he ever did was piss me off. it's not a situation where you fear him. "What are we going to do when we have to face Kefka?"

 

It's more of a, "When I get my hands around that fucking jugular." He wasn't a great villain experience for me. The deeds overshadowed the tiny, puny little man behind them. In that regard it made for a decent story fit with the amazing protag cast, being a character driven game. But I liked Leo. I actually wanted to avenge him.

 

Leo was a good side villain for being as under developed as he was. Kefka is a side villain who literally hijacked the entire game and destroyed the world, lol. I am still waiting for a 6 hack where the last half is re-written so that you kill Kefka early on and fight the Emperor as the last boss. That's how much I hate Kefka. He, not the stuff he did, he himself, takes away form the game imo.

 

 

Edited October 27, 2019 by That One NPC

[Kayzee 4,032]

Not every old RPG has an A to B structure, but most of the popular ones do I guess, for better or for worst. Also, if you ask me, Earthbound's take on the A to B structure also made it kind of a slog. One of the reasons I never finished it. Not that I can't appreciate it's own special way of doing stuff, but it wasn't the best RPG in the universe to me like it is for some people. Personally I think that for the purpose of developing characters I rather have the game only have a single large town that acts as a hub rather then traveling from town to town to town. Though really the point of an A to B structure isn't really to develop characters as much as it is to develop the plot.

 

Personally I like Kefka. He is basically a fantasy version of The Joker, and who doesn't like The Joker? But seriously, Kefka was so much more interesting of a villain then the emperor to me, because the emperor was basically your typical final fantasy villain up to that point who wanted power and to be worshiped as a god. Kefka on the other hand just didn't care. Even when he goes all god-like in the final battle, the subtext implies not that he thinks he is god, but he is basically mocking the very idea of a god. In fact I kind of subscribe to the theory that in the end Kefka basically let the heros win, because in the end he just didn't care anymore. About anything. Because for all his random acts of destruction and talk of "creating a monument to nonexistence", not even that really ended up mattering to him. He just locked himself at the top of a big tower of junk, god of a world of ruin, and basically waited to die. Because nothing mattered to him. Nothing ever mattered to him. He was in the end nothing more then he had ever been: A fucking jester. I kinda like to think that in the end his "monument to nonexistence" was really himself. And yeah, that sort of makes him more like an angsty edgey teenager then anything else, but isn't that the true face of evil?

 

Also: Leo wasn't a villain. He was barely even an antagonist really. I don't think there was ever really a point in time where he was ever really in conflict with your party at all in fact.

Edited October 27, 2019 by Kayzee

[FranklinX 78]

I would never make a side villain like Ultros. The character is fine, but I personally want to create someone of importance to the main story. I want more than just giggles from a villain who is for comedy such as Ultros. The game's story wouldn't change very much if you remove Ultros from the game.