10) Xiphos the Death Bringer
Well...what do I even say about him. Xiphos is very stereotypical nihilistic dark lord. Let's be honest, Dragon Quest Swords is more of a beginners game and Xiphos in the case of such is a good villain to it's formulaic story. His weapon is awesome in either forms. His true form I find to be real awesome with his bizarrely shaped sword, his claw, that rectangular spiked shield, and the fact that he's a towering, four-armed, amphibious/avian/reptilian creature; but the nail that seals the coffin on this guy is his special technique: the Figure of Hate...hehe.
9) Master Xehanort
Let me be honest and say I absolutely love the Kingdom Hearts series. In fairness, I will admit the overall story of the series seems ridiculous but that's one of the things that I like about it. Anyway, Xehanort. Almost everything bad can somehow be traced back to this evil old man. His keyblade is one of the cooler looking of the series and he is wickedly powerful. What really makes him stand out from other villains is that his plan comes together with virtually no slow down. Let's just take a look at the terrible things he's done; Killing Master Eraqus, tricking Terra into unleashing the power of darkness so that he may act as a new vessel for his own heart to continue his ambition, plunging aqua into in the home world of the heartless, being partially responsible for Ven being comatose, and over time made heartless go from being indifferent from the rest of the universe to being the very bane of it and probably more that I don't necessarily recall.
8) Hazama
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Let's start with his character design....he's appearance is based off of both Michael Jackson and Gin (from Bleach). As many people who's played BlazBlue: Continuum Shift would know that this guy is a troll. I remember seeing a cutscene where he's laughing and he put's on a trollface (which is pretty funny). He's a cruel bastard who was responsible for the hell that the BlazBlue world had suffered 100 years in the past and has no problem with abusing others to meet his own ends. An overall wretched villain that you love to hate.
7) Zemus
This guy is my very first Final Fantasy villain (obviously meaning FFIV is the very first FF game that I've played). He mainly takes over the minds of others in order to fulfill his goals; the extermination of mankind. You don't really find out about Zemus until about the final third of the game and I must say I was kinda disappointed that I didn't get to actually fight him but the Zeromus fight makes up for it. He's kinda like Satan, in where he doesn't really do a whole himself but acts through those he controls which I think makes for a considerably effective villain.
6) Ashera
The goddess of harmony from the Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn. One just has to wonder "How could one who represents harmony be evil?" Well in truth the wars of mankind had awakened the goddess of chaos, Yune, which in turn had awaken Ashera. With that, she had cast Judgement upon the world by turning everyone into statues and a select and strong few had completely resisted her power so they could finally confront her themselves. This one's a bit tough because she's doing what she's doing for the sake of ending conflict and disorder in the world but the ends to which she deals with it puts her character into question. If you ask me, I'd gladly take Cosmos from Dissidia over Ashera anyday of the week.
5) Cortex and Ripto
A mad scientist and a evil sorcerer. What more could you really ask for? What I really like about these villains is the irony of who their foes are. For the mad scientist Cortex, a bandicoot who has the spinning power of the Tazmanian Devil and for Ripto, a Dragon. For Cortex and Crash it's a little more understandable, but Ripto and Crash? Would you not normally think that you should be playing as a sorcerer to defeat an evil dragon. They are both very enjoyable stereotypical villains with awesome henchmen.
4) Bowser
I'm sure as we all know, Bowser is probably the most recognized Nintendo villain to date. He's a gigantic turtle with spikes on his shell, black spiked collar and cuff links, claws and fangs, and a red mohawk. He's kidnapped princess Peach too many times to count and has tried to take over the universe, twice. Though there are occasions where he teams up with Mario to fight against forces that threaten not only the Mushroom Kingdom but his own plans. I really don't know what to say, Bowser is just a classic villain.
3) Ghaleon
Ghaleon really stands out from the rest of the villains on the list for a couple of reasons. First, he was actually part of band of heroes who defeated the evil sorcerer Eiphel (I'm talking about the PSP version "Lunar: Silver Star Harmony), though their backstory is not too heavily touched upon. Secondly, this character does have a motive that one almost never sees in other villains, having a god to help guide the world though he himself does not intend to be that god (which is saying a lot when compared to many other RPG villains). The battle with him is considerably difficult (though I think my were low leveled at the time, about mid/high 30s or low 40s) and the attacks he uses are damn awesome during the boss battle against him. Ghaleon is easily the most sympathetic villain out of all the villains on this list.
2) M. Bison/Vega (in Japan)
Well well well...stuff. Anyway, M. Bison is based off a character from a Japanese historical fiction novel titled "Teito Monogatari" (roughly translated as "Tale of the Imperial Capital), Yasunori Kato. M. Bison has what is known in the SF universe as Psycho power, the polar opposite to Soul power. This grants him various psychic powers and enhanced strength. I always have to wonder, is he really affiliated with Nazis? It's something that keeps coming up whenever I try to look up info on M. Bison.
1) Ganondorf
I know I know, this was pretty damn predictable. Ok ok here are my reasons. First, he overall appearance is pretty awesome (though I would not wanna go in public dressed like him). Second, his true form, Ganon, is one of the most awesome beasts in any video game I've ever seen and the only one that actually makes pigs look threatening that I've ever seen. He is everything that I like about the Dark Lord archetype.
PS: I know this list sucks, so please give whatever criticism you would think would have made this list better.
