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I remember back in the day when I was playing through Super Paper Mario, I had the option to play as Bowser for a little bit. From that moment I drummed up the question: why are there so little games starring the bad guy? Don't you want more of a back story on a character like Ganondorf or Wario or Sephiroth? Why do you think companies only produce games where the protagonist is normally a good guy who's the main character?
I personally think it would be nice to change it up every once in a while!
I think the most obvious answer is because companies don't want a bunch of angry parents complaining that they're teaching their kids to become criminals. Every GTA game has to go through the process even though it's R rated.
More specifically though, I don't want a backstory for Sephiroth. I always thought he was such a good character as a good guy and the more we see of him the more ridiculous it seems that he would go insane and turn evil.
The Overlord series of games is pretty much this one, but written in a rather nice way to it. The whole villain protagonist trope is taken into a nice level of degree here when the said "Villain" or the overlord has to deal with the 7 heroes who defeated the Overlord a long time ago, and have become their own embodiment of the 7 capital sins. I may have referred the second Overlord game but yeah.
In Starcraft Brood War's Terran campaign, you play as the UED's chief tactician or strategist. The UED or the United Earth Directorate, according to Starcraft Lore and how they are represented as, is a villainous faction that is responsible for the exile of many humans from Earth, which in turn formed the Terran race in the Korpulu Sector (the overall setting of Starcraft) and for that Campaign, you are playing as the UED and you fight against the protagonists from Vanilla SC, with the whole job of taking over the sector, of course!
Also, there's Destroy all Humans. Who do we play as? Aliens who want to destroy all of earth's humans, of course!
Then again, why do we like playing games where we star as the Villain Protagonist? To take over the world:
I remember back in the day when I was playing through Super Paper Mario, I had the option to play as Bowser for a little bit. From that moment I drummed up the question: why are there so little games starring the bad guy? Don't you want more of a back story on a character like Ganondorf or Wario or Sephiroth? Why do you think companies only produce games where the protagonist is normally a good guy who's the main character?
I personally think it would be nice to change it up every once in a while!
Concerning Sephiroth in particular we've already seen a critical part of his backstory, and for the greater part of his life he wasn't villainous at all. Even in his current state you can't really say he's all that villainous considering he completely ignores pretty much anyone who's not charging at him, human or otherwise. It's only when you actually start to pose a threat that he tries to stop you, and you pretty have to wake him up when you actually do reach him so you can fight him properly. Even his hatred of Cloud is pretty much him being angry that he was defeated twice (thrice? Does being slashed by Omnislash twice count?) in rather cheap ways, which I admit I'd be pretty angry too if I was hit with an unblockable attack that hit me 11 or so times for massive damage. He even gives you materia. If he is a villain he's not really doing it right.
But enough of that. It would be interesting to see the story through the villain's eyes, I agree. Villains come in all shades, from the petty card carrying villains to complete monsters with no good characteristics whatsoever, and while some are completely unfettered, others are not and are not willing to go past certain limits to reach their goals. I don't really know why we don't have more games (there's a few out there like Overlord as Xin mentioned) focusing on the story from the villain's point of view. Maybe it's because, like I mentioned before, some villains are completely unredeemable and do terrible terrible things? Imagine you're playing as a person who does rather... er... unsavory things to people the whole time, as some villains tend to do in more mature titles. It would be easy to make a game centering on a villain that does petty things like kidnap princesses and make all his workers wear pink on Tuesdays, but....
Spoiler:
Though this is obviously a huge spoiler, in Undertale you actually can play as a villain in contrast to being pacifistic, and it's a very messed up experience. To do this you have to murder every monster you see, and it becomes increasingly obvious as you continue on that you're the main villain. Monsters flee from you, the music shifts in tone, there's next to no shopkeepers, and at the end you blow up the world with someone who really hates everyone alive, and you TEACH them to be this way.
I'm still waiting for a proper Bowser game. He's the only character of the Mario Kart 64 roster who has yet to get a standalone game. He also won't get any backlash from the parents since there's nothing about him brings any bad influence to their children.
Being a bad influence shouldn't have anything to do with it, especially in 2016. We're far past the point where a few upset parents letting their children play games, that ratings-wise they shouldn't be playing, are of actual detriment to a company.
Even if they were, as long as the game conveys the negative sanctions of being an evil character or amoral character in one way or another, that shouldn't be an issue to begin with.
Side Note: Our Hero looks like Dethklok's main vocalist, Murderface. How fitting
I just realized that this game exists. Also, its an Isometric shooter. Something that I haven't seen in a while since classic GTA and Loaded.
in Hatred, our "Hero" is a misanthropic mass-killing sociopath who begins a "genocide crusade" to kill as many human beings as possible. This game is complete with you, the player, killing as many innocent people as humanly possible for every level, and with aggressors in the form of cops coming at you.
F88k tha Police is given a new meaning in this game.
The great thing about this game, other than playing as a Mass murdering AK47 wielding maniac is that this is a great reaction to all of these vidya game trends we've been seeing, and if you put it in an angle, cringing for the past few years -> Political correctness, vivid colors, video games as art, among other cringy things that we deal with.
What i love about this gem is that it has really bland coloring, just shades of black and white along with the sheer lack of music other than ambient sounds and a protagonist that is devoid of humanity or human-like character whatsoever, which is left to the player to decide or interpret. It really fits the style that the game wants to be. The game's lack of anything story or writing wise is also a nice antithesis to many many more games that often try bringing in some "fake philosophy".
Don't mind the negative reviews of the game. Despite how objective they try to be, they still couldn't take the whole theme of the game.
Video footage courtesy of Darknewt
Side Note: Our Hero looks like Dethklok's main vocalist, Murderface. How fitting
I just realized that this game exists. Also, its an Isometric shooter. Something that I haven't seen in a while since classic GTA and Loaded.
in Hatred, our "Hero" is a misanthropic mass-killing sociopath who begins a "genocide crusade" to kill as many human beings as possible. This game is complete with you, the player, killing as many innocent people as humanly possible for every level, and with aggressors in the form of cops coming at you.
I don't much think you need to introduce this game. I mean, honestly, it's a wonder that any gamer who happened to peruse the net in early-mid 2015 managed to avoid the controversy for this game. It was everywhere. Mostly because of what it was, partially because the people that took it for what it was didn't think it was very good. But people definitely know what it is
The great thing about this game, other than playing as a Mass murdering AK47 wielding maniac is that this is a great reaction to all of these vidya game trends we've been seeing, and if you put it in an angle, cringing for the past few years -> Political correctness, vivid colors, video games as art, among other cringy things that we deal with.
What i love about this gem is that it has really bland coloring, just shades of black and white along with the sheer lack of music other than ambient sounds and a protagonist that is devoid of humanity or human-like character whatsoever, which is left to the player to decide or interpret. It really fits the style that the game wants to be. The game's lack of anything story or writing wise is also a nice antithesis to many many more games that often try bringing in some "fake philosophy".
Don't mind the negative reviews of the game. Despite how objective they try to be, they still couldn't take the whole theme of the game.
I...don't know about that. I mean, it's great that you took all of that out of the game, but I don't think all of that meaning is really there or was intentional. For instance, there's really nothing here that tackles the idea of video games as art, vivid colors (not even sure why we would need a commentary on this), or PC.
But as for fake philosophy, this game has that in spades. The edgy protagonist IS fake philosophy, and before each mission he has a lengthy monologue about why the world is crap or like. And on the side of the game not really justifying why you kill, this game really does this about as well as Grand Theft Auto or any other game where you just can kill because, in most of these games, it's often just a novelty. Heck, you could go the other way and say that because killing (and executions, specifically) has functional positive sanctions, there is justification as far as the "why" is concerned, and more, that it portrays and frames the killing is justification in and of itself because it tries to make the player feel bad for what they're doing. But really, I don't think fake philosophy isn't present here, that this game handles it particularly well given how quickly the gruesomeness wears off, or that it is a trend seen throughout gaming as far as killing's concerned.
But yeh. Was a game. Didn't get in on the controversy much because it was mostly overblown and the game wasn't nearly as bad for the industry as the media made it/out to be.
You don't have to play as the villain in order for them to be the star of the game. This is especially true of RPGs, which love to put you in the shoes of a generic protagonist, give you tropeified party members, and pit you against the most awesome villain ever, whose character is far more relatable and interesting than anyone you'll spend most of the game with. I almost-always end up siding with the villain in JRPGs, because their personality is always so much more interesting than the hero, whose motivation half the time extends to "stop the villain" and that is it. Good villains have proper motivations, interesting backstories, and delightfully unrestrained personalities, making them far better, more identifiable, and just more believable characters.
Better still is when a party member becomes a villain; it feels so much more personal and gives that added level of depth to their character, given the lack of screen-time for most villains...
Spoiler:
Lezard Valeth in Valkyrie Profile: Silmeria springs to mind here. Hell, even Faize in Star Ocean: The Last Hope was pretty good, given his gradual descent into insanity to the point that he becomes the final boss. This coming from a timid pacifist! It's almost scary watching him break. Then you have Popola and Devola from NieR...Popola especially after you kill her sister. HOLY CRAP.
If you want to play this straight and not talk about good villains eclipsing crappy heroes or Face-Heel Turns, the best example of this I can think of is
Spoiler:
Kalas, in Baten Kaitos. You play as a disembodied Guardian Spirit in the game, but you control Kalas...up to the point that he stabs you in the back and becomes The Angel of Darkness, one of the most infuriating bosses in the game. Sure, he rejoins the party full of remorse at a later point, but I definitely didn't see his betrayal coming, and I was pretty shocked to be controlling Xelha for a portion of the game. I have to admit that I loved Melodia as the central antagonist in this game (sure, it was technically Malpercio, but he was a rotting corpse with little brains until she started screwing with things) but having Kalas go villain was a nice touch.
I should definitely make a let's play playthrough of Hatred and make fun of how "edgy" this game tried to be with its overly edgy and cringy marketing campaign, and its otherwise enjoyable gameplay. But yeah, its still a pretty fun game after having experienced it. It did make me feel "villainous" and i genuinely enjoy it.
OT:
Video totally related.
And then there's any of the older Dynasty Warriors games. The Dynasty Warriors series of games are loosely based on Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which by itself is a fictional series of events loosely based on the Three Kingdoms period in ancient China (Loosely-based-ception?), has you in the shoes of a Warrior fighting for your chosen lord and Kingdom. And within the three Kingdoms, there is one that particularly stands out, which was Wei, led by Cao Cao. Cao Cao in the Dynasty Warriors games has always been portrayed as the more villainous warlord compared to the Sun Family of Wu and Liu Bei of Shu, complete with the "evvviiillll" mustache and serious sounding voice and dialogue that would make the likes of other video game bad guys shudder in fear. But then again, this is just how the character is portrayed. Its really up to you do decide who are the "bad guys" in the Three Kingdoms. Personally, I found Cao Cao to be a much more likeable Warlord than Liu Bei, with all of his talk of virtue and goodness.. Oh yeah, did i mention that you have a level in Liu Bei's campaign in pretty much all of the DW games where you fight your own family members for lordship over Cheng Du? So virtuous.
The reason why i said the older DW games (1,2,3, and 4 in particular) is that starting in 5 and the more recent titles, Cao Cao's "villanious" portrayal has been lessened to a more sympathetic but still "all business" badass of a character with the portrayals of his crown son Cao Pi, and the Wei Strategist Sima Yi taking over the whole "evvvvvvvil character" personas.
All these talk of bad guys being awesome makes me want to turn into a Villain Protagonist, be Edgy, grow a mustache, and stuff. BRB while I conquer a whole entire country with my army of Spearmen, AK47 wielding assaults, and Busty Ninja Shinobis.
It's been a while since I've played Metal Gear, but I'm pretty sure you fight Big Boss as an antagonist, where in another game you control him as the protagonist.
I'm guessing Morality-based games like Undertale or Infamous where you could be good or bad wouldn't really count? Then again, from what I've seen, Kratos likely could be seen as a villain for at least a game or two, if not the whole God of War series.
