The new villains

[TheNiddo]

I'd like a villain like well, the guy in my avatar.

For those who don't know SRW: he's Vindel Mauser. He wants humanity to evolve in order to fight off the constant alien threats and to resist its own inner political corruption (at least in the OG timeline, in the A timeline he's pretty much just a warmonger but lets not get into that). Due to how events unfolded in his version of Earth, war was what gave them anything close to a fighting chance. War made their technology advance rapidly, purged out corrupt politicians (largely by them dying), and they were juuuust able to fight off the first wave of aliens.

The story gets more complicated than that, but that bit above is the important bit. I'd love to see a villain who's trying to create war in order to save humanity from another threat. Make it say, magic evolves the most quickly during times of war, and the villain knows that a particularly powerful god/race of dragons is coming and will wipe out humanity if they can't fight back well. Nobody is willing to take him seriously, so he maneuvers things around in order to set up a world wide war to force magic development to expand rapidly. Perhaps make him a bit like Bian Zoldark from SRW: intentionally setting up the heroes to finally confront him at the end to make sure the world is strong enough to fight back against the incoming attackers. If he dies, it means the world is strong enough to have a chance. If he lives, he'll just have to do the best he can knowing that it probably won't be enough but at least he gave it his best shot.

They'd die at about the 2/3s point of the game, with the last 1/3 being the threat the villain was trying to prepare the world for. And in the end they do win ultimately because of the advances in magic he forced upon them.

[NekoKnight]

Here is something I proposed in the Camus thread on the general board. This character wouldn't be a primary antagonist but would survive a good portion of the campaign, dogging the heroes and making a mess of things before his eventual defeat.

As a boy, the character was a citizen of a tiny nation conquered by "the Empire". He learned at a young age that power is the only objective "righteousness" and that heroic resistance to tyranny is both selfish and futile (both of his parents died as ineffectual rebels, leaving him all alone). He joins the empire but unlike many of his contemporaries, he is kind to those who submit to his power, treating them as equals. His signature trait is offering opponents before each battle to yield and join him, or die fighting. Eventually he comes across the heroes who stand up to the Empire despite the odds being stacked against them. As the heroes take victory after victory, this only enrages the Camus further because he sees it as a defiance of his entire worldview (making him doubt that he was just obeying the natural order of the world, and was instead just a coward and collaborator) so he makes it his personal mission to prove the heroes wrong by killing them.

I drew some inspiration from Inspector Javert of Les Miserables and Kotomine Kirei of Fate/Zero. I like the idea of an antagonist with a strong and alien sense of values that drives them to make the protagonist their archenemy. The character arc ends with their death, having a severe identity crisis in the process.

On 2/23/2017 at 11:01 AM, TheNiddo said:

I'd like a villain like well, the guy in my avatar.

For those who don't know SRW: he's Vindel Mauser. He wants humanity to evolve in order to fight off the constant alien threats and to resist its own inner political corruption (at least in the OG timeline, in the A timeline he's pretty much just a warmonger but lets not get into that). Due to how events unfolded in his version of Earth, war was what gave them anything close to a fighting chance. War made their technology advance rapidly, purged out corrupt politicians (largely by them dying), and they were juuuust able to fight off the first wave of aliens.

The story gets more complicated than that, but that bit above is the important bit. I'd love to see a villain who's trying to create war in order to save humanity from another threat. Make it say, magic evolves the most quickly during times of war, and the villain knows that a particularly powerful god/race of dragons is coming and will wipe out humanity if they can't fight back well. Nobody is willing to take him seriously, so he maneuvers things around in order to set up a world wide war to force magic development to expand rapidly. Perhaps make him a bit like Bian Zoldark from SRW: intentionally setting up the heroes to finally confront him at the end to make sure the world is strong enough to fight back against the incoming attackers. If he dies, it means the world is strong enough to have a chance. If he lives, he'll just have to do the best he can knowing that it probably won't be enough but at least he gave it his best shot.

They'd die at about the 2/3s point of the game, with the last 1/3 being the threat the villain was trying to prepare the world for. And in the end they do win ultimately because of the advances in magic he forced upon them.

I think Walhart is the best analogue to this. He tries to conquer the continent because he knows Grima is coming and everyone needs to stand together. I think "magical development" (outside of Final Fantasy style Magitech) is a hard concept to translate to Fire Emblem, especially since a lot of people don't use magic at all. Do they just make stronger tomes or what?

[TheNiddo]

2 hours ago, NekoKnight said:

I think Walhart is the best analogue to this. He tries to conquer the continent because he knows Grima is coming and everyone needs to stand together. I think "magical development" (outside of Final Fantasy style Magitech) is a hard concept to translate to Fire Emblem, especially since a lot of people don't use magic at all. Do they just make stronger tomes or what?

He is. Close but... wasted potential sadly. Weakest arc in a FE game where the villains never get a chance to shine.

To me, magical development could include Siege tomes. Maybe tomes with effectiveness as well (like bonus vs horses, fliers) or magic infused ballista. Make it so for a long part of the game, only the enemy has access to those types of tomes while the heroes only have the more standard type. Could also included magic weapons like from Tellius: Wind Edge, Flame Lance, Thunder Axe. Don't make the enemy only use those kinds of weapons, that would be a nightmare. But always a few on every map, don't go crazy with them until the last few maps with that villain is still alive.

[Extrasolar]

19 hours ago, NekoKnight said:

I think Walhart is the best analogue to this. He tries to conquer the continent because he knows Grima is coming and everyone needs to stand together. I think "magical development" (outside of Final Fantasy style Magitech) is a hard concept to translate to Fire Emblem, especially since a lot of people don't use magic at all. Do they just make stronger tomes or what?

Walhart is a very sad case of missed potential. He was set up to be this sympathetic villain with understandable motivations, only to be shoved into the background almost immediately to make room for generic as hell Validar and even more generic as hell Grima. It's a real shame.

And wait, who doesn't use magic? o.o I always keep a mage handy in FE in order to take out those darn armor knights with their paper-thin resistance...unless we're talking about Radiant Dawn where I only use Soren often, and only sort-of use Sanaki, Pelleas, Sephiran and Micaiah (and only because I'm forced to use the latter). Damn mage speed nerfs.

16 hours ago, TheNiddo said:

He is. Close but... wasted potential sadly. Weakest arc in a FE game where the villains never get a chance to shine.

To me, magical development could include Siege tomes. Maybe tomes with effectiveness as well (like bonus vs horses, fliers) or magic infused ballista. Make it so for a long part of the game, only the enemy has access to those types of tomes while the heroes only have the more standard type. Could also included magic weapons like from Tellius: Wind Edge, Flame Lance, Thunder Axe. Don't make the enemy only use those kinds of weapons, that would be a nightmare. But always a few on every map, don't go crazy with them until the last few maps with that villain is still alive.

Wind Edges were...worthless though. So weak. So, so weak. Flame Lances and Thunder Axes honestly weren't that much better.

But different kinds of tomes with effectiveness against different units has been used before, like Micaiah's Thani being uber effective against cavalry. It's not used enough, and should be used more. I don't necessarily think you should keep them out of player hands; they can be rare, and if they bring back durability, then it limits itself by being finite use.

But I want a well-written villain like Zelgius, and even one as quiet and understated as him, as opposed to the bombastic, cackling villains like Garon and even Ashnard (liked Ashnard as an extreme social Darwinist, but he came off as a bit of a generic dick villain in execution). Give the player a chance to attach to them, to really understand their motivations and actions, even if they don't agree with them. Of course, they have to be appropriately scary and intimidating in battle like Zelgius is.

Edited February 27, 2017 by Extrasolar

[NekoKnight]

2 hours ago, Extrasolar said:

And wait, who doesn't use magic? o.o I always keep a mage handy in FE in order to take out those darn armor knights with their paper-thin resistance...unless we're talking about Radiant Dawn where I only use Soren often, and only sort-of use Sanaki, Pelleas, Sephiran and Micaiah (and only because I'm forced to use the latter). Damn mage speed nerfs

I meant character by character. Niddo's premise would have a villain who wants people to develop their magic so that they are stronger as a society. This makes sense in a setting where EVERYONE uses technology/magic for battle, but in Fire Emblem, only a minority (9 out of 44 characters in Blazing Sword, to give an example) of characters actually use magic. Sure, there are magic weapons but those aren't supposed to be objectively better than their physical counterparts.

[Extrasolar]

2 minutes ago, NekoKnight said:

I meant character by character. Niddo's premise would have a villain who wants people to develop their magic so that they are stronger as a society. This makes sense in a setting where EVERYONE uses technology/magic for battle, but in Fire Emblem, only a minority (9 out of 44 characters in Blazing Sword, to give an example) of characters actually use magic. Sure, there are magic weapons but those aren't supposed to be objectively better than their physical counterparts.

Ah, I see. My mistake, I misunderstood your post. Yeah, magic is relatively rare in FE.

Though...maybe their premise could work for a country ruled by mages, or with some sort of mage aristocracy? Thinking heavily of Dragon Age, here...lol. Maybe the mage country wants to conquer the other countries, or sees magic as superior and thus those that aren't mages are inferior and/or disposable?

[NekoKnight]

6 minutes ago, Extrasolar said:

Ah, I see. My mistake, I misunderstood your post. Yeah, magic is relatively rare in FE.

Though...maybe their premise could work for a country ruled by mages, or with some sort of mage aristocracy? Thinking heavily of Dragon Age, here...lol. Maybe the mage country wants to conquer the other countries, or sees magic as superior and thus those that aren't mages are inferior and/or disposable?

Yeah, I could see it working in a heavily mage oriented society, or if magitech becomes a thing, a society that uses that. The point being is, for the villain's plan to work, everyone has to be using the same kind of stuff. To make a Game of Thrones analogy, rather than getting people to develop their sorcery (very few people can do this), they ought to augment every soldier with obsidian or flaming weapons to deal with the ice zombie threat.