Which Villains Will Appear?

[Thane]

Hello everyone.

So, the title is pretty straightforward: who do you think the villains are going to be? 

Since I've only played Hyrule Warriors and know nothing else about the series, I'm going to guess there'll be an evil OC and then a bigger threat in the background. I'm also going to assume Medeus will be the final boss.

Edited April 12, 2017 by Thane

[Zangetsu]

I feel like out of all the antagonist there is, Black Knight is the most likely candidate. He's by far the most popular villain with Lyon being the only one coming close to him & even then BK beats by around 50 ranks, TWICE! 

[DaloDask]

It really depends.

If we're talking about just the 3 or 6 if you count Fates as three separate games and Mystery in there, the only question is who are they gonna grab from Awakening.

SD and New Mystery've got Medeus, Gharnef and Hardin as solid reps, and Fates' got Garon and Anankos and not much else. Awakening tho, has Gangrel, Validar, Aversa, Walhart and Grima. All five getting in is silly, but honestly it's a matter of roster size more than anything. If the base roster's far more impressive then we think it's gonna be, then all the speculation's out the window. I'm expecting Grima and Walhart as Awakening reps, with hope for Aversa as a flier rep.

If we're talking about full series in case Warriors isn't gonna go the HW route then again it's a matter of roster size.

Looking at Hyrule Warriors post-DLC and Legends we get 29 different characters.

If we assume there'll be 25 characters from the franchise (Assuming 4 of the 29 are OCs), with half being good and the other half being a villain rep from each game, then:

Medeus, Gharnef, Hardin, Arvis, Zephiel, Nergal, Lyon, Black Knight, Walhart, Grima, Garon, Anankos is a pretty fair assumption of the villains we can expect.

In terms of base game plot villains, I expect Medeus to be the big bad, Gharnef's gonna be the pain in the ass, Hardin's the muscle, Walhart's the justice traitor, Garon's the power-hungry traitor, Grima's a Medeus fanboy to some degree and Anankos is the guy ALL the way in the back waiting to emerge as the true final boss because let's be real, Anankos' power scale is utterly ridiculous.

[Etrurian emperor]

Villains are actually going to be a bit of a problem if they plan to stick with the games represented in the orbs. Because when it comes to villains Awakening, Fates and Akenea really are at the bottom of the barrel. 

The Awakening villains all battle each other for screentime and Validar and Grima in particular have been poorly received.

Gharnef is the most generic dark mage you can find and lacks either the success of Manfroy or presence of Nergal, while Medeus is almost completely absent in the story of the Akanea games. Hardin is possible though but him being a villain requires Gharnef to be there too. 

I don't even have to get into detail about Garon. We all know why he fails as a villain.

None of those people would make for very exiting villains to fight or bring much worthwhile to the plot. Out of all these guys only Hardin has a glimmer of potential for me. 

Now if they get past the games shown in the orbs then it will be a more interesting line up of villains. 

I can easily see the Black Knight make it into the game. He's fairly iconic and he could easily serve as the ''Lu Bu'' of the game.

Arvis is handicapped by IS probably regarding Jugdral as their black sheep but when it comes to a moveset Arvis will be a gift that keeps giving. Arvis could play as an armored fire mage who can wield almost every weapon and who can nuke people from the air with his Falaflame. He is also fairly popular and his personality is an interesting one. 

Lyon can also be interesting from a gameplay perspective. Make his struggle against the demon king a gameplay mechanic just as they did with Zants insanity. I'd suggest giving him a ''possession gauge''. The more he uses dark magic the more he gets possessed. The more Lyon gets possessed the more powerful he becomes but if the gauge is full then its game over, which would require Lyon to empty it through a powerful attack.

I'd like seeing Nergal. He can do anything Gharnef does without being a total bore about it. Perhaps the morph puppets can also be tied into his moveset somehow. I'd also say he's a bit underatted at this point(losing his villain spot in heroes to minor villain Ursula of all people) and that he deserves some more attention.

I don't like Zephiel but his design has always been a strong one and his thunder imbued lance/sword thing would make for an interesting moveset. Roy might also get into the game thanks to being Roy which makes Zephiel a logical add. 

Oliver could make an amusing joke character. He could even have his joke chapters like Dong Zuo were he tries to kidnap 'beautiful'' people only to fail hard at it. 

So it would really depends on how serious we should take the limited amounts of games shown in the orbs. It it really will be Fates, Awakening and Akenea we will have a B villain list with Garon, Gangrel, Grima, Gharnef, Hardin and Medeus with maybe Camus and Michallis as minor villains.

If the orbs don't turn out to be that big of a deal we can have a more interesting bunch which also includes the black knight, Lyon, maybe Arvis though I have a feeling Nergal will be ditched again. 

Edited April 12, 2017 by Etrurian emperor

[Jedi]

Medeus, Grima and Anakos probably.

[Eruno]

46 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Arvis is handicapped by IS probably regarding Jugdral as their black sheep but when it comes to a moveset Arvis will be a gift that keeps giving. Arvis could play as an armored fire mage who can wield almost every weapon and who can nuke people from the air with his Falaflame. He is also fairly popular and his personality is an interesting one. 

 

As a playable, i would rather see Arvis when he's in the first generation, as some sort of glass cannon. Somewhat above-average HP with high attack and speed but subpar defense. But as a boss, i can say that armored mage would be interesting.

[Thane]

1 hour ago, Jedi said:

Medeus, Grima and Anakos probably.

They'll be hard to play though, won't they?

[bethany81707]

1 minute ago, Thane said:

They'll be hard to play though, won't they?

Medeus was only somewhat larger than the average manakete, so if any manakete gets in (like, say, Tiki), he shouldn't be a problem.

Grima, on the other hand... you could probably make him a stage.

[Folt]

Grima could also probably be made playable by exploiting his connection to Robin.

Oh, and in terms of playable villains, Garon would be great due to, um, spoilers!

[DaloDask]

32 minutes ago, Thane said:

They'll be hard to play though, won't they?

Great Fairy.

At least it applies to Medeus. Anankos and Grima I can only see as playable if they have a boss gauntlet like HW did.

[Interdimensional Observer]

How about we have Marth taken under Gharnef's possession. Hardin then breaks free of his possession long enough to try to defeat Gharnef and rescue Marth, only to be repossessed. 

Spoiler

Then, with the allied forces lacking a true leader capable of guiding them to victory, the forces of darkness are on the cusp of victory.

But what is this? Suddenly out of nowhere a mysterious masked knight appears, brandishing his lance charging directly into the heart of the foe with the sound of Trombe! in the background dodging every strike and OHKOing with criticals in return. He rallies the allied forces and soon he and Michalis and Minerva and Caeda are taking the offense to liberate Marth and Hardin and save the world!

That is a fantasy I've been having, so beautiful, but I know it cannot be.

And to try to get on topic, I was originally convinced that we'd just lump all the Evil Sorcerers together gameplay wise into a single Sorcerer class. However, I guess we could make Nergal Cia/Summoning Gate Lana-like with Morphs, and for Lyon we can toss him the Dark Stone and monsters. Gharnef, Manfroy, Validar and Iago (he does not deserve his Shakespearean name) I still see no way of making them unique based solely on what they have in their base games. And mind you we still are going to need hero dark magic users too, so we can't hand out all the darkness movesets to the baddies.

Garon could be unique yeah with acid spray and stretchy limbs on top of an axe, but it'd feel so hollow playing as such a shell of a character. Grima would be Robin physically with tomes and swords traded for massive darkness and phantasmal dark dragon attacks, but again, they'd seem hollow. Anankos. I doubt they'd be playable unless via a character possession or something, and once again, hollow be thy name. I will concur that many of the better villains of FE are in non-Archanea/Awakening/Fates games.

Walhart and Gangrel, the two decent villains in Awakening, could possibly be fairly unique. Aversa as the mage on a flying mount too.

Medeus probably wouldn't be playable unless as a manakete, but I'd be fine with just Tiki for manaketes.

Edited April 12, 2017 by Interdimensional Observer

[Jedi]

6 hours ago, Thane said:

They'll be hard to play though, won't they?

I don't expect the villains to be playable unless they use the more humanoid ones, theres a number of warriors like games with unique enemies that aren't playable.

Edited April 12, 2017 by Jedi

[Thane]

Just now, Jedi said:

I don't expect the villains to be playable unless they use the more humanoid ones, theres a number of warriors like games with unique enemies that aren't playable.

Oh okay, thanks. Then it's entirely plausible, though as has already been said, Grima might as well be a map. 

That'd be pretty rad, honestly, and I've wished for it earlier myself.

[Jedi]

9 minutes ago, Thane said:

Oh okay, thanks. Then it's entirely plausible, though as has already been said, Grima might as well be a map. 

That'd be pretty rad, honestly, and I've wished for it earlier myself.

Fighting on Grima's back in HD would be pretty rad yeah, I'm gonna agree there haha.

[Shadow Mir]

I'm expecting at least one OC villain. More than that, however, I'm not confident in saying.

[Slumber]

Gharnef, Madeus, Loptyr, Grima, Black Knight and Anankos are probably likely.

I could see Loptyr and Madeus getting cut for giving Grima more blowjobs screentime. Hardin and Ashera are possible. And then probably a unique villain to tie everything together, though I think a story where Gharnef summons a bunch of dragons(Including the ones I mentioned), with The Black Knight being his right hand/guardian would work just fine.

I don't think Nergal would be in there, just because Gharnef fills the role Nergal plays, and Gharnef is from the more iconic game. Not really enough room for TWO dragon summoning dark mages.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

You know Glass is gonna show up. His swordplay is peerless. He tries to pull the Mani Katti during the opening scene of the level where you first take control of Lyn. But he's just a skin for a generic enemy captain. I'd also like Oliver as an evil, eccentric bishop that can be unlocked in a sub mode. He has his own theme music and is a champion of beauty.

Edited April 14, 2017 by Gustavos

[Medeus]

Gharnef, Camus, Walhart/Garon, Medeus, maybe Gangrel, and at least one OC villain would be my guesses.

Looking at what happened in HW, I'm pretty sure the games we saw in the trailer are the primary ones that they will represent in the game. In addition to that, I feel that we will get some of the typical archetypes that we see in FE games get filled, and sorcerers, the Camus archetypes, emperors, and big bad dragons are the main ones that FE loves to fulfill in terms of their villains. So I think those archetypes are going to be set for the game, with maybe one other villain from the main series appearing on top of an OC that gets everyone together a la Cia.

As for why I went with these ones out of the choices, Gharnef is held in much higher regard then Validar and I don't think I need to mention why Iago would be a terrible choice. Camus is the only one who can fill the archetype out of the villains in these games unless they have Xander do it for some reason, so he gets it by default. While Garon is heavily disliked and for good reason, I feel out of the Fates' villains he is the only one I could see get a role in the game over the others, and to his credit he does a connection to Xander, Corrin, and to a lesser extent, Ryoma that could work in the story if they appear. Walhart would serves as a good contrast to most of the lords (especially Chrom) due to his mindset on achieving peace through conquest and generally would be a fun villain to get in. Lastly, the dragons come down to Medeus and Grima, and I'm leaning more towards the former due to him being the original dragon and already having TMS under his belt in terms of crossovers (and he'd be more functional if they want a playable dragon).

[Etrurian emperor]

16 hours ago, Slumber said:

 

I don't think Nergal would be in there, just because Gharnef fills the role Nergal plays, and Gharnef is from the more iconic game. Not really enough room for TWO dragon summoning dark mages.

I agree that Gharnef getting in and making Nergal obsolete is probably what is going to happen but I also find the very idea to be incredibly off putting. 

I find the two being so similar to be a point in the favor of Nergal rather than Gharnef's because because with Nergal you have the base archtype and things that expand on it like the morphs and a more personal flair that Gharnef never had. Gharnef I consider to be a villain who has nothing to bring to the table aside from the archtype most successors of him already pull off better. 

I find putting in Gharnef in favor of Nergal to be a mistake that costs more then it adds and that it might stem from a ''first game wins'' mentality that's does not entirely apply to Fire emblem due to its very late addition to the western market. 

[Slumber]

3 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I agree that Gharnef getting in and making Nergal obsolete is probably what is going to happen but I also find the very idea to be incredibly off putting. 

I find the two being so similar to be a point in the favor of Nergal rather than Gharnef's because because with Nergal you have the base archtype and things that expand on it like the morphs and a more personal flair that Gharnef never had. Gharnef I consider to be a villain who has nothing to bring to the table aside from the archtype most successors of him already pull off better. 

I find putting in Gharnef in favor of Nergal to be a mistake that costs more then it adds and that it might stem from a ''first game wins'' mentality that's does not entirely apply to Fire emblem due to its very late addition to the western market. 

Yeah, but IS doesn't give a shit about what makes sense, they care about what will make the most money. Hence why Chrom was the first character teased for FEW.

Gharnef is more recognizable/iconic and has already been used outside of mainline FE stuff.

Edited April 15, 2017 by Slumber

[Thany]

If lyon got in as a villan, there could be a really cool moveset with using dark magic and summoning minions for his attacks. lets not forget lyon was technically a summoner in his game. so it makes sense to me to include him for a cool moveset.

[Jedi]

8 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I agree that Gharnef getting in and making Nergal obsolete is probably what is going to happen but I also find the very idea to be incredibly off putting. 

I find the two being so similar to be a point in the favor of Nergal rather than Gharnef's because because with Nergal you have the base archtype and things that expand on it like the morphs and a more personal flair that Gharnef never had. Gharnef I consider to be a villain who has nothing to bring to the table aside from the archtype most successors of him already pull off better. 

I find putting in Gharnef in favor of Nergal to be a mistake that costs more then it adds and that it might stem from a ''first game wins'' mentality that's does not entirely apply to Fire emblem due to its very late addition to the western market. 

First game wins always is kind of what works in terms of nostalgia, if we get a dark wizard it'll likely be Gharnef for this reason, fanservice to those who started all the way with FE3, (reminder that it was the best selling FE before Awakening). 

[MediocreLee]

I am on board for a Grima being a stage or at least part of a stage, and it would make the most sense.  Although, if there happens to be a Robin moveset that incorporates Grima, that would be cool too.  I would love to see Black Knight, he can definitely take on the Lu Bu trope, Zephiel, Ashnard, Lyon, and even Ashera.  If Ashera were to make it into the game, she would probably act as only a unplayable boss character.  But how fun would it be to use Ashera and using Auroras to attack?  I think it would be fun.

[Etrurian emperor]

5 hours ago, Jedi said:

First game wins always is kind of what works in terms of nostalgia, if we get a dark wizard it'll likely be Gharnef for this reason, fanservice to those who started all the way with FE3, (reminder that it was the best selling FE before Awakening). 

But the nostalgia for the first game is only there for a very select group of the fanbase. If you're Japanese that nostalgia might exist but if from the west then one most likely started with either Blazing sword or Awakening. Then when trying out shadow dragon you come across this generic wizard you've already seen done better and that is then the one you see getting special treatment. 

That's what makes it so off putting to me. It would be an attempt to please one select part of the fanbase over all the others who probably outnumber those that started with new history. The west is no longer some fringe demographic in the fanbase.

 

10 hours ago, Slumber said:

Yeah, but IS doesn't give a shit about what makes sense, they care about what will make the most money. Hence why Chrom was the first character teased for FEW.

I actually believe Chrom more or less earned that little teaser. His game ''saving the series'' is a common phrase and yet Chrom remains somewhat in the shadow of Lucina and Robin. 

[Jedi]

11 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

But the nostalgia for the first game is only there for a very select group of the fanbase. If you're Japanese that nostalgia might exist but if from the west then one most likely started with either Blazing sword or Awakening. Then when trying out shadow dragon you come across this generic wizard you've already seen done better and that is then the one you see getting special treatment. 

That's what makes it so off putting to me. It would be an attempt to please one select part of the fanbase over all the others who probably outnumber those that started with new history. The west is no longer some fringe demographic in the fanbase.

There is also legacy, which FE prides itself on and the fanbase even holds onto it even if they didn't start with FE1 we still call people "The Jeigan" "The Est" among other things, and well I'm willing to bet Koei is going to see that kind of legacy in terms of a few character choices. 

The first game of a long running franchise is always going to have a bit of respect given to it by those who seek to celebrate it in a spinoff, unless the developer decides to snub the very thing that caused it to exist in the first place.

Like I get what you're saying, but if you're going to celebrate a series, you have to do it with both the old and the new.

Edited April 15, 2017 by Jedi