Video game villains are often portrayed as conniving, brilliant and ruthless megalomaniacs with the ambition and power to subjugate the entire planet. Which is all well and good from a narrative standpoint, but when you take a step back and look at their actual business practices, more than a few cracks begin to form.
As an avid enthusiast of enterprise and just kind of an asshole in general, I took it upon myself to thumb through a few portfolios and offer advice on how some of gaming’s biggest baddies could better employ their devious strategies.
Changes Video Game Villains Could Make
Dr. Ivo Robotnik: Hide the Rings
For reasons that I’ve never understood (and I’m too far into this sentence to bother Googling it now), Sonic the Hedgehog’s very livelihood depends on the acquisition of golden power rings.
Much like a clingy significant other, without receiving at least one ring every so often, the blue blur will absolutely lose his mind, and worst case scenario, his life.
Fortunately for him, rings appear to be scattered around in abundance, literally suspended in midair to be snagged with ease. As long as he’s got them stored safely within his shoes or wherever else he sticks them, he can fling himself headlong into the fray, unafraid of the dangers posed by a mass mechanical army.
Indeed, in later years, Sonic’s fondness for rings grew so much that he mastered the ability of the light dash, allowing him to use them as a means of travel. That’s some serious dedication right there; he uses jewelry to move at the speed of light. Breakfast at Tiffany’s? More like Gofast at Tiffany’s.
I know the editors will want to remove that joke, but I really hope they don’t. Editor’s Note: I’ll allow it.
So to you, Dr. Ivo Robotnik — Eggman on your kinkier days — I pose a simple and obvious solution: just hide the rings, literally anywhere.
Robotnik has constructed all kinds of deadly war machines capable of incredible destruction, so you can’t tell me he’s incapable of building a robot that finds rings and puts them somewhere sneaky, like a sinister Easter bunny.
Even if he just does it himself, he need only walk over to the nearest bottomless pit and chuck them in. Job well done, watch as your hedgehog foe is impaled upon the first spike pit he misjudges.
Consultation fee: $1,000,000 Mobius bucks, and a shower with ducky.
Changes Video Game Villains Could Make
Ganondorf: Stop Playing Volleyball
By and large, Ganondorf’s master plan in Ocarina of Time is pretty solid. Obtain the Triforce of Power, hunt down the princess, be very tall and have an excellent tan, there’s a lot to like here.
He even succeeds for a time, plunging Hyrule into perpetual darkness until he falls victim to an invasion courtesy of a shiny rainbow bridge. The downfall of at least 20 aspiring supervillains.
When confronted by Link, you can see that Ganondorf remains calm under pressure. The dude even continues to play the organ while he engages his foe in witty banter, so if you never push the A button he could theoretically be banging that tune out for all eternity.
Then, the two face off, and Link is unable to penetrate the Gerudo prince’s iron defense. All is going well, up until Ganondorf recalls that he’s some kind of wizard, and flings a ball of light directly at Link’s face.
As the latter is wielding the Master Sword — the blade that seals darkness — it makes perfect sense that Link is also capable of thumping light, too, and they rally it back and forth in an intense game of volleyball.
It actually more closely resembles tennis, but volleyball is much more fun to say.
After a few whacks, Ganondorf botches the return and eats a face full of pure energy, weakening him and allowing Link to close the gap so he can give him the business. Ganondorf recovers, and the fight continues.
Does he learn from this slip-up? Does he say to himself, ‘ouch that felt displeasing, best shelve that one for the time being’? No, of course he doesn’t. In his arrogance, he goes back to that well a few more times, until he’s finally bested and destroys his entire castle in the ultimate hissy fit.
A quick revision to this would be, theoretically, instead of attempting this risky albeit crowd-pleasing move, Ganondorf simply fly over to Link and kick him really, really hard. In the stomach. In the gonads. In the three polygons that make up his nose, it doesn’t particularly matter. Lay in enough boots, and eventually, evil will triumph.
A Nike endorsement might even be in the works for our boy G-Dorf, as long as he avoids the PG 2.5’s, which are more hazardous to his health than the ball of light.
Consultation fee: 200 Rupees, at least until I can acquire the Giant’s Wallet.
Changes Video Game Villains Could Make
Andross: No Hands. No Hands Whatsoever!!
Dr. Andross was once a respectable figure in Lylatian society, successfully obtaining his doctorate despite being an enormous floating disembodied head, which is a commendable achievement.
Unfortunately, his views on agriculture did not fall in line with popular opinion, leading to his banishment to the planet Venom.
By some accounts, Venom was known as the ‘evergreen planet’ upon Andross’ arrival, boasting beauty second to only Corneria’s, but that’s probably just tourism spin. The fact that it’s called Venom should be a major clue.
The mercenary fighter pilots known as Star Fox (NASDAQ: SF) successfully infiltrate all of Andross’ bases across the entire galaxy, which comes down more to bad luck than anything else.
After all, Andross literally sent them to a molten-hot star and attacked them with a monster made of lava. If that doesn’t work, you know you’re probably in trouble.
Regardless, Andross takes on the leader, Fox McCloud, directly, attacking him with his fists, lightning strikes, and a unique tactic known as eating his enemy alive.
However, he is felled due to one fatal flaw: his hands are flashing weak points that are very obvious and exposed. Initially, alternative gloves were considered, but the final recommendation is that he just hide his hands entirely.
Sure, he’ll still be vulnerable to laser blasts to the eyes, but that’s really more unpleasant than anything else. At the very least, it’s not quite as detrimental to the cause as having your hands explode and turning into a brain.
That said, a contingency plan is also available should the situation reach ‘turn into brain’ levels of urgency.
As the aforementioned brain is capable of teleportation, I would strongly suggest that instead of using this method to be super spooky and appear behind Fox, he opt to instead teleport out of the arena. Come on, Andross, you are an actual brain — maybe you should use it for once?
Consultation fee: sp$64,000. It’s one steep bill… but it’s worth it.
Changes Video Game Villains Could Make
Bowser: Fewer People Transformed Into Bricks (Possibly No People at All?)
This runs on a similar principle to advice previously offered to Dr. Ivo Robotnik, however, it is arguably more infuriating as this particular issue is caused by the client’s own reckless use of turtle magic.
In one of Bowser’s earliest exploits into the world of chaos, he was found to have transformed the residents of the Mushroom Kingdom into “mere stones, bricks, and even field horse-hair plants,” presumably just for a bit of a giggle at their expense.
Also, surely that sentence would work just as well if it just said ‘plant’? The variety of plant seems fairly irrelevant.
Most of these instances of transmogrification don’t necessarily stand out, however, one has been the cause of much discussion among liberal rights activists: those unfortunate enough to have become bricks.
This is an especially grim fate due to Mario’s hobby of smashing bricks into tiny little pieces, effectively murdering poor Wanda from across the road and ensuring that she’ll never water the petunias again.
In the case of how it applies to Bowser, we instead take note of the other use of these bricks: as a means to travel over otherwise inaccessible terrain.
For the same reason as the power rings, this led to the unraveling of an otherwise foolproof plan, as Bowser unwittingly assisted Mario on his quest.
Unfortunately, the king of Koopas is hard to dissuade, so the assumption is that he will continue in his block-creating ways, a practice which, if we are to believe that literally every block in every Mario game is, in fact, a hapless Toad denizen, has occurred no less than 100 times.
On a completely unrelated note, did you ever wonder what happens to those bricks once Bowser has been vanquished? Do they just transform back into their original form, and all die a miserable death when they fall down the pit? Seriously, being a brick in a Mario game really sucks.
Consultation fee: A shiny stone from the pur-tend store.
Changes Video Game Villains Could Make
Inky, Blinky, Pinky and Clyde: Better Coordination
The strategy employed by this team is simple, yet effective: touch Pac-Man, and Pac-Man will die. The drawback, of course, is that should he consume a power pellet, he will turn the tables, feasting upon their ectoplasmic flesh. Or their clothes. Not sure which it is, to be honest.
However, it quickly becomes apparent that, despite their individual strengths, the ghosts each have their own agendas, and are completely lacking in a cohesive methodology.
Blinky employs the ‘shadow’ strategy, wherein pursuit of Pac-Man is prioritized. Pinky prefers to ambush, erroneously known in the business world as the ‘speedy’ style, despite not being any faster than any of his cohorts. Inky is considered ‘bashful’, and I don’t know enough about AI to be able to actually explain what that means.
Clyde’s just an idiot. Screw you, Clyde.
On occasion, two of the ghosts appear to work in tandem for a brief time, before deciding that it’s not worth it and going back to their selfish ways.
It’s unclear exactly why they are so uncooperative with one another, but it could be due to the lack of structure in their management, a problem typically suffered by staff comprised solely of ghosts.
With just a tiny tweak, maybe they could pull this off, or at the very least improve their productivity and increase their gross margin.
Make Clyde redundant, and promote from within. I’ve heard good things about the team at accounting, but even one of the interns would probably make for a better alternative.
Last minute brainstorm: Just sit on the power pellets. Don’t ever move. Pac-Man will never win this war of attrition.
Consultation fee: waka waka waka waka waka waka (translation: $220 per hour).
Published: Feb 22, 2019 09:48 am