Any really immersive heroic adventure has to end with a final conflict in the evil villain's stronghold. We don't make the rules, we just report them. But the fact of the matter is that the importance of the hero's adventure can be measured simply by looking at the evil villain's lair. A hero who has to storm a giant mountaintop castle is on an epic quest. A hero who finds his nemesis in a cave is not on a quest, he's on a bender.
With that in mind, we present a half-dozen of the most terrifyingly villainous lairs ever seen in video games:
6) Dracula's Castle
Big windows really open up a room.
When it comes to classic terrifying villain lairs, Dracula's castle from Castlevania is pretty much the gold standard classic of Gothic terror. Long before video games or television, back when they were still just figuring out the printing press (mid-15th century), the legend of Dracula and his castle were born.
(It wasn't until centuries later that the legend of Simon Belmont would be created. But heroes are measured by the swank digs that they storm. Disagree? Well then, who was the main character in the classic NES game Ghosts and Goblins? You have no idea, because he didn't fight in Dracula's Castle. But you damn well know Simon Belmont's name, because you know he walked right into Dracula's castle.)
Anyway, Dracula rocks a classic creepy stone castle with rotting battlements and undead monsters roaming the halls, but he's not afraid to use a little mechanical villainy. Modern technology would clash with the red velvet curtains, however, so Dracula keeps his mechanized villainy confined to bone-crushing gears.
These gears all rotate a dessert cart.
5) Dr. Wily's Skull Castle
Dawg, we heard you liked skulls, so... never mind.
Most of your evil villains have to choose between the modern techno-hell-with-evil-robots theme and the gory-fantasy-blood-death-skull theme for their decor. But Dr. Wily, as befits an evil genius, has managed to combine them both by including death and robots, two great tastes that go well together. Obviously robots are the good doctor's specialty, but his castles are always based around a giant skull.
All this, and satellite TV.
Did we say "castles"? Yes we did. Because Mega Man keeps destroying Skull Castle, Wily has to keep building new evil lairs. But don't think that Skull Castle can't stand the villainous test of time. In fact, the skull castle way back from Mega Man 2 still inspires some people like Dr. Octoroc to spend 6 months and 22,000 beads to create a faithful reproduction:
4) Dungeon of the Eye of Valmar
start at 1:45
Okay, this is probably the least famous villainous lair on this list. Few people remember Grandia II in the first place, and this isn't even the final dungeon. It is, however, the most terrifyingly creepy. I would not have thought eyeballs were particularly evil until playing this level, after which I decided that I no longer wanted to look at eyeballs. Because they were looking at me.
Anyway, the Eyes of Valmar (part of the evil god) make their home here, so in addition to the eyeball bats you fight, there are eyeball hills that produce tiny waterfalls of blood, floating eyeballs, eyeball bridges, and towers of eyeballs that obstruct and watch you. This level didn't just give you the evil eye, it gave you a few hundred. And it was fucking creepy.
3) Diablo's Chaos Sanctuary
You don't want to mess with Diablo during his period.
Okay, so it's hard to go wrong with the classic evil Gothic castle. Well, Diablo's Chaos Sanctuary has all the important elements of the Dracula-style evil castle: Tall, narrow windows, plenty of good stonework, and scores of undead roaming the halls. But Diablo one-ups Dracula when it comes to the evil castle, because he knows the most important part of terrifyingly villainous real estate: Location, location, location.
Dracula has an evil castle, but it's still right next to a forest. And sure, you can call it a dark forest, or a spooky forest, but it's still trees. Diablo's evil castle is in a lake of fire in the lowest reaches of hell. We're pretty sure that's trump, as far as villainy goes.
He goes through 200 gardeners and landscapers a month.
Also, check out the piles of skulls on the sides of the walls, as if they had just accumulated faster than the demon maids could sweep them up. Inviting people over, killing them, and then not cleaning up - now that's evil.
2) Magus's Castle
Chanukah at the Magusteinbergman Castle
Okay, we know. We just pooh-poohed the idea of locating your dark evil castle next to a forest instead of in the depths of hell. But Magus's castle from Chrono Trigger is everything you could want in an evil castle. It has all the columns and Gothic architecture that you require on the inside, excellent stone work, and some good candlework. Magus has lots of candles and candelabras around, and yet none of them can be destroyed to gain health or weaponry. Now that's villainous.
Still, the most terrifying view of Magus's castle comes from the outside:
Crono: Ouch, my neck...!
Did you have to scroll there? Well, so did the main characters. This is actually a composite shot, because Magus's castle is so tall that when you come across it, for the first time in the game your characters have to look up for a few screens before seeing the very top of it. So villainously evil that it cannot be viewed at once, from the gates at the bottom to the moonlight gargoyle on top.
1) Castle Wolfenstein 3D
Duck season? Rabbit season? Nazi season!
When it comes to real villainy, the nazis have always taken the cake. The true face of evil isn't supernatural vampires or giant robots. No, the true face of evil is tasteful wood panels, excellent stone work, and lots of stolen gold all decorating a giant castle built as a paean to the ego of Adolf Hitler.
Seriously, in real life, villains don't have giant sharp teeth or huge metal claws. They have lots of money they stole from other people, monuments to their own arrogance, and really nice digs. Crazy robot vampires aren't really terrifyingly villainous because they are patent nonsense. But giant castles filled with Nazis, especially as photorealistic as these, are truly evil.
Yes, during World War II, the Nazis were highly pixellated. Many history books oddly omit this important fact. Write your school board today.
MildlyAmused(11 months ago)
Don't forget to grunt and headbutt/hit the walls and paintings in a Nazi stronghold. You never know where the secret horde of steal-able loot is hidden.
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I grunt and headbutt walls wherever I go, Nazi stronghold or otherwise.
Also, I'm no longer allowed in antique shops.
Markey(11 months ago)
I was expecting Diablo 1's "The Butcher" to make an appearance here, check out his lair..
Nice to see Diablo making the cut in some way though :)
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