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Evil Is Cool / Video Games

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  • In A3 has Varg, Homare's role from Last Planet play. Varg's illustration drop caused an uproar. A cool name, on top of having a transparent Coat Cape and a literal lightsaber, with a Psychotic Smirk and Trigger-Happy as the title. In the trivia lines in 5th Anniversary event, Varg is also said to have Combat Clairvoyance ability. As a space police, Varg is like a reminiscent of Homare's Dewey from the stage shuffle...though in the actual play, Varg is on the good guy's side. Though as the 5th anniversary story shows, he is rather rebellious against Grimm, his superior, and threatens him just so that he can participate in FORTF investigation.
    • Ryuga, another Homare's play character, from SK∞ the Infinity × A3! never loses in the skateboarding races even until the end of the play because he is just that Strong and Skilled. There he makes condescending remarks about other skateboarder and provokes them into a "race," in which he will gladly deliver a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, though he is said to pull a Heel–Face Turn by the end of the play. Ryuga also gets two major skateboarding duel scenes (pretty much most of the biggest skateboarding scenes in the play) to showcase how strong, badass, and violent he is, which just highlight his Blood Knight nature.
  • Baldur's Gate: Sarevok Anchev and Jon Irenicus, despite each being the Big Bad of their respective games, are two of the most beloved characters in the series. In addition to each being extremely badass and powerful physical threats, both are also supremely competent and charismatic villains with rich, complex backstories that give them a great deal of depth and tragedy. The voice acting by Kevin Michael Richardson and David Warner respectively also adds a lot to this. Amelyssan the Blackhearted, the Big Bad of Throne of Bhaal also gets this to a slightly lesser extent.
  • Call of Duty: Black Ops II: Raul Menendez absolutely run on this, due to his charisma, being an Affably Evil mastermind and finally a Tragic Villain. He was even ranked #1 on Game Informer's list of top 10 villains of 2012.
  • This is a common fanbase reaction to the Trauma Team in Cyberpunk 2077. They are meant to be an extreme example of how privatization corrupts a healthcare system; that rapid medical assistance is available to anyone who can afford their insurance packages, leaving anyone not privileged enough to have one to bleed out on the streets. Most fans acknowledge that is the case, but also think that the idea of a team of badass Combat Medics arriving via a flying ambulance and mowing down your would-be killers before evacuating you to safety is incredibly cool.
  • The G-Man from the Half-Life franchise definitely qualifies. Always showing up in the life of Dr. Gordon Freeman to push him once again into center stage as a shining protagonist... If Gordon is always the unquestionable hero in these events, why do the "deals" he offers Gordon feel so Faustian? And the G-Man has shown us glimpses of godlike power - so what's the real game he's playing here? One thing's for sure - observing the G-Man's strange powers, and even just listening to his oddly inflected voice. Whatever is behind those enigmatic eyes...is certainly far from human...
  • Far Cry 3: Vaas Montenegro. Thanks to Michael Mando's hammy yet terrifying performance, the iconicity of Vaas solidified him for instant fan approval, and continues to do so now. And this is only complementing his badassery, his dark sense of humor, his sophisticated nature, and his incredibly iconic definition of insanity. You know that a villain is really compelling when many fans consider him a far better character than the protagonist himself. It certainly helps that he has more charm than Buck and Hoyt.
  • Arguably the point of games like Grand Theft Auto, Scarface: The World Is Yours, and Evil Genius.
  • The Xenomorph in Alien: Isolation is simultaneously terrifying and fascinating, both due to its unpredictability and remarkable adapting AI. Throughout the story, it puts the player through multiple, highly tense cat-and-mouse games, that will make the player fear turning every corner. In the minds of many, it successfully made the Alien genuinely scary again.
  • The Batman: Arkham Series is naturally full of them, but three stand out among the rest.
    • The Joker for obvious and already documented reasons. He goes from funny to hilariously cliché. Then he dies. Then somehow he's even MORE funny. You have to see it for yourself.
    • Scarecrow for his show-stealing hallucination moments in Batman: Arkham Asylum, his awesome voice, terrifying new look and new chessmaster status in Batman: Arkham Knight, as well as holding the distinction of being the only Batman villain in any media ever to successfully unmask Batman to the world.
    • The Arkham Knight for being a savvy Evil Counterpart to Batman.
  • For a sufficiently loose definition of "evil", the gleefully sadistic, dominatrix-esque titular protagonist of Bayonetta has this in spades. The Big Bad of the first game, Father Balder actually manages this as well: while his general demeanor is that of a Sissy Villain with a truly hideous sense of fashion, he's just so badass and epic in battle, especially with "You May Call Me Father" for a theme song, that he makes it all work.
  • Looking back at Guilty Gear, many people were turned off by Ky Kiske because he's too much of a goody two shoes. Then, in BlazBlue, he's given an Expy in form of Jin Kisaragi, a twisted, erratic Jerkass whose unwholesome personality was nonetheless well-met by many fans, though he does become a case of "Morally Ambiguous is Cool" post-CS.
    • There is the matter of Hazama, a.k.a. Yuuki Terumi, who's taken the role of the Big Bad of the series. He's an arrogant Troll who's even more abrasive and mean-spirited than Jin and has more or less fucked up the lives of everyone in the series, most of all, Noel, when he transforms her into Mu-12. Fans love him because he's funny, handsome, and a cool dresser.
    • Although over time, people somehow got sick of Terumi being constantly pushed to attention and looking too invincible nearing Boring Invincible Villain status. On the other hand, this title now goes into his partner Relius Clover, who's not as pushed to attention, but remains a Large Ham, composed, a cool dresser, rugged, and just as depraved as Hazama (or even more).
    • However Terumi becoming a separate playable character form Hazama made fans love him again, mostly due to the fact that he took Hazama's personality and threw any and all restraints aside. And then the fourth game boosted it even further when he kills the coolest good guy, Hakumen, and then reveals he's actually a literal god.
    • Nine and Izanami as of the fourth game got into this.
  • The Command & Conquer series always has fiendishly enjoyable Evil campaigns.
    • Especially in Red Alert, the evil is served with a generous side of Large Ham. The Soviets are supposed to be the "bad guy" faction, but they have psychic troopers, tesla coils, the best tanks in the games, Kirov airships, spider-like terror drones, mind-controlled giant squid, battle-bears, and nuclear missiles to spare!
    • Yuri's faction Red Alert 2, while its overpowered status has its usage in multiplayer frowned on, fans agree that its gimmicks make it fun to play as and many fans were disappointed that it didn't get its own campaign, so many of the mods to the game, in addition to balancing the faction, focus on giving it one.
    • Starting in Tiberian Sun, Nod had much cooler outfits than GDI, and in Tiberium Wars, they had cooler looking vehicles. This is somewhat offset by the fact that Nod has a tendency to favor looks over practicality. GDI's ground vehicles tend to be better, and their soldiers actually look like soldiers, while Nod's look like a bunch of, abeit cool looking, KKK rejects.
  • The five members of the original Ad Astra in Criminal Case: The Conspiracy are often lauded as some of, if not the best villains in the whole series, being a group of very threatening individuals with distinctive personalities and motivations that don't cross into the Generic Doomsday Villain territory like most previous main antagonists do, to the point they're shown to genuinely care about each other in spite of how evil they manage to be. The fact they significantly appear throughout the whole game (as opposed to most villains in the series who only show up during their respective Story Arc), making them a looming danger long before you learn of their existence and a source of Paranoia Fuel during the districts they start taking the spotlight, certainly does help. While some of the members are more popular than others (with Rozetta Pierre and Joe Warren generally being the fan-favorites, Louis Leroux and Julia Brine the least liked, and Christian Bateman falling somewhere around the middle), the group as a whole is definitely among the most popular antagonistic factions in the series for how threatening and surprisingly well-developed they are.
  • In Demonheart, all of the major characters and romance options are evil to some extent, and the good seeming characters are quick to lose the protagonist's respect, turn out even worse than the cool bad guys, or meet an untimely death.
  • Used quite a bit the Devil May Cry series. Dante's enemies (primarily his Evil Counterpart, his brother Vergil) are pretty darn cool, but Dante still generally mops the floor with them with style.
  • If this video is of any guideline, Baal from Diablo 2 counts. His brothers Mephisto and Diablo himself also qualify
    • Through not exactly a villain at the moment(but perhaps will be a antagonist an X-Pack), the Knight Templar Angel Imperius from Diablo III seems to be heading in this direction given his badass armor design and the short but badass fight between him and Diablo at the beginning of Act IV.
  • Disgaea characters believe in this trope, but it ends being subverted when an actual villain appears as they also turn out to be too much of a Jerkass to apply to this trope.
  • Practically the point of Dungeon Keeper, where you are the Dark Lord who builds his eldritch underground kingdom and throws adventuring heroes in torture chambers. Remember: Evil is Good.
  • Elden Ring: Mohg, Lord of Blood. He's practically a checklist of evil design traits; he's a Horned Humanoid who has Yellow Eyes of Sneakiness and sharp teeth, wears Black And Red And Evil All Over, wields a trident, uses (and invented) Blood Magic, chews all sorts of scenery, gets black wings in his second phase, leads an organization that invades and kills people for the glory of an Outer God, is in love with his younger half-brother and kidnapped him to become his consort, et cetera. The fandom still loves him for his badassery, bombastic demeanor, and his cinematic, challenging-but-fair boss fight.
  • Go into any forum currently discussing The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and you'll find at least person who loves the Thalmor, elven supremacists with impeccable fashion sense.
  • The Evil Within has two examples;
    • Ruvik, the game's main antagonist. Ruvik wields a set of badass Reality Warper powers that allow him to decimate enemies as long as he's not Just Toying with Them. Combine that with a sadistic Mad Scientist personality and a chilling performance by Jackie Earle Haley and he stands out as a highlight of the game.
    • The Keeper, a menacing boss who pursues enemies with horrific abandon and even shows points of huge cleverness such as killing itself to exploit its own method of respawning. It's unsurprising that it got Promoted to Playable in a DLC, and that playing as it in said DLC is pure Catharsis Factor compared to Sebastian's own vulnerability.
  • The Evil Within 2 has Stefano Valentini. Stefano is often considered the coolest villain, being a Love to Hate psychopath whose theme of mostly normal environments corrupted by his gruesome artwork is more uniquely nightmarish and disturbing compared to Theodore's more genre-typical motifs of torture dungeons and Fire and Brimstone Hell.
  • Jack of Blades from Fable may murder your mother and blind your sister among other things. However, being one of the few well-voiced characters in the game, the first Big Bad in the series, and just generally an all around badass Humanoid Abomination/Eldritch Abomination, he earns this status. He easily ranks as the best villain in the series.
  • The Enclave, specifically in Fallout 3. They have badass suits of Power Armor, guns, and are lead by an Affably Evil Well-Intentioned Extremist (who is voiced by Malcolm McDowell).
  • The Institute in Fallout 4. They're scheming bastards prone to killing and replacing innocent people, performing unspeakable scientific experiments, and generally maintaining a "Murder Is the Best Solution" policy towards wastelanders. But their Raygun Gothic Crystal Spires and Togas, a massive contrast to the dirty, post-apocalyptic wasteland of the rest of the game, their genuine Well-Intentioned Extremist goals, and the discovery that the Sole Survivor's son was raised as one of their own and has become their leader, combine together to make their We Can Rule Together offer (which the player is free to accept) very tempting.
    • Conversely, the new Brotherhood of Steel could be seen as this. On one hand, they have genocidal tendencies towards Synths, ghouls, super mutants and other non-humans with Nazi-like fanaticism, but on the other hand, most of these are Always Chaotic Evil monsters anyway (it's the Brotherhood's refusal to acknowledge a few aren't that makes it a Kick the Dog from them). Whether the Brotherhood of Steel qualify as evil is arguable, but what isn't is that they're awesome. Knights clad in T-60 power armour, fleets of Vertibirds, a Cool Airship, and they've even rebuilt Liberty Prime!
  • Kotomine in Fate/stay night...well, he's cool enough that the fact he has a mullet ceases to matter. Possibly helped along by every scene contrasting him to Shirou. The other Big Bad, Zouken, is not cool. Or likable. Or, well, tolerable. You just kind of want him to hurry up and die already. Helped by the fact that Kotomine really knows how to talk; it's hard to be bored of his often long speeches. Most of his speeches have very little to do with him being evil or evil in general.
  • Pick a Final Fantasy game, go ahead, pick one. To recount some of the more famous examples:
  • Apollyon from For Honor, thanks to being an absolutely badass Black Knight Dark Action Girl with a delightfully hammy War Is Glorious philosophy. Her awesome fight scenes, villainous intelligence, scenery-chewing voice acting in certain scenes and challenging and exciting boss fight also help.
  • Kratos from God of War is an excellent example, as his very anti-heroic tendencies make him a more interesting character. He's a complete badass. though in a subversion, some fans fond his progressively worse actions in the sequels made him hard to root for.
    • Ares, to a certain extent, though he is not so cool as Kratos due to being such a despicable character. He has cool hair, that seem to be made of fire. And his armor?? Man, best armor in the franchise!
    • Zeus in the sequels, probably the only one of the villains besides Ares to get much of following since A, the major antagonists besides him and Ares don't have much personality, or even screen time, and B, he's the king of the gods and shows why since he fights barehanded in a series where nearly everyone else uses some sort of weapon, and defeats a titan while human sized.
  • Helldivers II: Unlike the Terminids which are fairly bog-standard space bugs, the Automatons are a more sophisticated enemy who have their own pseudo-communist society, a slick black and red aesthetic, their own marching song and the sympathetic motive of [[fighting to avenge their Cyborg creators]]. They are shown using anti-ship cannons to destroy Super Earth Destroyers in orbit, and infamously inflicted a total defeat on the player base at Malevelon Creek. This has led to the Automatons being treated as something of a badass Worthy Opponent by the fanbase.
  • Injustice 2:
    • The game's version of Brainiac, thanks to excellent voice-work is one of the scariest takes on the character. The fact that it's a perfect fusion of his original Silver Age appearance and shtick (complete with impenetrable shields) and the DCAU (the "collect all knowledge and destroy the prototype" plan) makes it a perfect Adaptation Distillation.
    • This Scarecrow gets a large amount of this from fans for being essentially Freddy Krueger in the DC Universe. It helps that he is played wonderfully by Robert Englund who gives him some great biting dialogue and his visuals are phenomenal and Creepy Awesome.
    • Par the course for the character, Darkseid also got this treatment specially for his awesome booming voice which is accompanied by no shortage of signature boasts and his cool Super Move.
  • The Helghast of Killzone, with their Jin-Roh inspired battle armor (the Custom Uniforms of which are extra-awesome◊), sympathetic back story, and a leader that gloriously feasts on ham. Every time a sequel is announced, the fanbase hopes they'll finally be able to play as them in single-player mode...and then they get stuck playing the painfully generic loud-mouthed American soldier guys of the ISA again, killing legions of people much cooler-looking than you.
  • Name one original Kingdom Hearts villain that isn't awesome. Especially the various incarnations of Xehanort. Especially Xemnas. It helps when you're Norio Wakamoto dual-wielding red lightsabers ethereal blades.
    • Riku also qualified when he appeared in the first game.
  • It is primarily for this reason that Knights of the Old Republic and similar games have an evil option. KOTOR is further helped in this regard, since Star Wars villains are generally among the most badass characters in all of fiction.
    • This is acknowledged in the second game, where the opening screen shows one of the various Sith Lords of the game. Go bad enough, and your character will replace them after you complete the game.
    • The King of KOTOR Kool himself - the psychotic, homicidal HK-47 assassin droid. "Definition: 'Love' is making a shot to the knees of a target 120 kilometers away using an Aratech sniper rifle with a tri-light scope." He is far and away the single most beloved character by the meatbags playing the games, even though he's regarded as among the least useful in gameplay.
    • Both KOTOR games actually provide especially good foundations for this. In the first game, you're playing an amnesic Sith Lord, and if you decide to reclaim your former glory, characters will acknowledge you as such. And KOTOR II just takes it up a notch. This time, you aren't technically on a mission to be the hero, so it's not even expected of you. In this game, you get to wear a black Badass Longcoat, teach your companions the way of the Dark Side, cut your way through small armies like a knife through butter, take out entire ambush teams of mercenaries with a single Force Storm, curbstomp Jedi Masters in a duel, steal their techniques, then suck up their power for yourself...and that's all before you get Force Crush, against which there is no defense! The Light Side path may have more plot exposition, but the Dark Side one is definitely the cooler one.
    • Star Wars: The Old Republic also has a Dark Side path for this reason, even for the Republic side. Yes, you can pretty much do a Renegade Shepard run as a Republic Trooper, be an underworld thug as a Smuggler, and go full Anakin Skywalker Expy Knight Templar on the Jedi paths. If you do a dark side Imperial run, you're even more of a puppy-kicking, manipulative, brutal monster...but wow, you can certainly look cool doing it. And even if you go light side Imperial, you can still benefit from being a badass Sith Lord/secret agent/assassin for hire while still maintaining your real-life moral compass.
      • It's lampshaded in-game by Kira (a Jedi Knight companion) : "Have you seen what the Sith are wearing ? It's like every fashion designer in the galaxy went over to the dark side".
    • Also from Star Wars, Star Wars: Battlefront II has you playing as the 501st Legion in the "Rise of the Empire" story mode. Needless to say, after the Evil Empire rises and the 501st becomes evil, they're still awesome.
    • Another Star Wars example: TIE Fighter. Darth Vader is your wingman. That is all. note 
  • Ganondorf, in all four games he appears in.
  • Do you see the cool, black, spiky barrier jacket of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha's Chrono? That's an artifact from his days as a villain in the original Nanoha mini-scenario included in the Triangle Heart 3: Sweet Songs Forever fanbox.
  • Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite:
    • Big Bad Ultron-Sigma has been well-received as a very cool and threatening villain with one of the best designs and voices in the game. Inflicting an utter Curb-Stomp Battle on the heroes at the start of the story and having a flashy fighting style does help his badass credentials quite a bit.
    • Thanos — for his epic fight against Ultron-Sigma, managing to break the Reality Stone with his bare hands, and stealing Ryu's Satsui no Hado to make Lady Death pay for treating him like an Unwitting Pawn... all while speaking in the smooth baritone of Isaac C. Singleton Jr. and generally being, well, Thanos. Even despite him being shackled early on.
    • Jedah. He's generally considered to be one of the best-produced characters on the roster, thanks to his Darkstalkers movelist translating well, an awesome trance remix of his old theme, and a Large Ham performance thanks to David Kaye.
  • As evil as they are, you have to admit the Reapers from Mass Effect are pretty cool. They're unfathomably advanced squid-shaped spaceships with apparently no desire beyond killing everyone every few thousand years because, hey, why not?
  • Daveybird from the Randle Sim Racing mods is the host and organizer of the RSRA league, and can be pretty corrupt in his officiating and driving style, and is a villain for those storylines. He clearly cheats, and imposes rules that slow his competitors down, all so he can take the glory. But he's still adored by fans, and he loves that role as well as his heroic side.
  • Master Detective Archives: Rain Code: The true Big Bad, Makoto Kagutsuchi, CEO of Amaterasu Corporation, is the homunculus clone of the WDO's Number One. As a result, he's also an extremely precise strategist and manipulator who plays his cards right and decides when it's most appropriate to personally take action for himself. The entire game pretty much hinges on his plan to lure the Master Detectives to Kanai Ward, as without his lures, they wouldn't have been gathered there in the first place, but as for why he gathered them there? He used them as pawns so they would oppose Yomi and allow Makoto the opening to overthrow him from his position as director of the Peacekeepers, and the detectives in question were none the wiser that it was his true goal all along.
  • Almost each Metal Gear game has a Quirky Miniboss Squad that ends up stealing the show. This is especially the case with FOXHOUND, the Cobra Unit, and The Winds of Destruction from Metal Gear Solid, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance respectively. As for main villains, Liquid Snake from Solid, Senator Steven Armstrong from Revengeance and overarching villain Revolver Ocelot all have massive fanbases. The Boss from Snake Eater is highly downplayed as while she is an antagonist and almost universally viewed by the fanbase as one of the biggest badasses in the series, she's not really evil at all.
  • Metroid:
  • Mortal Kombat: With an abundant cast of both good and evil, one prominent example would be the soul sucking sorcerer Shang Tsung. With his creepy yet charming personality and diabolical intellect, the original Big Bad of the series has been described by the creators as the franchise's "symbol of evil".
  • Nintendo Wars: Sturm is well-liked by fans for being an imposing Evil Overlord with one of the deadliest and most imposing Super CO Powers in the game. Sure, he's not a very complex antagonist, but going up against him brings about a specific feeling of terror unique to video game villains.
  • Nocturne (RPG Maker): All three of the vampire Ancestors in this game qualify.
    • Reviel, the Villain Protagonist of the game, is a Tall, Dark, and Handsome Dual Wielding Magic Knight Blood Knight who tends to be the monster in Mugging the Monster scenarios. And unlike most RPG protagonists, he can break down puzzle-locked doors and barriers with his brute strength alone. He was also once known as a "Satan" to mankind for easily slaughtering all human civilization that he comes across. As an inversion, he arguably becomes even cooler after his Heel–Face Turn, where he tanks a villain's strongest spells at point blank range in order to protect the village and still comes out on top, albeit with help from Luna.
    • Ristill might be the weakest of the Ancestors, but she proves to be a clever schemer and a Mad Scientist who comes up with ways to make up for the power discrepancy. She also has a past-paced boss theme that really highlights how frantically difficult she is after she uses Maxwell to gain an infinite supply of mana. Even Khaos notes that her ability to create existence from nothing is a potential Story-Breaker Power, which is proven true when her ability renders his Combat Clairvoyance useless.
    • Khaos is a Badass Bookworm who managed to discover how to control time and space, among other magical concepts that he studies. He's also the most powerful of the three because he knows how to apply his vast knowledge to combat, as shown when he uses time-based spells to give himself extra turns and predict the future. Better yet, the latter spell replaces the ordinary battlefield with a purple space, magic circle platform, and spinning gears in the background. The evil part is downplayed because he used to be the Ancestors' Token Good Teammate and is only the main antagonist because he wants to control time and space to bring his lover back.
  • The homely Sligs from Oddworld. Perhaps it's the combination of slick cybernetics, glowing red visors and standard issue rifles. If evil can be sexy (and each to their own), the fact that they shoot at you on sight is just gravy.
  • Admit it: even after you find out that his cluelessness and uselessness was a disguise, you can't help but love Adachi Tohru from Persona 4. The reveal that he was the Killer all along actually added to his appeal as a character. His tendency to switch between Laughably Evil and delicious evilness makes him both entertaining yet intimidating in the eyes of the fanbase.
    • The Shadow Selves in 4 and Persona 5 are also pretty freaking cool, especially in their giant monster forms.
  • Pokémon:
    • While supposedly no Pokémon is truly evil (with even the bad guys' Pokémon just following orders), many of the most popular Pokémon are those who act in defiance of that:
      • Tyranitar and Hydreigon, a Godzilla/Tyrannosaurus Rex and a King Ghidorah/Hydra Pokémon respectively. Both of them are extremely savage and destructive, are Dark-types who use actual darkness powers as compared to most other Dark types, and their BST of 600 makes them comparable to some legendaries in terms of power. (Unsurprisingly, they're both in the OU tier.)
      • Additionally, there's Gyarados, Salamence, Garchomp, and Metagross. While not Dark-types, they're just as savage and deadly as Hydreigon.
      • Houndoom is a Dark-type literal Hell Hound and one of the more popular Pokémon.
      • And of course, there's one of the best-known and most powerful "evil" Pokémon, Mewtwo. Beyond being the original Game-Breaker, its depiction in the animé's first movie (in which he openly slaughtered humans and tries to annihilate all life on Earth) remains popular among fans. Even in the games, Mewtwo's Pokédex entries repeatedly emphasise that of all Pokémon, it has the most savage and uncompassionate heart.
      • By far the most popular "shiny" Pokémon coloration belongs to Charizard, already an enormous Ensemble Dark Horse. In its shiny form, it gets an evil-looking black color scheme with blood-red wings and sinister red eyes (this form was actually depicted as a Darkness-type in the TCG in one card, and the card is one of the most sought-after and ridiculously overpriced cards today).
      • Unlike Reshiram and Zekrom, Kyurem is a truly evil (or at least corrupt) Pokémon by nature that eats humans. And it's a giant ice dragon that can absorb Reshiram or Zekrom to switch forms and become more powerful.
      • Genesect, an apex insect predator from the Paleozoic period, can be interpreted as an evil(er) counterpart of Mewtwo; being revived by Team Plasma and cybernetically enhanced (such as attaching a laser cannon to it) to be the strongest Pokémon ever.
      • Yveltal, the gigantic bird-like Destruction Pokémon, screams this trope.
      • Malamar, Dark/Psychic squid Pokémon, which unlike the above Pokémon, who aren't always evil, is an Always Chaotic Evil Pokémon that is using mind control as they plot world domination, especially as seen in the anime. Malamar's fans wouldn't want it any other way.
      • Incineroar, the fully-evolved Fire-type starter from Pokémon Sun and Moon. It's an extremely manly Fire/Dark bipedal tiger with the personality of a heel wrestler, complete with a championship belt made of fire. While it's a Base-Breaking Character (quite fittingly for its status as a heel), it has fans that love it a lot, many of which are in the Bara community. This also applies in-universe, as its "bad guy" act makes it popular with children.
      • Necrozma is an all-black prism creature that steals light from worlds and, like Mewtwo before it, is abnormally cruel and savage in battle, laying waste to areas with lasers and ripping foes apart with its claws. It even has a One-Winged Angel state with higher stats than Arceus. And the kicker? Unlike all the other Pokémon examples, it's the Big Bad of a mainline game, where it openly has an agenda of its own with no Trainer or mastermind pulling the strings.
    • A lot of the evil organizations such as Team Rocket can be this with their stylish uniforms, cool hideouts, and intimidating Pokémon teams. More specific members of the teams who count are :
  • Jean Descole from the Professor Layton series was most likely created with this trope in mind. He is a Malevolent Masked Man who combines almost all the over the top clothing tropes and actually pulls it off. And his coolness gets amplified in the movie Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva.
  • And then there's Albert Wesker. He just became cooler and crueler throughout the series.
  • From Resident Evil Village :
    • Lady Dimitrescu and her daughters have been praised for being charismatic and showy antagonists with a well-liked vampire motif. Alcina turning into a Draconic Abomination probably helps with that.
    • Heisenberg has got praise for being an entertaining and well-designed villain with his showy, loud yet affable demeanor. Even though he can be quite an Anti-Climax Boss, the battle against him is a great visual spectacle.
    • Donna Beneviento might not be much of a character on her own, but fans praise her section for being extremely terrifying and using Nothing Is Scarier to great effect in making the player feel helpless and isolated.
    • Salvatore Moreau in his mutated form is arguably the toughest of the Four Lords, boasting one very damaging attack as well as high endurance against even the most powerful weapons at Ethan's disposal. Coupled with the section in which he stalks you through the water, he makes for one of very tense boss encounter.
  • Robopon has this with the Big Bad, Dr. Zero. Just look at him◊.
  • Saints Row: Every chapter ends in an Eviler than Thou Coup de Grâce. Almost everyone kisses the Protagonist's ass by complimenting his/her murderous psychosis. Arguably the coolest character in the series so far is unrepentant mass murderer Johnny Gat.
  • The reason Dr. Eggman is so popular is because of this trope. Seriously, he can make damn near whatever type of machine he wants for any situation and his various evil lairs tend to be among the best levels in the series, in addition to his various boss fights. His Affably Evil Large Ham tendencies also play a large role, in that despite being a villain, he is such a jovial and over the top guy that you can't help but love his antics. You can only imagine how elated fans were when Sega finally stopped shafting him in favor of whatever Monster of the Week he had unleashed and finally let him shine as a villain.
    • Eggman himself seems to be a believer of this trope. In Sonic Adventure 2, if you choose Eggman's voice for the menus and go to the Chao Garden in Stage Select, instead of saying "select your character" like nearly every other voice option, he says "heroes are wimpy".
    • This trope may be partially the reason why Shadow started off as such an Ensemble Dark Horse as he has had nowhere near the good reception ever since his transition to Anti-Hero.
  • Nightmare in the Soul Series. His armor is damn cool (with the sixth game giving him a Badass Cape), he carries a BFS as big as he is, and is just oh so delightfully hammy. He's even the Series Mascot (even appearing in the Project Soul logo), for goodness sake!
  • Gig from Soul Nomad & the World Eaters. He comes off as a threatening badass even though he's a Sealed Evil in a Can most of the game, along with having by far the funniest moments in it, though in an odd case of this trope he's on the hero's side.
  • South Park: The Stick of Truth provides a hilarious inversion. Fan-favorite Kenny McCormick turns out to be the Final Boss and one of the main villains (by way of an Ass Pull), but what kind of character is he playing? An Evil Overlord? A roguish Anti-Hero Black Knight (which should come to mind when you think of Mysterion)? Nope, a pretty princess.
  • Among Suikoden fans, their favorite villain is typically Luca Blight from the second game. First signs of it, he's unit in the war sections is by far the best in the game. When it finally comes around time to kill him, despite him not having a major rune or some source magic like other major villains in the series, he still proves to be an incredibly difficult fight where he takes on three different parties in quick succession, takes hundreds to the chest, and finally The Hero finishing him off in a duel after he's half dead. His whole Dying Moment of Awesome cemented he's spot in this trope.
  • Super Mario Bros.:
    • Bowser, despite his Villain Decay and penchant for competitive sports over the years, is still a giant, spiky, fire-breathing turtle-dragon, and winning a one-on-one fight with him as a pudgy plumber will always be satisfying - and yet, he's still a powerful menace when he needs to be, especially in the main Mario platformers. Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story seems to play to this, where the big bad spiky dude is the main character (even if he ultimately has to save the Mushroom Kingdom) and, rather than being merely a comedic Butt-Monkey, he's shown as a Hot-Blooded badass when he needs to be, and still gets plenty of hilarious scenes. Subsequent Mario & Luigi installments run with this trope and depict Bowser as a much smarter and more menacing villain than in previous RPG's, all while keeping him as the Laughably Evil Boisterous Bruiser fans know and love. This trope was more-or-less acknowledged in the E3 trailer for Mario Party 10, which features a "Bowser Party" mode where one player controls Bowser and gets to wreak havoc on other players.
    • Wario, to the extent where he even got his own spinoff series. A greedy badass treasure hunter who despite his size and pudgy shape pummels enemies to oblivion with his bare hands, is immortal (at least in Wario Land II and 3) and actually uses his immortality to his advantage by doing stuff like setting himself on fire to burn enemies and destroy certain blocks, and happens to own a minigame company.
    • Fawful. Dimentio. Pretty much every villain in the franchise, to be honest. Cool technology and weapons? Check. Best lines in the series (especially Fawful)? Check. Look awesome? Also check. There's a reason many of the other bad guys end up being the Ensemble Dark Horse.
    • Dimentio gets special mention for being a frighteningly competent and ruthless villain for a Mario game. Sure he may crack funny one-liners, but he's still a psychopathic chessmaster who successfully sweeps the Final Boss role out from under the game's ostensible main villain. It's telling that even though he only appeared in one game, he still has plenty of fans clamoring for him to make a return.
  • Stellaris: Arguably the most popular pre-scripted empire among players is the warmongering and human-supremacist Commonwealth of Man. Combined with Most Writers Are Human.
  • In Terra Invicta, one of the fandom's favorite faction is Humanity First. Humanity first are ruthless Absolute Xenophobes who not only fight the Alien Invasion, but commit terrorist attacks against fellow humans who they perceive as "alien sympathizers". However, their ruthlessness opens up new tactical options, their leader's brusque and down-to-earth nature gives them some of the best quotes in the game, and their initial suspicions about the aliens prove correct, so they're still quite beloved.
  • Thing-Thing: Project 154 may be a sociopathic mass murderer, but he is easily one of the most badass characters in flash gaming.
  • All of the most popular factions in Total War: Warhammer are the evil ones. You have the batshit Crazy Is Cool Greenskins who live for a good fight against anyone, you have the sinister and blood and power-hungry Vampire Counts and their armies of undead puppets and horrifying monsters, you have the clad-in-black armour and extremely badass Warriors of Chaos, and you have the insane, braying Beastmen who want nothing less than the complete destruction of all civilisation. The absolute king of this trope however is Norsca: imagine a faction of hardass, seven-foot-tall, daemon-worshipping vikings with an army built around maximum killing power, and an array of monstrous creatures that rival the Vampires. You can even usurp Archaeon as the Everchosen and pledge yourself to one of the four Chaos Gods to gain a bunch of special benefits. Norsca is by far the most popular faction in the game, and all the better because it is effectively an entire officially sanctioned homebrew faction created for the game, and the whole faction is filled to the brim with obscure elements of the setting's lore.
  • Many people prefer to play as the Horde in World of Warcraft because of this trope.
  • Arthas from Warcraft, after his Face–Heel Turn into a Death Knight. Sadly, with Wrath of the Lich King, he suffered a HUGE deal of Villain Decay.
  • Sho Minamimoto from The World Ends with You is easily one of the game's most popular characters due to his eccentric personality, his formidable powers and his Taboo form that somehow manages to make him look even more badass.
  • Id from Xenogears. Oh, what's that? You want a reason why? Ok, here's ONE.◊
    Id: Well that was interesting. But dropping a battleship on me is cheating. Take it back...
  • Cuphead's King Dice is a Cab Calloway expy with a perpetual grin, a catchy Villain Song, and a suit.
  • An In-Universe example in MadWorld: During Jack's fight with Kojack, Kreese, one of the two announcers, roots for Kojack, shamelessly declaring that "evil makes everything better!"
  • Spider-Man (Insomniac):
    • Spider-Man (PS4):
      • Mr. Negative got this reaction, with many finding his aesthetic, design, gimmick, and story quite cool and impressive.
      • Tombstone and his surprisingly deep characterization made a major impression despite his small presence, and many enjoyed his affable, charismatic, and surprisingly deep turn.
      • Of course, Dr. Octopus is always cool, and many have heaped praise on the story and characterization as well as presentation of this classic villain in this game.
    • Marvel's Spider-Man 2:
      • This incarnation of Venom is being hailed by fans and critics alike as one of his most intimidating, scary and badass versions seen in media. The Juggernaut portrayal of Venom is capped off by what's considered a great performance by the Candyman himself, Tony Todd.
      • Kraven the Hunter manages to be one of this Spider-Man’s most cunning and badass foes. His Graceful Loser acceptance death also was rather positively received by fans and considered rather cool.

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