From M. Bison to Geese Howard, who are the 10 most intimidating and best villains in fighting game history?
Lord Bison is actually not number 1
Fighting game final bosses are among the most iconic and memorable among all genres of video games because they represent — especially in the arcade era — the highest mountain you had to climb over to reach the top against computer players that would do everything in their power, including breaking the game, to destroy you and force you to spend another quarter.
Many of them have a number of design choices in common. They have the color red worked into their primary or secondary color schemes, they want to control / destroy the world, or they may simply want to acquire the best of every fighting style via assimilation. There are a number of them that have stood the test of time amongst their peers, however — we don't exactly hear too many people clamoring about Azazel from Tekken 6 or Ultron Sigma.
Content creator MrTopTenList recently released a video going over their top 10 choices for the best fighting game antagonists spanning their almost 30 years of popularity, and there may be some surprising picks included in there depending on who you ask.
Some may feel that a few of the most iconic villains do not appear in the list or 10 honorable mentions, like Akuma for example, but that comes down to the criteria needed to make it in there. Only one character per series can be used — so we can't get M. Bison, Seth, Gill, Jinpachi and Devil in the same list — and they need to be the final boss of either an Arcade or story mode in one or more titles.
Other often under-represented series like Killer Instinct, DarkStalkers and Virtua Fighter managed to have some of their big bads make it into the top 10 beginning with Gargos, but it's admitted difficult to leave off a character that you fight on a stage called "Fetus of God."
We won't spoil the list for you up here or the honorable mentions beyond saying that M. Bison does not take the number one spot, so we recommend you check out MrTopTenList's video after the jump.
