Press B 149: March Radness - Best Video Game Villains
It's time for Press B's March Radness! A month long celebration of salt and tears as each week in March we do bracket tournment style episodes. On this week's episode of Press B, join our hosts as they dive into the world of video game villains and battle it out to crown the ultimate bad guy! We've assembled (scientifically and randomized) brackets of 12 of the most iconic and memorable video game villains, from Bowser to Sephiroth to GLaDOS. Listen in as they debate and discuss each villain's strengths, weaknesses, and overall impact on their respective game's story and gameplay. Who will come out on top and be crowned the ultimate video game villain? Tune in to find out! Press B To Cancel now on Youtube! For updates and more episodes please visit our website www.pressbtocancel.com, or find us on Twitter @pressbtocancel and Instagram @pressbtocancel. Special thanks to The Last Ancient on SoundCloud for our podcast theme. Transcript: Chard (A): If he dies, he dies. Greatest video game vitillins today on. Wulff (B): Um. Chard (A): Welcome, everybody, back to another actual, live bless you episode of Presbyter cancel tonight. I am the blessed host of this evening's episode. But I'm not alone. As Jake say. No, I'm not alone. I'm with four of the greatest villains I know running amongst us here. Jake, how are you, sir? Jake (C): I'm doing good. Thanks for being having me back. Chard (A): Thanks for being having back. Thanks for being having back, too. You hit me. I'm just werewolf. Jake (C): I'm distracted setting shit up and oh, crap. Chard (A): How are you set up if we're running? Jake (C): I always set stuff up. Sins (D): The intro. Chard (A): No, even every mad scientist has an evil contraption werewolf. How are you, sir? No. Wulff (B): Is the audio long? Sins (D): There we go. Chard (A): There it is. Wulff (B): Okay, so I unmuted after the sneeze. Cool. Chard (A): It works. Wulff (B): Just muted after the sneeze. Great. Chard (A): Your reverse machines work great. Wulff (B): I apologize for that sneeze. Sins (D): Hey, I caught a light sneeze. Chard (A): Of the evening. I guess I also made my own pretty hate machine. Citistar, how are you? Sins (D): I am Valaneous tonight. Chard (A): There's a pill for that GP. How are you? No whimsical, friend. GP (E): Speaking of Charlie, speaking of whatever those erection pills were that you sent me, they are nuts if we can keep this episode under 2 hours, because at the end of about an hour and a half from now, I will need to go to the Er. Two and a half hours ago, my. Chard (A): Wife accidentally washed those pills, and now I cannot get my pants to fold. Guys, just as bad as that joke are these people that are on our list today. You like that, Segue? Jake (C): That's pretty damn smooth. GP (E): We go hard. Chard (A): We do in the paint, as a matter of fact. Sports reference. Sports ball. Sins (D): Sports ball. Chard (A): Guys, it is march. Radness. We continue fourth on our continuation of brackets bracketeering the brack on tears. Isn't that a Jack White band? No, we're talking music, and we're definitely talking music and sports today. And unfortunately, these guys have come along. We're going to break these guys down. We have several selected villains that we are going to do in our own scientifically, whimsical, Canadian lies way of discussing who tyrannically. Sorry, tyrannically is what I meant to say. Jake (C): I have whimsical back. I'd rather be whimsical. But, you know, out of our no. Chard (A): There'S no Whimsical out of our list of these people. Now, we know there's other villains out there. We dug very deep on the surface of these to try and figure out which one of these villains would be good. Some you'll know, some we won't know. It'll happen, trust me. And some you will probably rant rave that these were poor choices, but guess what? We're the host, so we pick what we want, because that's how things work around here. Sins (D): If it's not on our list, call out in the comments or come yell at us in discord there you go. Chard (A): Yeah, that 100% of us have full time jobs. It's very difficult to find a list when you're having people yelling at you all day. Well, okay. Sorry. 90% of us. Wow. Sins (D): Jeff throwing down early. Chard (A): Time job. Wulff (B): You take care of it. Chard (A): That's not easy. That beautiful background behind you. That's beautiful. That's hard work. Wulff (B): I don't get to see it as. Sins (D): Much as I used to in Chat. Jeff's throwing down early. GP (E): Let's ease up on the spoilers. Chard (A): What do you think? Jake (C): Kafka may not even be there. Sins (D): Kefa didn't make our list. Jake (C): Yeah, he's a small time you guys. Chard (A): Are using the Kafka didn't make our list. Chard Monk didn't make the stream. Wulff (B): All right. Chard (A): It's kind of a one, and it's like, if there's one thing that comes with me everywhere, that's not my wife, it's Kefca. Let's just be honest, all right? I do. I'm trying to get a Kefca tattoo, as a matter of fact. That's not a joke. That's true. Let's go ahead and fire things off. We're going to start with our first two villain matchup back to back here. Our first selection is Joker Mark Hamill. Sins (D): Mark, joker. GP (E): Need to specify that. Chard (A): And Bowser from Mario from the Mario Brothers series. Jake (C): The Marios. Yeah. Sins (D): We're specifically talking video game versions of these villains. So Joker, Mark Hamill, I know that there's similarities, but it is the video game arkham series and not the cartoon series, where he's the Joker. Jake (C): Right. He's great in both, but specifically the video game in this case. Yes. GP (E): Also, when we're talking about let's read. Chard (A): Everything'S about video games here. Right. GP (E): But also, is the metric or the rubric that we are saying for best villain, meaning, like, most iconic, most likable, most successful. What's the metric here? Jake (C): I think we have to be well rounded with this. Right. We have to look at their impact in the game, their successes, their character. I think it's a well rounded we should look at all angles when we're talking about these villains. GP (E): Yeah, agreed. Wulff (B): Yeah. Chard (A): We got to think about some longevity issues that are in here too, because Bowser has been an iconic villain for a long time, while the Joker has been an iconic villain, but not in video game tropes for as long as Bowser. Jake (C): Okay. Sins (D): And if we do look at backstory, then Joker actually comes all the way in from whatever 1930s or 40s or whatever it was, right? If we're talking backstory. Chard (A): Right. Not joaquin. Phoenix's. Joker, by the way. Sins (D): No. Chard (A): Still a great movie. Jake (C): No. GP (E): I could do an entire podcast episode on why that movie upset me. Chard (A): All right, who wants to go round robin on this first? I'll go. I'll tell you what, I'm going to just announce this right now. I know Sinister said he would go last, but I'll tell you what, as the host, I will be the tiebreaker of going last. I will make that decision. Sins (D): This is how Kefco wins call me a tyrant. This is how Kefko wins. Chard (A): I'm trying to ease everybody's mind on here. Although I do like it when GP says, all right, Char, well, you and I, our opinions don't matter. So what do you pick? GP (E): I'm going to go and call it Chard. You and I, our opinions don't matter. Chard (A): So who wants to go first in this round? Jake (C): I'll go for this one. Yeah. The randomized brackets are really cruel here because this is a tough matchup. I mean, Bowser is one of the longest standing video game villains. It was randomized. We discussed this off this, off the stream. It's randomized, scientifically, accurately, through the AI. Anyway, bowser has been a longtime villain, but Mark Hamill, forget the animated series, forget everything else in his career. Just the arkham joker, like Arkham city and Arkham Asylum. He is so good. His voice acting is just iconic as this villain. He's chilling. He's just scary. He's such a great villain and such a great performance in the Arkan games. I mean, Bowser is great and all, and he's a big part of the Mario franchise. But I mean, come on. Joker, I think, is the villain. I think he's like, such an iconic villain. I like Bowser, but I think especially the more recent Mario games where they had the opportunity for things like me voice acting or a story, they don't really do that right. Like, even in Mario Odyssey, the story was Bowser's kidnapping Peach to get married. It makes no sense, and it's barely even a damn plot. So even though he's like, iconic looking, he's not really impactful in the storylines to Mario. Not that there is one to begin with. I mean, he's memorable, I guess, because of nostalgia. But I think Mark Campbell's performance as the joker in Arkham is so damn good. Sins (D): All right, I want to go next. That's why I was holding up my finger there. Chard (A): Because I was getting my bingo card out? Sins (D): No, because I was going to make the argument, you already did this, but I guess I'm going to probably drive it home a little bit. Bowser, while being a long term video game villain, he hasn't actively tried to murder at mass levels. His whole goal is to marry Peach and rule the mushroom kingdom. Right? And then here's the Joker who has literally tried to kill everyone through infection or some other whatever, and he does it with almost a lack of reasoning or care. We've done this trope before, but some people just want to watch, so well. Ben right. GP (E): Specifically, your Mark Hamill impression is horrible. Sins (D): It is. Chard (A): I thought that was Bowser. GP (E): I should have said that. Jake (C): Jack black. Sins (D): But one thing I want to point out, and this happened, I think this was in Arkham Asylum. The first of kind of the video games that we're talking about at the end, he actually has destroyed the cure and he is infected and he knows that Batman is going to save him. And so he goes into this just balls to the wall. Because he knows that no matter how bad of a villain he is, his hero is going to save him because he knows Batman is that g