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Villain-Off Quarter-Final #4: Ghaleon vs. Ganon
We come to knockout stages, where the remaining eight villains face off in one-on-one matches until we have a winner!
Each quarter- and semi-final match has five points up for grabs. Three of these points come from individual staff members' votes, with the other two coming from the on-site reader votes. With reader votes these two points will assigned to be winner provided they earn at least 52% of the vote. If neither villain attains 52% or higher, then the two reader points will be split between them.
This match is
Ghaleon (Lunar) vs. Ganon (The Legend of Zelda). The reader vote will be open until 6:55pm EST on Wenesday May 25, 2016. Staff members can cast their votes at any time, but if possible should wait at least a day until doing so that readers and other staff members can lay out their arguments first. Everyone (staff and readers) is welcome to debate for or against either side.
Staff Voters:
Macstorm
SweetieAshe
SeventhCircle
(Backup: SquiggyLeo)
"Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so."
Twitter:
severinmira | Xbox Live: Severin Mira | PSN: severinmira (EU) | NNID: severinmira
Final Fantasy XIV:
Sevvi Taubemira (Leviathan)
Comments
Twitter @FinalMacstorm
Ganon loses points for failing my 'must be present to win' criteria, as he tends to be there only at the beginning and end of many games. However he gets it back for resilience (sealing, banishment, death...these things don't really faze him), world-twisting, and sheer evilness.
I adore Lunar, and if it was SSS vs. original LoZ I'd go with Ghaleon. But if we take all Zelda incarnations vs. Lunar as a whole, I'd have to vote, with some classic RPG regret, for Ganon.
No, I just lose a few more braincells.
Twitter @FinalMacstorm
Ghaleon on the other hand has a mind, charisma, a somewhat good reasoning behind the things he does, a very kind side you get to see somewhat, and manipulates the heroes and GODS without much difficulty. No contest here, Ghaleon got my vote.
The courage to try again...
Twitter: BerryEggs
Vote: Ghaleon.
Other than saying "my favorite Ganon appearance is OoT" there's not a whole lot to add about him. He kidnaps princesses, becomes the most powerful person in the world, and isn't particularly unique or special outside of recurring in one of Nintendo's 1st party series of uninspired, nearly identical games. Zelda 1 and Zelda 2 are two of the games I feel the strongest nostalgia for, as playing and replaying them was a major timesink in my grade school years. Other Zeldas are my favorite games on their respective systems. I never felt strongly for or against Ganon, though, outside of Ocarina of Time. Rating him only on Ocarina, he's an interactive, elusive jerk I wanted to chase down and murder, and a great villain.
But on the other hand I have nothing on Ghaleon. I never played Lunar. I only know he's popular as a villain. He was in our villain feature a couple years ago, staff members love him, and he passed the opening reader poll this month despite not being in a major RPG series.
Do I blindly take Ghaleon, either as an anti-Ganon vote or trusting others' opinions that he's worthy? I strongly disagree with people on what makes a great RPG character sometimes, particularly in older JRPGs. Or do I pick a villain who's great in 1 game I've played and unremarkable in all the rest? I know what I'm leaning toward, but in the hopes that my vote won't matter I'll post it tomorrow. Or discussion here could change my mind.
Let's avoid any further "what is an RPG" discussion, shall we? :)
The courage to try again...
Twitter: BerryEggs
Twitter @FinalMacstorm
Not my decision. Alex said only 2 staff members who responded to his call had played both. The process requires 3. I'm being open about it and explaining where I stand on both villains.
Looking through some of the other comments, especially Mac's, I think the crux of my internal debate is that while I feel Ghaleon is a significantly better character, I still think Ganon is a better villain all games considered.
To me villian is the person who deeds cause him notoriety, where as evil is the more a force of nature.
Going back to a previous entry, Lavos to me is EVIL yes, but he's no villain, that would Queen Zeal to me. She sacrificed everything to Lavos for power.
I feel the same in the instance. Ganon is EVIL, but that doesn't mean he's a villain, to me Ganon is a force in the world. Now if this competition had Ganondorf, who has periodically shown up in the games then HE'D be the villain and i would definately vote for him but I have to go with Ghaleon in this case as Ganon to me is simply evil, but Ghaleon makes the far better villain.
28 years of gaming and still going strong
and now a mostly annoyed Father with first son. And now a father again to a second son :D
Winner of the 2015-2016 Fantasy gaming Pool
My guess is staff members or Alex went with the more inclusive name for the character in the series.
28 years of gaming and still going strong
and now a mostly annoyed Father with first son. And now a father again to a second son :D
Winner of the 2015-2016 Fantasy gaming Pool
Ghaleon (Lunar) - 55.98%
Ganon (The Legend of Zelda) - 44.02%
Meaning Ghaleon earns both of the reader points. Can the staff members please cast their votes so we can confirm a winner :)
We will take a short break after this so I can finalise the rules and assignments for the semi-finals.
Twitter: severinmira | Xbox Live: Severin Mira | PSN: severinmira (EU) | NNID: severinmira
Final Fantasy XIV: Sevvi Taubemira (Leviathan)
But I was pleasantly surprised to see that the readers didn't forget poor Lunar and its hilariously anime villain. I'm an avid fan of the Lunar series and Ghaleon is one of my absolute favourite villains out of all RPGs. So it's great to see that he's so well represented by the community.
For me, Ghaleon embodies all the elements of a villain like Kefka (madness, plus actually succeeding in his plan) while still somehow hiding under the radar and having some of my favourite lines in video games -- "The world is my oyster! And Luna my perennial pearl!" As Mac stated earlier, he finds his way into the player's hearts through not just his villainy but also his heroism. His fall to evil makes him endearing to me, rather than just being straight up an evil guy.
When it comes to Ganon(dorf), it becomes more grey area in that there are so many renditions of him, not all of them are that compelling. The earlier games (notably LoZ1 and Link to the Past) didn't really have him as a major role until RIGHT at the very end. Though Ocarina of Time's Ganon does succeed in his own plans (through the player's own actions no less), he still doesn't really have a presence besides "you have to do these things to rescue the princess and beat him." In this way, he is more like a Lavos-like character in that the villainy rests not in his actions but in his looming, omnipresent presence. The same happens with Wind Waker Ganon(dorf), which fyi is my favourite rendition of the character.
With that in mind, I feel that Ghaleon is a more compelling villain than Ganon simply because of his continued thwarting of the party, success in his plans, and just general coolness. My vote goes to Ghaleon.
"I blame myself for underestimating the beast that is sex appeal..." - Agnes Oblige
Honestly, this one was decided in my head early on. Ganon does his job with the Zelda world really well, and I especially liked how he was handled in Wind Waker. That said, he's almost always too secondary to the story and usually the least interesting villain of whatever game he's in. I mean when I think of Link to the Past, I think of Agahnim instead. Ganon might be more evil, but he's just not deep enough for me. Very one note.
Ghaleon is just special. He has backstory, motive, is full of deception, and even kills a key character in the original Sega CD release. He's full of personality and I'd pick him over Ganon any day if I wanted to build an evil league of evil. How endearing!
Vote: Ghaleon
Twitter @FinalMacstorm
This is made easier, though, because I've heard about how great Ghaleon is for a while. I'm not blindly taking a villain I know nothing about; I'm voting for an excellent villain I've heard people rave about for years.
These are two reasons I'm voting for Ghaleon.