There are millions, possibly billions of video games, and they have villains. Some of their motivations are simple; world domination, getting a princess, riches, chaos, to be a martyr, or just because it’s simply within programming. But out of all of these, nobody has gone far enough to fight their own brother five times, take his son’s arm, and split himself into two people just for the sake of power.

This character is Vergil from the ‘Devil May Cry’ series and reoccurs as the main antagonist. His crusade is simply to gain power, no matter the cost. He is obsessed with gaining power, as his father was a devil known as ‘Sparta’ who had overthrown the demon king all by himself, therefore becoming the king. Both Vergil (and his twin brother Dante) are part demon and devil.

Though he seems to be simply power hungry, he is only blinded by trauma; his obsession started when he was young, when his family was attacked by a horde of devils, sent in to kill his father. Vergil was stranded outside, being forced to defend himself by fighting back with the Yamato, he thought his family had left him for dead. But, as revealed in Devil May Cry 5, his mother was murdered before reaching him.

This makes him feel more like a misunderstood villain as he was only doing this to get revenge on his family for something that never happened. But the way he got revenge was too far.

Several times, he had tried to kill Dante because he thought their mother favored Dante.  That is the whole reason for their sibling rivalry.

Vergil’s motivation for power, though, is much different. As said in the third installment; “Might controls everything, and without strength you cannot protect anything, let alone yourself.” – Vergil, DmC-3. This may also help infer that maybe he wanted to help his family, and maybe also had the belief that it was his fault that his mother died.

But, in Devil May Cry 4, we are introduced to Nero (Later revealed to be Vergil’s son), whose arm turns out to be part of his demon form, and in between 4 and 5, Vergil steals Nero’s arm, to get his sword back which turned out to be Nero’s arm. He does this to split his human and devil half into two different entities: V (a human) and Urizen (the devil half). He drained an entire city of life, taking each residents’ blood to grow a devil tree, growing an apple which would give him more power. This makes him the best villain, purifying his most powerful side just so he could become the demon king himself.

His human side began to fade, V was crumbling near the end of the game, most literally, becoming dust, referencing the little humanity in Vergil was fading. Dante ended up defeating Urizen, and V attempted to finish Urizen, but ended up returning and fusing into Vergil, who had become more powerful than ever, having the fruit still being a part of him from Urizen, and having retained the Yamato, he had grown the most powerful his regular form had ever been.

But, being defeated by Dante and Nero again, he had noticed the possible damage that the tree had caused and could further do, deciding to take Dante to fix the tear into hell created by Vergil.

Overall, Vergil’s complete story is just the constant gain of power, becoming powerful enough to defeat anyone who opposed him. His power was purified several times, able to cut time and space with his sword, and with incredible speed, he would destroy even the largest or strongest of enemies within seconds, minutes if needed.

This makes Vergil one of the best video game villains; being constant and motivated to gain power, stopping at nothing for a chance to gain, even if that means putting even his family behind him, just to become strong enough to overcome anything.