Gamertell Mashup: The Grinch-iest villains in video games

He’s green. He’s grumpy. He likes to take happiness away from entire towns.

Theobold Suess Geisel’s Grinch is a cranky reclusive villain who eventually comes around and embraces all that which he hated. He’s so iconic that, naturally, there are plenty of video game villains who, in one way or another, are like Grinch.

Here’s a few of our staff picks for the Grinch-iest villains in video games. Grinch excluded, of course (The Grinch released 2000 for Dreamcast, PC, Playstation and Game Boy Color) -

Do check back as our staffers periodically wake from holiday hibernation to contribute to this list.

Jenni Lada - I’d have to go with Ultimecia from Final Fantasy VIII, which was recently re-released on the PlayStation Store and originally debuted on the PlayStation and PC in 1999. I mean, she wanted to destroy the everything, using the whole space-time compression thing to create a world where only she could exist. That seems pretty Grinch-y to me. After all, she’s not only stealing Christmas, she’s destroying everything except for herself. Plus, she sounded pretty darn Grinch-y too, though Square Enix seems to have fixed that in Dissidia: Final Fantasy, where she appeared as one of the villains.

Kirk Hiner – How about Ganondorf from the Legend of Zelda series? Here, you’ve got this happy land of Hyrule where everyone just wants to run around selling milk and practicing their sword fighting, and Gandondorf is always looking down from on high, coming up with new ways to silence the kingdom and steal the joy from the people.

Also, he’s kind of green and his shoes are too tight.

Lucy Newmann - I would have to say Dahlia from Silent Hill. She’s stingy with any and all information as to the whereabouts of Harry Mason’s daughter, drops crappy clues and trinkets, all around eerie woman who appears as if she is in dire need of a bath and a cute kitten. Seriously, would you really want to touch that woman with a 30-and-a-half foot long pole?

Amy Sutton - King of the Cosmos in the Katamari games. You give the guy a huge ball of stuff, and not only do you not get a thank you, he throws it into space!

PJ Hruschak - As much as Grinch is the anti-Santa, Wario is the anti-game good guy, Mario. Sure, Bowser is bad but Wario has that whole physical weirdness factor going for him as well as the cranky persona, gruff voice and penchant to pilfer things (he’s always taking m’ coins). To bring it full circle, Wario’s even a not-necessarily-bad guy in later Wario Land games. His green curly-toed shoes are definitely a nod to Suess’s green meanie.

Jessi Moen - Jenni thinks Ultimecia was bad for wanting to destroy the world, Kefka (Final Fantasy III) DID destroy the world! After being infused with magic, he becomes powerful and insane and decides he wants to control the whole world by building up more power from the remaining Espers, destroying half of it in the process. What could be more Grinch-y than wanting to have all the power in the world, even if it means killing as many people as you can? Not to bad for a mere court jester.