One of the biggest piratey elements for Vyse is that you need a treasure chest of money just to afford a copy of his game without resorting to a swashbuckling approach.
Yeah I only got the original, my brother got it originally on the DC all of those years ago (has it really been 20 years, sheesh), He ended up giving the DC and it's games to me because I enjoyed them more. I actually played SoA and Grandia 2 on it so much I broke the console (much to my heartbreak), but then in the early 2010s, I was able to buy another DC at my local comic con (biggest impulse buy of my life for I wasn't expecting to be there), and I am so careful playing on it now, but omg, it felt amazing to replay the game again. Favorite exploration out of any video game I ever played.
"Cantankerous cabin of caustic, chaotic corsairs... plethora of peerless privateers... multitude of mangey marauders." Dang, Oscar. You and Fawful's Minion are masterful with words.
Honorable mention from me is Eizen from Tales of Berseria. A pirate who's also an Earth Malak (Angelic like being), who carries a curse called the Reaper's Curse which spreads misfortune, however he's all about being your own individual and deciding your own path in life, which is in part why he became a pirate because his future captain Aifread joked about a malak becoming a pirate but Eizen decide to make it a reality. At the same time he's great older brother to his little sister and a big brother figure to everyone else, who also believes that everyone should have the freedom to decide their own path in life. And on top of that, he does this knowing his time is limited because thanks to the Reaper's Curse, one day he will encounter misfortune he cannot overcome, but that's not gonna stop him from experiencing life to the fullest!
I guess my Honorable Mention goes to Tetra from The Zelda series. (Yes, she's a Pirate.) Although she would lose points (Spoilers for Wind Waker) since she was basically Princess Zelda when Link took her to the Submerged Hyrule Castle.
You mentioned the Pirate King a few times, but how about someone who’s both a pirate AND a king; one King K. Rool specifically. Sure he can be goofy at time, but push comes to shove he will absolutely remind you why he’s the Kongs’ most feared adversary.
Yeah, K. Rool is a great villain but he's like Yosemite Sam on this topic's regard: may be well known for being a pirate FOR A WHILE, but are primarily something else, with Sam being a cowboy for the majority of his appearences and K. Rool being... well, a king.
@@nifinland True, but most of his actions do lean a bit more into pirate territory; he fights you on a pirate ship in DKC1, his DKC2 appearance needs no explanation, his actions in all the DKC games are pretty standard pirate fare (thievery once, kidnapping twice), and his 64 appearance has him roll up with a ship with one HELL of a cannon.
Captain LeFwee made for an interesting villain in Sly 3. He was the only bad guy to not have a devoted animated cutscene talking about him, so he had a lot of ground to make up for in character development. How does he develop this character? By having his first cutscene being pushing his first mate off the side of his fortress to his death, promoting second mate to replace him, and then going down to his dungeon to torture the prisoners. He also goes by the title "Smartest man on the seven seas" and yes, while he does have the best ship and the biggest crew, it turns out trying to outwit him is a very harsh challenge, even for as old fashioned as he is, able to predict one step ahead of his opponents.
I was also going to mention LeFwee! He broke this stigma I personally had that pirates are nothing but sword-swinging, rum-guzzling, gunpowder-loving robbers who live just to raise hell and amass tons of loot. LeFwee is pretty damn smart in his field as he immediately throws a curveball at you taking one of your crew members hostage when you least expect it, and he's pretty formidable against the heroes in how prepared he was in the heist that took place later on. If you can rival Bentley, the smarty pants who almost has a way out for anything, you high up in the world of Sly Cooper as their best villains. He's pretty at what he does as a villain considering we know what Clockwork and Neyla are capable of.
And yet, he ain’t exactly the *best* at actual swordplay, considering a more than likely utter noob like Penelope can utter whoop his ass and send him plummeting to the sea below because he keeps pausing to leave himself wide open.
@@dinodude8899 I dunno, if you try to spam sword attacks, then he's going to dodge indefinitely. You can only hit him when he leaves himself vulnerable, and given that's him stopping to tip his hat to Penelope, it feels almost intentional.
This is the man that lets Sly think he slipped up into revealing Penelope’s location, resulting Sly into going right into and running around the pirate infested town of Blood Bath Bay who are all immediately gunning and shooting at him. Sly thinks he has found Penelope but is wrong, admits that LeFwee is much better than he gave him credit for and is seemingly blown up. LeFwee still believes that he has the upper hand by blasting the masts of the ship that The Cooper Gang stole up until he is lured into deeper water by Bentley
When you mentioned Ridley and Mother Brain, I honestly thought you were going to talk about Weavel from Metroid Prime Hunters. I mean, the dude is so cool. Definitely in my top 5 or even 3 of MPH’s characters. He’s a cyborg, has a fusion between a machine gun and a grenade launcher, his legs can turn into a sentry turret, and he has a kickass arm mounted cutlass lightsaber!
@@thetrophygamer3606 Yeah, heck he’s not really much of a pirate by trade anymore. See, his backstory is that he used to be a common mook in the space pirate ranks, and actually had an encounter with Samus prior to Hunters… It didn’t go well. Miraculously, Weavel survived and was made a candidate for his organization’s cyborg soldier program. After undergoing the process, he actually left to become a bounty hunter. Albeit still a criminal one who is listed as an affiliate of the space pirates and I’m pretty sure most of Weavel’s contracts are from them.
Personally for me, Cervantes De Leon is the best video game pirate, as he embodies the strength and ruthlessness, that is commonly associated with being a pirate, also most if not all of his stages in the Soul Calibur series, either are on a ship itself, or have a ship in the background, to me he is who I think about when I think about a video game pirate.
Yo hohoho, yo hohoho Yo hohoho, yo hohoho Yo hohoho, yo hohoho Yo hohoho, yo hohoho Gather up all of the crew, it's time to ship out Binks' brew. Sea wind blows, to where, who knows? The waves will be our guide. O'er across the ocean's tide. Rays of sunshine far and wide. Birds they sing, of cheerful things, in circles passing by. Bid farewell to weaver's town, say so long to port renowned. Sing a song, it won't be long, before we're casting off. Cross the gold and silver seas, a salty spray puts us at ease, Day and night, to our delight, the voyage never ends. (interlude) Gather up all of the crew, it's time to ship out Binks' brew. Pirates, we eternally are challenging the sea. With the waves to rest our heads, ship beneath us as our beds, hoisted high upon the mast, our jolly roger flies. Somewhere in the endless sky, stormy winds are blowing by, waves are dancing, evening comes, it's time to sound the drums. But steady men, and never fear, tomorrow's skies are always clear. So pound your feet and clap your hands 'til sunny days return. Yo hohoho, yo hohoho Yo hohoho, yo hohoho Yo hohoho, yo hohoho Yo hohoho, yo hohoho Gather up all of the crew, it's time to ship out Binks' brew. Wave goodbye, but don't you cry, our memories remain. Our days are but a passing dream, everlasting though they seem. Beneath the moon we'll meet again, the wind's our lullaby. Gather up all of the crew, it’s time to ship out Binks’ brew. Sing a song, and play along for all the oceans wide. After all is said and done, you'll end up a skeleton, so spread your tale from dawn 'til dusk upon these foamy seas. Yo hohoho, yo hohoho…Yo hohoho, yo hohoho… Yo hohoho, yo hohoho…Yo hohoho, yo hohoho… Yo hohoho, yo hohoho…Yo hohoho, yo hohoho… Yo hohoho, yo hohoho…Yo hohoho, yo hohoho…
Honorable mention from me is Nathan Zachary from Crimson Skies. He leads a band of air pirates called the Fortune Hunters in an alternate diesel-punk 1930s, where they hunt treasure and raid cargo zeppelins but do so in a Robin Hood type fashion while helping innocent civilians, earning him recognition as a gentleman pirate.
My honorable mention is Patty Fleur from Tales of Vesperia Definitive Edition, who claims to be the granddaughter of Aifread until her story comes full circle where it's revealed SHE is Aifread. From what I remember in her tenyir as Aifread she was the leader of a pirating guild called Siren's Fang and was good friends with Don Whitehorse. That changed when the guild was captured and experimented on by Alexei of the royal knights to create an artificial Child of the Full Moon, yet all of them ended in Failure and were left for dead. However all the guildmates turned into monsters and to save her from this fate, Seifer uses magic or something to revert Aifread's body to a point from before she was experimented on, in her case, a child, and uses Aifread's name to slaughter the other guild members, who at this pointhave turned into monsters, and had suffered discrimination since, though she tries not to let it bother her. In the definitive edition she serves as the replacement of Tokunaga, the pilot of the ship in the original, and the use of guns and a cutlass, but her Mystic Artes and most of her artes are based on luck. Plus she's voiced in English by Flonne from Disgaea 1. That's just adorable.
Something I've noticed you've been doing in a lot of your scripts lately is working in real-world historical context to compliment and highlight the lore of a lot of characters, and I absolutely love this. I never knew most of the real-world stuff you talk about in this video and it gets me genuinely curious to look into the history behind these archetypes. Definitely keep this up, the research you're putting into this shows and it's really goddamn interesting!!
Admiral Razorbeard deserves recognition as one of the most evil pirates in video games: before even setting a foot in Glade of Dreams, the dude was responsible for enslaving AND obliterating hundreds of planets he visited and by the time Rayman 2 began, he already had enslaved almost the entire population of the Glade of Dreams all the way to even capturing Rayman, and from that beginning alone set the game much darker than the first Rayman game. And he even almost succeeded in killing off Rayman at the end of the game. The dude also came back in Rayman M as a playable character and as the main villain in GBA version of Rayman 3, which plays out WAY differently than the console version where Razorbeard and his Robo-Pirate crew are PRESUMABLY rendered inactive in the formation of da Vinci's The Last Supper in a secret room in Hoodlum Headquarters. I say presumably because we don't know are these Robo-Pirates the replicas or the real ones permanently deactivated.
God I remember you from childhood. But you can quibble that the robo-pirates weren’t really doing much “piracy”? They were more of an invading force, and we don’t really see them doing much stealing from anyone that wasn’t several notches beneath them. I guess you can look at it like a reverse Treasure Island situation? Where Rayman and pals are taking the perspective of the natives on whatever island is getting pillaged? I love Razorbeard but that boy ain’t sticking it to the man enough.
Honorable mention goes to K. Rool and his Kremling Krew from the Donkey Kong Country games. More so in the 2nd game on the SNES. He kidnapped DK, owns an entire island, has his army to be like an pirate and has my favorite K. Rool persona & boss fight if the entire series. Even in other games, he & his crew were still pirate like crew that he leads with.
A great list as always! Well done Oscar! And yeah, Top Ten Crime Lords was a while back, but it still feels like yesterday. Now if there was only some way to bring the Gamefather back? 🤔 Ah well, here's hoping for more clear horizons! Drink up, me hearties yo-ho! 😉🏴☠️
I was kind of hoping to see Erik from Dragon Quest XI. I know the game calls the people who raised him and his sister "vikings" but c'mon, we all know that they are pirates. Erik is just a cool and nice guy and probably one of the first thief/rogue type characters that I really liked. This is a great video still and I look forward to seeing more from you Oscar!
18:41 ah indonesia, you know, that nation that's comprised of an archipelago, which has multiple trade routes going through it, the one between australia and the rest of asia.. the perfect place for pirates
I may be two weeks late, but as someone who discovered that they’re descended from a pirate captain during the golden age of Piracy and was already feeling fascinated, vindicated and proud of that fact, this list makes me happy. I’ve played through various games as it is and I was always by the history and concept of pirates already, with many of my personal favorites being real staples for me growing up. So when I discovered a few years ago that my dad’s side of the family pass down the tradition of learning about part of our ancestry and I was a descendant of someone who lived the life that I was so fascinated by, made feel more proud and vindicated than I’ve ever been in my life. Whenever I see these kinds of characters and such appearing in gaming and media as a whole, and knowing that I share some of that blood to these kinds of people, seriously makes me feel more grateful and proud of things and how I wish to carry on forwards. Whilst I’m still learning about my ancestry and there are parts and aspects that I’m not too proud of, I’m also just determined and pernicious as my ancestors were in securing the best sort of life for myself, and be at my very best to face that unknown horizon and meet it head on, whatever it may bring. I’ve adopted a saying from it, and it’s one I’ll pass on to all others as well as myself. Keep going strong and May the wind forever blow in your sails. 😁
Yup, everything you said about Edward Kenway and AC4 is why I still think to this day that Black Flag should have been a pirate spin off and AC Rogue should have been a mainline entry in its place.
I admit, the fact you play as someone from the other side made me hesitant to play Rogue. My mindset was "I won't say no to more opportunities to do piratey things, but will I be able to enjoy playing as a villain?" But then Rogue shows that not only are there people who genuinely want to do good in the Templar Order, but also that the Brotherhood aren't exactly immune to corruption themselves. Honestly both sides could find a way to achieve peace for the world if they spent more time trying to collaborate and less time trying to kill each other. On the note of AC, why have we not gotten an AC game that takes place in Feudal Japan? I mean come on, the game writes itself, and it would be fun to see the Assassins rocking the ninja toolkit. They already have a piece of it in the form of the rope dart.
Not gonna lie, I was hoping to see my boy Cervantes De Leon here. He’s a cruel, battle hardened, deadly shell of a proud man. He’s the definition of a savage pirate and I love it… plus I’ve mained him in every Soul Calibur game since 3
He said in this video that the next two videos were going to be giving the Pirate and Ninja half lists of old the proper treatment they deserve and extending them to full lists
Pain is being a Sega fan who has actually played all their weird, wonderful games they NEVER port. Skies of Arcadia absolutely deserved to top this list, and ABSOLUTELY needs a rerelease on modern systems, be it port, remake or what have you.
There once was a ship that put to sea The name of the ship was the Billy O' Tea The winds blew up, her bow dipped down Oh blow, my bully boys, blow (HUH)
She hadn't been two weeks from shore, When down on her, a Right Whale bore! The captain called all hands, and swore, he'd take that whale in tow! (HUUH!!)
Honorable mention I'd have to pick Briggs from Golden Sun Lost Age and Dark Dawn. He didn't begin as a pirate but began as a sailor and eventually went into piracy as a means to save his home town from a life of poverty. He brings along his wife and even his young toddler, Eoleo aboard on their travels to many areas pilfering what they think they could bring back while getting into some funny hi-jinks and ensues. My favorite tiny detail is in this cute cutscene where after you fight Brigg's and his men, Brigg goes to jail. In the jail you see his son, Eoleo, using Psynergy to try and make the cell keys float in the air. You can cast Mind Read on both Eoleo and Briggs to hear their thoughts.
Honorable Mentions: *Cervantes - Soulcalibur Series *Captain LeFwee - Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves *Pirate Man - Mega Man Series *Tetra - The Legend Of Zelda Series *Ridley - Metroid Series *Captain Slag and Rusty Pete - Ratchet and Clank Series *Admiral Razorbeard - Rayman 2
I remember watching a LP of Skies of Arcadia by TheStrawHatNo, and when Vyse and his crew robbed the Valuans flagship prototype. Bringing up how damn expensive it was to make this, and one of them chimed in with, “So we have Valua’s economy.”
Tomorrow is my birthday, and the notification that i recieved that you droped a new video was the best gitf i could recieve. Keep up the good work mate!
As an active Sea of Thieves player and a pirate enjoyer, I love this list. Your countdown vids have always been awesome to me since the beginning and it was great the see this one. I liked learning more about the Legend of Monkey Island series too as I was only able to experience it in Sea of Thieves with my friend Cheddar. I streamed those missions and they were quite fun! Took us a while to figure them out though XD
5:34 Ganplank's death reminds me of what happened in M:tG with Tibalt. He picked a fight way over his weight class and then wasn't reprinted for so long that Wizards had to issue a statement reassuring people he didn't actually die off screen 27:24 Risky at 5? Lower than I would have expected with her resume. And your history
Now this looks interesting, perhaps we might even get a Shanty out of it.. (by that I mean the goat from Them’s Fightin’ Herds to show up on the list.)
DO WHAT YOU WANT CAUSE A PIRATE IS FREE, YOU ARE A PIRATE! YAR HAR, FIDDLE DE DEE! BEING A PIRATE IS ALRIGHT TO BE! DO WHAT YOU WANT CAUSE A PIRATE IS FREE, YOU ARE A PIRATE! You are a pirate! YAY!
One I really like is EXTRA Rider from the Nasuverse. Simply put, her true name is Francis Drake. One of the pirates directly responsible for the heroic pirate archetype thanks to legally assisting Britain in its war against Spain. In her first appearance, however, she shows that she can very much be the dirty player a pirate is expected to be by assisting the Master she despises in cheating at the arena and stealing her records to deny you the chance of finding anything related to their strategy. Obviously her signature move is the Invincible Armada but even her being a woman is a reference to tales of Queen Elizabeth I disguising herself as Drake to go on adventures. There's also her appearance in Grand Order, where to avoid going into details she manages to be the reason Poseidon is beatable. And she's apparently done this before.
I'm honestly surprised that Spinal never showed up. I mean, his theme, "Warlord", is pretty much exactly the song that comes to mind when I think of video game pirates.
Neat list! Was a bit concerned when you opened with Darli Dagger, who I love but who very specifically isn't a pirate (she's a shipwright who hates pirates). Nice to see her remembered though! (also Archie isn't a pirate either he's an ecoterrorist) You do make me want to play Skies of Arcadia!
oh la la! I', glad someone besides me thought of that game... Such a shame that game released when it did. The best pirate adventure I had in a video game.
As far as space pirates go, I’d have also listed the Tom Tom Gang, especially their captain/boss, Benito from Blinx the Time Sweeper. Those pirates use space controls (usually thrown as grenades) and regular guns to complement their main rivals, the Time Factory Sweepers’ time controls & Sweeper vacuums. They usually attack Time Factory workers to steal time from them (yes, time the dimension) as well as doing that to worlds the factory delivered time to by breaking it into glitching. Glitched time condenses into solid crystal form that can be combined and exploited for time controls depending on shape. The Tom Tom Gang exploit this to sell time to other worlds though it isn’t clear if they mean poorer worlds to help them Somali pirate style or the highest bidder from any world. Unfortunately, leaving time crystals to fester for too long makes them turn into time monsters whose very existence threatens the world as they damage all they touch, even without meaning to. The pirates making time crystals all over an earthlike world in the first game drives the plot, spawning a million monsters and risking them exploding and destroying the world from all the energy they absorb, justifying every level doing the Sonic Advance & Mega Drive thing of a 10 minute time limit. During their attack before the monsters appear, they guard against the sweepers stopping them by taking a human princess named Lena hostage whom Blinx falls in love with, his goal of saving the world being partially driven to help her. She falls for him too and exploits a rewind time control to embrace him in thanks. In the sequel, the Tom Toms get more screen time and we even play as one, fighting the sweepers to be the first to restore a giant time crystal Benito accidentally destroyed so he can get in a human looking goddess named Mina’s pants.
I better see Guybrush Threepwood (MIGHTY PIRATE) and Edward Kenway on the list, otherwise you're walking the plank and heading to Davy Jones' Locker Update: Okay, so Guybrush ain't the entry, but at least we got a pirate from Monkey Island with LeChuck. As for my favorite pirate, that honor goes to someone from outside the realm of videogames, as a kid I would've definitely said Captain Jack Sparrow, but since then the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise has been stuck in Davy Jones' Locker since 2017, so as far as my favorite pirate goes, he's basically a goofball, with a straw hat, stretchy powers and the most loyal and unique crew of oddballs to hail from the East Blue and the Grand Line, I'm of course talking about one of the Four Emperors, and Captain of the Straw Hat Pirates, Monkey D. Luffy
I guess I was the only one who liked the double top five idea. Oh well edelgard would love your treatments of these royal rogues. Also the topic is fitting because the One Piece Live Action series stole the internet recently (I'm among the fans). 10. No surprising given the first go round. I'm a fan of Miss Fortune myself but that's just the female side talking. 9. Damn fallen far haven't you Balthier. I was actually introduced to you through GS and you'll be the best FF pirate in my book 8. Ah a familiar face but not one I expected. Shame I don't know her that much. 7. Another familiar face but this one is insane on many levels 6. Now this familiar face is from a ways back so this pirate girl I'm happy to see 5. Talk about a breath of fresh air from the tradition. The only Turkey pirate was Barbarossa, a hairy dude (which maybe could have inspired her boss) 4. Now here's someone I haven't seen yet. Do you think he made a cameo in Sea of Thieves yet? 3. Considering she wasn't in Inquisition's main story, I don't know this lady well enough 2. Good thing I wasn't into playing this point and click series otherwise I'd be jumping ship 1. And here's the big promotion! Good on you Vyse! Also GS I'm interested to hear your thoughts on One Piece (Anime or live action series).
The fact that Tetra from Zelda Wind Waker, a series you're a big fan of, isn't on this list is a shocker when I watched this. Most of us who are familiar was expecting her on this list.
With the entry involving, and I know I'm gonna screw this one up, but with Aria T'Loak, I personally would have gone with the notorious Chinese pirate Cheng Shih (or Cheng I Sao, depending on who you talk to), a female pirate that managed to attain control of a great army of pirates that, in a sense, could be considered its own nation with the rules she had on board her ships.
I wanna make a guess on your next countdown: Top 10 Ninjas ft. Gaijin Goomba but that's just speculation I feel like you could make it happen because I think Gaijin Goomba is a fan of your videos (I think he used a clip for an intro for one of his Which Ninja videos), your countdowns do have a certain degree of being educational which I'm pretty sure Gaijin wouldn't want to miss out on leaving some ninja education, and I think he's the best guy to drop any ninja education
"Isabela is one of if not the first bi character in dragon age" Zevran and leliana came before her in origins, and she's only 1 of 4 bi love interests in da2
I'm assuming that Zack and Wiki is either an honorable mention or you haven't played it yet, since they are just like Vyse, good guy pirates, but they go through SUPER deadly dungeons just so they can get a pirate ship that was promised to them. The amount of game over scenarios is as insane as the difficulty XD
Fun list as always. I will have to seek to play Skies of Arcadia someday. For me, the pirate game I think of is Sid Meier's Pirates, where you play a young man who escaped his family's enslavement after the evil Count collected on their debt and now is in the New World for revenge and to find his family again. You become the captain of a small Sloop and from there are free to take the game however you want from there, finding buried treasure, pirating, trading, becoming a privateer for any or all of the four major nations of the Caribbean, going up against and defeating other famous pirates so you come up on top, romancing and marrying governor's daughters, and more along with finding the man that took your family from you and finding the map pieces to get them back again. If you haven't played it, I'd highly recommend you'd give it a try.
These may be some strange choices. But here I go. (Iin no particular order) 1: LeFwee from Sly 3 ( Hey the rhymed!) 2: Guybrush Threepwood 3: King K. Rool 4: Captain Scarlett 5: Captain Syrup
5. Finally! A character from a game I've played! And she is a good villain. Though in spite of your theory, I like to believe she really was forming a temporary truce with you in Pirate's Curse and that she WASN'T just using you that time. 1. Part of me predicted you'd include SoA on here.
Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me! 10: I can't ever say that I like LoL, due to how the game is practically impossible to get into as a newbie, but I can respect the characters. Plus, that correlation between his apparent death in the lore and a game-breaking bug making him unplayable is, admittedly, pretty cool. (Gangplank (League of Legends)) 9: But did he shoot first? (Balthier (Final Fantasy XII)) 8: Yeah, sorry, Ridley, you're probably one of the COOLEST space pirates in gaming, but by no means are you the BEST. This gal is. (Aria T'Loak (Mass Effect 2 & 3)) 7: Seriously, why did they hint that he was still alive and yet never do anything more with him, especially since he got so popular?(Vaas Montenegro (Far Cry 3)) 6: One of the few characters from that era of Mega Man who lived on through Marvel vs Capcom. (Tron Bonne (Mega Man Legends)) 5: I was waiting for this one. My girl! (Risky Boots (Shantae)) 4: I REALLY need to play Assassin's Creed at some point. (Edward Kenway (Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag)) 3: I don't think there is enough bi representation in media nowadays, so this is a nice change of pace. (Isabela (Dragon Age)) 2: I know that the cast from Monkey Island actually got into Sea of Thieves, which is cool. (Captain LeChuck (Secret of Monkey Island)) 1: Thank you JelloApocalypse for helping to get this some more eyes on it. Also remember, we are thousands of feet in the air. (Vyse (Skies of Arcadia))
Lesser known honorable mentions: ‘The Black Kat’ Katarina de Leon from Pirates: The Legend of Black Kat. (That PS2 game was like a cross between Black Flag and Legend of Zelda, and Black Kat was like a cross between the MCs, but she was a hot pirate chick with magic weapons.) Barbaros from Zack and Wiki. (Spoilers: The final boss of the game, who tricked Zack into serving him at the start, only to betray him the second he got his body back.) Riptide from Eternal Champions. (Sophia de Medici was once part of a rich family before criminals destroyed it and she became a pirate. She was later killed and joined a tournament for a second shot at life.)
Another entertaining and educational countdown, and I just KNEW it had to have a Monkey Island entry (it wasn't Guybrush, but hey, heroes are partly defined by their villains, right?).
Most of my favorite Pirates are from other media. The Crew from Castle in the Sky, Long John Silver from Treasurer Planet, the One Piece crew, Bodacious Space Pirates (Its far tamer then it sounds), and who could forget Captain Harlock, or Captain Jack Sparrow. Though one Video game Pirate I would bring up is Tetra from the Legend of Zelda.
I have to ask this, why did the world never get a proper PotC game? Getting to play as the one pirate captain who's known for playing jump rope with the line between brilliant and insane sounds like a fun time along with getting to be a pain in the asses of folks like Davey Jones and Beckett. The closest we get are the trips to the PotC world in the Kingdom Hearts series, however 3's visit stands out most to me with the world being huge, and the gameplay having a somewhat similar feel to that of AC: Black Flag.
*Before seeing video* Skies of Arcadia better be on here lol. If I did have to pick a fav pirate from that game, I honestly have to pick Guilder because he's a hoot. *During* OMG Now I know where I've seen Tron before, she was in Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 lol. *After* OH HELL YEAH THANK YOU!!!! I literally jumped for joy the minute you said Skies lol. I can understand why Vyse is #1, he's the main char acter all. Totally agree, this game NEEDS a remake at the very least. Sega's already done the same with other old properties like Panzer Dragoon, why not this?! Now I only played the original Dreamcast version, so I never got to play Legends for some reason, but it's still one of my fav games of all time. Like all JRPG enthusiasts recommend this game for the Ship Battles alone. If Sega (and Nintendo) ever make a remaster of this, I am going to flip! It is amazing the allies Vyse makes here, even make allies out of former foes, I love it lol. Like one of them only sides with him once because they hate another guy more than you lol. "Enemy of my enemy is my ally" lol.
30:33 To be fair, Risky mentions that she's under a curse, the same one that turned the Tinkerbats into Cacklebats, so if she went to get her items herself there's a chance she would fall under that curse herself
It's no wonder that ScrewAttack (your inspiration for the original version of this list) listed Le Chuck as Number 1 on two separate lists: Top 10 Video Game Beards and Top 10 Video Game Pirates
CALLED IT. I KNEW who'd be #1 the moment you announced this! GOD I wish Skies of Arcadia got a remake SO MUCH! It's.... it's like, an actually good One Piece game! That isn't even about One Piece!
Cap'n Crow from Dragon Quest VIII comes to mind, for me. Sure, his deeds are more told than shown(hence why he probably wouldn't make the list), but they're still legendary in the game's canon. Plus, his boss fight? TOUGH. AS. NAILS.
If it weren't for Pirate's Curse forcing Risky to work together with Shantae and get her magic back, Risky likely could've succeeded in a full plan damn near unopposed
Her plan in half genie hero was a smart one too. Having her tinkerbats swipe the blueprints for a dynamo, secretly swapping said blueprints for those for a similar machine of her own design, waiting for Shantae and her uncle to build the thing, before swooping in to steal the machine, but not before using it to reverse Shantae's magic from good to evil turning her into Nega Shantae. Then while Shantae's friends fight to bring her back to her senses, Risky and her crew get to work upgrading the dynamo so she can use it to turn the entire genie realm evil and turn the genies that Shantae so wanted to meet into her hapless minions.
Pirate game that wasn't on the list, but is possibly a bit too new or possibly obscure, is Shadow Gambit : The Cursed Crew. It's a tactical stealth game where you command a crew of undead pirates who look like they'd fit in perfectly with Pirates of the Caribbean. Not only that, they all have interesting personalities and ways their undeadness and pirate aspects are incorporated into their design and play style. I've only played the demo, but I definitely feel like it's worth at least a look.
My honorable mentions: Captain Syrup (Wario Land series) If Wario is the antithesis to Mario, then this girl might as well be the antithesis to Peach or Daisy. Kaptain K Rool (Donkey Kong Country 2) The day you mess with K Rool, arrh, you'll wish you were never born! When the banana hoard is mine, then you'll feel this pirate's scorn! Tetra (Legend Of Zelda: Wind Waker) She may be an alternate form of Zelda but she’s still pretty cool
It warms by heart to see Balthier being recognised again, the most charismatic member of XII's playable roster by far. Until I recongised the music I expected either Faris or Admiral Merlwyb Bloefhiswyn herself as the Final Fantasy representative.
6: I like her in Project X Zone 10: I haven´t played League for a long time, but he was a really annoying champion back when I played. Nice list, some Pirates I like are Eizen and Pirateman
One of the biggest piratey elements for Vyse is that you need a treasure chest of money just to afford a copy of his game without resorting to a swashbuckling approach.
I hope Sega Remakes Skies of Arcadia or at least Port Skies of Arcadia Legends on multiple consoles.
Agreed. I consider myself lucky to have found it when I did years ago on some website for $50, when the average going price was $80+.
Sega, Port Skies Of Arcadia You Cowards!
"Yar, har, fiddle dee dee..."
Yeah I only got the original, my brother got it originally on the DC all of those years ago (has it really been 20 years, sheesh), He ended up giving the DC and it's games to me because I enjoyed them more. I actually played SoA and Grandia 2 on it so much I broke the console (much to my heartbreak), but then in the early 2010s, I was able to buy another DC at my local comic con (biggest impulse buy of my life for I wasn't expecting to be there), and I am so careful playing on it now, but omg, it felt amazing to replay the game again. Favorite exploration out of any video game I ever played.
"Cantankerous cabin of caustic, chaotic corsairs... plethora of peerless privateers... multitude of mangey marauders."
Dang, Oscar. You and Fawful's Minion are masterful with words.
"And no, I'm not playing the pirate song from Lazy Town" - Wambu
_cut to the pirate song opening the next segment_
YAR HAR FIDDLE-DEE-DEE
I SAID *NO!*
@@maverickhunterstupidiocy7779what video is that from?
Honorable mention from me is Eizen from Tales of Berseria.
A pirate who's also an Earth Malak (Angelic like being), who carries a curse called the Reaper's Curse which spreads misfortune, however he's all about being your own individual and deciding your own path in life, which is in part why he became a pirate because his future captain Aifread joked about a malak becoming a pirate but Eizen decide to make it a reality.
At the same time he's great older brother to his little sister and a big brother figure to everyone else, who also believes that everyone should have the freedom to decide their own path in life.
And on top of that, he does this knowing his time is limited because thanks to the Reaper's Curse, one day he will encounter misfortune he cannot overcome, but that's not gonna stop him from experiencing life to the fullest!
I guess my Honorable Mention goes to Tetra from The Zelda series. (Yes, she's a Pirate.) Although she would lose points (Spoilers for Wind Waker) since she was basically Princess Zelda when Link took her to the Submerged Hyrule Castle.
You mentioned the Pirate King a few times, but how about someone who’s both a pirate AND a king; one King K. Rool specifically. Sure he can be goofy at time, but push comes to shove he will absolutely remind you why he’s the Kongs’ most feared adversary.
Yeah, K. Rool is a great villain but he's like Yosemite Sam on this topic's regard: may be well known for being a pirate FOR A WHILE, but are primarily something else, with Sam being a cowboy for the majority of his appearences and K. Rool being... well, a king.
@@nifinland True, but most of his actions do lean a bit more into pirate territory; he fights you on a pirate ship in DKC1, his DKC2 appearance needs no explanation, his actions in all the DKC games are pretty standard pirate fare (thievery once, kidnapping twice), and his 64 appearance has him roll up with a ship with one HELL of a cannon.
@@crimsonchaos7224not to mention his Kremling crew do some plundering of the Kong family banana hoard and even hold DK up for ransom for it.
DO WHAT YOU WANT CAUSE A PIRATE IS FREE, YOU ARE A PIRATE
"Yar har fiddly dee."
@@thenightmare9368being a pirate is alright to be
Captain LeFwee made for an interesting villain in Sly 3. He was the only bad guy to not have a devoted animated cutscene talking about him, so he had a lot of ground to make up for in character development. How does he develop this character?
By having his first cutscene being pushing his first mate off the side of his fortress to his death, promoting second mate to replace him, and then going down to his dungeon to torture the prisoners.
He also goes by the title "Smartest man on the seven seas" and yes, while he does have the best ship and the biggest crew, it turns out trying to outwit him is a very harsh challenge, even for as old fashioned as he is, able to predict one step ahead of his opponents.
I was also going to mention LeFwee! He broke this stigma I personally had that pirates are nothing but sword-swinging, rum-guzzling, gunpowder-loving robbers who live just to raise hell and amass tons of loot. LeFwee is pretty damn smart in his field as he immediately throws a curveball at you taking one of your crew members hostage when you least expect it, and he's pretty formidable against the heroes in how prepared he was in the heist that took place later on. If you can rival Bentley, the smarty pants who almost has a way out for anything, you high up in the world of Sly Cooper as their best villains. He's pretty at what he does as a villain considering we know what Clockwork and Neyla are capable of.
And yet, he ain’t exactly the *best* at actual swordplay, considering a more than likely utter noob like Penelope can utter whoop his ass and send him plummeting to the sea below because he keeps pausing to leave himself wide open.
@@dinodude8899 I dunno, if you try to spam sword attacks, then he's going to dodge indefinitely. You can only hit him when he leaves himself vulnerable, and given that's him stopping to tip his hat to Penelope, it feels almost intentional.
This is the man that lets Sly think he slipped up into revealing Penelope’s location, resulting Sly into going right into and running around the pirate infested town of Blood Bath Bay who are all immediately gunning and shooting at him. Sly thinks he has found Penelope but is wrong, admits that LeFwee is much better than he gave him credit for and is seemingly blown up. LeFwee still believes that he has the upper hand by blasting the masts of the ship that The Cooper Gang stole up until he is lured into deeper water by Bentley
@@yakkowarner20 didn’t Penelope flat out say that Bentley beat Lefwee at his own game?
When you mentioned Ridley and Mother Brain, I honestly thought you were going to talk about Weavel from Metroid Prime Hunters.
I mean, the dude is so cool. Definitely in my top 5 or even 3 of MPH’s characters. He’s a cyborg, has a fusion between a machine gun and a grenade launcher, his legs can turn into a sentry turret, and he has a kickass arm mounted cutlass lightsaber!
Sounds like a better cyborg then a pirate
@@thetrophygamer3606
Yeah, heck he’s not really much of a pirate by trade anymore. See, his backstory is that he used to be a common mook in the space pirate ranks, and actually had an encounter with Samus prior to Hunters…
It didn’t go well. Miraculously, Weavel survived and was made a candidate for his organization’s cyborg soldier program. After undergoing the process, he actually left to become a bounty hunter. Albeit still a criminal one who is listed as an affiliate of the space pirates and I’m pretty sure most of Weavel’s contracts are from them.
@@rodrickgoldberg2324 yeah definitely more cyborg. As much a pirate as Ridley it seems
Personally for me, Cervantes De Leon is the best video game pirate, as he embodies the strength and ruthlessness, that is commonly associated with being a pirate, also most if not all of his stages in the Soul Calibur series, either are on a ship itself, or have a ship in the background, to me he is who I think about when I think about a video game pirate.
Agreed!
He is truly the quintessential pirate
Yeah, I was wondering why he didn't put Cervantes back in this remake list.
Not to mention that Cervantes has done a couple of dirty deeds as Oscar noted on his worst fathers in video games list.
Yo hohoho, yo hohoho Yo hohoho, yo hohoho
Yo hohoho, yo hohoho Yo hohoho, yo hohoho
Gather up all of the crew, it's time to ship out Binks' brew.
Sea wind blows, to where, who knows? The waves will be our guide.
O'er across the ocean's tide. Rays of sunshine far and wide.
Birds they sing, of cheerful things, in circles passing by.
Bid farewell to weaver's town, say so long to port renowned.
Sing a song, it won't be long, before we're casting off.
Cross the gold and silver seas, a salty spray puts us at ease,
Day and night, to our delight, the voyage never ends.
(interlude)
Gather up all of the crew, it's time to ship out Binks' brew.
Pirates, we eternally are challenging the sea.
With the waves to rest our heads, ship beneath us as our beds,
hoisted high upon the mast, our jolly roger flies.
Somewhere in the endless sky, stormy winds are blowing by,
waves are dancing, evening comes, it's time to sound the drums.
But steady men, and never fear, tomorrow's skies are always clear.
So pound your feet and clap your hands 'til sunny days return.
Yo hohoho, yo hohoho Yo hohoho, yo hohoho
Yo hohoho, yo hohoho Yo hohoho, yo hohoho
Gather up all of the crew, it's time to ship out Binks' brew.
Wave goodbye, but don't you cry, our memories remain.
Our days are but a passing dream, everlasting though they seem.
Beneath the moon we'll meet again, the wind's our lullaby.
Gather up all of the crew, it’s time to ship out Binks’ brew.
Sing a song, and play along for all the oceans wide.
After all is said and done, you'll end up a skeleton,
so spread your tale from dawn 'til dusk upon these foamy seas.
Yo hohoho, yo hohoho…Yo hohoho, yo hohoho…
Yo hohoho, yo hohoho…Yo hohoho, yo hohoho…
Yo hohoho, yo hohoho…Yo hohoho, yo hohoho…
Yo hohoho, yo hohoho…Yo hohoho, yo hohoho…
Honorable mention from me is Nathan Zachary from Crimson Skies. He leads a band of air pirates called the Fortune Hunters in an alternate diesel-punk 1930s, where they hunt treasure and raid cargo zeppelins but do so in a Robin Hood type fashion while helping innocent civilians, earning him recognition as a gentleman pirate.
I loved that game.
My honorable mention is Patty Fleur from Tales of Vesperia Definitive Edition, who claims to be the granddaughter of Aifread until her story comes full circle where it's revealed SHE is Aifread.
From what I remember in her tenyir as Aifread she was the leader of a pirating guild called Siren's Fang and was good friends with Don Whitehorse. That changed when the guild was captured and experimented on by Alexei of the royal knights to create an artificial Child of the Full Moon, yet all of them ended in Failure and were left for dead. However all the guildmates turned into monsters and to save her from this fate, Seifer uses magic or something to revert Aifread's body to a point from before she was experimented on, in her case, a child, and uses Aifread's name to slaughter the other guild members, who at this pointhave turned into monsters, and had suffered discrimination since, though she tries not to let it bother her.
In the definitive edition she serves as the replacement of Tokunaga, the pilot of the ship in the original, and the use of guns and a cutlass, but her Mystic Artes and most of her artes are based on luck.
Plus she's voiced in English by Flonne from Disgaea 1. That's just adorable.
Something I've noticed you've been doing in a lot of your scripts lately is working in real-world historical context to compliment and highlight the lore of a lot of characters, and I absolutely love this. I never knew most of the real-world stuff you talk about in this video and it gets me genuinely curious to look into the history behind these archetypes. Definitely keep this up, the research you're putting into this shows and it's really goddamn interesting!!
Admiral Razorbeard deserves recognition as one of the most evil pirates in video games: before even setting a foot in Glade of Dreams, the dude was responsible for enslaving AND obliterating hundreds of planets he visited and by the time Rayman 2 began, he already had enslaved almost the entire population of the Glade of Dreams all the way to even capturing Rayman, and from that beginning alone set the game much darker than the first Rayman game. And he even almost succeeded in killing off Rayman at the end of the game. The dude also came back in Rayman M as a playable character and as the main villain in GBA version of Rayman 3, which plays out WAY differently than the console version where Razorbeard and his Robo-Pirate crew are PRESUMABLY rendered inactive in the formation of da Vinci's The Last Supper in a secret room in Hoodlum Headquarters. I say presumably because we don't know are these Robo-Pirates the replicas or the real ones permanently deactivated.
God I remember you from childhood. But you can quibble that the robo-pirates weren’t really doing much “piracy”? They were more of an invading force, and we don’t really see them doing much stealing from anyone that wasn’t several notches beneath them. I guess you can look at it like a reverse Treasure Island situation? Where Rayman and pals are taking the perspective of the natives on whatever island is getting pillaged? I love Razorbeard but that boy ain’t sticking it to the man enough.
Honorable mention goes to K. Rool and his Kremling Krew from the Donkey Kong Country games. More so in the 2nd game on the SNES. He kidnapped DK, owns an entire island, has his army to be like an pirate and has my favorite K. Rool persona & boss fight if the entire series. Even in other games, he & his crew were still pirate like crew that he leads with.
Okay. If there was ever a Top Ten Green Scorpion moments, that skit at 18:40 would be on there!
A great list as always! Well done Oscar!
And yeah, Top Ten Crime Lords was a while back, but it still feels like yesterday. Now if there was only some way to bring the Gamefather back? 🤔
Ah well, here's hoping for more clear horizons! Drink up, me hearties yo-ho! 😉🏴☠️
Damn… Cervantes walked the plank eh?
@@RoboLANE Looks that way, but....ah well.
I was kind of hoping to see Erik from Dragon Quest XI. I know the game calls the people who raised him and his sister "vikings" but c'mon, we all know that they are pirates. Erik is just a cool and nice guy and probably one of the first thief/rogue type characters that I really liked.
This is a great video still and I look forward to seeing more from you Oscar!
18:41 ah indonesia, you know, that nation that's comprised of an archipelago, which has multiple trade routes going through it, the one between australia and the rest of asia.. the perfect place for pirates
All these years I've spent watching your videos. You've always been a big inspiration for me and you always will be
I may be two weeks late, but as someone who discovered that they’re descended from a pirate captain during the golden age of Piracy and was already feeling fascinated, vindicated and proud of that fact, this list makes me happy.
I’ve played through various games as it is and I was always by the history and concept of pirates already, with many of my personal favorites being real staples for me growing up.
So when I discovered a few years ago that my dad’s side of the family pass down the tradition of learning about part of our ancestry and I was a descendant of someone who lived the life that I was so fascinated by, made feel more proud and vindicated than I’ve ever been in my life.
Whenever I see these kinds of characters and such appearing in gaming and media as a whole, and knowing that I share some of that blood to these kinds of people, seriously makes me feel more grateful and proud of things and how I wish to carry on forwards.
Whilst I’m still learning about my ancestry and there are parts and aspects that I’m not too proud of, I’m also just determined and pernicious as my ancestors were in securing the best sort of life for myself, and be at my very best to face that unknown horizon and meet it head on, whatever it may bring.
I’ve adopted a saying from it, and it’s one I’ll pass on to all others as well as myself.
Keep going strong and May the wind forever blow in your sails. 😁
Yup, everything you said about Edward Kenway and AC4 is why I still think to this day that Black Flag should have been a pirate spin off and AC Rogue should have been a mainline entry in its place.
I admit, the fact you play as someone from the other side made me hesitant to play Rogue. My mindset was "I won't say no to more opportunities to do piratey things, but will I be able to enjoy playing as a villain?"
But then Rogue shows that not only are there people who genuinely want to do good in the Templar Order, but also that the Brotherhood aren't exactly immune to corruption themselves.
Honestly both sides could find a way to achieve peace for the world if they spent more time trying to collaborate and less time trying to kill each other.
On the note of AC, why have we not gotten an AC game that takes place in Feudal Japan? I mean come on, the game writes itself, and it would be fun to see the Assassins rocking the ninja toolkit. They already have a piece of it in the form of the rope dart.
Not gonna lie, I was hoping to see my boy Cervantes De Leon here. He’s a cruel, battle hardened, deadly shell of a proud man. He’s the definition of a savage pirate and I love it… plus I’ve mained him in every Soul Calibur game since 3
it'd be a power move if he does Top 10 Ninjas next
He said in this video that the next two videos were going to be giving the Pirate and Ninja half lists of old the proper treatment they deserve and extending them to full lists
I think the real power move is if he can get Gaijin Goomba to join in on it
@@WolfDB And for Halloween, witches.
@@travish7104Unfortunately he didn’t, but he did reference him. A lot.
@@justincummings8557 he also commented on it too
Pain is being a Sega fan who has actually played all their weird, wonderful games they NEVER port. Skies of Arcadia absolutely deserved to top this list, and ABSOLUTELY needs a rerelease on modern systems, be it port, remake or what have you.
Well in recent years we are seeing old JRPGs get reported, so I hope Sega gets a hint. They've remastered Panzer Dragoon, so that gives me hope.
There once was a ship that put to sea
The name of the ship was the Billy O' Tea
The winds blew up, her bow dipped down
Oh blow, my bully boys, blow (HUH)
Soon may the Wellerman come,
To bring us Sugar, and Beer, and Rum.
One day, when the Tonguin' is done,
We'll take our leave and go.
She hadn't been two weeks from shore,
When down on her, a Right Whale bore!
The captain called all hands, and swore,
he'd take that whale in tow! (HUUH!!)
@@battlemageazulio1019 Soon may the Wellerman come
To bring us sugar and tea and rum
One day, when the tonguing is done
We'll take our leave and go
Honorable mention I'd have to pick Briggs from Golden Sun Lost Age and Dark Dawn. He didn't begin as a pirate but began as a sailor and eventually went into piracy as a means to save his home town from a life of poverty. He brings along his wife and even his young toddler, Eoleo aboard on their travels to many areas pilfering what they think they could bring back while getting into some funny hi-jinks and ensues. My favorite tiny detail is in this cute cutscene where after you fight Brigg's and his men, Brigg goes to jail. In the jail you see his son, Eoleo, using Psynergy to try and make the cell keys float in the air. You can cast Mind Read on both Eoleo and Briggs to hear their thoughts.
I smilled when Lechuck was on the list becuese, he's one of the best video game villains and of course pirates zombie or a demon.
Honorable Mentions:
*Cervantes - Soulcalibur Series
*Captain LeFwee - Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves
*Pirate Man - Mega Man Series
*Tetra - The Legend Of Zelda Series
*Ridley - Metroid Series
*Captain Slag and Rusty Pete - Ratchet and Clank Series
*Admiral Razorbeard - Rayman 2
I just bought Pirate Borg a week ago. Seeing this just made me even more happy for all things pirate.
I remember watching a LP of Skies of Arcadia by TheStrawHatNo, and when Vyse and his crew robbed the Valuans flagship prototype. Bringing up how damn expensive it was to make this, and one of them chimed in with, “So we have Valua’s economy.”
Tomorrow is my birthday, and the notification that i recieved that you droped a new video was the best gitf i could recieve. Keep up the good work mate!
I knew you wouldn't make this video & NOT put ya'know who as #1
Loved your let's play of that game with Comic, by the way
Easily One of The Classiest Videos on UA-cam.
I'm amazed you managed to do this without a single One Piece reference.
As an active Sea of Thieves player and a pirate enjoyer, I love this list. Your countdown vids have always been awesome to me since the beginning and it was great the see this one. I liked learning more about the Legend of Monkey Island series too as I was only able to experience it in Sea of Thieves with my friend Cheddar.
I streamed those missions and they were quite fun! Took us a while to figure them out though XD
*ARR YAR AHOY AND AVAST*
*BEING A PIRATE IS REALLY BADASS*
*HANG THE BLACK FLAG AT THE END OF THE MAST*
*YOU ARE A PIRATE!*
5:34 Ganplank's death reminds me of what happened in M:tG with Tibalt. He picked a fight way over his weight class and then wasn't reprinted for so long that Wizards had to issue a statement reassuring people he didn't actually die off screen
27:24 Risky at 5? Lower than I would have expected with her resume. And your history
Alright we got pirates now we just have to wait for ninjas and it will all come back full circle.
"Yar Har fiddle dee dee! Being a pirate is alright to be! Do what you want cause a pirate is free! You are a pirate!"
Thanks for drawing attention to my boy, Vyse. Must've played that game a dozen times back then. Even memorized all the discoveries.
Now this looks interesting, perhaps we might even get a Shanty out of it.. (by that I mean the goat from Them’s Fightin’ Herds to show up on the list.)
DO WHAT YOU WANT CAUSE A PIRATE IS FREE, YOU ARE A PIRATE!
YAR HAR, FIDDLE DE DEE! BEING A PIRATE IS ALRIGHT TO BE! DO WHAT YOU WANT CAUSE A PIRATE IS FREE, YOU ARE A PIRATE!
You are a pirate! YAY!
One I really like is EXTRA Rider from the Nasuverse.
Simply put, her true name is Francis Drake. One of the pirates directly responsible for the heroic pirate archetype thanks to legally assisting Britain in its war against Spain. In her first appearance, however, she shows that she can very much be the dirty player a pirate is expected to be by assisting the Master she despises in cheating at the arena and stealing her records to deny you the chance of finding anything related to their strategy. Obviously her signature move is the Invincible Armada but even her being a woman is a reference to tales of Queen Elizabeth I disguising herself as Drake to go on adventures.
There's also her appearance in Grand Order, where to avoid going into details she manages to be the reason Poseidon is beatable. And she's apparently done this before.
18:40 OH MY GOD, THAT WAS FUCKING GREAT!
I'm honestly surprised that Spinal never showed up. I mean, his theme, "Warlord", is pretty much exactly the song that comes to mind when I think of video game pirates.
It was also interesting to not see Cervantes from Soul Caliber on the list since he's the second most iconic fighting game Pirate.
3:36 Captain scorpion is a good pirate name
Oh, come on now! Guybrush isn't useless! Who else do you know who can hold their breath for ten minutes?
Neat list! Was a bit concerned when you opened with Darli Dagger, who I love but who very specifically isn't a pirate (she's a shipwright who hates pirates). Nice to see her remembered though!
(also Archie isn't a pirate either he's an ecoterrorist)
You do make me want to play Skies of Arcadia!
Drink up, me hearties! A new Green Scorpion video, truly a cause for celebration!
Number 8: When you said most from the Top 5 returned, is it weird for me to say that I had a feeling Ridley was going to be the exception?
No. I kinda had a feeling because I never got the feeling of "pirate" from him.
Hopefully Rogue Galaxy gets at least an honorable mention
oh la la! I', glad someone besides me thought of that game...
Such a shame that game released when it did. The best pirate adventure I had in a video game.
As far as space pirates go, I’d have also listed the Tom Tom Gang, especially their captain/boss, Benito from Blinx the Time Sweeper. Those pirates use space controls (usually thrown as grenades) and regular guns to complement their main rivals, the Time Factory Sweepers’ time controls & Sweeper vacuums. They usually attack Time Factory workers to steal time from them (yes, time the dimension) as well as doing that to worlds the factory delivered time to by breaking it into glitching. Glitched time condenses into solid crystal form that can be combined and exploited for time controls depending on shape. The Tom Tom Gang exploit this to sell time to other worlds though it isn’t clear if they mean poorer worlds to help them Somali pirate style or the highest bidder from any world.
Unfortunately, leaving time crystals to fester for too long makes them turn into time monsters whose very existence threatens the world as they damage all they touch, even without meaning to. The pirates making time crystals all over an earthlike world in the first game drives the plot, spawning a million monsters and risking them exploding and destroying the world from all the energy they absorb, justifying every level doing the Sonic Advance & Mega Drive thing of a 10 minute time limit.
During their attack before the monsters appear, they guard against the sweepers stopping them by taking a human princess named Lena hostage whom Blinx falls in love with, his goal of saving the world being partially driven to help her. She falls for him too and exploits a rewind time control to embrace him in thanks.
In the sequel, the Tom Toms get more screen time and we even play as one, fighting the sweepers to be the first to restore a giant time crystal Benito accidentally destroyed so he can get in a human looking goddess named Mina’s pants.
I better see Guybrush Threepwood (MIGHTY PIRATE) and Edward Kenway on the list, otherwise you're walking the plank and heading to Davy Jones' Locker
Update: Okay, so Guybrush ain't the entry, but at least we got a pirate from Monkey Island with LeChuck. As for my favorite pirate, that honor goes to someone from outside the realm of videogames, as a kid I would've definitely said Captain Jack Sparrow, but since then the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise has been stuck in Davy Jones' Locker since 2017, so as far as my favorite pirate goes, he's basically a goofball, with a straw hat, stretchy powers and the most loyal and unique crew of oddballs to hail from the East Blue and the Grand Line, I'm of course talking about one of the Four Emperors, and Captain of the Straw Hat Pirates, Monkey D. Luffy
Well, you got LeChuck. Is that enough for you?
Yar har diddly dee being a pirate is okay with me
Do what you want cuz a pirate is free
YOU ARE A PIRATE!
I guess I was the only one who liked the double top five idea. Oh well edelgard would love your treatments of these royal rogues. Also the topic is fitting because the One Piece Live Action series stole the internet recently (I'm among the fans).
10. No surprising given the first go round. I'm a fan of Miss Fortune myself but that's just the female side talking.
9. Damn fallen far haven't you Balthier. I was actually introduced to you through GS and you'll be the best FF pirate in my book
8. Ah a familiar face but not one I expected. Shame I don't know her that much.
7. Another familiar face but this one is insane on many levels
6. Now this familiar face is from a ways back so this pirate girl I'm happy to see
5. Talk about a breath of fresh air from the tradition. The only Turkey pirate was Barbarossa, a hairy dude (which maybe could have inspired her boss)
4. Now here's someone I haven't seen yet. Do you think he made a cameo in Sea of Thieves yet?
3. Considering she wasn't in Inquisition's main story, I don't know this lady well enough
2. Good thing I wasn't into playing this point and click series otherwise I'd be jumping ship
1. And here's the big promotion! Good on you Vyse!
Also GS I'm interested to hear your thoughts on One Piece (Anime or live action series).
The fact that Tetra from Zelda Wind Waker, a series you're a big fan of, isn't on this list is a shocker when I watched this. Most of us who are familiar was expecting her on this list.
With the entry involving, and I know I'm gonna screw this one up, but with Aria T'Loak, I personally would have gone with the notorious Chinese pirate Cheng Shih (or Cheng I Sao, depending on who you talk to), a female pirate that managed to attain control of a great army of pirates that, in a sense, could be considered its own nation with the rules she had on board her ships.
Thankfully he talks about her later with Isabella.
17:50
Woo I think that first time we ever hear Green Scorpion go ballistic about Vaas & right before the reveal of Far Cry Pirate
I wanna make a guess on your next countdown: Top 10 Ninjas ft. Gaijin Goomba but that's just speculation I feel like you could make it happen because I think Gaijin Goomba is a fan of your videos (I think he used a clip for an intro for one of his Which Ninja videos), your countdowns do have a certain degree of being educational which I'm pretty sure Gaijin wouldn't want to miss out on leaving some ninja education, and I think he's the best guy to drop any ninja education
Love you're doing countdown specific intros
"Isabela is one of if not the first bi character in dragon age" Zevran and leliana came before her in origins, and she's only 1 of 4 bi love interests in da2
18:40 Bro imbracing he's inner Vaas
THANK YOU!! I’ve been die’n for about
TOP 10!
I'm assuming that Zack and Wiki is either an honorable mention or you haven't played it yet, since they are just like Vyse, good guy pirates, but they go through SUPER deadly dungeons just so they can get a pirate ship that was promised to them. The amount of game over scenarios is as insane as the difficulty XD
Not to mention how Zack dies in the most hilarious of ways.
he must have played it seeing one of the puzzled made it to top 10 practical jokes
Fun list as always. I will have to seek to play Skies of Arcadia someday. For me, the pirate game I think of is Sid Meier's Pirates, where you play a young man who escaped his family's enslavement after the evil Count collected on their debt and now is in the New World for revenge and to find his family again. You become the captain of a small Sloop and from there are free to take the game however you want from there, finding buried treasure, pirating, trading, becoming a privateer for any or all of the four major nations of the Caribbean, going up against and defeating other famous pirates so you come up on top, romancing and marrying governor's daughters, and more along with finding the man that took your family from you and finding the map pieces to get them back again. If you haven't played it, I'd highly recommend you'd give it a try.
These may be some strange choices. But here I go. (Iin no particular order)
1: LeFwee from Sly 3 ( Hey the rhymed!)
2: Guybrush Threepwood
3: King K. Rool
4: Captain Scarlett
5: Captain Syrup
5. Finally! A character from a game I've played! And she is a good villain. Though in spite of your theory, I like to believe she really was forming a temporary truce with you in Pirate's Curse and that she WASN'T just using you that time.
1. Part of me predicted you'd include SoA on here.
I have been waiting these countdown for a while
Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me!
10: I can't ever say that I like LoL, due to how the game is practically impossible to get into as a newbie, but I can respect the characters. Plus, that correlation between his apparent death in the lore and a game-breaking bug making him unplayable is, admittedly, pretty cool. (Gangplank (League of Legends))
9: But did he shoot first? (Balthier (Final Fantasy XII))
8: Yeah, sorry, Ridley, you're probably one of the COOLEST space pirates in gaming, but by no means are you the BEST. This gal is. (Aria T'Loak (Mass Effect 2 & 3))
7: Seriously, why did they hint that he was still alive and yet never do anything more with him, especially since he got so popular?(Vaas Montenegro (Far Cry 3))
6: One of the few characters from that era of Mega Man who lived on through Marvel vs Capcom. (Tron Bonne (Mega Man Legends))
5: I was waiting for this one. My girl! (Risky Boots (Shantae))
4: I REALLY need to play Assassin's Creed at some point. (Edward Kenway (Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag))
3: I don't think there is enough bi representation in media nowadays, so this is a nice change of pace. (Isabela (Dragon Age))
2: I know that the cast from Monkey Island actually got into Sea of Thieves, which is cool. (Captain LeChuck (Secret of Monkey Island))
1: Thank you JelloApocalypse for helping to get this some more eyes on it. Also remember, we are thousands of feet in the air. (Vyse (Skies of Arcadia))
Time to see Risky Boots and Ridley take the top spots
Ridley barely acts like a pirate compared to these guys though.
@@MrChaotic4 still, pirate is pirate, and he is top tier
@@DR_L3G0 And he didn't make it but Risky did.
@@davidkerr7350 he was robbed tbh
@@DR_L3G0How come besides being ruthless Ridley never act much like a pirate compared to others on the list.
Okay that vaas impression was great 😂
Lesser known honorable mentions:
‘The Black Kat’ Katarina de Leon from Pirates: The Legend of Black Kat. (That PS2 game was like a cross between Black Flag and Legend of Zelda, and Black Kat was like a cross between the MCs, but she was a hot pirate chick with magic weapons.)
Barbaros from Zack and Wiki. (Spoilers: The final boss of the game, who tricked Zack into serving him at the start, only to betray him the second he got his body back.)
Riptide from Eternal Champions. (Sophia de Medici was once part of a rich family before criminals destroyed it and she became a pirate. She was later killed and joined a tournament for a second shot at life.)
I love Skies of Arcadia. I still have my dreamcast copy. Still my favorite game.
You really got into character with number 7. I approve
Another phenomenal list Captain Scorpion
Another entertaining and educational countdown, and I just KNEW it had to have a Monkey Island entry (it wasn't Guybrush, but hey, heroes are partly defined by their villains, right?).
Most of my favorite Pirates are from other media. The Crew from Castle in the Sky, Long John Silver from Treasurer Planet, the One Piece crew, Bodacious Space Pirates (Its far tamer then it sounds), and who could forget Captain Harlock, or Captain Jack Sparrow.
Though one Video game Pirate I would bring up is Tetra from the Legend of Zelda.
Yo ho yo ho! A pirates list for me!
I hope Vyse and Eizen get acknowledged.
AHOY SET SAIL FOR ANOTHER TO TEN
Honestly the closest to a favorite pirate I have is Francis drake from fate
The number 1 is my favorite
*Pirates of the Caribbean theme starts playing*
I have to ask this, why did the world never get a proper PotC game? Getting to play as the one pirate captain who's known for playing jump rope with the line between brilliant and insane sounds like a fun time along with getting to be a pain in the asses of folks like Davey Jones and Beckett.
The closest we get are the trips to the PotC world in the Kingdom Hearts series, however 3's visit stands out most to me with the world being huge, and the gameplay having a somewhat similar feel to that of AC: Black Flag.
*Before seeing video* Skies of Arcadia better be on here lol. If I did have to pick a fav pirate from that game, I honestly have to pick Guilder because he's a hoot.
*During* OMG Now I know where I've seen Tron before, she was in Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 lol.
*After* OH HELL YEAH THANK YOU!!!! I literally jumped for joy the minute you said Skies lol. I can understand why Vyse is #1, he's the main char acter all. Totally agree, this game NEEDS a remake at the very least. Sega's already done the same with other old properties like Panzer Dragoon, why not this?! Now I only played the original Dreamcast version, so I never got to play Legends for some reason, but it's still one of my fav games of all time. Like all JRPG enthusiasts recommend this game for the Ship Battles alone. If Sega (and Nintendo) ever make a remaster of this, I am going to flip! It is amazing the allies Vyse makes here, even make allies out of former foes, I love it lol. Like one of them only sides with him once because they hate another guy more than you lol. "Enemy of my enemy is my ally" lol.
"In a world without gold, we could have been heroes"
Happy Halloween Green Scorpion!
30:33 To be fair, Risky mentions that she's under a curse, the same one that turned the Tinkerbats into Cacklebats, so if she went to get her items herself there's a chance she would fall under that curse herself
Cervantes has to be on this list! He's been my Soul Calibur main for years!
Uh no he's not.
@@davidkerr7350 I know. But I agree with the other ones he chose.
It's no wonder that ScrewAttack (your inspiration for the original version of this list) listed Le Chuck as Number 1 on two separate lists: Top 10 Video Game Beards and Top 10 Video Game Pirates
now i wanna go and rewatch the Skies of Arcadia series
amazing countdown like always Oscar
actually i kinda wanna play it
The countdown is real!!
"The king of the pirates isn't the guy who rules over them. He's just the most free guy in the world." - Monkey D. Luffy/Gol D. Roger.
CALLED IT. I KNEW who'd be #1 the moment you announced this!
GOD I wish Skies of Arcadia got a remake SO MUCH! It's.... it's like, an actually good One Piece game! That isn't even about One Piece!
Cap'n Crow from Dragon Quest VIII comes to mind, for me. Sure, his deeds are more told than shown(hence why he probably wouldn't make the list), but they're still legendary in the game's canon. Plus, his boss fight? TOUGH. AS. NAILS.
If it weren't for Pirate's Curse forcing Risky to work together with Shantae and get her magic back, Risky likely could've succeeded in a full plan damn near unopposed
Her plan in half genie hero was a smart one too. Having her tinkerbats swipe the blueprints for a dynamo, secretly swapping said blueprints for those for a similar machine of her own design, waiting for Shantae and her uncle to build the thing, before swooping in to steal the machine, but not before using it to reverse Shantae's magic from good to evil turning her into Nega Shantae. Then while Shantae's friends fight to bring her back to her senses, Risky and her crew get to work upgrading the dynamo so she can use it to turn the entire genie realm evil and turn the genies that Shantae so wanted to meet into her hapless minions.
Pirate game that wasn't on the list, but is possibly a bit too new or possibly obscure, is Shadow Gambit : The Cursed Crew. It's a tactical stealth game where you command a crew of undead pirates who look like they'd fit in perfectly with Pirates of the Caribbean. Not only that, they all have interesting personalities and ways their undeadness and pirate aspects are incorporated into their design and play style. I've only played the demo, but I definitely feel like it's worth at least a look.
My honorable mentions:
Captain Syrup (Wario Land series)
If Wario is the antithesis to Mario, then this girl might as well be the antithesis to Peach or Daisy.
Kaptain K Rool (Donkey Kong Country 2)
The day you mess with K Rool, arrh, you'll wish you were never born!
When the banana hoard is mine, then you'll feel this pirate's scorn!
Tetra (Legend Of Zelda: Wind Waker)
She may be an alternate form of Zelda but she’s still pretty cool
It warms by heart to see Balthier being recognised again, the most charismatic member of XII's playable roster by far. Until I recongised the music I expected either Faris or Admiral Merlwyb Bloefhiswyn herself as the Final Fantasy representative.
So, the next countdown is Top 10 Ninja? Cool!
All hands on deck! Man the cannons! Ready the sails! Top 10 Pirates Ahoy!
Another pirate list with nary a sight of Zak & Wiki. Aye, I'll be drifting along now...
6: I like her in Project X Zone
10: I haven´t played League for a long time, but he was a really annoying champion back when I played.
Nice list, some Pirates I like are Eizen and Pirateman