Count Vile

""While Vile is known for sitting behind the impenetrable force barrier that surrounds his lair and overseeing the terror and destruction his regime brings, he has on occasion made such special visits to the outside world. Most notably when he visited some sick orphans in the hospital, to deliver them a care package of mutilated puppies and smallpox viruses.""

- - A newspaper article about Count Vile.

Count Nefarious Vile is the primary antagonist of the parodic movie Press Start Adventures and its spin-off Internet series. Like many other Fantasy villains, he is an immensely powerful Dark Lord who plans to take over the entire world, only to be sent to Hell by a chosen hero, but he is comedically clumsy, insecure and oblivious to the most evident things. Count Vile is based on Ganondorf and also on many Final Fantasy villains such as the Emperor. He is portrayed in the movies and voiced in the series by Peter Davis.

Overall Presentation
""Johnson, this is important dictature business, you wouldn't understand.""

- -Count Vile

The usual Dark Lord's characteristics
Count Nefarious Vile is a parody of the archetypal Dark Lord and final boss of a Video Game. (Even his name and nobility title are archetypal.) While he corresponds to every aspect of such villains (ie: the empire, the armies of monsters, the evil hideout, the immense magical might, the thirst for power and the ruthless malevolence) he very rarely displays the evil traits that fit a Dark Lord and most often appears as a funny and enjoyable character, as if he were a normal person playing the "bad guy" role.

Vile is your average loathsome tyrant who rules his empire with an iron fist, tyranizing the population and annexing nearby kingdoms, (such as the kingdom of Princess Passion Fruit, parody of Princess Peach) and is in permanent conflict with a group of heroes. He lives in an underground lair in a montaineous area, reminiscent of Death Mountain in the first Zelda game, which is protected by a magical forcefield that prevents anyone from entering univited, and plans to invade the entire world with his armies. Every times he ventures outside, he tyranizes people and has a statue of himself constructed. (He has around 84 statues over the empire by now.) Count Vile works with (or more accurate: has all his work done by) Johnson, his personal assistant, advisor and most loyal henchman, who is ironically much smarter and more competent than his boss and keeps giving useful advices that Vile rarely considers.

Count Vile is incredibly powerful, he is able to cast dangerous spells and curses, to teleport, to turn people to stone, to call forth the forces of Hell, to summon "the foulest, most demonic souls to ever suffer damnation" (ghosts from Pac Man) and so on and so forth. He usually fights by hurling green energy bolts, red energy balls and lighting-based spells whose colour vary following their might, and of course he can only be killed by the hero's magical sword. In the movie, he also displays great skills in swordsmanship and hand-to-hand fighting.

The Comedic Villain's characteristics
To put it simply, Count Vile is nearly as incompetent as he is powerful.

Firstly, he is very obstinate and only understands things the way he wants to, no matter the obvious evidences that prove him wrong, as when he mistakes his enemies for his employees with a "wanted" poster of said enemies nearby. Secondly, he barely pays attention to the most obvious details, including everything advised in the Evil Overlord List, or that his magic protects him against ailments and viruses. Thirdly, he regularly makes blueprints and written instructions impossible to follow because of his terrible handwritting and drawing, and scolds people for not understanding them.

Vile may give most of the time the impression of a clueless idiot, but in truth, he merely does not care. He may have his head in the clouds, yet he can prove much more clever and observant that the viewers (most used to his clumsiness) can imagine, and he is always a deadly foe in battle. He is never as dangerous as when he decides to take matter in hand. (Which means very rarely.)

Vile enjoys making (ugly) drawings that he sticks to the walls and playing poker with his friends, he spends almost 80 percent of his time hanged to his telephone, usually discussing about villain's matter with Vlad, and he uses a "My Pony Princess" notebook... not very Dark Lord-like traits indeed. When confronted to people he finds useful he acts very courteously, being almost nicer with people he doesn't know (and should be wary of) than with his most trusted allies. He can either act friendly towards Johnson or treat him like a slave, and only listens to his advices when they aren't about crucial matters.

The villain's gang
Press Start Adventures being a parodic medley of almost every popular video games series, it features many minor villains, all of them being parodies of the main villain of said series, and many of them being the archenemy of a particular member of the Resistance, themselves parodying video games heroes.

The most prominent of these villains is Vlad, (parody of Count Dracula and archenemy of Trenton Belfast) then goes King Reptilor, (who looks slightly like King K. Rool but is a parody of Bowser and is the archenemy of Plumber Pete and Princess Passion Fruit) Captain Psychodrive, (parody of M. Bison) Gorlax, (parody of Ganon) Doctor Botsky, (parody of Dr. Eggman and archenemy of Buzz Porcupine) the Emperor Penguin (parody of King Dedede) and Schizoid Cricket. (parody of Psycho Mantis) Vile is good friend with all of them and especially with the first three, with whom he plays poker. (Or other card games.) They all recognize him as their undisputed leader (though they are not above making fun of him) and follow his command.

Press Start Adventures - Bonus Levels
The first season of the Internet Cartoon series is a prequel to the movie, who sets Count Vile's reign of terror and his conflict with the Resistance. Vile lives in his underground lair and directly or indirectly controls (almost) every evil activity in the world, though there is some demonic creatures that he cannot grasp.

In his first appearance, he invites his friends at home to play poker, but Captain Psychodrive mistakenly brought his children's Jackamo cards. (A mix between the Pokemon and Yu Gi Oh card games.) As Reptilor is winning the game, he drops a Thwomp on him, prompting Vlad to call him a "bad host". He is then seen having to face several problems such as "one of the darkest monstruosities ever to roam this realm" (in fact a giant Pac Man) invading the maze in his catacombs and slaughtering his soldiers, prompting him to summon four ghosts to fight it. (Which he names Handy, Dandy, Candy and Ruth, much to Johnson's dismay.) He is also seen lamenting over a statue of himself who does not correspond to his expectations and confronting Plumber Pete (parody of Mario) and Buzz Porcupine (parody of Sonic) sent to kill him. He mistakes them for the smoothers he expects and never realizes that they are trying to kill him, since their attacks do not even phaze him. After Johnson makes him believe that they insulted him, he swiftly crushes them in outrage.

When Vile learns that the Black Mages who guarded the Oracle artifact, gave it to the Resistance (who needed it to find the whereabouts of the only man in the world able to slay him) he has the entire colony wiped out. In a gloomy irony, the Black Mages only relinquished the Oracle because they foresaw their genocide at Vile's hand and hoped to avert it by doing so.

Vile later recruits Scarthkaroth as his new general to lead his armies against the Resistance's hideout, before realizing much to his horror that the Pac Man is alive and well and now breeds like a "homicidal rabbit" with a female one. Meanwile Sam (parody of Samus Aran) and Lin-Ku (a parodic mix of the Mortal Kombat ninjas who revels in violence and kills for no reason, in spite of being a major hero) from the Resistance set out to search for Zack Nimbus, a parodic hero loosely based on Link and the aforementioned propheciezd hero.

Press Start - the Movie
""I hope you had a fulfilling life!""

- - Count Vile (using Sam's own words before killing her)

The original movie displays the "adventure" of Zack Nimbus, Sam and Lin-Ku, now represent the world's last hope against Count Vile, who single handedly got rid of the Resistance by turning them into stone. (He is seen toying with Plumber Pete before petrifying him.)

During most of the movie, Vile is seen goofing around, not paying attention to Johnson, who advises him to get rid of Zack, Sam and Lin-Ku before they "level-up" into actual threats, or to take the relics able to desactivate the protections of his lair with him before they get their hands on them, being more concerned about trivial matter. He and Johnson finally go to the Resident Evil-like factory where the final relic is kept, whose atmosphere is filled with zombie-virus. He starts panicking but Sam reminds him that he is immune to it... contrary to Johnson. He then captures Sam and has her chained in his throne room, only to realize that he did not take the relic but a lookalike.

When Zack and Lin-Ku enter his lair, he follows their progression while taunting (and being taunted by) Sam. He greets them by setting a Rex-Plosive (Bob-omb lookalike) to kill Sam but Zack manages to distract him, (learning that he could have won extremely useful weapons, had he took part in the Jackamo tournament he vehemently refused to play) while Lin-Ku frees Sam. Vile kills Sam with purple lightning and transports the other two in a dark dimension, since "property damage is only fun when it is someone else's". He casually trounces them but Sam (who got resurrected by a 1-up mushroom) barges in and heals her friends. Vile then creates two doubles of himself and engages them all with a sword, instantly respawning every double they take down. Vile gains the upper-hand but they eventually defeat him and Zack strikes him down seconds before he could obliterate them with a Destruction Sphere.

Press Start - the second season
In the second season, Count Vile and Johnson who died at the end of the movie are now in Hell. Not impressed the slightest by Satan, he dispute his authority over Hades and invokes a "Soul Tournament." (parody of Soul Calibur) Satan (who looks like Astaroth from Soul Calibur) charges at Vile with his full might, only to step on the peel of the banana that Vile was seen eating earlier and glide out of ring in the lava.

Now the Prince of Darkness, Count Vile comes in contact with Vlad and has him gather all the villains' club to prepare his operation "Hell on Earth." Vile plans to open the gates of Hell following complicated rituals from the Dark Tome Necronomicon (based on HP Lovecraft's mythos, and maybe also on the Dark Prognosticus) to open the gates of Hell and invade the entire world with his armies of invincible (though not very threatening-looking) demons. To do so he needs several keys.

Vile also gets challenged to the Soul Tournament by his former general Scarthkaroth whom he defeats. He later takes a liking for Zippy, the insufferable, ever-smiling sprite who keeps making pestering sounds and giving more that useless advices. (An obvious reference to Navi from Ocarina of Time, loathed by many fans.)

Eventually, God himself scolds Vile for not doing his job as the Prince of Darkness. Since Vile never bothers to punish and torture the souls of the damned, he disturbs the balance so much that it threatens to destroy the entire universe. God summons his most devoted follower (who much to his dismay happens to be Trenton Belfast, parody of Castlevania’s Simon Belmont) to force Vile to do his job. Unimpressed, Vile states that he “bows down to no higher power” and zaps Belfast, only to have his energy bolt reflected back at him. After distracting Belfast, Vile stops the destruction of the universe by advising God to stop reward the good, like he stopped punishing the wicked.

In the end of the season, Vile gets the keys he lacked to open Hell's gates. (He is shocked to discover that Zippy is one, but sacrifices him without second thoughts.) Yet, he and is army of demons have to travel a maze to reach the Land of the Livings, in which his entire army is slaughtered by none other than the giant Pac Men who used to plague his catacombs. As he is about to escape, he is attacked by Scarthkaroth, whom he leaves to die between the jaws of the Pac Man, calling him an idiot. Vile and his (less than five) surviving men then appear in Vlad's throne room. As Vlad is scolding him for his pitiful results, he states that he is still a powerful Evil Overlord... only to discover that his power is gone.

Press Start 2 Continue
""Who needs sorcery when I got innovations?""

- - Count Vile.

In the sequel, Count Vile has created his manufacturing company, "V Corporation", which he rules as the (not so) mysterious, "Mister X". Unfortunately for him, Vlad and Reptilor have got the same ideas and are now his business rivals. Vile lost an auction against Princess Xanna (parody of Princess Zelda) to buy the powerful Omni-Crystal, which could restore his dark powers immensely mightier than ever. He captures Zack and Sam, who were tasked to bring the Omni-Cristal to Xanna and steals it.

As Zack and Sam are held captive in an infinite zone with nothing but Jackamo cards, who were made real by the power of the Omni-Crystal and force them to play without end, Xanna reluctantly recruits Lin-Ku to inflitrates the headquarters of V Corporation. (Vile is aware of it but once again, he cares little about.) Meanwhile, Vile is selling Vee controllers (wiimotes) to every person in the world through heavy merchandizing. It is eventually revealed that Vile connected the Omni-Crystal to the Master Vee Controller, in order to enslave every Vee owner. (Basically everyone in the world.) Fortunately, Xanna manages to destroy the core machines of the Vee controllers.

After Lin-Ku frees Zack and Sam, they all get challenged for a rematch by Count Vile, who uses his Master Vee Controller as a lightsaber, a blaster and other wii games-related weapons. They manage to defeat him with Jackamo summoning and (as for Lin-Ku) Xanna's tricks. In the end, Vile gets turned into a Jackamo Card and swiftly takes over the Jackamo world, planning to use the Jackamo monsters as an army to take over the world... as soon as he gets turned back to normal.