Ignoring Dr. Doom's Ultimate Nullifier probably wasn't the greatest idea...
| “ | All I ever wanted was to drive in a motorcycle stunt show and see my name, Johnny Blaze, in lights. But then I made a deal with a creature known as Mephisto to save my stepfather's life. The deal fell apart and my stepfather died. And the only thing that saved me from being taken away to Mephisto's realm was the love of a girl named Roxanne. I thought I had won, but I soon discovered that villain had forever cursed me to turn into the Ghost Rider, the spirit of vengeance. | „ |
| ~ The introduction to Ghost Rider's simulation mission. It just shows Mephisto is equally as vile as his comic counterpart. |
Marvel Ultimate Alliance (X360) walkthrough - Mephisto's Realm
I've already proposed the original Earth-616 version of Mephisto, and I haven't published a proposal for a little while now so why not?
P.S. Kinda ironic as I'm proposing the literal devil and it's a Christian holiday, but Happy Thanksgiving to anyone who celebrates it!
What's the work?[]
Marvel: Ultimate Alliance is a 2006 superhero RPG, and the first game in a trilogy of the same name (although the third takes place in an alternate reality). It's pretty much your standard superhero story, with every A and B-list teaming up to stop Doctor Doom and the Masters of Evil from taking over the world, and there's a pretty sizable character roster complete with upgrades as you progress through the game so it's pretty fucking fun. Too bad it's not on most platforms anymore because Activision are stupid.
Who's Mephisto? What does he do?[]
Mephisto is the ruler of a dimension that is basically an expy of Hell, taking impure souls there to torture forever. Just like in the comics, Mephisto is responsible for turning Johnny Blaze into the Ghost Rider after killing his stepfather, as well as killing Doctor Doom's mother Cynthia when the former was a child. In the game's present day, Mephisto made a deal with Doom to give him the Twilight Sword in exchange for the mutant teleporter Nightcrawler, taking the X-Man to his Realm afterwards. When the heroes arrive at Mephisto's Realm to rescue Nightcrawler, Blackheart and his minions quickly defeat Jean Grey before caging both X-Men over the Infinity Vortex, thus forcing the X-Men's fellow heroes to choose which one to save, and which one to let fall to their death.
After defeating Blackheart and saving the chosen X-Man, as well as Ghost Rider prior to this choice, the heroes continue forward and battle Mephisto, who then revives the fallen X-Man's astral spirit as a superpowered slave, unable to leave Mephisto's Realm, forever. Although the heroes are victorious, it is not without grave cost, as the possessed X-Man sacrifices what little energy they have left to defeat Mephisto. Unfortunately, however, the possessed X-Man's sacrifice was all for nothing as Mephisto is still alive and well, ready to unleash a tremendous amount of destruction upon the heroes' dimension should said heroes fail to locate the damaged Ultimate Nullifier in Castle Doom at the end of the game.
Furthermore, no matter which X-Man was sacrificed to Mephisto, this choice will have grave future consequences regardless:
- If Nightcrawler dies, Mystique will sneak into the X-Mansion at night and assault Professor X into a coma for causing the death of her son, thus causing Xavier's death and the X-Men's permanent disbandment.
- If Jean Grey dies, she will return to Earth as the Dark Phoenix, taking vengeance upon those who couldn't save her.
Mephisto has not appeared in another game since then, so only time and demand will tell if he ever comes back.
Mitigating factors[]
What the hell do you think? Again, he's literally SATAN!
Heinous standard[]
Well, with this being a Marvel series and all, you would assume that Mephisto has at least some competition, right? And you would be correct! Doom himself enslaves the world's heroes and risks universal omnicide with the Odinforce; Galactus is a serial planet eater; Tinkerer tries to turn all of humanity into a hive mind via his Fold nanites; and Nitro indirectly kickstarts the Superhuman Registration Act by nuking Stamford, Connecticut, killing hundreds of people.
But here's the thing: despite his limited screentime, Mephisto is arguably the greater-scope villain of the entire game for giving Doom the Twilight Sword, thus enabling Doom to defeat Odin and use his powers to conquer Earth. He also acts as the catalyst for three bad endings, at least one of which is impossible to avoid. Combine that with being the ruler of a hellish realm where you can actually HEAR the tortured screams of impure souls imprisoned by flame forever, as well as brainwashing one of the heroes to the point where said hero kills themselves to save their friends after Mephisto forced them to choose who dies, and I'd personally say he goes beyond the bare minimum to pass the standard. Even Dr. Doom, Dr. Strange and Ghost Rider can't stand him.
Final verdict[]
Probably not the strongest keeper when it comes to superhero games, but still yes.