Villains/antagonists or otherwise.
I’ve been watching some Fable 3 lets plays and was reminded of how much I absolutely hated Reaver. You can tell Lionhead was really going for someone that you would “love to hate,” but every scene with him in it is miserable. Absolutely ridiculous that you can’t kill him.
For a character from an actually well written video game, Eric in Tony Hawk’s Underground. Hitting the last line in the game and watching your character punch him out in a cutscene afterwards is extremely cathartic.
Hau and Hop from Pokémon Gen 7 and Gen 8 irrationally piss me off every time I have to deal with them. Hop is better by a lot, but the bar is on the floor.
I miss when rivals were complete assholes to you. Not morons.
Also just the general conversation between JD and Del in Gears of War 4. The characters are fine. It’s just that every single step forward is met with some snarky little quip or joke. Every time. It takes so much of the seriousness away that made the first three games, and Judgment, feel so much more immense.
It’s been a while, but my impression was that Hop’s entire character design was “what if Hau got really depressed after losing a two or three times?”