When I read how Kono described Capt. Matias Torres as the most evil character in the AC series, I was wondering what would he do to make him truly stand out. After playing the SP missions, I understand why. I think what makes Torres stand out is when you compare him to the other antagonists in the series. For most Ace Combat games, the “villains” are simply soldiers doing their job to defend their country. Erusea and Estovakia waged war out of desperation after Ulysses wrecked their economies, AWWNB genuinely believed that an act of mass destruction would lead to the end of all wars and nationalism, the Leasathians were misled thanks to Navarro’s propaganda. Even the Grey Men, as monstrous as their actions were, were motivated by the desire to restore Belka to its former glory. But Torres doesn’t have any goals that can be constituted as extreme but with understandable intentions. Sure he dresses up his actions with lots of lofty rhetoric about how destroying Oured will end the Lighthouse War and save millions more, but as David said, he’s really just a madman that wants to slaughter people for the sake of slaughtering people. Just hear how he is practically giggling with joy when preparing the Alicorn’s railgun to fire, that doesn’t sound like someone who has noble intentions to at least try and justify their actions. Or his extremely skewed logic when he tries to say that Trigger and Co. are no different from him in trying to destroy the Alicorn, forgetting that the millions in Oured certainly aren’t going to kill him. To say nothing about he faked a surrender just to gain a few seconds to prepare the railgun. Yellow 13, Yellow 4 and Pasternak were decent people that were simply fighting on the opposite side. Grabacr and Ofnir were motivated by wounded pride and nationalism after watching their beloved Belka be reduced to a shadow of its former self. Pixy, Kupchenko and the rest of AWWNB were traumatized by Hoffnung and the Seven Nukes over Waldreich and their disgust at the political squabbling over Ustio’s resources after Belka’s capitulation led them to conclude that the old world order must be destroyed in order to create a better one. Hugin and Munich were just simply drones doing what their programming told them to do, that got out of hand after the satellites went down, more rabid animals than anything. Even Navarro and Cohen at least had the motive of profit and revenge respectively. Petty yes, but still understandable. When compared to all the other antagonists in the series, there is nothing understandable or noble about Torres. He wanted to murder millions of innocents simply because he wanted to, and derived pleasure from it. The man was, simply put, a monster.