By now, it's a standard scenario: the protagonist is going about her business, when her world is turned upside-down by the antagonist. She then sets out to confront the antagonist and return order to the state of things, if possible. Usually, very little time is spent exploring what the status quo is before the enemy comes along to wreck everything. That's interesting, given that the whole goal should be to bring normalcy back to life, rather than to simply fight the enemy. It's simply taken as read that life is good before the enemy comes, goes bad while the enemy is around, and returns to being good after the enemy leaves. So really, the situation is somewhat reversed: the enemy exists to give meaning to the protagonist's life, to throw the value of life into sharp contrast. Without the enemy, there is no game.

There's nothing wrong with that; conflict is the essence of a good game. We each come to a game with the expectation of an interesting fight. In fact, it's not a stretch to say that we choose our games based on the nature of the fight -- if it seems too easy, we put it aside in favor of one that appeals to our preferred level of challenge. We rarely, if ever, decide to play a game based on our need to defeat the particular enemy contained within.

For example: when was the last time you saw a trailer for a game that featured vampires and decided to buy it just because of the vampires? It's more likely that you were drawn to the gameplay, or liked the way the player character looked. So, even though the enemy's presence is important, the actual identity of the enemy seems to take second or third place.

At the same time, however, what would Metroid be without Ridley or Kraid? Is Monkey Island the same without LeChuck? Would a Command and Conquer without Kane be as enjoyable? Sometimes the identity of the enemy does matter, especially if the enemy is allowed to get away at the end of the game. How is it that a named opponent carries so much weight? It's partly because of the nature of humans to need closure. Something inside us doesn't like loose ends, and having the enemy live on to fight another day goes against that feeling.