Who is the best Final Fantasy villian?

I always liked Sephiroth. Not necessarily because he was a great character as such, but because Sakaguchi and his team really managed to create a feeling mystique, awe, and dread surrounding him. Everywhere you went in the game, you always felt the impact of his presence.
 
Garland. Hey, he's evil, armored, and cool :P
And he's from the old FF games, which are way more awesome.
 
i think sephiroth is villan of all villan, he is the most popular villian and even came back once being defeated. in my opionon he is the best villan as he was very powerful and is hard 2 defeatd if you have no training, he the most popular villan of the whole series
 
Being popular doesn't make him the best villain ... and all bosses are hard without training XD
 
I'm gonna be weird and say that the villain of villains is Ultimecia.

I mean, the entire game she's rumored about, takes over sorceresses, controls all of this nonsense happening... and eventually, the entire party and their NPCs get terribly afraid of the power she holds. Then, she freaking TIME COMPRESSES THE ENTIRE WORLD! I dunno, I just thought that that was really BA. I mean, you couldn't go anywhere, and (almost) every single location was at a standstill. It was just crazy. Ultimecia doesn't get enough face time to be truly evil, but everything that leads up to that final confrontation with all of the apprehension and anticipation makes her awesome imo.

You know what most villains look like far before the end of the game, but you don't see Ultimecia for what she truly is until the last ten minutes. It was just cuhrazy. :updown:
 
villian

the best villian is sephiroth and his actually pretty coll other than being evil
 
cloud.s said:
the best villian is sephiroth and his actually pretty coll other than being evil
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How is Sephiroth cooler than, say, Kuja? Who destroyed an entire Planet - Terra, while Sephiroth stabbed a girl from behind.

The coolest villain is Beatrix in my opinion, she just has a certain wow factor.

As for best villain, Kefka, since he acheived what he set out to do. Although my favourite villain is Sephiroth, I recognise that Kefka and Kuja did more than him.
 
"Best"? I think you should say who's the "worst". Lol. XD

I've actually been watching a show recently on tv called Most Evil. The show is narrated and run by a doctor who does a segment on analyzing the minds of serial killers. I think that will help me rate who's the most evil villain. ^.^



Kefka and Ultimecia - the strong minded
I think that one of the most...tactical villains was Kefka. After all, he was one of the only villains to successfully plan and carry out the demise and ruin of the entire world. Who else has done that? Kefka really did bring the world to ruins (world of ruin ^.^), and his reign lasted for an entire year before anyone could do anything about it!
Kefka had a tactical (and psychotic) plan to do what he did, and he carried out his will with great precision.

Ultimecia was very hard to place on this scale because she seemingly makes very few appearances throughout the game. Of course, she really is there all along, from start to finish, but many people see her as kind of a last minute brick wall in the path to completion. The only reason that Ultimecia is not able to physically walk into the picture is that she lives years and years in the future. But she is there, and she is running the show.
Ultimecia shows just as much determination and master mindedness as Kefka did, in my opinion. She has the strength, the power, and the resources to manipulate others of her kind who exist decades into the past. And her goal; to compress all of time and rule the universe as a divine being. Her and Kefka have basically the same motives; they just carried out their ideas differently.
While I think that Kefka and Ultimecia tie one another on the scale of who's more evil...the only reason that Ultimecia comes second is that there was no point in time when she successfuly achieved her goal as Kefka did.


Seymour
Yu Yevon doesn't belong on this list because he's already the "malady" of the game or so to say. Seymour is the villain in FFX who drives and drives at dominating the next plane of existence. While Yu Yevon has existed as Sin for many millenia beforehand, he's lost his "strength" (be it mental or physical). And Seymour is driving to become Sin in order to control Spira. It's obvious why Seymour feels the way he does (as we see a few explanatory flashbacks of his life throughout the game). Even though he's not that tough to boot...he's very motivated to make his way. I'd call him a tactical manipulator, and a decent opponent.
Seymour might have been considered a confused and insecure child, but in his adulthood, as he appears in the games, he seems to be well motivated, and not at all as confused as say...Sephiroth or Kuja.


Sephiroth and Kuja - the confused
I just have to make an opening statement by saying that even though Sephiroth might just top the charts when it comes to insecurity and down right horrible nature...I don't think it's bad ass to stick it to a chick from behind...let alone while she's praying...Hah. XD
But what does make Sephiroth a formidable villain is that he ran his own show. He had his own motives, and he carried them out by successfully dominating his resources (e.g. Jenova).

Kuja is a very formidable opponent on his own. He has the power to tear down an entire planet for cripe's sake! He's a very tactical mastermind when it comes to getting his way. While doesn't make very many first hand encounters he does manipulate anyone and everyone to do his bidding for him with "charm" and promises of greatness.
While Kuja is a very strong opponent, I wouldn't place him at the top of the chart because he was under the jurist diction of another; Garland. That's debatable, right? Think again. Where did Kuja get the idea and motivation to target and destroy Gaia? That's right...

So why are Kuja and Sephiroth linked together? It's not because they both have gorgeous monochrome locks...both Sephiroth and Kuja developed their motivation to dominate through confusion and insecurity.
 
Honestly, I still just can't say that I understand all the love for Kefka. Really, he's just as overrated as Sephiroth is. *dodges sniper's bullet* Now, at least hear me out before you go hiring mercenaries to assassinate me! As I've said many times before, I still love Sephiroth and Kefka to death. They're both incredible villains in their own rights, but there's really no denying that both of them are horribly overrated and don't deserve a lot of the praise that they get from the fans. I suppose I understand why they get that praise in the first place, although that's a whole other argument entirely.

In my eyes, Kefka was...well...he was bad storytelling. Here you have a villain who starts out insane and, by the end of the game, he's still insane. He goes through no development, we have no idea who he is or why it is he wants what he wants, he's just kind of "there." Kefka is, in other words, a static character akin to a villain from a 1920's cartoon who cackles and shouts "I'll get you kids if it's the last thing I do!" as he adjusts his monocle. It's terrible execution and I'm afraid I just can't feel threatened by a villain like that.

I mean, when you think about it, what separates Kefka from a Captain Planet villain? Now, I'm sure that any American who was once a child remembers Captain Planet...and I'm also sure that they remember the villains in Captain Planet. Remember how they would burn down a rainforest for no reason and then drive an oil tanker straight into the shore? Well, that's Kefka. He burns, stabs, and annihilates whatever he wants because he's "EEEEVILLL! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" We have no idea why he's evil, but that doesn't matter, does it? Now, this is perfectly fine if you're a character on a television show aimed at 8 year olds, but when you're the villain in a high quality JRPG, that's just not going to cut it.

Now, don't get me wrong, I understand that you have to hate a villain for them to be a good villain. However, I like to think that we've evolved past the cackling madman whose motivation can be summed up with "I'm a huge a-hole." That type of antagonist is outdated in this new age where video-games are quickly becoming a legitimate form of art. Kefka would've been right at home in a 1930's silent movie, but now, he could be considered an item of yesteryear. Why should I be intimidated by someone who is so comically stereotypical that it almost seems as though Square-Enix was TRYING to make him as one-dimensional as possible?

Again, I turn your attention to Kuja, who I personally believe should be a rolemodel for RPG Villains everywhere. Kuja was...a meanie. He was bad to the bone and he made sure you knew it. This was a man who would manipulate, destroy, and torture to get what he wanted. Yet, at the same time, he had motivation that we were made aware of. While he was certainly a terrible human, he was still human (well, technically, he was an Angel of Death, but you get where I'm going with this). You hated Kuja, but at the same time, you could sympathize with his plight, as well. He had a genuinely 3-Dimensional character that actually required thought to fully understand.

Of course, that's just looking at things through the eyes of an elitist. Kefka, like Sephiroth, has redeeming qualities that make him an enjoyable villain. He's got a repetoire of interesting dialogue that actually manages to make me laugh, which is a feat in and of itself. I really enjoyed watching his antics and, yes, I admit that he succeeded in making me genuinely hate him towards the end. So yes, Kefka is an enjoyable villain, but he most certainly isn't a threatening or interesting one.

Again, don't get me wrong, you can find a way to criticize pretty much any villain in the series if you try hard enough. Kefka is still a wonderfully entertaining antagonist, I'm just saying that I find him to be terribly overrated, especially by FF7 Haters who try to be nonconformist and "edgy" by hating something popular and clinging to something "underappreciated." If you think I'm biased, I'd be more than happy to list reasons why Sephiroth is overrated, as well. *shrug*

In closure, Kuja is the bomb. That is all.
 
I guess it all depends on how you're classifying your villains...it looks like you classify your villains based on their actions...I classified mine based on their motives and reasoning. I personally think that a confused villain is a weaker villain. And a villain who follows another person's orders or ideas is weaker still...

But if you're classifying them based on their bully nature...
Then my list would probably be a bit different. ^.^
 
Booger said:
I guess it all depends on how you're classifying your villains...it looks like you classify your villains based on their actions...I classified mine based on their motives and reasoning. I personally think that a confused villain is a weaker villain. And a villain who follows another person's orders or ideas is weaker still...

But if you're classifying them based on their bully nature...
Then my list would probably be a bit different. ^.^
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Yes, personal preference does play a large role in deciding your favorite villain. However, I don't classify a villain by any one thing in particular. Motivation, actions, dialogue, and overall execution all play roles in my evaluation of their quality as antagonists. That's why I still liked Kefka despite his obvious flaws. Though his motivation and execution were both very poorly done, his actions and dialogue both compensated for that by making him a genuinely entertaining character to watch.

But...just out of curiosity, if you classify your villains based on motives and reasoning, why would you like Kefka? His motivation is nonexistent, which only makes for poor storytelling and a villain straight out of a 1920's cartoon. And if you remember, Kefka's actions throughout much of the game were done because the Emperor commanded him to do so. For the vast majority of FF6, Kefka was following someone else's orders. Besides, Kefka is probably the "weakest" of the FF villains, personality-wise. The guy's a sniveling coward. Whenever he does fight your party (before the end of the game), he's either defeated with ease or he falls down/runs away. I don't see how he's any tougher than the likes of Sephiroth, Golbez, or Kuja, who are easily able to incapacitate your party with ease.

Another thing I'd like to bring up is that, just because a villain has a realistic motivation, doesn't mean he/she is weak. That just makes him/her realistic and, if done right, genuinely intimidating. A villain who looks, acts, and operates like a real human is much more frightening because the viewer actually relates to him/her. Think about it. You can look at a villain like Gendo from Evangelion or Vicious from Cowboy Bebop and think "Wow...I could actually turn out like that." Kefka is too exaggerated a villain to be scary or threatening. He's very "safe." Most viewers know that someone like Kefka could never exist. They don't actually have to think about it because of how 2-Dimensional he is. That is, in my eyes, very cheap.

The fact of the matter is that video-games have evolved past villains like Kefka, and they've done so for a reason. Just like movies, novels, and anime, the video-game industry is beginning to realize that 2-Dimensional villains are largely outdated. It's bad storytelling and has no place in a game that tries to take itself seriously. Villains are, ideally, supposed to be just as human as the protagonist, even if their goals could be considered a fair bit more destructive.

Of course I'd never fault someone for liking Kefka. I like him as well, but I just...don't understand all the praise he gets, at least not when someone praises him for sake of bashing Sephiroth or something like that.

Sephiroth was pretty bad in my eyes. :)
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Why do you think this? I'm curious.
 
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Aside from the fact that Kefka is supremely annoying on most occasions, I looked at his motive to take over the world; which he actually did do. How many other villains have successfully reached their "take over the world" goals? XD
I don't think Kefka was "tough" like some of the other villains were...he was just severely driven. Especially since you beat the snot out of him several times and he never gives up. XD

Yeah, Kefka isn't my overall favorite...in fact I'm not a huge FFVI fan...
I actually place Ultimecia on that pedestal. ^.^
 
Why anyone, why people doesn't realize that the REAL MEGAVILLIAN was that bug on FFX....what was it's name...oh yes! YEVON!
It is UNESTIMATED, it's the REAL BAD GUy....BUG on the series, because he passed UNNTICED for everyone of us! That's it's BIG PLAN! He's the most intelligent and manipulator villian in all series of VIDEOGAMES! (the second one is Knuckles from Sonic, because he's apparently good but it's an evil plan too for sidetrack and cheate the other characters!)

YEVON was a BUG who created a religion, and all humans on Spira pray for IT and were at it's feet!
Further I've ever saw FFX like a very huge critic to the Monotheistic Religions)

Guys....open your minds. When you play a FF the heroes walk and walk and walk and they get into many troubles and deathly situations only to destroy a very-bad final-villian.
¡And the you Play FFX and the characters do the same, Yuna's gonna die, it's a suicide journey, they pass through bad experiences knowing that, and then........in the big moment of the final attack, to destroy the architect of all the evil in the world.....he....IT.....it's a B......BUG!?

Oh! Stupid and poor humans! Defeated and tricked by a mere insect!
(Even Sephiroth had been turn mad if this happened to him! or Kuja, or Kefka! (well, no, he was alredy mad...))
 
Yevon isn't a bug, he's a real person...the "bug" was just a physical representation of his soul, since well..."souls" are invisible. Yevon, the person, created a religious following 1000 years ago, created the first Sin, and made the world cower in fear of him.


...he's not a bug...
 
Booger said:
Yevon isn't a bug, he's a real person...the "bug" was just a physical representation of his soul, since well..."souls" are invisible. Yevon, the person, created a religious following 1000 years ago, created the first Sin, and made the world cower in fear of him.


...he's not a bug...
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LIEZ, he is a bug

i think vayne is the best FF villain.
Unlike the rest he doesnt want to take over/destroy the world.
Thats pretty much the biggest cliche ever.
Vayne is original, something that most villains seem to lack
 
Booger said:
Aside from the fact that Kefka is supremely annoying on most occasions, I looked at his motive to take over the world; which he actually did do. How many other villains have successfully reached their "take over the world" goals? XD
I don't think Kefka was "tough" like some of the other villains were...he was just severely driven. Especially since you beat the snot out of him several times and he never gives up. XD
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I understand what you're saying, but a high body count most definitely does not make a villain a good villain. By that logic, every Dragonball Z villain would be the greatest antagonist to ever grace the world of fiction, considering they've each destroyed at least a few planets, and I consider the DBZ villains to be among the worst. The fact that Kefka managed to destroy the world doesn't mean a whole lot, especially considering he only had to push a few statues to achieve it. Basically, all Kefka really did was follow the Emperor's orders until he saw a chance to get some power without any real effort on his part.

But the fact remains that a villain shouldn't be measured by what he accomplishes, but by how he accomplishes what he does. As I said, even judging villains by what they accomplished, Kefka still isn't anything special. Chaos disrupted the balance of time and space, The Emperor (FFII) managed to overthrow the demons of hell, ExDeath almost absorbed all of existence, Ultimecia had absorbed a good portion of the universe by the time Squall defeated her, Kuja destroyed the very crystal which holds our universe together (and wiped out Terra), etc. Kefka may be the only FF Villain to "destroy the world," but even within the series, there are many villains who have accomplished more.

Though I suppose he knows what he's doing to a degree in that he was able to claw his way up from almost nothing. I'll say this for Kefka. He's a rolemodel for henchmen everywhere. This guy started out as nothing more than a General serving the big baddie, but he managed to overthrow the primary antagonist of the game and steal the role for himself. That's pretty good for someone who was nothing more than a comic relief villain at first.
 
Kuja never destroyed the Crystal. That's a fan theory as far as I'm aware.

And if Ultimecia had absorbed a great deal of the universe...i'm pretty sure she wouldn't have gotten owned by the heroes. The heroes of FFVIII not exactly having feats to their name that speaks to this power level.

And I agree, a villain should be measured on how they accomplish their goals. That's why Ultimecia is right at the bottom. The heroes LET her do her thing. She failed repeatedly to get what she wanted through the game until the party let her get it. And it wasn't even like Kuja who manipulated the party into getting his ultimate power. It was just the fact the heroes had to help her because she couldn't do it on her own.
 
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Kuja never destroyed the Crystal. That's a fan theory as far as I'm aware.
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Well, yeah, it is just a theory, but it's a theory that makes perfect sense. Necron is essentially the universe's reset button, after all. He only arrived because he had it in his head that humanity wanted to be returned to the 'zero world,' after all. Before the battle, he even says that Kuja's actions proved to him that humanity really didn't want to live for fear of dying...or something to that effect. I'd go into greater detail on the matter, but really, I don't think that I could do nearly as good a job of explaining it as the Plot Analysis in the Final Fantasy IX section on GameFAQ's. I agree that it was never really outright confirmed by the creators, but there is a lot of evidence to support it in the game and it is the theory that creates the least amount of plotholes.

And if Ultimecia had absorbed a great deal of the universe...i'm pretty sure she wouldn't have gotten owned by the heroes. The heroes of FFVIII not exactly having feats to their name that speaks to this power level.
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Well...I agree with you in the sense that, for all intents and purposes, Squall and co. should have lost that battle by all means. However, you're forgetting that they were fated to defeat Ultimecia. In the world of FF8, Fate is a very active role, you see. In fact, it's one of the driving points of the plot and probably saves the characters more than once over the course of the game (Squall and Rinoa finding the Ragnarok, anyone?). The fact that they were fated to defeat Ultimecia simply means that, regardless of how powerful she is, they will emerge victorious when they fight her.

Besides, if you pay attention during the last battle against her, all that's left is...well...a black screen. There are no stars, no planets, nothing. The party is basically fighting Ultimecia in a black void completely lacking...err...anything. She didn't absorb the entire universe, but she absorbed enough of it to make the surrounding area look utterly desolate. That says that she at least absorbed the planet Earth and the surrounding planets.

And I agree, a villain should be measured on how they accomplish their goals. That's why Ultimecia is right at the bottom. The heroes LET her do her thing. She failed repeatedly to get what she wanted through the game until the party let her get it. And it wasn't even like Kuja who manipulated the party into getting his ultimate power. It was just the fact the heroes had to help her because she couldn't do it on her own.
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Ultimecia really only failed due to fate and possibly her own hubris. In essence, Ultimecia set herself up for her own defeat and played right into fate's hand. She realized that everyone was talking about these legendary SeeDs who would, regardless of circumstance, one day rise to defeat her. So she thought to herself "Alright, fine. You want me to fight these legendary SeeD? Then I will! And I'll beat them, too!" She tried to screw over fate. Remember, even before using Time Compression, she had essentially destroyed and overthrown the Earth...and she did it with her own natural sorceress powers. She just wanted to see if she could do better.
 
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