The Anti-Existence
11-14-2006, 07:00 PM
Discuss and present your viewpoint on who you believe was the worst main antagonist of any FF. Note: Sin is NOT a villain. Was made clear by the Fayth that Yu Yevon had no malicious inclinations whatsoever. So, use Seymour as the main antagonist.

Now my choice is Shuyin of Final Fantasy X-2. It is not because I detested the game- it�s possibly the main reason I detested the game. I enjoy a marvelous villain who can really impress upon me how innovative in character and diabolical in intent and, sadly, Shuyin fails to deliver in every fashion.

Motives-

Shuyin: Lenne. We disappeared together, but when I awoke, I was alone. I looked
for you for so long. While I wandered, I realized something: Spira hasn't really
changed at all. Everyone's still fighting over nothing. Still dying like they
used to. A thousand years have passed, and they can't leave the hatred behind.
I'm through waiting. I'll fix it. This world continues to fail us, and what's
worse, I failed to protect you. (clenches his fist) Vegnagun will make that all
go away. And we'll fade together again, together. Help me do it, Lenne.

Ah. So, a nihilistic-liberation philosophy. Not only is this uninteresting and stale, but it�s particularly bland in the FFX series given that Seymour�s main purpose once he died was to grant Spira freedom from the �Spiral of Death� by killing everything.

Seymour: I will destroy Spira! I will save it.

But, while Seymour apparently gained his ideas of the salvation of mankind resting in annihilation, Shuyin�s main reasons are simply the fact Lenne died. The love of his life was oh so brutally gunned down and so his quest to free the world is more a twist sort of revenge. Now this is even more unoriginal than nihilism-freedom. How many villains have lost someone they loved and as a result turned than noble? And how many of it did it in such an enormously cooler way?

Because, quite frankly, Shuyin didn�t go evil in any semblance of a cool way. His ingenious plan is....a giant doomsday weapon!! Wow! See, it�s Vegnagun and it�s been lying underground for many, many years. Shuyin, after inexplicably deciding after a 1000 years that NOW was the time to start destroying everything, decided that a giant doomsday weapon shouldn�t just sit around collecting dust. It should be out causing a doomsday. So what does he do/? He possesses Baralai, head of New Yevon and that�s about it. He doesn�t appear to actually do much after this except fight the party.

That is until you get to the Farplane where he is. He�s using Baralai to start to fire up Vegnagun for a good old-fashioned night on the town. I swear he said �Come on, Vegnagun! Let�s pain the town red with the blood of the innocent! BWAHAHAHAHA!� ...no, he did not sadly. It�s a real shame. Would have been his only cool line in the game. But, back to being serious. The guy starts to fire up weapon and of course it�s up to the group of heroes to stop this evil thing.

So, that�s what we do. Aided by voices from people who have died (this is the Farplane) we come to realize that Auron is not voiced by the same guy now or the guy�s voice-acting ability has deteriorated horribly. Even through that kind of obstacle the three heroines battle on and reduce the massive doomsday weapon to scrap that you can find at your local junkyard. Now, in a heart-rending scene of emotion, Shuyin, apparently unconcerned that his entire plan for punishing/saving/blowing the fuck out of the world was just ruined, he walks over to Yuna who he thinks is Lenne. Now, in a horribly predictable scene that even I, a guy who forces his mind to not think far ahead in a plot because it ruins so many good moments, can tell he�s gonna figure out it�s not her. One of the reasons is that he talks about fading together with her, which she can�t do because she�s not dead.

So, sure enough Braniac does figure it out and she begs him to stop. When that fails, she shoots him and he loses. So, now the real spirit of Lenne comes (conveniently after the possible eradication of humanity and Shuyin�s defeat) to collect her wayward and emo lover and take him away.

Powers- Shuyin, as mentioned earlier, has certain similarities in goal-setting with Seymour Guado. But, unlike Seymour, he does not really do anything demonstrative of power. He possesses Barali and then fights the party using all of Tidus� moves but with cooler names like Terror of Zanarkand. While Seymour killed dozens of Ronso, took a spear to the chest and made himself into various forms (most notably Seymour Flux on Mount Gagazet) Shuyin pretty much just controls Vegnagun and shows no other real range of powers or abilities.

Accomplishments-
Even more a kick in the pants for our poor undead antagonist. Apart from possessing Barali and awakening Vegnagun, he did�t do jack squat. The aeons who awoke were not his own real doing. The war in Spira was not his real doing. He pretty much failed his only real objective and didn�t actually do much else to ben be worth of note.

Definitely the worst FF villain in my opinion.

Hex Omega
11-14-2006, 11:54 PM
Intresting thread, I find it hard to disagree with those points, Shuyin really isn't much of a villian. However, in sheer terms of being vastly over-rated and foolishly idolised by countless rabid fanboys, Sephiroth is one of the poorest FF villians, and by far the most over-hyped and over-rated.

For a start, take his apperance. He is a total stereotype, all in black, a ridicolous sword and pretty daft hair, however to some he looks 'cool' and people think this makes him a good villian. It most certainly doesn't. Kefka may look daft, but then again clowns are deeply unfunny, almost sinister characters.

Secondly, did he achieve what he set out to do? No. Does he display incredible power? Not really. His body-count is modest at best. His script is poorly written, badly executed and a mess in general.

So yeah, thats my take. That said, he isn't alone. Ultimecia, Necron(does he even count?) and Shuyin are equally appaling viliians.

Ceidwad
11-15-2006, 12:12 AM
I don't think anyone with a decent amount of posts here would argue that Sephiroth is a good villain Bryan. I myself consider him to be one of the worst parts of an otherwise relatively presentable, if rather unoriginal game.

I agree that Ultemicia would be a contender too. The main complaint for me here-she hardly features in the game as herself, hiding behind Edea, so we fail to see any physical characteriscs and special abilities/traits, which are the trademarks of some of the better villains in the series. She also lacks in personality IMO. Something that can't really be said about Kefka, Kuja or even Seymour. All good villains.

I think Shuyin takes the dubious honour by a whisker from Sephiroth.

I think the problem with this thread is that unfortuantely it won't generate much debate, cause, as I said above, most people would agree with you TAE. A better one would be who is the best villain. I know that's been done a fair few times but it still generates some good points, with Kefka and Kuja vying closely for the honour. For me, it's very hard to seperate between those two. I'd probably give Kuja the edge, but that'd be unfair as I never fully completed VI.

EDIT: Just to add to that, I would call Kuja the villain and Necron merely an NPC. Necron may have been a shit villain, but it appears for about a minute in the game. You can't really give it that label.

The Anti-Existence
11-15-2006, 02:47 AM
Well, that's where I'm conflicted. I would definitely make that topic but Kuja and Kefka both appeal to me for different reasons. Kefka's malice and wickedness remain unchallenged by most characters in RPGs. Even if these characters caused a huge loss of life, we never got to personally witness an apocalypse and a dying world brought about by the villain. In that department, Kefka reigns supreme against even Kuja. However, I find Kuja an infinitely more interesting character. It's not a slight against Kefka. It's simply that Kefka was designed to be insane and that's all there is to him. his personality and psychotic humor make him memorable but his actual character - plot, motivation, purpose - are 2D. Kuja has all manner of possible interpretations of his actions. Can one sympathize with him? He was born a tool of warfare and used as a tool of warfare. or do we detest him? He was born a tool of warfare but he reveled in the deaths of others and all indications point to his actual indviduality being even more vile than his existence warranted.

So, even if there was a debate, I couldn't really participate in it because they both are equal to me.

manashima
11-15-2006, 07:42 AM
Yeah the best villian has already been done, and yeah Kuja and Kefka were like neck and neck for a while.

But anyways worst cant really say they all caused terror and destruction, or promised future destruction in sephiroths case.

But yeah Sephiroth is probably the worst, along with Palmecia. Sephiroth had a strong impact on Cloud, but thats all he did really. His plan was just using what Hojo already had planned, the reunion. Meteor was terrorfying though.

Palmecia...he just didnt appeal to me like Chaos, Zande, ETC. Did he even have a motive except "I want power"? It felt like if someone other guy was in palmecias place, things would of went the same way....no character.

Hex Omega
11-15-2006, 10:24 AM
Well, that's where I'm conflicted. I would definitely make that topic but Kuja and Kefka both appeal to me for different reasons. Kefka's malice and wickedness remain unchallenged by most characters in RPGs. Even if these characters caused a huge loss of life, we never got to personally witness an apocalypse and a dying world brought about by the villain. In that department, Kefka reigns supreme against even Kuja. However, I find Kuja an infinitely more interesting character. It's not a slight against Kefka. It's simply that Kefka was designed to be insane and that's all there is to him. his personality and psychotic humor make him memorable but his actual character - plot, motivation, purpose - are 2D. Kuja has all manner of possible interpretations of his actions. Can one sympathize with him? He was born a tool of warfare and used as a tool of warfare. or do we detest him? He was born a tool of warfare but he reveled in the deaths of others and all indications point to his actual indviduality being even more vile than his existence warranted.


I agree. Kuja is a lot deeper then Kefka. However, where it matters, Kefka excels in the villian stakes.


So, even if there was a debate, I couldn't really participate in it because they both are equal to me.

Didn't seem that way when we discussed it for 2-3 pages pre-hack~

But yes, there is very little to choose between the two. Both fascinate me, however I still prefer Kefka.

Mr.Hazard
11-15-2006, 02:28 PM
Die Sephiroth! You are the fucking worse villain of all time. Die and run to mama!

Prak
11-15-2006, 02:36 PM
I really have very little to say that hasn't been discussed already. Basically, Kefka and Kuja ftw; Sephiroth and Ultimecia ftl.

I'm actually a bit kinder on Shuyin than you guys though. One thing to consider is that an antagonist needs to be balanced to the needs of the story. X-2 was a much lighter game with less epic themes. As such, its primary antagonist needed to be less vile, more emotionally conflicted, and generally someone that can be empathized with to a degree. Considering that, Shuyin fit better in the context of that game than any hardcore evildoer could have.

Also, Necron can't really be counted because he had no malicious intentions in the first place. He was just doing what he thought people wanted him to do. It was an iconic battle to follow up the more personal battle with Kuja. Nothing more and nothing less.

The Anti-Existence
11-15-2006, 03:31 PM
Didn't seem that way when we discussed it for 2-3 pages pre-hack~

I have absolutely nothing against Kefka. I simply have an interpretation of evil and an opinion on how Kefka's state of mind can not truly make him evil. It's not any sort of insult directed at him. Just something I believe. He's a major badass and always will be.

CorroDedSouL
11-15-2006, 09:26 PM
Up there, I saw mentioned that Ultimecia hid behind Edea most of the time, never showing true colors. But I also saw that people think Sephiroth is bad. At least Sephiroth didnt hide behind everyone, he basically challenged them to come and get him.

z.zetsumei
11-15-2006, 11:22 PM
Die Sephiroth! You are the fucking worse villain of all time. Die and run to mama!

x2

he seemed more like a whiny bitch than a villain

ThroneofOminous
11-16-2006, 06:03 AM
I’m surprised no one has put forward Garland (FFI) or Zande (FFIII) yet. I mean, as underdeveloped as Ultimecia was and as unthreatening as Shuyin tuned out to be, they are nothing compared to an antagonist that gets owned in the first boss fight and then just sort of shows up in the end, or *FFIII spoiler warning due to re-release* a villain who can be summarized with “That guy in the final dungeon”.*/spoiler*. Never really got far enough to make a real judgment, but I hear The Emporer from FFII wasn’t exactly imposing/complex either.

Prak
11-16-2006, 03:08 PM
You have to judge it according to the standards of the time, at least to an extent. NES cartridges didn't have enough storage space for anything but the most basic story. It wasn't until the SNES era that storytelling even became a factor in console games.

Kakarot
11-17-2006, 11:41 AM
Die Sephiroth! You are the fucking worse villain of all time. Die and run to mama!

He would have been much better as an antagonist, (like Seymour). It's funny how similar they are. However, if I can think of a worse villain than Sephiroth *coughZemuscough*.

NorseFTX
11-17-2006, 06:47 PM
I judge villains by how much I hate them, how much I feel sorry for them, or how "OMFG how could you do something so horrible" they are for me...>>

Sephiroth didn't really make me hate him, and didn't really make me feel any of the other things, either....
ShinRa got me to hate them and they were heartless...but I never felt sorry for them. I think ShinRa was a better villain than Sephiroth....<< And Hojo, too....
Kefka made me feel all three, though (I hated him, felt sorry for him, and thought he was a heartless B^%#$), and Kuja made me feel the second two (I never really could make myself hate Kuja >>).
Ultimecia was a little strange and out of nowhere, and so was Necron....
I kind of felt a little appalled by how Seymour viewed the world and everything, but Seymour didn't really do anything for me....

I think from each the games I've played, the villains I thought were the best were
FFVI - Kefka
FFVII - ShinRa
FFVIII - ....I can't think of any right now.....>>
FFIX - Kuja
FFX - I think somewhere between Seymour and "Jecht"

Jarosik
11-17-2006, 07:26 PM
As the topic is here, did anyone else notice the utter pointlessness of that fat bloke from Shinra in FF7? I think his name was Palmer...

Worst villain? :rolleyes:

The Anti-Existence
11-17-2006, 10:07 PM
He took getting hit by a truck. That's some badass stuff.