Summary
Final Fantasyis one of the most successful JRPG franchises of all time, and boasts a trulymind-boggling number of entriesin its long-running history. Many of these games have become icons of the genre, full of fondly remembered heroes and villains.
A lot of gamers will be familiar with the franchise’s poster villains - legends like Sephiroth and Kefka - but may not realize some games in the franchise feature multiple antagonists. TheseFinal Fantasygames can boast of havingquality and quantity when it comes to their villain rosters.
Individually, none ofFinal Fantasy 16’svillains are going to rank very high, but taken as a whole, they form a fairly impressive roster. As JRPG villains, they don’t exactly reinvent the wheel, but instead feel like an homage to classic tropes.
For a start, there’s protagonist Clive’s villainous mother, Anabelle Rosfield, who betrays her country in her lust for power. Then there’s Sylvestre Lesage, the once-kindly emperor who’s corrupted by his new wife. Not to mention Benedikta Harman, the strong-willed, noble female warrior, faultlessly loyal to her evil commander. In a nod to older games in the series, there’s the arch villain, Ultima, who has been pulling everyone’s strings all along. They make for a memorable and devious cast of antagonists.
Final Fantasy 4is an underrated classic that any fan of theFinal Fantasyseries should play. It introduced many elements that became staples of the series, likegood characters being brainwashed, but its greatest strength is its absolutely bonkers story.
This story includes a great roster of villains. Some have a personal touch, like the evil Dr. Lugae, who turns Edge’s parents into monsters, or Golbez, Cecil’s brainwashed brother. Others just have really cool themes, like the Archfiends, who are all inspired by demons inDante’s Inferno. The highlight, however, is the genocidal moon-man, Zemus, who wants to wipe out mankind so the Lunarians can live on Earth.
Final Fantasy 14is a hugely successful MMORPG, and all good MMORPGs need a great roster of villains to keep players hooked. SinceFF14re-launched back in 2013, it’s had countless updates and four major expansion packs, all of which have added new villains.
The story ofFinal Fantasy 14is long, winding, and full of bad guys. More impressive than the game’s sheer number of villains, however, is how well-written they all are. While most MMORPG villains are little more than damage-sponge piñatas filled with loot,Final Fantasy 14’sare real characters with fleshed-out motives and backstories. It’s this dedication to storytelling that has made the game so wildly popular and long-lived.
For many fans of the series,Final Fantasy 6is where the franchise peaked. There are multiple reasons for this, but one of them is certainly its villain roster.Final Fantasy 6has two of the best villains in the entire series. One of them is hilarious; the other is nightmare-inducing.
Ultros is a giant, quip-making, man-eating octopus that stalks the player’s party throughout most ofFinal Fantasy 6.He has no grand plans or nefarious schemes; he’s just really annoyed that he keeps getting beaten. Brilliantly, after giving up, he goes straight and gets a job at Dragon’s Neck Colosseum. The MVP of the game, though, is Kefka, the very definition of achaotic evilFinal Fantasyvillain. He’s a deranged killer clown whose desire to kill everything leads to his becoming the God of Magic and ultimate evil.
Much likeFF16,Final Fantasy 9has a great mix of villains that play with classic tropes from the series. To begin with, it has Queen Brahne, a once-kind ruler brainwashed into genocide, and her loyal general, Beatrix, who starts as a villainbefore becoming a hero.These two villains have close ties to both Steiner and Garnet, making the stakes feel personal.
Then there’s Zorn and Thorn, who are Brahne’s psychotic jesters and the stars of the game’s most entertaining boss battles. The game’s main antagonist is Kuja, who was created by another villain, Garland, and is kind of protagonist Zidane’s brother. He hopes to destroy Gaia so that the dead people of Terra can take it over. Rounding out the roster is Necron, who pops up at the end of the game as its final boss. He’s a little random, but has a very cool design.
Final Fantasy 8’sstory doesn’t get as much love as it should. It easily has one of the strangest, and most impressive, villain rosters in the entire series. Protagonist Squall’s greatest enemy is his school bully and academic rival, Seifer, who slices up Squall’s face in the game’s opening. He’s backed up by his loyal friends and unwitting villains, Raiin and Fujin.
While these three ultimately see the error of their ways, the same can’t be said for the rest of the game’s villains.Final Fantasy 8has two evil sorceresses to contend with. The first, Adel, is a cruel tyrant who sets the main game’s events in motion during Laguna’s flashback sections. The second is Ultimecia, a time-traveling villain from the future who wants to compress time and take over the world. She makes things personal by possessing Edea Kramer, the party’s foster mother, and is one of thebest-ever female RPG villains.
Final Fantasy 7has so many great villains that it’s a shame that the only one that ever gets talked about is Sephiroth. Shinra alone is home to Rufus, Heidegger, Scarlet, Palmer, and Hojo. Hojo is one of themost evil characters inFinal Fantasyhistory, and he’s only in a handful of scenes. At the other end of the spectrum are Palmer and Scarlet, two villains so hilariously pathetic that one is defeated by a runaway biplane, and the other is knocked off a giant cannon during a slapfight.
The game also gave us the Turks, who are meant to be villains but are so likable that multiple spin-offs and remakes have done their best to paint them as anti-heroes. Finally, there’s everyone’s favoriteFinal Fantasyvillain, Sephiroth, and his alien mother, Jenova. He’s become iconic over the years and will likely remain the poster boy for JRPG villains for many years to come.
