Poll of the Day > Who is your favorite Final Fantasy villain (Part 2)

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/3-poll-of-the-day/79418013
For Part 1 if you haven't voted in it yet.

I apologize for my 11 villain selection if it's not good. I have never played 11.

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This one is gonna a be a lot tougher to pick . They all suck

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Lady Lilith was good until you beat her. Then her resolve goes out the window, and she asks her better-future equivalent to take her place in the darker timeline, and give those people hope, all the while saying all of a sudden she wants the timelines to be separate rather than have hers dominate the better future. I still love her design, however. Also, she wasn't the villain of the whole of XI, just of one expansion, and even then she was working under Odin, who was for some reason evil incarnate for two expansions.

Though, yes, you did include two other antagonists. One of whom was basically a puppet for the other, and the latter was a puppet for his child-like older brother, who basically wanted to bring back their people at the cost of the five races of Vana'diel.

All three of XIII's villains can be summed up as, "I want you to kill me to trigger my master plan, and the only way to stop me . . . is to kill me." Probably the first time Star Wars copied FF rather than the other way around. <_<

Ardyn started out entertaining, and basically the template for which XIV's best villain would be copied, but the ending gave me too much of a headache to call him good.

Gaius and Zenos were fine for the times we initially had them. One came back a la. "I got better" and, as a result, went from a dead villain to a wanderer bent on vengeance against Ascians that would just be reborn anyway, to helping deal with a Weapons project he disagreed with, to trying to save his children, to trying to help people he'd once subjugated now that one of those children was finally safe and got the closure she needed to recover from her catatonic state. The other should have stayed dead, but here we are, and that alone limits my hope regarding 6.0's main story. Again, they were fine, but not really outstanding.

Thordan was a beard-twirler in charge of a religious order, who showed his true colors once opportunity showed itself. The most depth we see is when we beat him, and he fears our nigh-godlike silhouette standing over his perishing form. So not really a villain so much as a cookie cutter antagonist.

And then we have Emet Selch, the man with too many names. When we first see him as a player, we are introduced to an apparent lunatic. Then we meet him as our respective characters and see his depth, where he and his have been coming from for so long, which was long overdue. What seals the deal is that, unlike most of the villains in the other games on this list, he comes to peace with his loss and gives us a bitter-sweet victory; "Remember us. Remember that we once lived." No bitching about Eorzea needing a good ruler, no screwing over the moe of the month by making her live forever in another timeline, no convoluted scheme behind making you kill him, no nonsense about forgiveness and resting in peace that is immediately thrown out the window. Just, you won, he lost, and his hopes and dreams fade with him.

Sometimes the ending must befit the villain, or a bad conclusion will weigh on them for all eternity.

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Seifer fucking killed a GF!!! And it was Odin, no less! How does this go over peoples heads and how is he NOT everyones favorite?

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HornedLion posted...

Seifer fucking killed a GF!!! And it was Odin, no less! How does this go over peoples heads and how is he NOT everyones favorite?

He was a foil and antagonist, but not a big bad or actual villain.

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Entity13 posted...

He was a foil and antagonist, but not a big bad or actual villain.

That just makes him killing a GF that much more impressive.

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HornedLion posted...

That just makes him killing a GF that much more impressive.

For you, perhaps, and I respect that. I, however, do not think you need to be the big bad or actual villain to be actually powerful. On the other hand, this also happened in disc 3, iirc, which is well after the story and its writing just flew off the rails.

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Ill go with Ardyn because I dont know who any of the other ones are

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Vayne i suppose. Hes just okay and i prefer Gabranth and Cid in XII, but i havent played XI or XIV and i didnt like Barty or Ardyn.

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Vayne is really pretty

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I guess I'll go with Shadow Lord. He's the only one with a cool name.

Have not played 11 or 14. Honestly do not remember the 13 villain(s). Ardyn I never really liked and Vayne has to compete with better villains in his own game.

Are you taking a Dr. Bunansa write in?

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I haven't played 14, but the Shadow Lord is among the most emotionally charged final villains... even though his design is nothing special and his fight is nothing special

However, on the note of FF12... Vayne sucks and makes no sense, but the Judges were all really cool

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Yeah the villain selection in the later FFs aren't the best.

I'm surprised Vayne is as popular as he is.

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No vote for me. Final Fantasy ceases to exist for me after FFX, at least for the main series.

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I_Abibde posted...

No vote for me. Final Fantasy ceases to exist for me after FFX, at least for the main series.

Except for Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings on Nintendo DS (which I don't remember much of), I haven't played any Final Fantasy game after roman numeral X either so I can't vote either.

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Emet-Selch is daddy lol

Haven't played XI or XIV, but I suspect some of the XIV villains may change my answer once I play it (I'll never get around to XI unless they release an offline no subscription version).

Ignoring the online ones, people voting for Vayne clearly didn't play XV's Ardyn DLC (which is fair, I wouldn't have bothered with it if I hadn't got it all as a bundle). I think XII is by far the better game, but Ardyn is one of the best villains Final Fantasy has produced. It's a shame the game was a fumble over all and they relegated most of his backstory to DLC, because Ardyn is legitimately a complex and compelling character. Don't get your hopes up for XV reading my comments if you haven't played it though. He's one of the only good things the game has going for it.

JigsawTDC posted...

He's one of the only good things the game has going for it.

Him, Gladio's design, and Aranea (just all of her). Yum for the latter two.

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Voted for Vayne, but he really is outshined in XII by both Gabranth and Dr. Cid.

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yaknow.... what about Ultros? He's cool

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Lokarin posted...

yaknow.... what about Ultros? He's cool

Antagonist, but not a villain.

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Out of those, Ive only played FFXIII.