/vr/ - Retro Games

Yes.

Why cant he be both?

But that isnt Sephiroth!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siuWZxDMGnk

/thread

>>773223
b8

>>773209
You'd best be trolling.

Even FF1 had better antagonists.

His Final Battle was epic as fuck. Going from hell all the way to heaven to fight him was fucking classic. I felt like I beat God himself.

The themesong helped as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbXVNKtmWnc

>>773226
>2013
>hating Kefka
Go back to /v/ summerkid.

>>773229
Seriously, this theme blows One Wing Angel out of the water. The way it changes with the tiers you are, the battle was a fucking cinematic experience no CG could replicate. If you take all the CG and 3D out of FF VII, it will be a really bland game. FF VI was and still is the best Final Fantasy of all time.

>>773232
What's so good about him? He's a boring lolsorandumb faggot with no real characterization or motive. The previous games actually had some pretty interesting villains, but Kefka reads like he was written by a 12 year old.

>>773248
Not all villians need to be "SO DEEP" and "RELATABLE" to be interesting. Some of the best villains just want to see the world burn.

>>773209

Excuse me.

>>773248
He wasnt dumb, he was a cunning and deceptive tricksters. He played everyone like puppets on a string. For him the entire world was but a theter of Madness for him. To him the greatest joy was to unleash death and destruction to a boring world.

>>773257
Kefka could destroy Shin-Ra with the Light of Judgement no problem. At the end of the game he was fucking God.

>>773257
Summer kid go back to the kiddle pool. The adults are talking here.

>>773209
>>773212
>>773214
>None of the above
Kefka is easily one of the worst Final Fantasy villains. His motivation is completely lackluster and terrible and would be dated by any video game villain, then or now.
>WHAT IS THOU MOTIVE FOR WORLD DOMINATION, KEFKA?
>GOOD SIR, I AM QUITE MAD
>I SEE. ANY OTHER REASON?
>WHAT IS AN ULTERIOR MOTIVE? WHATS WRONG WITH WORLD DOMINATION!?

I can't think of one thing that does that could not be photo copied onto the cheapest C lister comic book villain's plot and obtain praise. He wants to dominate world. Why? He's crazy, he doesn't need reason. Yet the same people who give a thorough throat fucking to Kefka on a nightly basis like to pretend to have found some legendary villain, yet I see them no different than people mulling over heath ledger's joker as the most legendary antagonist of our times. People always want to talk about how a translation caused this, and Kefka is different in Japanese, but I fail to see how this means anything in results of motives and ambitions.
>I WANT TO CAUSE CHAOS AN DO IT WITH SOME HUMOR, OHOHOHOHO/HEHEHEHEHE/HAHAHAHA

He's also terrible antagonist, what does he do to inspire the cast to do anything until he actually PUSHES DEM STATUES? Kefka's "antagonizing" can be traced to him being in the Empire and being a dick, but how is that great villain or original?
>he poisons' Cyan's people!
which goes nowhere, Cyan gets zero character development in that area, as does Kefka. Its just "there".
>But he succeeds in world domination!
And from time to time this is the subject of a weekly superhero cartoon special, and has been done in comics since the dawn of time. Hell, recently Batman encounters a Joker who has woven human tapestries just to decor the halls for his arrival, Batman failed to save those people, the villain won
>SO EDGY SO GOOD MMM KEFKA
Kefka is one of my least favorite villains of all time. I HATE HATE HATE HATE HATEKefka.

Exdeath was the best.

>A motherfucking tree wizard in full plate armor that holds a sword

So, I'm gonna be participating in the Final Fantasy V Four-Job Fiesta this year. I've never played Final Fantasy V before. Is there a specific version I should play? Actual reasons, please, not just 'SNES because it came out first'.

Also, FFV FFJ thread.

>>773256
>SO DEEP
>RELATABLE
>Chaos
>Exdeath
wat
I liked the earlier villains because even though they weren't terribly complex, they were at least interesting and well-done for the most part. Kefka is a boring, one-dimensional wannabe Joker.

>>773274
Kekfa is a representation of all the evil of the world. Before him, the villians were stoic dark knights, brainwashed creeps or ancient evil monsters. But Kefka wasnt that. He was just a normal guy, like you and me. But aquired great power that corrupted him and turned him into everything we consider vile and evil. He taught things that are repulsive to us as comical and grandouse. Instead of being stoic he was a character greater than life. Eveything was a play for him, for him it was all a spectacle. He did imense evil not to bring darkness to the world or send it to the void.

He just did it because... It... Was... FUN!

Thats it. No grand plan, no big motive. Just for entertaiment.

>>773289
>Chaos
ZOMG LAST MINUTE TIME LOOPS
>ExDeath
An Ancient Evil Awakens.

>>773298
>just for entertainment
so he's the Joker.

>>773289
Kefka is anything but boring. I hated him so much as a child, that when i finnaly beat him I felt accomplished. He was a grade A asshole, and it was his great villainy that made me want to beat him. For me it was joyous to defeat that evil son of a bitch!

>>773317
He's more than a Joker clone, he transcends humanity and becomes something more.

>>773257
People always seem to ignore this, but a lot of what FFVII did was a conscious decision on the part of Squaresoft to recreate the success of FFVI.

Moreover, Kefka has the distinction of being one of the few villains that actually wins so I'd question your post.

>>773209
Love Kefka, I just wish the actual fight against him was difficult. Even if you fight him as soon as you can he's just so easy due to his low hp count.

>>773307
I liked those two, really. They're not sophisticated, they don't have complex characters, they're not even that intelligent. Their only purpose is to piss you off and give you an epic final battle.

>>773346
He could fuck you over really quick. He had the nefarious 1/1 move. What made it easier was the fact that if you die a party member replaced you.

do we really need to make the same exact threads every single day?

>>773329
>was a conscious redecision to create the success of VI
wrong. I'm doing a video about VII's production. If anything, VII was the attempt to BREAK from VI's FAILURE to secure a western market. JRPGS couldnt' break a few hundred thousand in the west. I don't know where people get it in their heads that Trigger/VI/FF3(6) were million sellers prior to VII. They were not.
The issues with VII's plotholes and comparisons to VI don't come from an attempt to "recreate" VI, it came from the fact by February 1996, less than 10 months from release they had only started production on the "real" VII we got today. The original Final Fantasy VII was supposed to take place in New York and had a vastly different plot. Many elements were pulled into 3 separate games square were working on and would work on
>Chrono Trigger
and later
>Parasite Eve
and
>Final Fantasy VIII
I know how people who contemplate literary deepness on par with a third grader will put that chart that compares VI and VII's plot, but this can be summed up as
A)Its the same writer. He's bound to have tropes, and has continued to use many of them since VI.
B)Its the next following game.
VII was a breakaway from VI, if anything.

>>773358
and most of the time you could kill him before he ever did. Hence my complaint about low hp count.

>>773372
FF7 was for the most part FF6 in 3D.

After Midgar FF7 fell flat in its face. It felt rushed as fucked, with Square just copying FF6 when necessary.

FF6 was a much better game but lacked the marketing muscle Sony provided FF7.

>>773372
>IM A FUCKING BABBY FAGGOT AND I M LOVE TO SUCK DICKS

>>773372
It was the huge marketing that helped FF7. FF7 was nothing special really, it was just the first 3D FF. The thing is that the marketing push it have made the game the 1st FF for many, including you.

>>773395
>FF7 was nothing special really

Sounds like the bitter words of a fanboy who's favorite game isn't as well liked as FF7.

>>773397
>IF ITS POPLAR IT MEANS ITS GOOD
Really now?

>>773397
>implying you aren't just a fan of FF7 because it was your first
It's really no better than 6 or 9.

>>773372
You're disregarding time in this equation. I don't think anyone is saying that the games you're referencing sold better than FFVII. But sales do not a good game make.

And while VI and Chrono Trigger may have sold less than VII, they sold well for their era and were very successful. And in this argument the size of the market and therefore the time when the games were sold does matter.

>>773385
>being this mad
Assgaping is n't good for you.
>>773383
>copying FF6 when necessary
How? Without referencing
>The Empire vs Rebels
plot, please explain. If you're going to reference the Ancients vs Espers, this is also weak.

>>773404
FF6 is the first FF game I played.

>>773402
>explain how these two plots are similar without referencing any of the central elements of the plots

>>773397
Stop defending your first jRPG babby.

FF7 is not a bad game, but it isnt ZOMG the best FF EVAR. Its not the worst, but it isnt the best either. FF6, FF5 and FF9 are much better.

>>773401
>and were very successful
No they were not. Sales in the west were very lukewarm. VII did not come out a decade after Trigger or VI. Despite renewed interests AND original sales, you could combine every PORT and REMAKE of VI AND trigger and struggle to get 8 million copies.
Again, that is every port, remake, redux, chronicles/anthology appearance.
Between PSN,PC, and PSone, FFVII has sold -more- than ten million. There is only a -two- year difference between these titles. There WERE mario games and zelda games that broke millions prior to FFVII, so when a game goes and doubles your collective income from two titles, that is very different. That's also a flawed argument because you can tally the sales of FF8 to FF9 and realize it wasn't just progression of tech that caused the sale spike. FFVII is the sole reason for the JRPG surge of the 90s and had nothing to do with recreating the "success" of anything so much as ACTUALLY becoming a success.

>>773414
First JRPG I played was actually Lufia 2. I thought it was kind of dumb. And the first I liked and beat was Chrono Trigger. First FF game I played was III/VI. I thought FF7 looked dumb and over-rated until I actually played it, too. Then I realized its the same old final fantasy, but with a new look. The backdrops and setting are really cool and it has Uematsu's best FF score.

And no, its not even my favorite. Which is IV, of which I own for every console I have in which it has a port.

>>773432
The reason FF7 sold was M A R K E T I N G, Marketing.

It had nothing to do with the quality of the game. It was marketed towards a mainstream audience when before RPGs were marketed toward a Niche audience. Its simple as that, using popularity to push that FF7 is better than 6 is ludicrous and just shows how mkuch of a newkid you really are.

>>773417
>being this stupid
I don't know, how about
>the entire playable cast of VII
Who's like Terra? Aeris? Spoilers, being part of rare race in JRPG wasn't anything new by that time. Cloud? Barret? Uh, please try. Oh wait, maybe you meant Vincent! He's so like Shadow, except when he's not. Which is the whole game. Got to be Yuffie then. Oh, what about the turks, totally had counterpart in that game, and the lifestream? Oh yeah that was in there too! and President Shinra and Rufus, total compraisons in Gestahl and Kefka! Except absolutely nothing. Ok, the honeybee inn, right!? The Gold Saucer is just like Setzer's ship...even when its completely not! Oh and the Weapons! you're talking about that right?

I'm sure had something intelligent to say but then you started typing and the dumbass gradually seeped through the keys and all that splooge on your keyboard. Think before you type next time.

>>773449
>marketing
correct and factual
>it had nothing to do with the quality of the game
It was critically received just like VII remains the halmark of Square's pantheon. This is where you fucked up by inserting your own opinion on its content, which I never asked or critiqued, merely which games were considered an actual success.

>>773449
I don't think he's going to understand this point because it disagrees with his own. But if it's any consolation, you're absolutely correct.

>>773458
You could substitute FF7 with CT or FF6 and it would have had a similar success. What helped FF7 was the marketing.

>>773460
>opinion
>correct
Except neither of you have argued a damn thing other than, wait, what ARE you actually trying to argue? I certainly wasn't arguing which game was more enjoyable, but you fucks seem hellbent to get your inferiority complex out today.

>>773458

>>773467
Look, your argument is one thing but your behavior is another. If you want people to give you the time of day, stop accusing everyone and being a jerk. Just be normal, /v/ is over that way.

And frankly, your argument isn't that good either. You keep hammering on the same point about VII's success when it has been refuted already with the marketing argument. You are ignoring the periods in which these games game out.

>>773465
Wrong. You can't sum up everything to marketing. VIII had marketing, XIII had marketing, yet they do not hold the sales or pedigree of VII. Your entire opinion can best be summed up as
>FFVII is shit compared to VI because it was only successful due to marketing
And you have not one god damn piece of evidence asides an opinion.

>>773474
For the record, whoever said VII is a shitty game is almost as stupid as you.

>think you're finally free of FFVI/FFVII debates after swearing off of hardcore Final Fantasy forums
>mfw
/vr/, I expected better than this.

>>773474
Because VIII, and specially XIII, arent really that good. VII was a good FF, but it wasnt the great game many of its fanboys make it out to be. I never said VII was a bad FF game. Hell Its in my Top 5, but its not the best FF game. For me FF6 had the better experience. It was a work of art, the way it explore the human nature is what makes it for me.

>>773487
Well, with rhetoric like "its nothing special" and other fighting words, people are looking for an e-fight. I've never seen anyone on this forum ever even say FF7 is the best jrpg, though that's not even a terrible opinion, just one of someone who has only played a selection.

Just to throw in two cents -- I was one of those guys who was always triumphing the strength of Final Fantasy 6 and was quick to jump on anyone who liked Final Fantasy 7, saying it's an overrated piece of trash.

I recently went back and played both of them again -- trying to be as objective as possible in the process. Final Fantasy 6 is still fantastic, but it lacks a lot of depth in the characters. It has the problem of early RPG storytelling in which a character would be relevant for a minute time on the screen then fade into obscurity -- outside of Celes, Locke, and Terra, there wasn't much of a satisfying conclusion to the stories of the other characters.

Anyway, I found FF7 to be a lot better than I remembered. It's not the best FF game by any stretch of the imagination (FF5 will always be the best). However, I definitely wasn't giving it credit. It does have some hiccups in the transition from Midgar to Kalm (and Midgar will always remain one of the more interesting video game settings), but I think it eventually picks itself back up. I think that if you haven't played 7 recently, go back and give it a shot. You might find that it's a better game than you remembered.

Conversely, there's a pretty good let's play of it on the Something Awful forums that is fairly objective about FF7 and the strengths and weaknesses therein.

Whatever the case, it's definitely better than 8.

Why are people arguing if Kefka's a shitty villian when Kuja basically killed the second half of Final Fantasy IX?

>>773532

Because everybody's gay for Kuja.

>>773487
This is proof right here of everything that's wrong with your opinion and why its tiresome arguing with you. This is exactly the same for EVERY FF. Every game EVER. Here, watch as I do it for VI.
>VI was a good FF, but it wasnt the great game many of its fanboys make it out to be. I never said VI was a bad FF game. Hell Its in my Top 5, but its not the best FF game.

>number of unique characters changed to cause a completely different opinion, 1.
It doesn't explain to anyone WHY it isn't a great game, just why YOU think its not as another FF without explaining anything other than
>well dude, its a better FF
>why
>because its a better FF

>>773532
Sounds like a motherfucking Zidane up this bitch -- Kuja was the best Final Fantasy villain.

>>773524

>. It has the problem of early RPG storytelling in which a character

I feel that this is more to do with the SNES cartridge limitations as opposed to FF6 itself now that I've tried to create a few romhacks of it and CT.

>it's definitely better than 8.
let us not speak of 8.

>>773548
He was alright, but I feel that the parts that were really big Villain moments for him(Terra, memoria) were rushed compared to the previous pars of the game.

I love how the retarded fans try to make their favorite villain seem so cool, and in the process solidify how poorly thought-out they were.

Every Final Fantasy villain has been either:
>Evil for the sake of evil because evil and power
>Crazy because of science, also powerful because of science
or
>An ancient unfathomable being

It's never been well-done or well thought-out. The only great thing about Kefka was his music. Sephiroth's music kind of blew

The only Final Fantasy with interesting conflict was Final Fantasy Tactics Advance.

I thought the Emperor from FF2 was kinda underrated. Did the whole over-the-top senseless slaughter thing pretty well.

He kills half the world with a gigantic battleship then finishes off every village save for 1-2 with an artificial tornado.

Then he dies, goes to Hell, kills Satan, and proceeds to fuck more shit up. He couldn't even be properly killed until it took the efforts of badass superghosts to raid the afterlife and defeat him there too at the same time.

I'm also sure I'm probably the only one who played FF11 here, so I'll say that had some fun villains too. Only FF where Odin and Alexander are both essential players in the lore.

Two of the villains were respected men who helped saved the world while introducing revolutionary crystal synthesis and airship technology and at the same time, raising one farmer village to one of the most powerful mercantile countries in the world.

The player ends up assassinating them with the help of Batman, a seedy mob boss, and some Rikku-clone. We find out the two respected heroes manipulated parts of the war only because they didn't want to be outdone by another generic dark warlord asshole. That and they had to be stopped because they were willing to blow up an entire continent to power up their magical space castle's portal so they can go home to their alien world where they can rule as princes or some shit.

Final Fantasy has some boring villains. Actually quite generic and usually they end up not even being the real villains, as some "greater evil" becomes the actual cause responsible for all the stuff in the game. Kefka is one of the only villains that you personally get to fuck up at the end. In Sephiroth's case it is a bit different and his circumstances are more complicated due to his link with Jenova.

In any case the best JRPG villain is this guy.

>>773265
And yet far, far easier to kill than Zeromus.

God, if there's one big problem with FF6, it's the difficulty.

>>773651
That's not Alvis of Fire Emblem 4.

>>773616
Also in the case of FF11, we find that Odin is indirectly and partly responsible for half the bad shit that goes on in the game for no real reason beyond "lol it's fun".

I like it because there's just not one ultimate mastermind, but rather a whole roster of various Greek-pantheon tier assholes trying to outplot each other while the player character is just this random normal-powered sellsword who gets caught up in their bullshit.


>>773663
He was great, not only because he fucked the main character's wife then killed him afterwards, but because the game told us that we can't even truly hate him because he was also a pawn. We're not even given the luxury of despising him properly.

Kefka isn't a villain who's good because of his story, but because of his actions. He does everything so flashily and is hilarious when he does it, and he works very well as an antagonist to Terra and Celes thematically. It's always exciting when he shows up.

I can completely understand disliking him if you care more about a relateable or thought-provoking villain, but that doesn't make him objectively bad. And he's certainly better than some other Final Fantasy villains like Chaos and Zemus who had shallow motives on top of lacking the characterization Kefka was lucky enough to get.

>>773549
>Every Final Fantasy villain has used this really old trope
>Every video game villain ever has used this really old trope

Nihil nove sub sole. There is no concept for a major villain that *hasn't* been done to death. The well-meaning but overly extremist Knight Templar, the guy who sold his soul to evil to save his love, the mindless beast that knows nothing other than "eat", they've all been done a thousand times, and a thousand times before that. But it doesn't matter, because that's not the point of stories, and that's not the point of antagonists. It's not in the core concept; it's not to come up with TOTALLY UNIQUE AND ORIGINAL VILLAIN IDEA DO NOT STEAL. It's in the *execution*: how the protagonists react to the things the villain does, how the villain reacts to the things the protagonists do, the small subtle character traits and bits of dialogue that add to the experience without necessarily being an important part of the overall plot, and how all this is made to make the audience feel a certain way.

Originality is overrated, and a largely unattainable goal on top of that. Many of the most critically acclaimed movies and works of literature are retellings of retellings of retellings of stories that are centuries or even millenia old. So everyone (not just the person I replied to) stop acting like "this character uses a trope that a lot of other characters have used, therefore he's a bad character" is even remotely a valid argument.

>>773549
>The only great thing about Kefka was his music.
You just typed words. And those words are in english.

But they convey something that is not real.

>>773708
>There is no concept for a major villain that *hasn't* been done to death.
For the record.
I've only seen the Tyler Durden character done ONCE.

>>773710
It really is a shame how boring Zemus is.

>>773651

Depends on the version you play. SSSC significantly alters his motivations.

>>773745
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

>>773651
Ghaleon is pretty good but the best villain will always be Irenicus. I was absolutely dying to whip the shit out of him after all his trash talk throughout the game.

>>773209
>1.97MB

>>773743
Kefka's music was brilliant, and in general, FF6 has the best music out of the numbered series.

>>773708
>it's not to come up with TOTALLY UNIQUE AND ORIGINAL VILLAIN IDEA DO NOT STEAL. It's in the *execution*: how the protagonists react to the things the villain does, how the villain reacts to the things the protagonists do, the small subtle character traits and bits of dialogue that add to the experience without necessarily being an important part of the overall plot, and how all this is made to make the audience feel a certain way.

In that case, the situation is much worse, because FF NEVER steps above unrealistic and petty melodrama.

>stop acting like "this character uses a trope that a lot of other characters have used, therefore he's a bad character" is even remotely a valid argument.
Stop attacking things I never said. I never said he was a bad character, or that the game was bad. My only argument was that the characters are lazy archetypes that weren't really expanded upon ever. They are half-lived concepts; they are sometimes given deep origin stories, but then follow through directly on the rails of the derived work rather than ever deviating into anything that can be called original or interesting.
Tropes aren't bad, but characters that exist as one-dimensional, unrelatable, borderline non-human archetypes and nothing more are bad characters. They make a story contrived and impossible to invest in emotionally.

>>773946
So what you're trying to say is that Tactics has the best music?

>>773989
I feel that Tactics Advance had the best music.
Everything about the game was very good, except the broken shitty gameplay.

>>773980
Not the other guy but I agree partially. Yes the characters are archetypes in a very raw form, but what the game suffers from in character depth it adds in variety, which in theory sounds really bad and it seems like emotional attachment to the characters would seem impossible, which in some ways is true, but still I managed to feel an emotional attachment to the game itself and the situations they were put in, even though I don't feel like I preferred any character over the other. I think FF6 for the most part shines through with the situations the characters are put in instead of relying on the characters themselves, they're just a vessel for things to happen around them and drive the story, and I think they pulled it off masterfully. Besides, with the shitload of characters and party members the game presents us, having a rich backstory and clear motivations for all of them might have become very overwhelming and in the end tedious to present to the use, so they rely on archetypes for the characters to essentially write themselves into the player's mind.

Kefka actually ends up doing what most villains couldn't do.

He destroys the world, becomes a god, and even though you beat him, you go back to a destroyed world where there is no more magic in the end.

The end game world is a world where plants and animals have mutated, people have killed themselves in mass, and the only thing that signals that not all hope is lost is a single plant grew during the credits. Kefka will always be my favorite FF villain, he simply got farther then any other villain has, and that was jarring as a child.

>>773323
>He's more than a Joker clone, he transcends humanity and becomes something more.

Joker's done that too. See Emperor Joker.

>>774051
Just because he actually managed to destroy the world doesn't make him a good character.
In fact, he's a worse character than ExDeath. There's nothing to him besides "be insane."

>>774079

Not every villain has to be some dark and brooding genius, I like and appreciate the irrationally insane "who gives a shit, everything dies" villain every once in awhile.

I'm not saying other FF villains are bad, I like Sephiroth a lot too, but Kefka is my favorite. Different tastes, I suppose.

>>774079
ExDeath was an evil tree
You may not like or even hate Kefka, but an evil tree is just retarded

>Arguing over shitty villians
>Remind everyone about THIS FUCKING GUY
>Everyone apologizes and sucks mah dick.

>>774152
>>774152

Whoops! Forgot pic!

>>774136
But an evil clown isn't retarded?

>Arguing over shitty villians
>Remind everyone about THIS FUCKING GUY
>Everyone apologizes and sucks mah dick.

>>773486
you can never escape the faggotry that Final Fantasy attracts.

>>774159
a evil clown is considerbly less retarded than a evil tree
not defending any 16 bit sprite here, but come on

Just to weigh in, Kefka is my personal favorite villain of the FF series, and I've played the ever-living hell out of almost every entry (save for FF's VIII, XI, and XIII, and any of the -2's cuz fuck those, they never happened.)
FFVI was, IMHO, kinda the death song for SNES RPG's. VII was almost as good of a story with adequately awesome plot devices, albeit with less intriguing characters. Kefka was cool because he was probably one of the better representations of the Chaotic Evil type villain that not only wanted to burn the world and remake it in his own image, but succeeded. There are some parallels to The Joker that can be drawn, but I'll disregard him due to difference in media, especially since The Joker was never adequately represented until Arkham City, which is a discussion for another board. I also think that Kefka could probably blast Sephiroth back to the Ancients' time because, as noted, he was A GOD. And not just a god, but one who crafted himself into such from his own mortal place by virtue of circumstance and his own insanity. Sephiroth was powerful because he was created as such, then went nuts and (here is where he starts to rip off Kefka) decides to destroy the world and remake it in his own image. This is obviously an argument with no single ending, but I'll say Kefka was at least the greatest (and most satisfying)villain to defeat in the FF series. Especially if you landed Locke on his final form and killed him with his own sword.
I'll also submit that everyone hating on Kefka is merely falling prey to the devices in place that make you hate a villain, thereby making him more satisfying to utterly destroy. Oh, you hate Kefka? You're supposed to. Mad, bro?

Christ, this shit again. You know, in all the FFVI/FF Villains threads I have been a part of, it always, ALWAYS boils down to people getting in an argument over who's villain is better(namely Sephiroth or Kefka). And for awhile that was fun, getting into fast-paced arguments and hoping anon doesn't say something better than you and making yourself the coolest, smartest dude on /vr/. But now it's grown stale and annoying, as everyone says the same two comments over and over again.
>KEFKA IS A JOKER RIPOFF, AND HAS NO ACTUAL DEPTH TO HIM
>SEPHIROTH IS COOL BUT KEFKA IS INTERESTING BECAUSE HE WANTS TO BURN EVERYHTING AND SEPHIROTH JUST HAS MOMMY ISSUES

God, will you people SHUT UP. It's not people discussing the how great the two of them are, which they are both fantastic characters, it's people who bitch and moan about who is more evil and in the end they just try to outdo each other in how good their points are. It's ok to have a favorite villain, hell, I have a few that may cause a small ruckus on the board, but christ can't we ever just sit down and say to each other, "Man, it was so cool when Kefka poisoned that city, I felt so bad!" and have someone respong with "Yeah anon, that was great! I felt the smae way when Aerith!" Isn't the reason why /vr/ was made was because /v/ was too bogged down with faggots who would shit on each others comments like it was the only reason they were alive? Please /vr/, I love this board and I love the people on and I love Final Fantasy, and everytime I go on the board and see an FF thread I want to find cool people in it, not kids or jerks who have to fight everyone who has a different opinion. Please, I don't want FF threads to become tiny /v/s.

>>773930
For some reason I couldn't beat the last fight in hell when I played BGII ages ago. Now I just don't have the energy to play such a long game again.

I wasn't trying to say "Kefka is the only awesome FF villain" or my opinion is the only one. The thread was about Kefka and he's got a special place in my heart as one of my favorite characters to stab in the godly-face repeatedly. Sure, the topic might be stale, but to turn the thread towards a productive angle, what was it about Kefka and everyone's other favorite villains that actually made for COMPELLING story and SATISFYING gameplay? FF has had a slew of villains that (while I'll agree were made of old tropes with sub-par development) still gave you a good reason to defeat them. Kefka was an insane clown you loved to hate who destroyed the world once and portions of it repeatedly. Sephiroth was an awful force that obviously needed to be stopped at all costs (giving way to the hero's/Shinra conflict over time,) Chaos was going to unmake the very fabric of existence. Even Lavos was compelling, if largely unidentifiable, due to it being an alien intelligence with crazy-time-bending powers that needed to be destroyed if for no other reason than the hubris in guiding human evolution for millions of years simply for consumption, raising us like cattle for slaughter. So what do you guys think? What makes a compelling villain?

Hmm. My attempts to turn the thread to related but productive angles seems to have effectively killed conversation. Maybe people really do only want to butt heads. Or maybe this thread is now Buddhist and has accepted it's fate of deletion (pic related)

Kefka is a gay clown.

Only fags like gay clowns.

Sephiroth 4 lyfe.

Spoken like someone who truly needs a 9-foot katana to feel adequate.

>>773298
>Kekfa is a representation of all the evil of the world

I DID IT FIRST

Kefka was an empty, uninteresting villain with nothing more than a generic "I'm crazy let's destroy the world!" archetype. Nerds love him simply because of nostalgia for FF6 and because he blew up the world (omg so kool XD).

The best FF villain was Delita.

>kefka destroys the entire world
>doesn't manage to kill a single playable character
>mfw

I think it's funner trying to figure out which FF's major antagonist was the least threatening or did the least damage both in-game and in backstory.


All I can remember Exdeath doing (aside from killing who-know-who) was burning down a forest while sending random bits of scenery to the Void.

Xande just drained crystals and got his ass kicked by a bunch of 14-15 year olds.

>>775934
>least threatenind and least damage in game

This is the part where every antagonist in FF8 raises their hand.

>>775908
Nah, Delita was the hero.

>>775908
>Delita
>Villain

1&only1

>>775934
Killing a major protagonist is more than, say, Ultimecia did. Plus >>775939 got it right; not a single fight in the entire game should even come close to challenging if you're awake when you play the game.

>>775950

Delita was A hero, not THE hero..

captcha: setsfyi historical.

>>775961
>>775950
Wrong. Delita was an anti-hero.

>>774079
There is more to Kefka though. He's basically what someone like Celes would have been if she didn't have the love of her friends. Kefka is a great villain for the setting and theme of FF6 which was Love, I mean in more than a romantic context. Love of family, love of friends, love of comrades, that sort of thing. And Kefka is the representation of the opposite. Someone who was without that support, that love. He never understood that feeling because it was never given to him. It's why he outbursts when everyone at the end gives him that fuck off speech. You could tell that it reached him, but he didn't understand it.

"It's not the net result of one's life that's important! It's the day-to-day concerns, the personal victories, and the celebration of life... and love! It's enough if people are able to experience the joy that each day can bring!"
"And have you found your "joy" in this nearly dead world of ours?"
"Yes!"

>>775979

There is more to Kefka though. He's basically what someone like Celes would have been if she didn't have the love of her friends. Kefka is a great villain for the setting and theme of FF6 which was Love, I mean in more than a romantic context. Love of family, love of friends, love of comrades, that sort of thing. And Kefka is the representation of the opposite. Someone who was without that support, that love. He never understood that feeling because it was never given to him. It's why he outbursts when everyone at the end gives him that fuck off speech. You could tell that it reached him, but he didn't understand it.

"It's not the net result of one's life that's important! It's the day-to-day concerns, the personal victories, and the celebration of life... and love! It's enough if people are able to experience the joy that each day can bring!"
"And have you found your "joy" in this nearly dead world of ours?"
"Yes!"

Sephiroth was easily the most intimidating villain in final fantasy. Kefka was...silly.

I don't know. People really blow him out of proportion with the whole 'he succeeded' bit. I guess? But he wasn't really a good well rounded character. If anything he was just...stupid. It's in his nature, and a person that is evil naturally is rather boring.

>>775978

Going too far with it. Delita has heroic qualities such as ideals and courage. He is also not the protagonist.

>>775950
He was the antagonist.

>>775995
Umm, an anti-hero is allowed to have positive attributes. And, I never said he was the main protagonist.

>>775996
Antagonist =/= villain. And really, he only played the antagonist for a very small window of the game. I'd call him an anit-hero, in that anti-hero is a very broad term that can potentially mean "good guy, good intentions, dubious methods." Kidnapping and manipulation are dubious methods, to be sure.

Best Final Fantasy Villain or Greatest Final Fantasy Villain?

>>776002
Not really, he stopped his friends from being Shinjis.

>My hair is white
>I WILL RETREAT INTO A FANTASY WORLD BECAUSE PEOPLE THINK WHITE HAIR IS WEIRD

It's an interesting debate and all, but not retro.

>>776003
Um... an antagonist IS a villain, yes. And he played the role of the antagonist through most of the game all the way up through the end.

>>776009
no, the antagonist is the opposite of the protagonist. A protagonist can easily be a villain, the story just needs to have them as the main character. Shown in a good light or not, hitler is the protagonist of his biography.

>>776005
What the fuck are you talking about.

>>776009
An antagonist can be both a hero and a villain... Really, we shouldn't be having this debate... And I think you're ignoring the satanic quasi-Jesus who is trying to kill everyone for the majority of the game, aka the antagonist.

>>776008
>Kefka
>Delita
>not retro
u wot?

>>776005
If some asshole kicked in the door to Narnia and told me to go do my taxes back in the real world, fuck him, he's a villain.

>>776009
Antagonist is a writing term, villain is a morality term. They're usually applied to the same character in a story, but not always.

>>776018
No, being the hero would make him the protagonist. And yes, Ultima is another villain. Games can have more than one.

>>775993
The whole "he succeeded" part is kinda silly anyways.

FF2's main baddie managed to do the whole "haha i destroyed the world" thing long before he did, even obtaining god-hood. Both Mateus and Kefka failed to kill off that remaining 5%, and that's what ended up getting them in the end.


I guess what Kefka had going for him is that he's not really the guy you can expect pulling it off. That, and he was in a game everyone in this thread played.

>>775993
Subjective to the nth. My main memories of Sephiroth are of him skipping around the Temple of the Ancients, doing that ridiculous laugh animation when talking about Hojo, and wimpily tossing Materia at Cloud, then Superman flying off. He did nothing for me.

>>776000
>>776003
from world dictionary:

antihero is a central character in a novel, play, etc, who lacks the traditional heroic virtues

I could agree with that. More recent definitions of the term restrict it to the protagonist, i.e. the anti-hero can only be THE main character.

>>776032
I guess you forgot storming into shinra HQ, cutting everyone up, staining the corridors with blood, assassinating the president of the biggest world corporation, making you and your party out to be insignificant and weak when he single-handedly impales a giant serpent you couldn't even scratch and needed to out-run.

Honestly, Square did an awesome job characterizing Sephiroth, whether or not you remember everything he did is irrelevant, the proof is in the pudding in this case.

>>776027
Look, Delita is a character who is always in the grey area. He can be classified as a hero, villain, or anti-villain. My previous point was that he isn't THE villain of FFT, but I still respect the idea that he could be one of them.

>>775908
>Kefka was an empty, uninteresting villain with nothing more than a generic "I'm crazy let's destroy the world!" archetype. Nerds love him simply because of nostalgia for FF6 and because he blew up the world (omg so kool XD).

This. A thousand times this.

>>776027
No. This is not true.
Protagonist is the "main" character, regardless of morality. His actions drive the story, and whether he's saving the orphanage or burning it down, the story is told from a sympathetic point of view to him, whether the audience sympathizes or not.
Hero is anyone that does good, is virtuous, etc. Whether they're the main character, a character that has one line, or the person who hates the main character's guts.

Protagonist =/= hero, antagonist =/= villain.

>>776040
And hipsters hate him because he's so popular. What can you do.

>>776038
I'm sorry, Sephiroth just didn't impress me. Shinra was a much more effective villain in that game, but whatever.

>>776038
Not to be "That Guy", but technically that was Jenova under the guise of Sephiroth and (Debatably) under Sephiroth's control

Regardless, the fact that Sephiroth can control an ultra-powerful sentient being while being 99% dead and encased in pure Mako says quite a bit about him anyway

>>776052
Yeah, people always dismiss him as a "edgy momma's boy animu character" when he's in fact just a figurehead for a much more otherworldly evil. Again, it's similar to how people classify Cloud as a "generic angsty JRPG hero" and ignore his deep and unconventionial backstory.

>>776002

Square couldn't make up their mind what the plot was. It was escapism? Fine, then everyone in Ivalice was either a transformed human from Earth; or they were a shadow; they didn't really exist. So it was fine if they vanished with the dream.

But Square didn't want to do that. They wanted it both ways. Montblanc was an entity in and of himself. Ivalice was just a justification of a world and not real to the visitors, but real for the natives. Marche could destroy Ivalice for himself and not destroy it for Monteblanc.

The biggest weasel was when the sequel came around and they retconned the entire nature of the setting.

>>776065
Cloud's problem is really more about his personality in Kingdom Hearts and Advent Children, where he was genuinely just a generic angsty bitch.

>>776075
You could probably blame the compilation for most of the opinions on FFVII.

>>776082
Yeah, pretty much. That and the poor translation.

>>776079
>Marche and the kids return home, but the post-game is still in Ivalice, even directly referencing the fact that Mewt has gone back to the real world, but Marche is still there and
>mfw

>>773229
>original version
Oh shit, what are you doing, anon?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMFCM0SKbnY

This article made me appreciate it even more:

http://www.destructoid.com/final-fantasy-vi-s-dancing-mad-a-critical-analysis-157570.phtml

>>774052
>Emperor Joker-2000
>FFVI-1994
yeah

dat final form

>>776283
I always thought they were just two angel wings.

>>773467
Only inferiority complex we see here is yours, buddy.

>>>/v/
or
>>>/out/

>>776003
>>776009

>>774256
VOICEOFAGENERATION.bmp

Couldn't agree with you more about this board, anon.

lol, no.

>>776426
FFXI isn't a real Final Fantasy.