The Darkside of FF7

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Originally Posted by Gullick

I don't care what anyone says, Sephy was bad ass and always will be :D

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Haha.

If they wanted it to look like a woman so badly, they should've just made it a woman! Attention: Sephiroth needs a personality - STAT!

In terms of "badass"... I don't think Square goes for this image very much at all. We mostly see: Vile, elegant, ruthless, villanous, insane, devious schemer, but yet I can't think of one that had "badass" as the primary image focus. I certainly don't think Sephiroth looks very badass to be honest. Aside from the woman-hair aspect, Sephiroth seems to be the one least-accomplished FF villains in the series. Most of them manage to wreak heavy destruction of some sort before they're finally defeated, but Sephiroth did very little. He almost had something going with Meteor, but it was countered. I don't think torching a small town or killing Aerith really count as "heavy destruction" either.

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Originally Posted by Gullick

I always found ShinRa company as a whole pretty ruthless, the way they destroyed an entire sector to kill one group of terrorists (with about 5 members in it) and the general 'we will control the world with our vast army' dictatorship feel.

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They are! Evil corporations are generally shockingly ruthless. For some reason, I've always liked the "evil offices" concept in a lot of video games/anime/movies/etc.

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Originally Posted by Gullick

I always found ShinRa company as a whole pretty ruthless, the way they destroyed an entire sector to kill one group of terrorists (with about 5 members in it)

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That part is so horrifying. =O

ok i agree with all of you...yes i know that not everyone likes sephiroth and thats all cool with me...i know that in the ff univivse there are alot of crazy badass villians and good guys and i relize that some of them if not most of the could destroy sephiroth with out even breaking a sweat...one reason i love ff7 so much is because it got me threw alot of cray :bou::bou::bou::bou: hat has happened in my life when i was younger i do think ff7 was a great game but i do think there was alot of flaws yes i agree that there should have been more story than mini games and i strongley agree that sephiroth could have had much more of a story than just im crazy/mad and i hate everything because i was lied too...so anyways you guys pick then next villian we talk about we dont just have to talk about ff7 and thanks everyone for your opinions :)

also sry about the run on sentences and errors i suck at languge so i guess plz dont diss on that :(

but thanks for dealing with it

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Originally Posted by Rain The Unknown

ok i agree with all of you...yes i know that not everyone likes sephiroth and thats all cool with me...i know that in the ff univivse there are alot of crazy badass villians and good guys and i relize that some of them if not most of the could destroy sephiroth with out even breaking a sweat...

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Aw, I wouldn't go as far as to say that. I probably sound like the chief of Anti-Sephiroth police. Sephiroth is obviously, far from weak, and certainly holds more power than a few of the FF villains, it's just not something I could call substantial. Probably because Meteor itself was a summoning, not a direct doing of his own powers. There's a definite difference. Also, the length of time involved in summoning it is a detriment...

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Originally Posted by Rain The Unknown

one reason i love ff7 so much is because it got me threw alot of cray :bou::bou::bou::bou: hat has happened in my life when i was younger i do think ff7 was a great game but i do think there was alot of flaws yes i agree that there should have been more story than mini games and i strongley agree that sephiroth could have had much more of a story than just im crazy/mad and i hate everything because i was lied too...so anyways you guys pick then next villian we talk about we dont just have to talk about ff7 and thanks everyone for your opinions :)

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Actually, it's great that you can say and admit this, because aside from my dislike for Sephiroth, I agree with you on all of these points. Despite my chief complaints [which you've all heard me go on and on about], I actually did enjoy FF VII a lot. Even though I dock things and nitpick endlessly, ultimately I'm looking at all of the positive. Valkyrie Profile [for example] had a lot of dropped plot-threads and incomplete background stories on all of the Einherjar [although they were all extremely unique, I don't think their histories were explained enough. I wouldn't encourage the game going off-track with too much extraneous information, but I think the game would've been fine if it had completed the stories on all of the Einherjar]. It also had questionable voice acting [some of it was good, but some of it was unacceptable]. However despite these faults, I felt the positive aspects of Valkyrie Profile far out-weighed the negative aspects, no question.

I apologize for going off-track, but I felt I had to give an example. And I felt the need to clarify that despite these major faults, FF VII was still a good game.

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Originally Posted by Rain The Unknown

also sry about the run on sentences and errors i suck at languge so i guess plz dont diss on that :(

but thanks for dealing with it

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Don't worry about it, it's not really a problem. Even though Mirage slid in the little joke about needing punctuation, for the most part I don't think anybody here will let petty things like language barriers/etc. distort our opinion of someone.

Also, I think posting on forums and reading everyone's posts is actually a good way to help develop language skills as well as general articulation and wording, and also helps with vocabulary.

Onto a villain I liked. Let's see, when I think of all the FF villains up-to-date lined up, I really think that Kuja was one of my favourite villains. He gave an excellent demonstration of power and intellect, as well as being extremely manipulative and calculating. The manner in which his magical powers were presented as well [this may seem minor to most people, but it actually matters to me] was quite cool. Of course, he also has the woman-hair thing going on, but for some reason it actually didn't bother me. I'm not sure why, because it usually bugs me to death [being the anime artist I am and my passion for it, I can't help but be extremely picky about character designs]. I'm also not really much of a fan of Kuja's clothing from the front, though from the side and the back it looks cool. It looks cool from the front as well, as long as you ignore the lower half [seriously, the lower half of his outfit is a bit disturbing]. I gotta say that I loved the design for Trance Kuja, and the demonstration of power [laying waste to Terra] was awesome, and it's kinda cool that he's the only person powerful enough to use Ultima [it gives the spell a lot more meaning in my opinion].

From my understanding however, not many people here seem to like Kuja that much, though I could be wrong [I doubt it].

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Originally Posted by Khalin

From my understanding however, not many people here seem to like Kuja that much, though I could be wrong [I doubt it].

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You're definitely wrong. xD Kuja, as IX itself, never seems to be expected to be popular. Everybody thinks VI and VII are the most popular games and Kefka and Sephiroth are the most popular villains, but no. Final Fantasy IX and Kuja will win pretty much any given poll that includes them in these forums. (well, not all of them, but he'll do well anyway).

i agree kuja was a great villian he was very powerful and he did some epic things in the game.....yeah his outfit was a bit weird but still a great part to ff9....ff8 was also one of my favs i really like the story in alot of ways well really like the story on all of them...exept and this is my opinion i was not a fan of ff10-2 but it had its good points and im being very random and jumping all over the place a villian i did not like was seymore on 10 he just would never die and he just got annoying to me...

Oh? I guess I was wrong. Usually, people don't end up liking the same things I like, so I guess it's a pleasant surprise. I thought Kuja was cool, despite his odd outfit.

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Originally Posted by Rain The Unknown

a villian i did not like was seymore on 10 he just would never die and he just got annoying to me...

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I hate Seymour!

yea i dont know how anyone could like seymore and i hated yu yevon that was a pretty gay fight just killing your summons and its was so easy ff10 had a good story on some parts i thought and i loved playing blitzball for the longest time i wished the would come out with an all blitztball game i could play blitzball for hours and hours and not get bored

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Originally Posted by Khalin

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Originally Posted by champagne supernova

And Sephiroth's music is fairly epic. Definitely not the greatest song in the world (as some fanboys insist), but the entire composition gives an impression of an immensely powerful dark force.

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I can't really agree on this one either. I found his theme pretty annoying, unfortunately. I think the synth instruments they chose for it were poor. Granted, this team was very new to the Playstation's capability of music, but I'm just throwing it out there.

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Are you referring to One-Winged Angel or this song: YouTube - Sephiroth - Sephiroth Theme (I don't actually know what the name of this song is, but it is the one that is played during the Kalm flashback). Because I am referring to the latter, not the former (and I'd probably agree with you on that score).

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Originally Posted by champagne supernova

Are you referring to One-Winged Angel or this song: YouTube - Sephiroth - Sephiroth Theme (I don't actually know what the name of this song is, but it is the one that is played during the Kalm flashback). Because I am referring to the latter, not the former (and I'd probably agree with you on that score).

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I'm agreeing to the latter, I'm afraid. The track is called "Those Chosen by the Planet". Perhaps if they re-did it with modern synth, it would be a lot better, but I doubt it since Square has a nasty habit of butchering musics they remake. I mean honestly, look at what they did to the Illusionary World track in the DS version of FF IV [and the GBA remake for that matter; the SNES version of this track is by far the superior quality out of any FF IV incarnation they've created].

Khalin:

1) Sephiroth's appearance and personality can be considered cliche by now, but it was pretty original at the time. Remember that FFVII is a very old game.

2) Sephiroth was using Jenova's body to interact with you. So it's not true that he only appeared in flashbacks and at the end of the story. Because he was there, speaking and interacting with the characters all the time. The fact he was using Jenova's body to do it, is a mere detail.

3) Don't get me wrong, but I have the impression you read too much forum-debates about Sephiroth, where the haters state that "he only k1lled a flower g1rl!!1" or "he only destr0yed a v1llage!!1one!", and you forgot everything he actually did in the game.
Sephiroth did a lot of things. But there are many FFVII-haters who ignore it, and you shouldn't go by what they say.
Examples of his accomplishments that are ignored by the haters are: He killed everyone in the Shinra Building and Shinra Cargo Ship(while using Jenova's body), manipulated the party in giving the Black Materia to him, screwed Cloud's mind, was the responsible for all the chaos caused by the Weapons and Meteor, held back Holy(the only thing able to destroy Meteor), created a barrier around the Crater, absorbed tons of Lifestream, absorbed the Black Materia(you can see it attached to Safer Sephiroth's body), summoned Meteor(that destroyed Midgar), killed lots of people with Geostigma, etc.

Eh?

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Originally Posted by The Crystal

Khalin:

1) Sephiroth's appearance and personality can be considered cliche by now, but it was pretty original at the time. Remember that FFVII is a very old game.

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It was only new to the video game scene. His appearance has been cliche in anime for a long, long time. This started long before FF VII was even conceived. The only reason why I know this is because I used to watch a lot of fan subbed anime at the time.

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Originally Posted by The Crystal

2) Sephiroth was using Jenova's body to interact with you. So it's not true that he only appeared in flashbacks and at the end of the story. Because he was there, speaking and interacting with the characters all the time. The fact he was using Jenova's body to do it, is a mere detail.

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Yes, I'm aware of this. I'm not sure what your point is. I was implying that the only teaspoon of personality that you get from him was through the dialogue in the flashback.

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Originally Posted by The Crystal

3) Don't get me wrong, but I have the impression you read too much forum-debates about Sephiroth, where the haters state that "he only k1lled a flower g1rl!!1" or "he only destr0yed a v1llage!!1one!", and you forgot everything he actually did in the game.
Sephiroth did a lot of things. But there are many FFVII-haters who ignore it, and you shouldn't go by what they say.

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I'm grateful for your concern, but trust me, I'm not going by what they say. I'm going off of my personal experience with having played this game myself. I'm well-aware of everything he pulled off. My point is that it was lighter in comparison to some of the past FF villains. Even as far back as the Emperor from FF II who just decided to stop wasting time and destroy nearly every town in the game with a Cyclone. I'm aware of the fact that he killed people in the Shin-Ra building and the ship, as well as summoning Meteor and killing "flower girl".

Trust me, I played the game. I'm voicing my opinion based on how I felt about Sephiroth as a villain. I'm not trying to be rude, but you haven't really pointed out anything that I [or anyone else here] didn't already know. I will agree that Sephiroth haters don't extend much credit to him, however I think he's given far too much credit by fanboys. As for the Geostigma bit, I'm not really sure what to say to this. While I appreciate that they made a nicely CG-animated movie about FF VII [which allows us to get at least some voice/personality attatched to the characters we like], I really hated the "plot" for the movie with a passion, and I couldn't take it seriously. I thought the entire concept of the Geostigma was ridiculous, as was the attempt to find an excuse to slide Sephiroth into the movie. I won't even go into how annoyingly stupid Kadaj and those other two retards were.

I still stand by my opinion that Hojo was the true twisted and villianous mastermind among all the antagonists in FF VII, and he played a major role. For some reason, I just couldn't really respect Sephiroth's character. Of course, it may be due to my initial heavy dislike for him based on his cliche presentation and appearance, however I've seen other characters like that which ended up redeeming themselves with interesting characterization. In my opinion, Sephiroth had no characterization.

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Originally Posted by Khalin

It was only new to the video game scene. His appearance has been cliche in anime for a long, long time. This started long before FF VII was even conceived. The only reason why I know this is because I used to watch a lot of fan subbed anime at the time.

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Kefka's appearance and character was very cliche too, but you still liked him.

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Yes, I'm aware of this. I'm not sure what your point is. I was implying that the only teaspoon of personality that you get from him was through the dialogue in the flashback.

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Ah, okay.

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I'm grateful for your concern, but trust me, I'm not going by what they say. I'm going off of my personal experience with having played this game myself. I'm well-aware of everything he pulled off. My point is that it was lighter in comparison to some of the past FF villains. Even as far back as the Emperor from FF II who just decided to stop wasting time and destroy nearly every town in the game with a Cyclone. I'm aware of the fact that he killed people in the Shin-Ra building and the ship, as well as summoning Meteor and killing "flower girl".

Trust me, I played the game. I'm voicing my opinion based on how I felt about Sephiroth as a villain. I'm not trying to be rude, but you haven't really pointed out anything that I [or anyone else here] didn't already know. I will agree that Sephiroth haters don't extend much credit to him, however I think he's given far too much credit by fanboys. As for the Geostigma bit, I'm not really sure what to say to this. While I appreciate that they made a nicely CG-animated movie about FF VII [which allows us to get at least some voice/personality attatched to the characters we like], I really hated the "plot" for the movie with a passion, and I couldn't take it seriously. I thought the entire concept of the Geostigma was ridiculous, as was the attempt to find an excuse to slide Sephiroth into the movie. I won't even go into how annoyingly stupid Kadaj and those other two retards were.

I still stand by my opinion that Hojo was the true twisted and villianous mastermind among all the antagonists in FF VII, and he played a major role. For some reason, I just couldn't really respect Sephiroth's character. Of course, it may be due to my initial heavy dislike for him based on his cliche presentation and appearance, however I've seen other characters like that which ended up redeeming themselves with interesting characterization. In my opinion, Sephiroth had no characterization.

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Well, I had the impression that you didn't know some things, because you said:

"Most of them manage to wreak heavy destruction of some sort before they're finally defeated, but Sephiroth did very little. He almost had something going with Meteor, but it was countered. I don't think torching a small town or killing Aerith really count as "heavy destruction" either."

Right here, you ignored all the "heavy destruction" caused by the Weapons and Meteor. And I know this is your opinion, but... I want to understand why you think he "did very little", after watching the entire planet of FFVII being in complete chaos because of his actions(Weapons attacking cities, Meteor approaching, Shinra failing to stop both of them, and later, Geostigma infecting and killing the world's population, soon after Shinra and Midgar were completelly erradicated by his Meteor).
I just want to understand, why do you think all that was "very little".

And to tell you the truth, I find it harder to respect Kefka than Sephiroth. But that's just me.

Ah, and if you didn't like the convoluted plot of AC, I suggest you go watch ACC. Many plot points not explained in AC, are explained in the Complete version of the movie, and it's much easier to understand the story now.


Sorry if I sounded rude at some point. It wasn't my intention.

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Originally Posted by The Crystal

Kefka's appearance and character was very cliche too, but you still liked him.

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I actually have to disagree with that. The appearance of a regal clown? I don't see too many games or anime that have a primary antagonist that looks this way [anyone who thinks otherwise is free to spend a while on google to find villains that have this type of appearance. For every one that's pasted to me, I'll paste 10 Sephiroth look-a-likes]. As for his personality, he's a bit of a joke and a goofball, but in a demented way. This connection which is strangely more humane than what most FF villains display gives good connection to the audience in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by The Crystal

Well, I had the impression that you didn't know some things, because you said:

"Most of them manage to wreak heavy destruction of some sort before they're finally defeated, but Sephiroth did very little. He almost had something going with Meteor, but it was countered. I don't think torching a small town or killing Aerith really count as "heavy destruction" either."

Right here, you ignored all the "heavy destruction" caused by the Weapons and Meteor. And I know this is your opinion, but... I want to understand why you think he "did very little", after watching the entire planet of FFVII being in complete chaos because of his actions(Weapons attacking cities, Meteor approaching, Shinra failing to stop both of them, and later, Geostigma infecting and killing the world's population, soon after Shinra and Midgar were completelly erradicated by his Meteor).

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Let's address this. First off, the destruction caused by the weapons was caused by the weapons, not Sephiroth. They were released by his doing yes, but let's not branch credit here. As for Meteor destroying Midgar, evidently a huge portion of the population of Midgar ends up surviving anyways [as shown in the FF AC movie, who proceed to build the city of Edge outside of Midgar's ruins], and for the most part this destruction doesn't really do a whole lot to change the face of the world or anything, unlike the Mist-infected world of FF IX or the World of Ruin brought about in FF VI by Kefka's recklessness with the three statues of the Warring Triad, as well as fooling around with his tower. One crushed city does not a destroyed-world make. Even the emperor of Final Fantasy II [arguably] wrought a heavy amount of destruction, despite the fact that you don't really get any attachment to all of the cities that are wiped out. Besides, in the end, Meteor ends up getting countered anyways, even though there are some casualties attached [as you show in your current signature].

As for Geostigma, you're going off-track from the game FF VII itself [which is what the discussion is about] and are trying to bring other things in here. On the issue of Geostigma, it's a failed world poison that I found a bit too disney-ish because it's easily cured by the released outflow of water that's been exposed to lifestream [which is actually supposedly mentally hazardous as explained in the first game] that cures Cloud's Geostigma, along with everyone else's.

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Originally Posted by The Crystal

I just want to understand, why do you think all that was "very little".

And to tell you the truth, I find it harder to respect Kefka than Sephiroth. But that's just me.

Ah, and if you didn't like the convoluted plot of AC, I suggest you go watch ACC. Many plot points not explained in AC, are explained in the Complete version of the movie, and it's much easier to understand the story now.

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I have, but it didn't really change my mind on it to be honest. Those three extensions/manifestations-of-Sephiroth/whatever-you-wanna-call-it just bugged the hell out of me. They were annoying and had ridiculous personalities. The Geostigma concept was silly, especially seeing how easily it was cured [the way they slid that in was also a face-palmer, being that it was so simple that it could've been done at any time].

As for respecting Sephiroth, I explained my arguments and reasons stated above. And to that, I guess I'll have to add that even by the time FF VII had come out, I had already seen too many "Sephiroth"s. That general appearance combined with that personality archetype in general was [and still is, though to a slightly lesser extent] very prevalent in anime.

I'm not trying to be rude either, but I dislike Sephiroth for several reasons which I've already stated. It may sound redundant but, these reasons are there for a reason. Trust me, if I didn't have any issues with Sephiroth, I wouldn't dislike his character so much. I was a fan of Final Fantasies, RPG's in general, and anime [as well as the anime culture in Japan] long before FF VII came out. Not all, but a good portion of the people that I talk to who I feel overly-praise FF VII admit that FF VII was the first RPG they played [or at least one of their first]. A good amount of them say things along the lines of older FF games being "crappy" because they're too primitive/weren't designed for a powerful enough console or had inferior graphics or whatever, which drives me up the wall due to its hideous close-mindedness. However, I hope you don't mistake me for someone that hates FF VII. As I've stated in several topics, I really liked this game a lot despite all of my complaints about it, and it's nowhere near my bottom list.

Evry vill throught f history was desent in his/her own way. ill name a few ways

(SPOILER)ff4/ zemus was screwing ppls lives for years by temptation leading to mind controle.
ff6/ kefka was a friggen lunatic (NOF SAID)
ff7/ sephy was so misunderstood and he took his ****ed up life to the extreme
ff8/ (forgot name for some reason) she took controle of rinoa and edeas minds by linking to there powers.
ff9/ kuja wanted revenge towards his father and to wipe out his whole race.
ff10/ seymour, in my oppenion is the most misunderstood, if tidus and co wouod have butted out and let yuna marry the guy then all would be ok. (then just kill him wile he sleeps lol)
ffx-2/ shuyin wanted to bring back the love of his life and was heartbroken when yuna wasn't her. as was yuna when he wasn't tidus.