Let's open a can of worms.. Kefka = Sephiroth

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Originally Posted by Raistlin

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Originally Posted by Momiji

Kefka was actually interesting.

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Sephiroth actually had a fairly interesting backstory; it was just very poorly developed and explicated in the game. A large part of that, I think, was the utter failure of further developing Hojo, who had all the features of being a really hateable person.

Anyway, that being said, they were both decent villains in their own right. Sephiroth just has more annoying fans.

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I suppose you have a point, but the fact that it was poorly developed doesn't help Sephiroth's case at all. :-\

idc who did the work, you could argue Sephiroth didnt do most of the work either, he just ran around throwing his "mother" at your party and then summoned meteor after you did all the work for him to get the black materia. Personality makes the character for me, not what they did, and Kefka was so much more awesome imo than the obsessive Sephy

Both characters are given little in the way of motivation for their actions. Which is fine; it allows us to invent our own explanations for what could have driven the characters to commit such atrocities and also allows us more to focus on the acts of the protagonists. Besides, Iago wasn't given any real motivation for his actions either. The problem with Sephiroth is that FFVII tries to have it both ways: They give him a long and drawn out origin scene, but he's still a cipher. We're never given any inkling why learning about Jenova would push him over the edge to want to annihilate humanity. FFVI, by contrast, doesn't even bother to try to explain Kefka. The only place the game even comes close is an offhand remark made in an out-of-the-way Imperial café in Vector that most players probably never even visited. It's pretty obvious that Kefka isn't supposed to have any depth to his character, which is fine - that just makes a starker contrast to the heroes, who go through all kinds of soul-searching throughout the course of the game. Kefka is a sadistic sociopath; the heroes are good people. I honestly can't think of a more effective antagonist for a work like FFVI.

That said, I mostly agree with WesLY.

Allright, let's treat each other nice and stick to the topic.

*deletes some posts*

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Originally Posted by Forsaken Lover

Kefka equals Sephiroth in they're both cosmically overrated..

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>>> Is most like all the other FF villains are underrated..:luca:

Kyros

Sephiroth was controling Jenova's body, and the clones(including Cloud) through Reunion to bring him the Black Materia. He was the one pulling the strings.
On the other hand, Ghestal and the Empire would have gone after the Espers and the Warring Triad even if Kefka wasn't there.
For most of FFVI, Ghestal was the one pulling the strings and Kefka was just a pawn.

That's the difference between them.
Just because FFVI's world had a destroy-the-world-and-become-a-god 'button' named Warring Triad, and Kefka 'pushed' it, doesn't make him a more threatening or competent villain than Sephiroth.



But I have to admit that Kefka IS an entertaining character.

[LOSER-MODE]I have a really great idea for a unique villain that's never been done before. Are you guys ready for my really unique and original ideas? I bet you've never heard of these qualities before:

First, he's going to be genetically altered and/or experimented on in some project to make super-beings.

He is also the prototype for this experiment or at least one of the first ones made. Somehow, all of the products that come after this guy will never be quite as good, no matter how much they perfect this science.

Unfortunately however, he will later go insane because of the experiments done to him and betray the people be worked for/with.

He will then go even more insane and try to become all-powerful and destroy the world.

He will be a monotonic, apathetic, cold villain of few words and little to no personality.

He will have some loose connection to the main hero of the story.

And most original and unique of all, he will have long, womanly, silver hair to spruce up what would otherwise be a boring and uninteresting character. To top this off, he'll wear a black trench
coat thing! This definitely is not only badass but really original.



So what do you guys think of my new idea for a unique and never-done-before villain concept? Do you think it'll succeed and be praised for its uniqueness? I'm going to see if I can work this into a story and get it published in some fashion or medium.[/LOSER-MODE]



Even at the time of FF VII being released, these cliches were already old and overused in many anime/etc. It's highly irritating that he gets a lot of appraisal for said qualities by really annoying pre-mature fans, which makes me hate what I would otherwise find to be an uninteresting character all the more.

That said, Kefka is given a lot more personality and interaction than Sephiroth is, which makes me appreciate his character a lot more. Sometimes you can't avoid every cliche possible, but you can make up for this by giving said character personality and/or qualities and substance to compensate, making them interesting regardless. However, when a character has little to no personality or dialogue such as Sephiroth, and only has a design and background whipped-up from archetype-recipe no. 3 in "RPG-Making for dummies", then there is little to nothing to fallback on to redeem said irritating and overused/predictable qualities, thus making the character quite boring, expected, and plain lame, especially since it's obvious that it was a poor attempt to try and make a "badass".



At the moment, I'm having the same rants about the entire cast of Star Ocean 4, which happens to be a massive lightning storm of cliche [especially characters like Meracle, Arumat, Sarah, and Lymle, 'kay?] and annoyance. In short, I get really sick of these "extreme" archetypes that the Japanese seem to fallback on so often.

I am losing my faith the possibility of a well-designed and compelling story with well designed and developed characters coming from Japan anytime soon.