Overratedroth.

[Rantz]

Please get back to the thread's topic and end this argument about arguments. Further off-topic discussion will be deleted. Thank you.

[PuPu]

Sorry, didn't mean to offend ya, dude.

Anyways, Sephiroth is a pretty cool guy. eh kills Aerith and doesn't afraid of anything.

I like him as a character, but not so much as a villain.

[Shin Gouken]

The problem with sephiroth is that he disapoints. The game spends the majority of disc one building him up (Slaughtering everyone at shinra, displaying his power in the nibelheim flashback, skerwing the midgar zolom and of course stabbing aerith) With all of this, we're loving this mysterious and powerful character who's intentions aren't clear but seems to be planning something bad. Let's find out more about him, let's see what else he does, let's fight him! But alas, his plan just seems to be "I will kill you all and become all powerful", his next step is to disappear and sleep in the northen crater until the end of the game.

Your mysterious cool villain becomes your average narcissistic meglomaniac "i want to destroy the world" stereotypical villain who does nothing from halfway into the game right up until the end where you get to fight him for 5 minutes before he transforms into some weird floaty thing then dies. How uninspired and very anti-climactic. Sephiroth fans need to address this before claiming he is the ultimate villain

[ANGRYWOLF]

is it Sephiroth's fault he underwhelms or Square's fault ?
I would argue it's Square's fault..the writers and producers...

Of course when I argued this on another thread..that Square should bring in some new blood people panned the idea.

I also wonder if we suffer from some cultural differences with the Japanese. That while we prefer our villains to be more dynamic maybe the Japanese are content to look for other things.

[demondude]

Do you think Sephiroth had white pubic hair?

[Monol]

The only thing that ever confused me about sephiroth...

I mean i love the guy

favorite ff villain

one of my favorite videogame bad guys

yadayada

Not gonna say hes one of the best ever but he holds a place in my sternum


but yeah umm....one part that always bothered me is like...

he uses the masamune to kill the president right?

but it stays there soo...

HOW DOES HE GET IT BACK LATER OMFG ITS INSANSE!!!

[seiferalmasy2]

now that is a good point. I am guessing that the explanation is that Jenova (remember that the real Sephiroth used Jenova) was able to create it....the same way it could mimic the appearance of sephiroth/Tifa.

It wasn't really his sword basically...or a sword at all in a way if that theory is true.

[Mezlabor]

Most of the FF villains are farily generic. Kefka was probably the most successful of the villains as has been pointed out he definetly did the most damage and the most evil next I think only Yu Yevon can compare to how bad Kefka was. Yu yevon was probably worse because his rampage lasted 1,000 years not 1. But Kefka is a fairly boring Character. He doesn't have a very compelling back story and his personality is frankly a flat out Joker rip off.

Now I think Seph is just the opposite He and a compellign backstory and a decent motivation for what he was doing besides "I'm evil and crazy" but he wasn't very successful at it, and he really at times; came across more like a whiny mommas boy then some terribly evil threat.

[Jiro]

Sephiroth himself is a pretty ty villain. He sits in a goddamn cave for most of the game and is generally an emo momma's boy.

However, the concept of Sephiroth is great. He leads you on a chase across the world, dragging the biggest goddamn company in the world along as well. He makes Cloud freak out and lose his , and he gets Aeris killed. While none of these are "Sephiroth", it's still his concept and so he's actually not nearly as overrated as people think.

None of that made sense, did it? Ehh, at least it's not as tl</>;dr as the rest of this thread

[seiferalmasy2]

He doesn't sit in a cave :P He sits inside a huge crater and makes himself solid everywhere else by using an alien lifeform.

[Forsaken Lover]

The whole backstory of Sephiroth, as mentioned, is pretty decent. The "Cloud's Past" section is amazing.

The problem lies in, as also stated, the fact this backstory was rendered unimportant.

Sephiroth as of Nibelheim: Thinks he's doing the right thing. He's avenging his "Mother" because the humans are responsible for her and her race's destruction.
Well, to an extent. More like they sat back and let them get destroyed. (according to what he knew)

Sephiroth as of FF7: KNows he's not a Cetra. Jenova was the one who wiped out the Ancients and humanity is relatively innocent.
He...just doesn't care.

Sephiroth could have been a good tragic villain. Why do you all think the Jenova controlling Sephiroth theory wa sso popular? It gave him some actual depth. The guy was misled and used by the most evil thing in the universe into thinking he was doing the right thing.

But alas, reality is always worse than fantasy. In reality, Sephiroth just gave up on any pretense of nobility. Now he just wants to be a god.
Whooptydoo, Sephy my lad. You went from Interesting to Bland pretty quick there.

Also Yu Yevon wasn't a bad guy. Least not nearly as bad as Kefka.

[Shiny]

VIII. Let's be honest here, Ultimecia has no reason for being evil, guys.

Of course she does. If you looked like her, you'd be angry too.

People will be saying that FFVII related things are overrated till the dawn of time, but the truth of the matter is the reason it's considered the most popular FF is because it's boss.

[seiferalmasy2]

yeah I can agree to that, Sephiroth being misled would have been more of a story and been more flexible but what we have already is still pretty awesome, if we simply forget his motivation is being power mad/sick of people/insane. At least it shows you why he ended up that way somewhat, being that he was a genetic experiment and lost his mind.

[Loony BoB]

"Greatest villain" is far too vague. You can compare too many different areas, and then there are also the different worlds they are in. Would Kefka have dominated without his armies doing all of his work for him? Sephiroth seemingly did all his work on his own. Having said that, you could also argue that surely any true great villain will command an army, manipulating many men to do his bidding for him. Of course, then you could also compare pure strength - is Kefka more powerful? But power alone will never get you anywhere so long as you are able to be defeated - would Sephiroth be too quick, too deadly in his movements for Kefka? There is too much to debate to ever truly decide which would defeat the other in a fight. After all, if the player controls the characters in either game, they can lose the game and see a Game Over screen. They don't have to beat him. It would obviously be kind of silly, but you get the idea. Assuming they are defeated, however, do you also consider the manner in which they were defeated? Can they come back again of their own will, somehow? Is that truly defeat? Is that just a case of one set of playable characters being weaker than another?

Again, it's always going to be down to sheer opinion: Which villain do you prefer? If you're going for the overall greatest villain based on a personal opinion, does that opinon count? Do you prefer the opinion of many to the opinion of few? But what about percentage of those that have played and completed both games, which percentage prefer which? It's a toughy. So that's why I stick to personal opinion alone.

I like Sephiroth better because for me, I prefer an evil character that is capable of doing things on his own rather than using an army. I prefer an evil character to also be someone who I look at and go "Oh, he's pretty evil" rather than "What the hell is that?" Sephiroth fits those bills better than Kefka. Obviously. I like how Sephiroth doesn't run rampant destroying the world but rather does exactly what he personally desires - getting rid of the individuals he wishes to rid himself of for whatever reason, and only bothering with mass destruction of the world when it is done in a way that will not only benefit himself but also in a way that will wipe out everyone in a single blow. Impressive, I'd say.

These are my kind of reasons.

[The Crystal]

To me, both Kefka and Sephiroth are great, but for different reasons.
Kefka was all about hate. His cruelty, cowardice, and the way things seemed to allways go his way no matter what you did, made you hate him.
Sephiroth on the other hand, was all about fear and intimidation. Everyone refers to him with respect and/or fear in the story, he did things considered impossible for you(ex: killing the Zolom early in the story), had an intimidating appearance, and there was something otherworldly about him(ex: when he phases through a wall[or the ground] like a ghost) due to his connection with Jenova.
Even his theme("Those Choosen by the Planet") was a scary music(or at least it was supposed to be).
They both are good villains, in their own style.


And please guys, stop giving credit to Jenova for Sephiroth's actions.
In the story of FFVII, Jenova is nothing more than a corpse, being used because of the power of it's cells.
Before FFVII starts, Jenova and it's cells are nothing more than a plot-device, used by ShinRa. And from the beginnig of FFVII to the end of the ACC movie, Jenova(or more accuratelly, it's brain-dead body[that shares it's DNA with Sephiroth]) is just an extension of Sephiroth's will. They are one and the same, basically.

"Greatest villain" is far too vague. You can compare too many different areas, and then there are also the different worlds they are in. Would Kefka have dominated without his armies doing all of his work for him? Sephiroth seemingly did all his work on his own. Having said that, you could also argue that surely any true great villain will command an army, manipulating many men to do his bidding for him. Of course, then you could also compare pure strength - is Kefka more powerful? But power alone will never get you anywhere so long as you are able to be defeated - would Sephiroth be too quick, too deadly in his movements for Kefka? There is too much to debate to ever truly decide which would defeat the other in a fight. After all, if the player controls the characters in either game, they can lose the game and see a Game Over screen. They don't have to beat him. It would obviously be kind of silly, but you get the idea. Assuming they are defeated, however, do you also consider the manner in which they were defeated? Can they come back again of their own will, somehow? Is that truly defeat? Is that just a case of one set of playable characters being weaker than another?

Again, it's always going to be down to sheer opinion: Which villain do you prefer? If you're going for the overall greatest villain based on a personal opinion, does that opinon count? Do you prefer the opinion of many to the opinion of few? But what about percentage of those that have played and completed both games, which percentage prefer which? It's a toughy. So that's why I stick to personal opinion alone.

I like Sephiroth better because for me, I prefer an evil character that is capable of doing things on his own rather than using an army. I prefer an evil character to also be someone who I look at and go "Oh, he's pretty evil" rather than "What the hell is that?" Sephiroth fits those bills better than Kefka. Obviously. I like how Sephiroth doesn't run rampant destroying the world but rather does exactly what he personally desires - getting rid of the individuals he wishes to rid himself of for whatever reason, and only bothering with mass destruction of the world when it is done in a way that will not only benefit himself but also in a way that will wipe out everyone in a single blow. Impressive, I'd say.

These are my kind of reasons.

The best post in this thread.