I voted Vayne, but he's not actually my number one. Well, kind of. What I love about Vayne is that he's not really a villain; he's a shrewd and ruthless politician from the opposing party. Obviously, at the end things get a bit "PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWER "-ey, but even then that wasn't really Vayne. That was the Occuria acting like dicks. The Occuria are the villains of FFXII, not Arcadia or its leaders. If Vayne existed it real life, it would be completely unjustifiable to hunt him down and kill him. This is not something I felt with any of the other villains.

Second (or first? I've confused myself) is Kefka. However, I have a point of contention. The fact that he destroyed the world is often used as the reason why he's the best villain - he succeeded, so he wins the villain Olympics. I don't like this. First off, his destroying the world was not by any means the most villainous thing he did. Anyone can move statues; someone could've done it by mistake (had they stumbled across the Esper world just at the appropriate time ). Similarly, after having destroyed the world and become uber powerful, I didn't find him that evil. By that point, he was just a normal villain. Boring, almost. Kefka's greatest villainy comes before all this. He poisons an entire city of people, just for laughs. He wasn't ordered to; he just wanted to, because he's an evil, evil bastard. His manipulation of... well, pretty much everyone is just fantastic and is the kind of thing that I consider the ultimate villainy. Death and destruction is child's play; malevolence and trickery are a whole new level.

nthly, Kuja. Kuja is one of the few villains who has an intensely personal reason for being a villain. Many of the others are simply bad guys, whereas Kuja is just a guy. He goes through some trout, gets his life ruined and reacts in a completely natural and believable way (i.e. bloody murder). He's genuinely threatening, and gets points for being able to create this aura of discontent whenever he's on screen, despite looking like the ponciest ponce in the village (of Bran Bal! ).

Sephiroth is a weird one for me. He's best when he's not there. The whole game fears him; every NPC, every playable character, every piece of music works to create this terrifying idea of him. When he's actually on screen, who cares? He's just an enemy. His presence, rather than his actions, makes him one of the best villains of the series.