Kefka is often considered to be the greatest villain in the Final Fantasy series. Do you agree with this assessment, or do you feel that he is perhaps a bit overrated? Or good, but not great?
Kefka is often considered to be the greatest villain in the Final Fantasy series. Do you agree with this assessment, or do you feel that he is perhaps a bit overrated? Or good, but not great?
I don't know that I would definitively call him the greatest, but I would say that he is one of the best contenders for that title.
>>Am willing to change opinions based on data<<
He's high, but I still favor Sephiroth.
The fascinating thing about Kefka is that his evil plan actually succeeds. Most of the big bads in RPGs have some master evil plan and the heroes have to stop it before he can carry it out. But Kefka, after manipulating the statues, achieved the godlike status he desired, ruined the world, and made people his slaves. It's only after that fact that the heroes, one by one, say "We've gotta get rid of this guy" and take him down. But the damage is already done; the world of balance is gone, even after Kefka's defeat.
Last edited by metagloria; 07-03-2014 at 08:32 PM. Reason: typo >_<
Best in the series, of course. Of JRPG villians the only other one who comes close is Luca Blight.
The toned muscles totally add points to it.
He's a great villain, but not my personal favorite. He is definitely memorable, and did a good job as blending in as a typical upper henchman for a good portion of the game. He was the first FF villain that wasn't "I AM THE DARKNESS AND I WILL END THE WORLD IF YOU DON'T GET THE DOHICKEYS!!" Since the player saw him grow to a "noramal" insane dude to a ruthless god, I think that's what makes him work and why he is a beloved bad guy.
He's a contender for my favorite villain in the series; he's got a lot of energy and crazy personality to him, which I feel is lacking from most previous villains. I do feel he gets a bit too much credit sometimes, though.
Kefka is a case of weirdness incarnate in RPGs. He walks around like he owns the place, in the most literal sense, during the first half of the game, and when he achieves "phenomenal cosmic power" he just sort of short circuits. You notice, Kefka doesn't really do anything during the second half of the game.
I don't know about you, but I would be doing something with phenomenal cosmic power. Exacting tribute payments. Having people work on something, a fortress for me or something. Kefka just sets up his tower and starts firing away with his light of judgement. No plan, no ultimate goal. He's just sort of waiting around to get slaughtered because he knows there are more powerful people than him in the world.
This says something about how much power a magical being has to impart. If Kefka absorbed the power of the Triad, and still just couldn't bring himself to any level of sanity to try to protect himself, beyond setting himself up in a tower full of monsters, you can't say too much for his sanity.
In short, the power of the Triad can't cure crazy.
It's great to have a villain with a sense of humour. With the possible exception of Jecht (and you could certainly argue he's not even a villain!) he's the only one that doesn't take it all so seriously. I would've liked some backstory or to learn a bit more about how the smurf the Empire ended up promoting such a complete jackass xD
I always assumed he was promoted before the magic-infusion process drove him insane.
I totally agree here. I believe he was ambitious, and would have tried to take over anything anyway. However, since the infusion process wasn't perfected yet, according to that one Vector NPC, I do believe that Kefka's insanity was an unintended consequence of the experimentation.
For me, Kefka is the greatest vilain because his plans succeed and because he is simply a psychopath!
Kefka's plan was bringing endless destruction so he didn't succeed. That is like saying Sephiroth succeeded in his ultimate goal because he summoned a Meteor that actually even crashed down to Gaia. Kefka destroys every single seed of hope and happiness and Sephiroth wants to get more and more powerful. And none of them, though becoming stronger, finally made it.
He is in my Final Fantasy villain top 5 but he is not all that great I think.
Greatest villain.