Quote Originally Posted by Forsaken Lover View Post
Hey WK, I was reading some of the Xenotensei stuff and it's funny you mention Zanza not being as good as Yuriev. A.C., the writer, really hates Xenoblade and during the Episode III article where it gets to Yuriev he mentions a lot of people liken Zanza to Dmitri. I've never played Xenoblade but A.C. says more or less what you say - Yuriev has a ton more depth to him than Zanza, in spite of the comparisons.
To be fair to Zanza, he had one game to be developed as a compelling figure whereas as Yuriev had four games and I believe a web series to be fully fleshed out. Zanza might have stood out more if the game spent a bit more time to expand his character but frankly Takahashi admitted that story was a low priority in Xenoblade's development since he was trying to break away from his design choices in the actual Xeno titles.

Zanza is a still a good villain and I would argue beats the pants off any FF villain from the last two consoles generations in being an interesting and distasteful figure but here we're comparing to the other Xeno villains and frankly there is a very short list of gaming villains who could compete in my mind against that roster of antagonists. Zanza is a good villain, we just know that Monolith Soft is capable of better is all.