Sephiroth terrified me.Originally Posted by maybee
Your first exposure to him is the trail of blood scene. That's a truly horrible scene, if you stop to think about it. Imagine how gut wrenching it would be to come across a trail of destruction like that in real life. Gore is very rarely used in the Final Fantasy games, and I think I'm right in saying this is the only time blood appears in FFVII, and wow. Just, wow.
You then next "meet" him during the Kalm flashback, and I think they pull off a neat trick in having the "battles" alongside him, where Cloud is nothing compared to this monstrosity who just utterly hammers every monster in sight. Some might say it's a cheap move, but I actually love when game mechanics are used to convey a story point.
You then spend a long time trying to avoid a very angry huge snake in a swamp which will kick your ass if you try to fight it. (I know it can be beaten early and indeed you can find a video of me doing just that on the EoFF YouTube channel - but you're not going to be doing it on your first playthrough of the game) This thing will stomp you, so you have to go around looking for a chocobo to try to avoid it. Phew, that was a bit of fun, job done! And then... you just see one that has been utterly wrecked. Destroyed. Minimal effort. As with the Trail of Blood, you don't see him actual act, you just see the final result of this irresistible force of nature.
I remember encountering him in the Nibelheim mansion basement and - admittedly I was 11/12ish - being smurfing terrified and panicked. Those Chosen By the Planet is blaring out and here he is, this god destroyer of all, what the smurf?! Help! Ahhh! That sheer menace of a fallen hero, unhinged and willing to inflict great violence. smurfing wow. I want to feel that again.
Twenty years later and where are we? Sadly, Sephiroth has gone down the same route of Freddy, Jason, Michael Myers, et al. Oh, look, yep, there he is, popping up again in yet another spinoff or sequel. Spooky. Less is more, Square-Enix! It is one of my main critiques of the remake (and they ruined trail of blood too) that they keep thrusting him in your face.
I find I like him less and less as a villain with how ubiquitous he is and completely get why many fans don't like him. I don't really feel very much of anything seeing his more modern encounters. But I hope that explains why he captured my imagination, and that of many other FF players, in the first place.
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