Which game had the best set of villains/antagonists?

[Wolf Kanno]

You know, I can't really answer this one cause I rarely like all of the villains. Mainly cause the series has a bad habit of always having one villain that tends to overshadow the whole lot of them in their own games so it's difficult to think of a cast where every villain was equally menacing or interesting. My knee jerk reaction to this question was actually Xenogears but it is not an FF.

I'll think about it I guess.

[Bolivar]

VII

[Skyblade]

FF IX - Kuja is already my favorite FF Villain. While he may be vain, narcasistic, and a terrible person all around, I kind of love his motivations. His entire motivation is to fight against a fate he has no control over, and what really makes him scary compared to other FF villains is not his wit, it's not his calm demenour or plans, it's the how insanely volatile his emotions can be.

The thing is, I thought Strega from Persona 3 did the whole "insane rebellion against fate" thing way better.

Garland is absolutely wonderful as well, he fights to protect his people above all else. He's not evil, he simpley chose the lives of his people over the lives of Gaia.

Um, yes, he is evil. Choosing to commit genocide to save your people is not a good act. It may be understandable, but it is definitely evil.

And then you have Beatrix, who is a total bad ass. Like, oh dear god is she awesome.

I cannot contest this.

[Jinx]

trout, can someone change my vote to FFVII?

[Wolf Kanno]

Garland is absolutely wonderful as well, he fights to protect his people above all else. He's not evil, he simpley chose the lives of his people over the lives of Gaia.

Um, yes, he is evil. Choosing to commit genocide to save your people is not a good act. It may be understandable, but it is definitely evil.

I disagree, considering they are two species fighting for survival, I feel under the circumstance, genocide is acceptable to the alternative of extinction. Technically the real Terrans are wiped out anyway, as the beings that Zidane are from are simply shells being prepped to be imbued with the Terran souls.

[Skyblade]

Garland is absolutely wonderful as well, he fights to protect his people above all else. He's not evil, he simpley chose the lives of his people over the lives of Gaia.

Um, yes, he is evil. Choosing to commit genocide to save your people is not a good act. It may be understandable, but it is definitely evil.

I disagree, considering they are two species fighting for survival, I feel under the circumstance, genocide is acceptable to the alternative of extinction. Technically the real Terrans are wiped out anyway, as the beings that Zidane are from are simply shells being prepped to be imbued with the Terran souls.

Acceptable from a practicality standpoint, perhaps. That doesn't mean it's not evil, or that Garland isn't a mass-murdering lunatic.

[Wolf Kanno]

Garland is absolutely wonderful as well, he fights to protect his people above all else. He's not evil, he simpley chose the lives of his people over the lives of Gaia.

Um, yes, he is evil. Choosing to commit genocide to save your people is not a good act. It may be understandable, but it is definitely evil.

I disagree, considering they are two species fighting for survival, I feel under the circumstance, genocide is acceptable to the alternative of extinction. Technically the real Terrans are wiped out anyway, as the beings that Zidane are from are simply shells being prepped to be imbued with the Terran souls.

Acceptable from a practicality standpoint, perhaps. That doesn't mean it's not evil, or that Garland isn't a mass-murdering lunatic.

It does if your world view doesn't believe in good or evil.

You+either+die+a+hero....+Not+mine+found+on+videogames.memebase.com_3c82b9_4568751.jpg

[Psychotic]

trout, can someone change my vote to FFVII?

Can't do that, but I've edited the numbers.

I voted FFVII. I think Shinra is an epic villain and a great and original idea rather than the same old Evil Empire routine, a corporation that damages the planet for prophet and effectively rules the world was a real departure from previous entries in the series. The Turks and Don Corneo were both really fun comic relief villains too.

[Skyblade]

trout, can someone change my vote to FFVII?

Can't do that, but I've edited the numbers.

I voted FFVII. I think Shinra is an epic villain and a great and original idea rather than the same old Evil Empire routine, a corporation that damages the planet for prophet and effectively rules the world was a real departure from previous entries in the series. The Turks and Don Corneo were both really fun comic relief villains too.

For "profit", Psychotic. Completely different meaning.

[NeoCracker]

FF IX - Kuja is already my favorite FF Villain. While he may be vain, narcasistic, and a terrible person all around, I kind of love his motivations. His entire motivation is to fight against a fate he has no control over, and what really makes him scary compared to other FF villains is not his wit, it's not his calm demenour or plans, it's the how insanely volatile his emotions can be.

The thing is, I thought Strega from Persona 3 did the whole "insane rebellion against fate" thing way better.

Garland is absolutely wonderful as well, he fights to protect his people above all else. He's not evil, he simpley chose the lives of his people over the lives of Gaia.

Um, yes, he is evil. Choosing to commit genocide to save your people is not a good act. It may be understandable, but it is definitely evil.

And then you have Beatrix, who is a total bad ass. Like, oh dear god is she awesome.

I cannot contest this.

...But Strega wasn't rebelling against fate. They welcomed the coming of Nyx with open arms, a thing that was going to happen regardless of whether or not they were there. That's like, the exact opposite of rebelling against fate. Also, what does Persona have to do with comparing the villain groups of FF titles like, at all?

Also, the act may be evil, but I have a hard time lumping Garland himself as evil. In his hands he held the lives of all of his people, so what was he suppose to do? Decide to let them all die? It's comparable to two hunters, both with families to feed who have been without food for some time. You see some game to hunt, you know the other guy's family will die without that food, yet so will yours. Are you going to call the hunter evil for fighting for the food?

[Skyblade]

FF IX - Kuja is already my favorite FF Villain. While he may be vain, narcasistic, and a terrible person all around, I kind of love his motivations. His entire motivation is to fight against a fate he has no control over, and what really makes him scary compared to other FF villains is not his wit, it's not his calm demenour or plans, it's the how insanely volatile his emotions can be.

The thing is, I thought Strega from Persona 3 did the whole "insane rebellion against fate" thing way better.

Garland is absolutely wonderful as well, he fights to protect his people above all else. He's not evil, he simpley chose the lives of his people over the lives of Gaia.

Um, yes, he is evil. Choosing to commit genocide to save your people is not a good act. It may be understandable, but it is definitely evil.

And then you have Beatrix, who is a total bad ass. Like, oh dear god is she awesome.

I cannot contest this.

...But Strega wasn't rebelling against fate. They welcomed the coming of Nyx with open arms, a thing that was going to happen regardless of whether or not they were there. That's like, the exact opposite of rebelling against fate. Also, what does Persona have to do with comparing the villain groups of FF titles like, at all?

Strega was all about rebelling against their personal fates. Their entire arc was dealing with the side effects of the medication and the knowledge that their own personal demise was coming. Similar to Kuja, it was about how they chose to live their lives, what they chose of the time that remained them, and whether they accepted the oncoming death or not.

And it doesn't strictly relate, but when I see a refined and well executed version of a concept, it generally lowers my overall impression of the unrefined ones that I have seen before. In Kuja's case, that concept is pretty much all he has going for him, so with my opinion of that lowered, there's not really a lot left to care about.

Also, the act may be evil, but I have a hard time lumping Garland himself as evil. In his hands he held the lives of all of his people, so what was he suppose to do? Decide to let them all die? It's comparable to two hunters, both with families to feed who have been without food for some time. You see some game to hunt, you know the other guy's family will die without that food, yet so will yours. Are you going to call the hunter evil for fighting for the food?

Yep. No looking for other options, just a case of "these people don't matter, let's kill them all"? Yeah, sorry, that's evil. Hell, you could lump every group of conquerors in general under that banner. They all look out for their own people (however they define those people) at the expense of all others. That is not a morally defensible position.

In the hunter analogy, if you immediately jump to braining the other guy to take the food, you're evil. You could always look for more game, or some fruit growing somewhere, etcetera.

[Pumpkin]

I think they're trying to say that this could be considered a morally grey area. Some people obviously consider it more so grey than others though :P

I can see it in a way. People can get selfish in times of need. It's kind of like if you and your child are starving and another person and their child are starving. Someone finds a piece of bread. You can bet a lot of people are going to fight for that bread for their child because its their child and they can't worry about the other persons child. This is kind of like that but on a much larger scale.

Not saying he's not evil, just looking at it from different perspectives

[Wolf Kanno]

Strega was all about rebelling against their personal fates. Their entire arc was dealing with the side effects of the medication and the knowledge that their own personal demise was coming. Similar to Kuja, it was about how they chose to live their lives, what they chose of the time that remained them, and whether they accepted the oncoming death or not.

And it doesn't strictly relate, but when I see a refined and well executed version of a concept, it generally lowers my overall impression of the unrefined ones that I have seen before. In Kuja's case, that concept is pretty much all he has going for him, so with my opinion of that lowered, there's not really a lot left to care about.

I feel this is an unfair comparison though. I mean P3 came out six years later on technological hardware better suited to tell a more nuanced story. To try to compare it just feels a bit unfair to IX, it would be different if IX was the superior written one cause then you would have to wonder what the hell happened with RPG writing but I have to side with NeoCracker that saying a game made years later, on better hardware did the idea better and thus I have to look down on previous attempts because they weren't as good feels a bit... unfair to say the least.

Yep. No looking for other options, just a case of "these people don't matter, let's kill them all"? Yeah, sorry, that's evil. Hell, you could lump every group of conquerors in general under that banner. They all look out for their own people (however they define those people) at the expense of all others. That is not a morally defensible position.

In the hunter analogy, if you immediately jump to braining the other guy to take the food, you're evil. You could always look for more game, or some fruit growing somewhere, etcetera.

Someone's been watching a bit too much of the Doctor.

You're assuming that they haven't already exhausted alternative solutions to no avail. Let's modify this situation. You have two families a father and child in each, stuck on a spacecraft bound for home but an accident struck it off course. The ship has been corrected but it will take a month to reach it and you have just enough food for one child to survive the trip home and that's by rationing what is left to it's bare minimum for survival and just to make this clear, this may also be assuming the child will be eating the other three passengers in case we wish to go there. Which child will live? The one whose father secures their survival.

I can't fault the father in wishing to protect their child in this case, while I disagree with their actions it is not that their intent is malicious. Murder that is not malicious or petty but through necessity is not the same as murder through malicious intent. Our society's laws reflect this grey area of the law and morality. This is the thing bout Garland, he's not out to destroy Gaia cause he's a conqueror, it's just that his people's survival depends on very precise circumstances and to be fair to him, the backstory of IX explains that the initial attempt of planet fusing failed which was back before real civilization had formed on Gaia, in other words he tried to assimilate it before evolution on the planet had reached a certain point and basically botched it because the Terran's technology is breaking down. A similar ethical quandary would happen if our own species traveled to an Earth-like planet and decided to stay, we would technically be forever changing the evolutionary course of life on the planet for our own selfish needs.

[Perducci]

FFVI has Ultros, so it wins.

Basically this.