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[JRPG] Top 10 JRPG of best villains: show me your list !

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Marche from FFTA. No one comes close.
Not even Kefa, or The Ten Sages of Star Ocean: Second Story.
 

Timeaisis

Member
This list is missing two of my favorites:

Kuja from FFIX and Albedo from Xenosaga.

Kuja' just a great classic villain. Fun, and all. Albedo is just crazy as shit.
 

Videoneon

Member
Alex from Golden Sun.

The unfightable.

The build up is absurd, I don't know if the eventual fight (assuming there is a GS4) will live up to it. Having only played the GBA games I like him, for his general feeling of detachment and coldness. Don't think I could say one of the greatest ever though.

10.Super Paper Mario: Dimentio
9. Skies of Arcadia: Ramirez
Too lazy to list reasons right now.

I liked Dimentio. When he ultimately takes the spotlight at the end, it's awesome.

And when you listed Ramirez, you listed the guy I was hoping to see.


The hero who became a villain, ironically due to his perception of his idol being shattered, revealed to be a petty man profiting off of slavery. It's awesome to see a villain whose central flaw is his extreme case of hero worship; it's made even more interesting considering he ends up outliving the person who you think is going to be the final boss in Galcian.

This drives him insane. See, Ramirez went through some radical personality changes throughout his life. When he as first sent as an agent from the Silvites, he was an extremely capable and intelligent agent, full of compassion and a sense of duty. When he loses his first hero, he turns to Galcian/Galcian finds him, and becomes cold, efficient. He loses his concern for the impoverished and put-upon, and sees them as inferior-he adopts Galcians beliefs. The agents under Galcian all have different ulterior motives (though not necessarily to subvert Galcian), but Ramirez's motive is simply to see Galcian be the one to rule the world, because he believes Galcian is a strong ruler who is destined to do so because of this perceived strength.

Now he is unhinged. During other times you fight Ramirez he is untouchable, and this alongside his personality tried to convey a strong sense of intimidation. But now he has flipped his shit, and is in tears. He hates your guts because you created the circumstances of Galcian's death, and in an act of helpless and unbounded rage tries to fuse himself with the Silver Gigas to wipe out all of Arcadia, because if Galcian can't rule it, fuck everybody.

And there we have it. A great villain because of his weak will, or weak personality.

The other thing I love about Ramirez is that he totally warps the tone of the game whenever he shows up. You could basically have a happy-go-lucky Skies of Arcadia with every other threat in the game still there. Galcian is a cartoon villain, so are Alfonso and De Loco. Belleza and Gregorio are sympathetic, the Gigas are just things you beat up and then move on. Ramirez is cold, bitter, and the depth of his anger drags the mood down, and it's awesome.
 

CorvoSol

Member
Marche from FFTA. No one comes close.
Not even Kefa, or The Ten Sages of Star Ocean: Second Story.

Yeah, I also thought that Link in Link's Awakening was the embodiment of evil for trying to go home and that Mario in SMB2 was a terrible human being for waking up. Indulging yourself and others in a horrible fantasy that comes at a personal cost to yourself is true evil.

Screw that noise, Marche is the Count of Monte Cristo of FF. His friends were all profiting at his expense, and he got his revenge, plain and simple.

Anyway, my list, I apologize that its Square heavy:


Golbez, of FFIV gets a bad rap from some for "not being evil enough." I suppose that could be true, but this guy still has class in spades, and spends the majority of the plot just waltzing all over Cecil and the world at large. His greatest accomplishment, though, comes in Dissidia, where he outwits the Gods and essentially orchestrates things so that the heroes can win. Golbez is my favorite villain in the series.


Kefka, of FFVI is a villain who needs no real introduction. He's humorous, lethal, and a strong presence throughout much of the game. Kefka's dark sense of comedy is no doubt what has endeared him to players for so long, but his flair has also been helpful, I think. From a clown to
building a tower of trash to making his final battle centered on the Divine Comedy
, Kefka was great. I kind of feel like modern FFs are lacking in strong, villainous presence, though.


The Demon King, O
erste
dio, of Live A Live. The reason why is kind of a major spoiler for the game, though:
Throughout Live A Live you follow the Earth's history, and the conflicts of various people from various walks of life against a recurring, ancient evil known as Odio. After finishing all scenarios, you play one last one, as the knight, Oersted. Oersted is a typical legendary hero whose legend crumbles out from under his feet. Hated, rejected, and ostracized, Oersted holds out hope that as long as someone believes in him, he can keep going. When at last he finds the woman who was supposed to believe in him, his betrothed, the princess, she rejects him for the man who set him up. In utter despair, Oersted becomes the Demon King. The game's Final Scenario allows you to play as anyone, Oersted included. If you do play as him, you can do what no Square villain, not Lavos, not Kefka, has ever done: permanently defeat the heroes and destroy the world.
Odio is probably one of the best twists of Square's SNES era.


Porky, of the Mother Trilogy, is not, technically, the most evil force in it. He is, however, the most petty form of evil in the entire series and possibly the most petty villain in Nintendo's games. That petty, spiteful, hateful nature of his lets him claw his way to the top and
live forever
, though, so there's that.


Master Xehanort, of the Kingdom Hearts series, hails from a series with Disney Villains who range from terrifying to majestic to, well, Pete. The Square provided villains aren't much better, with Ansem, Org. XIII, and uhm, Marluxia. But Xehanort is the one villain specific to the series I'd really praise. Not because he's particularly clever, or especially well written, but because he's just so amazingly evil that you can't help but hate him and want to rip his guts out even as he stands there, groping the sky before you. Dude is batty as all hell, but cruel to no end, too. As far as villains go in KH, he's the best. He has a goal, and no one seems able to keep pace with him.


Devius, of Sword of Mana, is a kind-hearted, noble demon (note that in Mana demons are not exactly Always Evil, just Usually Evil). He's legitimately not a bad person.
He is the Dark Prince's brother, though.
Throughout the game we see the hero justifiably ticked because the bad guys killed his parents and ruined his life.
And then we meet Devius. Devius' mother is the demon, Medusa. The hero kills Medusa, and in the process becomes no better than the villain he has hated, ruining Devius' life in the process). The fight between the hero and Devius is therefore very tragic, but still awesome.


Shinryu, in Dissidia, is the bad guy to end all bad guys. He basically sees the entire cast as cattle, and has been feeding off of them ever since
he tricked God into making them fight to make Chaos stronger.
At Dissidia's heart there is a lot of messed up family dynamics going on, and if there is a force behind all of that, it's this guy. We're talking about a dude who makes Kefka, Sephiroth, and Kuja his VICTIMS and gets away with it all scott free.


I'm not done with Xenoblade yet, but Metal Face is introduced as a fairly generic, if particularly evil general villain guy in the enemy army. This really doesn't change for a fair amount of the game I've played, with Metal Face showing up, shouting in goofy robo-British, your team throwing down with him, and then it's all good. I mean, he does
kill your girlfriend, but that's at the beginning of the game.
Then you hit the "Disc One Final Dungeon" and BAM. Metal Face goes up a couple pegs. The next few fights against him really amp up why his character works.
Namely, Metal Face's pilot, Mumkhar, was insanely jealous of Dunban because Dunban was the legendary hero wielding the legendary sword. That jealousy drove Mumkhar to join the Mechon forces, and he subsequently torched your hometown and "killed" your girlfriend for the same reason: Because it was Dunban's home, and Dunban's sister, and Mumkhar'd do anything to fuck with Dunban just a little bit more. The point where I am at in the game proposes that this jealousy and pathetic need to screw Dunban over every last bit is what ultimately leads to Mumkhar's death.
 
A few of my favorites:

Lynx - Chrono Cross
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Chiaki Tachibana - SMT III: Nocturne
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Jenna Angel - Digital Devil Saga
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Wiegraf Folles - FFT
Wiegraf_reencounter_with_Ramza.jpg


Yunalesca - FFX
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Limit

Member
Isnt that exactly why he tops every list? He's evil just to be evil. He doesnt have a special cause or agenda to speak of, he's just evil

Let me ask you this. Kefka and the Joker from Nolan's Batman movies are practically the same characters as they are both agents of chaos and revel in having simplistic motivations behind their actions. But if you had to choose between one of them as a more interesting character, who would you pick and why?
 

Jindujun

Neo Member
Let me ask you this. Kefka and the Joker from Nolan's Batman movies are practically the same characters as they are both agents of chaos and revel in having simplistic motivations behind their actions. But if you had to choose between one of them as a more interesting character, who would you pick and why?

Good question... I cant say i find any of them especially interesting to be honest, very little to them other than the love for mayhem.
do you need more to top a list of "most evil"?
 

Soriku

Junior Member
Xenosaga people, plz.


Wilhelm doesn't have the personality of Albedo but he has his hand in everything, before and after the game series begins.

Yuriev is also a good Xenosaga villain.

Other villains: Yggdrasil/
Mithos
from ToS, Wiseman from Baten Kaitos Origins, Sho Minamimoto from TWEWY, and the killer in Persona 4.
 

dropbear

Banned
I typically don't like to make comments like these on lists, but...

The lack of Kuja is baffling to me. A lot of other great additions to the list in the replies to this thread as well.
 

Morrigan Stark

Arrogant Smirk
Agreed, Luca Blight is a way better villain. More believable too.

Algus was such a bastard. There are obviously more malevolent villains, but I can't think of anyone that made me hate them like he did.
Agreed. I think it's because Algus is actually very believable. He starts out as an ally, 'cause he's friendly and grateful and all and then as you get to know him more you slowly start realizing what a complete asshole he is... yet he's still a product of his environment and the asshole things he does are in line with the world (result of typical classicism). Then he betrays you not because "mwah ha ha I'm evil all along" but because of irreconcilable differences in ideology. He's one of the best written villains, IMO. He's one of those you genuinely love to hate.

Delita is more of an anti-hero than straight up villain, but he's one of my favourites as well. Wiegraf is also amazingly well written. Fuck, why are so few jRPGs written as well as FFT? :(

Kefka is funny but very overrated. He's just the "mwah haha mine is an evil laugh" evil overlord, the only reason he's not completely boring is because he has some funny lines.

Some of my favourites that no one mentioned yet:

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Craymen from Panzer Dragoon Saga

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Boomerang from Wild ARMs
 
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