Not to start a big long flamewar or anything, but who honestly likes Sephiroth?

Spoilers in this thread:





As a villain? As a character in general?

I personally don't see why people like Sephiroth. He barely has any lines, NO personality, and his only crowing achievement was killing the *arguable* love interest. The only reason Sephiroth killed off Aerith was because Nomura wanted to change the love interest halfway into the game, but he didn't want a love triangle, so he too the easy route out and killed her off. It made people think Sephiroth was the coolest thing since sliced bread, and Aerith was the most tragic character in any RPG ever, therefore leading many people to hail Final Fantasy 7 as the best RPG ever. To me, it seems like people only think he's cool for the sake of being cool, with him wearing a long black trenchcoat, being almost mute, and doing something horrible and simply walking away like a "badass".

Sephiroth is SORT OF the product of being from a broken home, more or less, but a few villains that come from similar backgrounds, like Dio, for instance, from JoJo's Bizzarre Adventure are much, much better. Of course Dio is from a Manga and anime, and only appears in a few fighting games, but honestly.

Dio had an abusive father who worked his mother too hard and his mothers death caused Dio to hate his father, and eventually drove him to murder his father. Not QUITE the same setting as Sephiroth, but both were motivated by their mothers in some way.

If you don't think that comparison is fair or makes much sense, lets just compare Sephiroth to the prior FF villain, Kefka.

Kefka had a physical reason for being insane, as his brain was warped by having magic infused within him. Kefka did all his deeds for himself, was very evil and underhanded, did evil deeds for the sake of being evil, and his twisted sense of humor would make one liken him as Final Fantasies answer to the Joker. Mind you he was wearing court makeup like a Japanese actor or something, and not meant to be an actual Clown, as some may have called him when the game first came out. Also, Kefka had a ton more dialog than Sephiroth, as well as a lot more screen time. I asked this same thing to others, and all the said was "Well after you escape from Jail in FF7 in the Midgar building and you see blood everywhere, it made me think WOW THIS GUY SURE IS BADASS". Yeah its also really easy to draw a picture of a Midgar Serpent being impaled on a tree, too. Such a cheap way to make a villain "feel" more like a badass, and I'm sure little kids and first time RPGers thought it was awesome.

Keep in mind, this thread is all in retrospect, as I used to think Sephiroth was the end all be all villain in RPG gaming history. But back then, I was dumb and immature, and haven't played many RPGs, especially FF6 (all the way anyway) back then.

And before anyone says it, this is not a "Its cool to hate popular things" thread, just me making some observations. Its mainly the sheer amount of love a certain character has achieved that annoys me, even more so when they don't deserve it.

 

I think the question should be, is Final Fantasy the definition of oxymoron?

 

In so far as I'm concerned, Kefka was the end all be all villian of Final Fantasy. No one else in the series is half as evil as he was. And no one was as successful in their goals as he was either.

 

sephiroth is so cool because hes acompanied by awesome music whenever he walks onscreen..

he was gayed the hell out in the turdy "advent children" movie tho (as were the rest of the loveable cast, Tifa had breast reduction surgery wtf?)

 

You know, I was thinking about it...
SPOILERS!!!!!!!



Sure, Sephiroth killed Aerith, but Kefka killed General Leo and Emperor Gehstal (even kicked the dude off a floating island).

Though Kefka killing General Leo alone is proof of his bad assness. I remember being all excited about playing as General Leo in that fight and having that cool attack... and then being like h: when Kefka just goes and kills him.

 

Character wise, I am not too fond of him. He is overhyped to hell, and didn't really do much in FFVII to warrent all the attention he gets. As a boss, however, he was pretty awesome.

Personally, Kefka and on some level SIN was a far better villian/final boss.

 

kefka rocks.... he did all the dirty works by itself and by great pleasure until fulfilling all his mad desires...

man he killed all of doma's people in one blow, destroied cities by his light of judgement, drained and abuse esper 'till killing them, killed, his emperor and Leo, moved the statues out of position causing worl destruction and becaming a GOD... oh, yes he set on flames figaro castle too.... what to add? oh yes, he's crazy too

HE IS a really HARDWORKING badass boss!

also kefka
HATE
HATE
HATE
HATE
HATE
HATE
HATE
HATE, YOU!

 

He's definitely overhyped probably because of the lack of substance you get. He's just that dark strange person with no elaborate story as to why he's evil. He's not very interesting and I think people were just disappointed in that and were hoping for more. I like the whole dark and evil thing with theme music, but that's not enough. I loved Kefka though, insane villians that are amusing to watch top ones that don't say anything or do anything interesting.

 

MottZilla hit the nail on the head. Sephiroth is all style and no substance.

That is really to me one of Final Fantasy's real drawbacks. They never take the time to flesh out the villains. Kefka is really the only one they took the time with to really make interesting. With Sephiroth on the other hand they basically used a cool design and one extremely well done shock tactic to make him memorable. As for the rest, They almost seem like afterthoughts.

BTW: Neither compare Luca Blight though. He had the best qualities of both.

 

i have no emotions nor do i pass judgement on a fictional character

 

another thing that makes kefka great are his quotes

"do i look like a waiter?"
son of a submariner!
nothing beats the sound of thousens of voices screaming at the unison
i'll create a monument to non-existence

and so on...

 

Lets get one thing out of the way - Kefka = my favourite villan

With that said I think Sephiroth worked really well as a bad guy. There was so much build up for him and he never dissapointed.

1 - when you first saw his sword in the back of the chap in the Shinra building, and you were told only he could handle it. + the hero worship he recieves from all, prior to his decline. Great build up.

2 - His theme - genius.

3 - The scene in the ancient city where he flits around the alter room. Genius

4 - I think his connection with cloud was pretty clever, where he exerted control over Cloud to have him finish Aeris. Also their "homoerotic" relationship has evidently won him the adoration of female fans.

5 - great bit of char design, simple and powerful.

6 - loads of iconic scenes in the game involved him - cf the shot through the flames of him.

So anyway, I think that he is the product of great design and has a sense of the "icon" about him. But the moment you start to think about the psychology behind him he seems rather shallow. Nethertheless, great chap and defo in my top ten of rpg bad guys.

 

I like Sephiroth as a villian. Block out the decade of fanboys and all those that obsessed over ff7 and he's still as good as he was the first time I sat down and played ff7, right after it came out. And on FF6, I don't like it, even to the point where I consider it one of the worst FF games, right behind 12. And no, 7 wasnt my first RPG or even close.

 

Vade retro satana.

 

Teens like him because he is a moody dark chaotic character. Simple.

I like him because everyone else is a wishy washy simpleton that likes saying "......??!!" :lol:

 

Is assembler really to the point of arguing wether a fictional character of a video game is more or less badass than another? C'mon, get a life.

 

Oh chill out, It's not the downfall of this site if this type of post shows up now and then.

 

I admired and enjoyed 7. Not because I fell in love with a flower girl (I couldn't have give two shits when she died) nor because of Sephiroths (l33t) cool factor but because it was a perfect blend of technology and sorcery topped off with addictive strategic gameplay, comedy, great music and a gripping story; all of which were presented exceptionally well.

 

for apologizing we can make a new PSX Vs Saturn topic too.

 

Hey, I miss those!