Do you consider Sepiroth as the greatest antagonist of all time in video game history?

@silversix_: his hair isn't spikey

I came in here to say this as well.

To anyone that thet even mentions a FF character.

I enjoy Sephiroth's brand of crazy, but I don't think I'd put him in the top five.

He's one of the better FF antagonists, but I'm not sure he's topped that, either.

No. Kefka is the real deal. He is like Joker in The Dark Knight.

Not only that Kefka actually did what he set out to do. He destroyed the world as it was known. He won.

No, he's not even a good one, he's not even the best one in a Final Fantasy game, much less a Square game.

She's not really an antagonist, I would argue that the The Exile is more of an antagonist than Kreia.

With the Extended Cut, it's actually not that bad.

Kriea is not only the eventual antagonist of the player but also that of the Sith and Jedi. Her believe and motive is what makes her a good antagonist because like very few good villains in video games (e.g. Wallace Breen) she doesn't perceive herself to be one,

That raises another good one, Wallace Breen. Gordon Freeman is resonsible for the invasion that eventually ends up with earth getting raped. Wallace Breen is deemed evil, with practically every game character, visual art and plot progression attempting to make him out as the villain.

But, if you look at the story, earth got wrecked within hours and his deal basically saved earth. In the characters own way, he is trying to keep humanity existing at least in some form via the combine, as it's collaboration or death, with Gordon Freeman ((arguably rightfully) seen in his eyes as potentially ending humanity by destroying the collaboration of a superior force that could wipe out earth with minimal effort.

I'd actually say he is probably the best antagonist, partly because the game obtusely forces the idea he is evil, with the Freeman character (i.e. you) as a revolutionist, when for the sake of necessity, Breen had to impose harsh conditions to keep the pulse going.

It's certainly more interesting than the Joker in the Arkham games, who is shit one dimensional character dragged out for the sake of it.

Kreia is absolutely an antagonist and a fantastic one, at that.

The Exile, being the point of view you see the game through is, by definition, not an antagonist.

I like Vaas

Not even the best FF antagonist up to that point lol.

I saw one of your posts the other day about your thorough disdain for these games, and trust me, I get it. I really loved these games back in the day, but I can understand the various reasons why someone else wouldn't take to them. Most of my gaming buddies growing up couldn't get into it either, so I'm used to that.

But then I saw you mention that you didn't even like the music. :(

There is no reality in which I think that is ok. You have no soul bruh. Even the worst FF games nail the music.

No one knows who he is, he's not worthy of that title at all.

I still didn't like it.

The extended cut seemed to just be some artwork thrown in and a voice over.

No real closure.

You're not entitled to closure, you know. And it's not a pre-requisite for a good ending.

I tend to go back to the Penny Arcade response to the ending. The (vocal) majority of that fanbase wanted a happy ending with zero deaths or consequences so their Femshep could run off with Liara and pop out tons of blue babies.

That was never how that series was going to end, and anyone who didn't see that either wasn't paying attention, doesn't understand storytelling, or is a fool.

Not lumping you in with those people, by the by. Just making observations.

Easily the best in Final Fantasy and I'd say one of the best of all time in gaming.

@Jaysonguy: Almost anyone who's played games over the age of 20 knows who he is.

The ending made me realize how stupid Bioware's fanbase is. Yeah, Bioware crewed up by underwriting it the first time around, but holy hell, people just do not pay attention to the narrative.

Shepard repeatedly says people must be willing to die to save the day, that sacrifice is necessary, and that you can't save everyone, and this is even if you lean Paragon. Liara says things like this as well. Garrus has a talk about the ruthless calculus of war, which even Paragon Shepard later concedes to Garrus to. The whole point about James's character arc was to get him to understand that being an elite solider and a leader doesn't mean saving everyone. Tali even knows that sacrifice is necessary for the good of the fleet and actually agrees with Renegade Shepard on things. And Javik basically foreshadows the ending. Nevermind that Mordin, Thane, Legion, Tarquin, Rila, and Nyreen all give their lives and with the exception of Mordin in a very rare and specific instance, regardless of player choices during the game. And you have to get through to Koris that saving him would save more lives than saving 40 of his crew. The entire third game was about sacrifice, nevermind the entire saga was about making choices that alter the destinies of others without their will. It wasn't about blowing up the bad guys and going home happy.

Now we get crap like Dragon Age Inquisition.

@DarkLink77: I didn't say or act as if I was entitled to it. But me wanting closure and not getting it is a viable reason to not like the ending.

Just bc its Bioware and some of the vocal fan base were stupid doesn't entitle Bioware to me liking the ending.

But closure is a major part of an ending to a trilogy or most stories for that matter.

Also...I never wanted a happy ending as some of the best ending have sacrificed.

I don't know why you're branding me in such a way.

There was closure.....how is there no closure?

@texasgoldrush: no there wasn't.

The reapers died, the warp things blew up and then the ship crashed.

That's not closure.

That's a lazy ending.

You clearly haven't played the Extended Cut or you got the Vaporization ending.

He's certainly in the upper echelon. Easily top 10 material, if not top 5.

I did play the extended cut. As I said....it looked like pre production art work with some last minute voice over narrating.

Nothing worthy of an space epic like Mass Effect.

And the endings weren't that much different.

Yeah, they were.

http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Storyline_III#Epilogue_2

@texasgoldrush: Listen...I don't care what the wiki says. Reading about how they are different doesn't make the actual endings different.

The original endings were like 5 or 6 or some shit....and they were all the same except some had 1 or 2 more cutscenes than the other. And they were all different color explosions.

As far as the difference in the extended cut...thats the point I'm trying to make when I saw it was artwork with a last minute voice over. Fine...there were 7 different artworks in 7 different endings....some with Krogans some without or whatever.

Thats still shit. Pre production artwork and a voice over as the ending to Mass Effect? Fucking really?

I went through that shit as it happened. I didn't read about it on a wiki. I replayed the ending when they did the extended version and when I saw that it was artwork with a voice over....I didn't give 2 shits about the other ones.

B/c it was crap.

How is this any different from the Dragon Age games? The Fallout games? the Witcher games?

Might as well think those endings were crap too.

The Extended Cut sort of fixes narrative issues with Mass Effect 3's ending. At this point, any disagreements I have with how ME3 ends are more to do with me having different ideas about where the story should have been taken, so I'm willing to let that slide.

I'm still pissed about the mechanics of the ending, though, and the fact that it comes to three/four discrete (but similar) choices at the end. If ME3's ending had been exactly how it is, but the different endings occurred based on your cumulative choices throughout Mass Effect 3 (preferably the entire trilogy, but I know that's unworkable from a sheer logistics and programming perspective, so let's just go with ME3 right now), like The Witcher 3, or Mass Effect 2 did it, it would have been great, and a fitting end for the franchise.

My biggest issue with the ending has always been that for a franchise that has focused on choice and consequence, and the Butterfly Effect that comes from them, so much, Mass Effect 3's ending felt like a choose your adventure-esque copout. It should have been the result of the sum total of your choices. The actual ending itself is fine, especially with the EE, heck, it even has some good ideas. I just wish they had executed it better.

I don't know....I didn't play the DA games. I played about 20 hours of DA:I and traded it in b/c I got bored...the others - I didn't like.

I didn't really like FO so I never worried with the multiple endings and never finished FO:NV and I think FO4 is shit.

I never got into The Witcher games either. I just started playing TW3 and like a week ago decided to play TW2 first.

But none of that matters. If the ending to a game is shit...are you saying all endings can be shit and it shouldn't matter? Thats not how things evolve or progress. Mass Effect was a very involved story line with unique characters and choices...I, among others, were very interested in how things would play out.

If I play TW2 and then TW3 and the ending seems to be some tacked on bullshit...I'll call it out for it. Just like I did for the ME series.

But just b/c others are shit....doesn't make another not shit just b/c it's the same.

IT'S ALL SHIT.....YOU'RE SURROUNDED BY SHIT!!!!

The mechanics of ME2's ending weren't great and neither was TW3's. And ME2's is a cop out. ME3's final mission is a more true Suicide Mission than ME2's.

What makes ME3's ending work is that two out of three choices were covered throughout the game and even the series (see ME1's Signal Tracking sidequest or Legions ME2 quest). There was a debate on whether or not to use the resources of the enemy against them...however, the ending, other than the two bad endings, do NOT invalidate your choices you made throughout the trilogy. Dead is still dead.

The trilogy is not so much about choice and consequence itself as is about having to actually make these choices. That's what people fail to get.

Kain

From the legacy of kain. Ive always liked that game but i've. Had a deeper aooreciation for it after revisiting with a more mature pallette

Sephiroth is the emo version of Kefka.

Boom.

I've always liked Ganon. Even if predictable and simplistic, still has to be one of the most badass baddies of all time.

Listen, guys, I don't know how we got to Mass Effect 3's ending in this thread, but I'll oblige. It's Mass Effect, after all.

Is the ending better with the Extended Cut? As @DarkLink77 said, yes, it is. Significantly, according to me. It provides a hell of a lot more closure than it did pre-EC, and now the critics mostly have a problem with the content of the ending, like @charizard1605 said, not the execution of it. There is still that issue that most of the choices you make don't have much of an impact on the ending and that choice and consequence doesn't work very well in its favour, but I don't think you can claim that the ending doesn't provide closure to the story the series has been telling. Most of the large notes of the game and the series were answered throughout Mass Effect 3.

The point of Mass Effect for me was the characters and their stories first, though, and the space-wide conflict second, and in that respect I thought the ending did its job well. It could have been better, I'm not fooling myself over that, but I thought it was serviceable and I don't think it proved detrimental to the rest of the game- which was aces in my book, mind you- in any significant way.

Anyway, I don't know how relevant this is, but I always thought of ALL of Mass Effect 3 as one large ending to the trilogy. Anyone who's played the game will know what I mean. That desolate, tense atmosphere carries on from the first minute of Mass Effect 3 till the last. It certainly felt like one large ending to me.

If only we'd been able to fight Harbinger in one big final boss battle... well, you can't have everything, can you?

Man, don't do that. Don't club TW3's ending with ME2's. ME2's ending is a masterpiece, TW3's ending isn't. A lot of the criticism that is thrown at ME3's ending can also be attributed to TW3's ending.

This is such bullshit lol.

king bohan from heavenly sword

@ConanTheStoner: "There is no reality in which I think that is ok. You have no soul bruh. Even the worst FF games nail the music"

Blame that on the Souls games. I still cant muster the strength to venture into DS2 on X1. Demons, Dark, and Bloodborne crushed my soul like another unsuccessful NY Rangers playoff run.

Uhhh, I beat Final Fantasy VII about twelve years ago and haven't played it since, so a lot of the game is a blur to me. Honestly, Sephiroth is one of the characters I remember most porrly. If I recall correctly in the present time of VII's story Sephiroth doesn't actually have much dialogue. I only really remember him talking much in flashbacks showing when he learned his origins and went batsh*t.

So... If memory serves me well, he's far from a great villain. I'd say he's just famous for being in the most popular Square game and for killing a party member, which back then was a bold move.

But I could be wrong. I really don't remember FFVII well at all. Jrpgs take so long to beat it's very hard to motivate myself to ever play a single one more than once all the way through.

TW3 empress ending is one of the greatest endings in gaming, one of the best character moments in gaming. While the mechanics were flawed to get to the ending, the actual three endings to TW3 were excellent.

The problem with ME2's ending was that it was such a poor set up to the sequel, that DLC was needed. It was a non ending. Hell, I consider ARRIVAL to be the true ending to Mass Effect 2. That's when things turn for ME3, both story wise and thematically as well.

ME2 as a whole was a filler game with a weak plot, with good character missions. Its easily the worst narrative of the trilogy.

No, I consider Illusive Man as the best antagonist of all time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3cmkns9sD0

+1

I like G Man more, is he a antagonist? He kept Adrian locked up lol.

G-Man is terrifying ;__;

Indeed :(

I always find the "KEFKA IS THE BEEST BECAUSE HE DESTROYED THE WORLD!" argument pretty silly TBH.

First of all, no he really didn't. last I checked a good amount of people survived and all your party members were alive enough to whoop kefka's behind and bring hope back to humanity. he did a great amount of damage to the world sure, but destroy it? Nope.

Second of all, is the fact that Kefka and Sephiroth had completely different circumstances in completely different worlds. Who's to say that if those 3 statues existed in FFVII's world that Sephiroth wouldn't have done the same exact shit as Kefka, or worse? Sephiroth was forced to use some slow-ass meteor to accomplish his goals, whereas with the statues, all Kefka had to do was nudge one and they were instantly like "whelp, time to abuse the s*** out of the world..." whoopedy do, I'm pretty sure any villlain could have pulled that off.

But finally, why does it even mater how much destruction Kefka caused when it comes to how good a villain he is? Just because villain A kills only 50 people and villain B kills 2,000 people, that doesn't automatically make villain B the better villain. What matters is how he/she kills the vitcims and the context/story behind the killings that should matter. I'd say that Kefka killing Cyan's family left more of an impression with me than him pushing some statues around to kill so many people. Hell if we were going with the "more people killed = better villain" logic, then the true final boss of Bravery Default would have to be one of the best villains of all time, yet that villain was probably on of the stupidest, most "try-hardest" villains I've ever had the misfortune of witnessing.

That all being said, I do like Kefka as a villain. he is by no means a deep one, but I like him in how vile he is and how he amuses you but ultimately makes you hate him (in the good way of hating a villain). and the whole "world gets screwed" thing was a cool thing to for FFVI's story as well. I just think it is more important when comparing villains to compare their actual character, backstories, motivations, etc.s more than how high of a death tally they can muster.

William Birkin from Resi 2. He wanted to make babies with his Daughter, now that is EVIL.