In Final Fantasy, the story gets more complicated as the number increases. Games like the first one and the next four don’t have memorable stories because of how the hardware works. On the NES and SNES, you were limited to doing much. In particular, they didn’t have any villains that stood out.
On the contrary, many of the most potent villains can be found in the early games if you look into the lore and figure out what they bring to the table. The bad guys in newer games might be better, but they are also less powerful. Square Enix has been trying to find the right balance for years, but the main games and spinoffs are hard to criticize.
Necron (Final Fantasy IX)
Necron is the personification of death, both in its name and in the way it looks. It can kill people pretty easily and has a lot of powerful physical and magical attacks it can use to do so. Even though its shape can be destroyed, its spirit will always be around as long as life does.
After much thought, Necron decides that the point of life is to look for death. He decides to decimate the crystal of life so that the world will return to being nothing and people will no longer have to struggle. It doesn’t, however, consider how much the party wants to live so that they can beat it in battle with some help from Kuja.
Sephiroth (Final Fantasy VII)
Sephiroth is a bad guy who is almost impossible to beat, even more so than Chaos or Sin. As of right now, he has come back from the dead at least four times in the Final Fantasy VII Compilation. This makes him one of the most enduring bad guys in Final Fantasy history.
He is a skilled swordsman with access to some powerful magic known to man. However, he doesn’t become a threat until he obtains his hands on the black material. Meteor’s power and deep bond to the lifestream make it hard to see how he could ever be defeated for good.
Exdeath (Final Fantasy V)
Under Exdeath’s famous blue armor is a horrible, crazy monster whose only goal is to wipe out all existence and consider replacing it with eternal nonexistence. He doesn’t care about other people at all, and he can’t even understand what love is. He thinks that anger and hatred are the only feelings worth fighting for.
His plan to turn the world into an empty void fails, but not before he damages the game’s world. One of the most important people who die is Galuf, who, like Tellah in the last book in the series, gives his life to stop Exdeath from doing bad things. Even though he fails in the end, his sacrifice may be what inspires the party to win.
Chaos (Final Fantasy I)
Chaos found a way to make itself live forever by setting up a cycle of death and rebirth that would never end. Also, the Warriors of Light almost couldn’t break out of the endless cycle of desperation, no matter how hard they attempted or how strong they got. Chaos can never really beat them, and they can never really beat Chaos, either.
Chaos was first made when Garland joined the Four Fiends to make a god-like being that could come back even after being defeated. It might also be the best example of Chaos, which makes its name even better. On the other hand, light is always there in fiction, and the Four Warriors of Light was there to save the day.
Yu Yevon (Final Fantasy X)
Sin is a threat that is always there in Final Fantasy X. It causes destruction and Chaos wherever it shows up. Even though it can be temporarily defeated with the assistance of a Final Aeon, this always comes back to cause more death, at least till the Tidus and Yuna arrive. The party doesn’t find out what the terrible fiend is until they break this vicious cycle.
Sin turns out not to be a mindless monster, but a kind of shell for the game’s really bad guy, Yu Yevon. Chaos always says he will come back, but the heroes of Final Fantasy never see him again. Yu Yevon, on the other hand, becomes truly immortal and stays that way for thousands of years before the heroes of Spira bring him to justice.
The Emperor (Final Fantasy II)
At first, the Emperor was just another crazy leader of fantasy land. For a while, being king of Palmecia was enough to satisfy his need to be in charge, but he eventually got tired of being limited by his body and started to want more. He found a way to get it in the end, which Lord Voldemort would be proud of.
Mateus could rule heaven and earth and the underworld after he died because he had split his soul. Even though the party can still beat him at the end of the game, he deserves credit for finding a way to not only live through death but also get stronger from it.
Cloud Of Darkness (Final Fantasy III)
The Cloud of Darkness is usually shown as a woman, but it is more genderless. When it appears again, it calls itself we because each of its two tendrils can act independently. No matter what pronoun you use, it is a deadly threat to all life because of how much power it has and how little it cares about human life.
Unlike most of the other bad guys in Final Fantasy, the Cloud of Darkness isn’t a villain in the usual sense. Instead, it’s like a judge for everyone. Its ultimate goal is to cover the whole world in darkness, making it impossible for anything to live. It almost certainly would have worked if the Warriors of the Dark hadn’t given up their lives.
