Like any other long-running franchise of Fantasy RPGs, Final Fantasy is chock full of powerful heroes pitted against dastardly villains. While each numbered entry in the series is independent of one another, they all share a fondness for powerful villains with threatening plans destined to be foiled by our heroes. Or… not?
Final Fantasy has scores of villains that vary in how powerful, threatening, and important they are to their respective narratives. They also vary in how successful they get to be. Being full of phenomenal cosmic power doesn't mean much if the villain's plan fizzles out at the first rambunctious, spiky-haired hurdle. It would be a herculean task to rank every Final Fantasy villain as there are just so many, so it seems more fitting to only look at some of the more iconic (and more successful) baddies.
Updated May 21, 2022 by Ryan Bamsey: Final Fantasy has more villains than you can shake a stick at. There are world-destroyers, vengeance-driven brutes, and grotesque personifications of various concepts, all waiting for their moment to strike. It's interesting to dive into their grand plans and see where everything went wrong, and with that in mind, we've added some more villains to this list.
12 Exdeath (Final Fantasy 5)
This sentient tree brimming with evil seems like a massive threat for most of the game in Final Fantasy 5. Exdeath began life as a tree that was used to seal away much of the world's darkness, which went on to warp the tree into a powerful mage.
If Exdeath were to be released into the real world, he would probably be a Nietzsche fanboy - he wants nothing more than the total annihilation of everything. Nihilistic, right? What he didn't account for was a random traveler and his three princess friends coming along and defeating him before he could do too much damage.
Verdict: Not too successful.
11 Sephiroth (Final Fantasy 7)
As iconic as he is, Sephiroth seems to have little in the way of success. It seems that through all the trauma and horror that he goes through in Final Fantasy 7, Sephiroth eventually gains the lofty goal of attaining godhood by fusing with the planet's lifestream.
He seems to know how to go about doing this but is unfortunately cut down in his prime by Cloud and the gang. While Sephiroth is one of the most famous villains in gaming history, it cannot be said that he was a successful one within his own game.
Verdict: One-winged failure.
10 Seymour Guado (Final Fantasy 10)
The second most fabulous villain who ever villained, Seymour Guado, had a truly ambitious goal in mind: to become the next incarnation of Sin and end the cycle of death that Spira is suffering by killing everyone. That's certainly... one solution.
Seymour is pretty determined in this plan, too, surviving death more than a few times only to face his final moments within Sin itself. He seems to have inched quite closely to his goal through sheer tenacity but fell short at the last hurdle.
Verdict: Might have been successful, but bad luck.
9 Garland (Final Fantasy 1)
Garland is an odd case. He's the first boss of Final Fantasy (both the game and franchise) and only wishes to take control of the kingdom of Cornelia. The party knocks him down and then gets on with their quest.
However, it turns out that Garland is actually part of a stable time loop that spans 2,000 years. On the surface, he has already succeeded in being functionally immortal, powered through the power of darkness. It takes super-powered Warriors of Light to finally break the time loop and restore normality.
Verdict: Successful, but not forever.
8 Emet-Selch (Final Fantasy 14)
The plots and plans of Final Fantasy 14's main villains, the Ascians, can be troublesome to grasp at first. Emet-Selch is an Ascian and gains the spotlight in the Shadowbringers expansion, following, observing, and then tormenting the heroes.
Emet-Selch's convoluted plan is to bring the First to the tipping point of destruction so that light pours into the source. This would empower a superweapon of his and let him annihilate Eorzea, bringing the Ascians closer to reviving Amaurot and the rest of his people.
Emet-Selch gets rather close to completing this task and has to be cut down by the Warrior of Light, using his dying breath to plead that the Amaurotines be remembered. Whatever happens, there is no doubt of that.
Verdict: Noble intentions, terrible plan, justly foiled.
7 Ultimecia (Final Fantasy 8)
Time travel is one way to make a plot seem more complicated than it should be, and Final Fantasy 8's Ultimecia utilizes it in spades. She's a sorceress from the future who seeks to defy the fate that has already happened to her. From Ultimecia's perspective, her death at the hands of Squall is preordained.
To circumvent this, Ultimecia sends her mind into the past. Her plan involves augmenting her time travel powers with Ellone, going far into the past, and initiating Time Compression in order to reduce all of reality into a singularity, with her at (and as) the center. At the game's climax, this is actually happening. However, Squall and co. manage to thwart her at the last second, and Ultimecia's historical death comes to hand thanks to her own machinations.
Verdict: Hoist by her own petard at the last second.
6 Kuja (Final Fantasy 9)
The most fabulous villain who ever villained, Kuja heightens the drama of Final Fantasy 9 to Shakespearean levels in both the scope of his plan and the floweriness of his dialogue. His goal is simple: rule both Terra and Gaia by overthrowing the current rulers of both and acquiring ultimate power.
Kuja is entirely on track to do this. He acquires Eidolons, unlocks the power of Trance, and becomes the most powerful being around. The issue, however, is related to one of Final Fantasy 9's central themes: the inevitability of death. When Kuja learns that he has an expiration date like his Black Mage puppets, he loses it. The entire destruction of Terra happens, and it's then up to Zidane and the gang to defeat him in Memoria.
Verdict: A perfect plan until emotions got in the way.
5 Barthandelus (Final Fantasy 13)
After masquerading as the pope-like Galenth Dysley, Barthandelus reveals himself as a fal'Cie towards the mid-point of Final Fantasy 13. He's quite the accomplished schemer, orchestrating more than a few events to enact his final plan: to kill the fal'Cie Orphan and open the Door of Souls.
Barthandelus was more than willing to let the entire population of Cocoon perish to attain his goals, and he does successfully force the heroes to go up against Orphan and kill it. Still, they do so in a way that prevents the death of billions.
Verdict: Successful in the end, but he dies before he can see his dream realized.
4 Kefka (Final Fantasy 6)
In conversations about Final Fantasy's best villains, the argument is often made that it is between Sephiroth and Kefka. This clown is truly iconic for his humorous yet still threatening dialogue, memetic moments, and the fact that he wins.
In the first half of the terribly good Final Fantasy 6, it becomes obvious that Kefka's goal is to utilize the Warring Triad statues to attain godhood and wreak havoc on the world. The heroes are not able to stop him, and Kefka manages to achieve his goal. The revolutionary second half of the game involves building up the party once more in a post-apocalyptic wasteland to defeat Kefka. While they are successful, it cannot be said that Kefka wasn't one of the most devastating villains to ever arrive in the franchise.
Verdict: Actually beat the heroes.
3 Ardyn Izunia (Final Fantasy 15)
Ardyn is quite an enigma of a villain for Final Fantasy 15. He's an immortal with a convoluted plan that, in the end, boils down to eliminating the line of Lucis completely. To do this, he has to kill Noctis while the protagonist has absorbed all the power of the Crystal in order to spread the darkness of the Starscourge across the world.
The issue is that Ardyn was a healer to begin with, tackling the Starscourge before becoming infected himself. In addition to that, he has lived for millennia, trapped in his own hatred and desire for revenge. By dying at the hands of Noctis and fulfilling the prophecy that cleanses Starscourge from the earth, he also wins. Ardyn has worked his way into a win/win situation and it's hard to get more successful than that.
Verdict: Master chess player levels of success.
2 Caius Ballad (Final Fantasy 13-2)
Ah, another time travel plot. Caius is the villain of the sequel to Final Fantasy 13 and quite a threatening one. For one, he's cursed with immortality thanks to the power of Etro's heart within him. Additionally, he's super-powered and can turn into a form of Bahamut. Scary stuff for a villain.
At the end of Final Fantasy 13-2, Caius is seemingly defeated after he forces Noel to destroy the Heart of Chaos. A secret ending, however shows Caius sitting upon Etro's throne, revived thanks to the powers of chaos and relishing the death of the goddess who caused him his eternal pain, Etro.
Verdict: God-killing winner of everything.
1 Marche Radiuju (Final Fantasy Tactics Advance)
Yes, this is the stance we're taking on the "Is Marche The Villain?" argument. Enough people consider Marche to be the true bad guy of FFTA that it's only fitting he ends up topping this list. He's thrust into the perfect fantasy world, albeit ruled by an awful legal system and full of ferocious monsters, and all Marche can think about is how to get back home.
The egregious point here is that reverting the world back to normal means that Marche's brother, Doned, has to go back to living in a wheelchair and dealing with a life of illness - and that's something a lot of people cannot reconcile in their heads, making Marche a heartless villain.
Verdict: Dream-smasher extraordinaire.