A hero is only as good as its villain. That’s a common rule in Hollywood hero blockbusters, but it stands true for most stories where there’s a baddie to defeat. Antagonism is what creates conflict, and conflict is what moves the plot.
But what happens if the villain is uninteresting? Does that automatically discredit the protagonist or is there still hope for the story? In books, I don’t know; I’m no book critic. But in games, since gameplay is king, we can often ignore the villain and just enjoy the ride.
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JRPGs have some of the most iconic fights in gaming and while most are manageable, there are always a few in each game that give gamers chills.
Still, there’s nothing better than when a wholeJRPGpackage feels complete, and yes, that includes a terrifying villain or perhaps a profoundly human one that makes us sympathize with them.
Today’s talk, however, is about the 10 most laughable JRPG villains. It’s those that I don’t even know why they got the villain label, because I can’t take them seriously, no matter how hard they try.
Final Fantasy IX
Final Fantasy 9
Among all theFinal Fantasygames released on the PS1,Final Fantasy IXis my favorite. I’ve always preferred a fantasy theme over a contemporary one, and I like gleeful, enthusiastic protagonists rather than edgy boys.
Everything in Zidane’s game worked well, concisely, and believably, including the antagonism of Brahne, Kuja, and even the fleeting Garland. But Square Enix had to try to end the game with a bang, introducing a world-shattering monster that is possibly themost forgettable villain in the entire franchise.
I get the concept behind Necron, but I don’t appreciate it. The boss literally appears for 10 minutes in a 40-hour journey, and they want me to believe he’s the villain? Get out of here.
For all the buildup around Kuja and even the sudden introduction of Garland, I expected either one of them to absorb a divine power and turn into a horrible monster. But sadly, that’s not what happened, and we got stuck with boo-boo Necron instead.
Chrono Trigger
Can I take the laughable term at face value? Okay, my editor allowed it. Good, because that sums up Dalton inChrono Trigger. He’s not a bad villain per se, he’s just… cringe. Dalton is more like a joke character than an actual antagonist. And you know what’s worse? He’s not even that funny.
He’s Queen Zeal’s assistant, and as cliché as it is in every JRPG, any aide to royalty is inherently evil. Dalton wants power for himself using Lavos, but his plan is thwarted by Crono. But instead of being menacing, he comes off as goofy. I love goofiness but in controlled doses.
Dalton even breaks the fourth wall at times, making references to our world and talking to the game. I get the effort to make him the funny one, but it doesn’t really work and that’s fine. But then, the worst happens: enterChrono Cross.
InChrono Cross, it’s implied that Dalton came back in time, raised Porre to be an almighty army, and destroyed Guardia. In the process, Crono pretty much died. Don’t believe me? Well,Chrono Trigger’sDS version retconned this when you meet Dalton in the Dimensional Vortex. That’s why you shouldn’t take clowns seriously.
Breath of Fire IV
To me, the difference between a villain and an antagonist is that a villain is inherently evil. In contrast, an antagonist has morals and views that differ from those of the protagonist. In this case, Fou-Lu is an antagonist to me, while Soniel and Yuna are the real villains ofBreath of FireIV.
It may look like a stretch to call Soniel a villain, but like it or not, he’s the one who kicks off the hunt for Fou-Lu as soon as he awakens.
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Even if he was being influenced by Yuna, it was also Emperor Soniel, indirectly, who gave the orders to capture Mami and use her body as fuel to recharge the Carronade and fire it at Fou-Lu.
In the end, however, when we meet Soniel — and even though he’s wielding the Dragonslayer – he can’t do anything against Fou-Lu and is beheaded before his presence can make any difference in the game. Truly a villain for the annuals of disposable ones.
Kingdom Hearts 2
Whenever a JRPG presents me with an organization, I know we’ll get a bunch of colorful characters, each with their own personality, traits and quirks. This is true for Organization XIII and its magnanimously evil members.
Okay, not reallythatevil. For instance, Demyx inKingdom Hearts 2is our enemy, but he’s so adorable that it’s hard to portray him as such.
With his trusty sitar, Demyx flamboyantly saunters around in a laid-back manner that got us questioning why in the world he’s fighting us.
Probably because Papa Xemnas asked him to do so, otherwise, he’d be sitting on his porch, composing romantic ballads all day long while yelling “Dance, Water, Dance” in every chorus.
At every chance he gets, Demyx always avoids fighting, even delegating his tasks to others. But since he has no choice, he ends up becoming one of those who gets in Sora, Goofy, and Donald’s way, hence, a villain, no matter how lovely he sounds.
6Vholran Igniseri
Tales of Arise
Tales of Arisestarts with a heavy theme. Our protagonist Alphen is a slave, just like every other Dahnans. The entire planet was subjugated by Rena, and now there are four lords overseeing different regions. The game begins, and Alphen gains power; the fight for liberty commences.
The plot takes us from region to region as we defeat the lords and free the people. The first three are nefarious and express gut-wrenchingly well this situation of slavery and oppression. So then, when I was about to reach the supposed Water Lord, the last of them all, my expectations were high.
And here lies the danger of setting high expectations. Vholran Igniseri wasn’t just underwhelming as a whole, but his appearance and ending were so abrupt that he barely served as a plot device. All his nagging and jealousy were so childish that I instantly dismissed any threatening efforts.
Granted, the game reveals his cruelty through environmental storytelling, but still, his entire subplot was so poorly utilized after all the buildup that the feeling of wasted opportunity remains.
It doesn’t help that, as soon as the region plots wrap up, we start what’s informally known as Act 2 ofTales of Ariseand, for me, the moment when the game derails completely and becomes one of the weakest titles intheTales offranchise.
5Chairman Rose
Pokémon Sword & Shield
Pokemon Sword
Calling any character a villain inPokémonmay seem like a stretch, but the more modern entries have been trying to be more ominous in that regard. As expected, however, the motivations of some villains don’t hit as hard as they should, like Chairman Rose inPokémon Sword & Shield.
To sum it up, his motivation is a laughable topic. He wants to awaken the Legendary Pokémon Eternatus to cause a cataclysmic event in the Galar region to solve an energy crisis that will happen… in a thousand years from now!
Look, I’m all in for living sustainably to leave a better future for my possible great-grandkids, but a thousand years is too far away to justify a regional apocalypse, mi hombre.
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Also, as a businessman, the chairman of the Galar League, and president of the entire Macro Cosmos conglomerate, one would think petty Rose to be an intelligent, self-assured, and menacing human being.
Instead, Rose can’t seem to think one move ahead and acts like a reckless teenager, almost bringing destruction to Galar because he didn’t consider that Eternatus couldn’t be controlled. Looks like someone forgot topick up the badgesthat guarantee obedience from Pokémon.
Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age
Calasmos destroyed the almighty and good-looking Yggdragon. Fought against the legendary Luminary Erdwin and survived. Attempted, and almost succeeded, in covering all of Erdrea in darkness.
No morals, no ethics, just pure evil. That’s all you know until Calasmos pops up as the final villain inDragon Quest XIAct 3 with that stupid face.
Who the hell thought it was a great design choice to make the biggest villain in history look like a pre-puberty adolescent? I loveDragon Ball, and I know many villains are caricatured, but damn, Calasmos' presentation was way too anticlimactic.
The thing is, I don’t fault Calasmos. Sure, he shows up in the final hour, has a harmless look, and a fight that’s pretty easy compared to other bosses.
The problem is that Square decided to make Act 3 ofDragon Quest XIcanon instead of calling it post-game and wrapping things up in Act 2. It’smy main gripe with this stellar JRPGthat ends up trickling down into my dislike of Calasmos as a villain.
Xenoblade Chronicles X
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The entire Ganglion race could have been on this list, but Luuxar gets the cake for being their leader. InXenoblade Chronicles X, humans simply want to colonize Mira and make it their new home. Then, the resentful and vengeful Ganglion finds us and decides to start an all-out war.
Lore-wise, it makes sense, although this is only explained at the end of the game and requires an open mind to accept. The problem is that not only do the Ganglion show up out of nowhere, but their mere presence is not threatening at all.
Luuxar looks like one of those humans we see at the end ofWALL-E, fatty, condescending, and oddly comfortable in his chair.
By the time he takes matters into his own greasy hands, piloting an ancient Skell, it’s all just a gameplay protocol and a hard fight. I was utterly indifferent to Luuxar’s mere existence, and all I wanted was to keep scouting Mira to complete my survey rate.
2Termite Queen
Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven
Despite its freeform style,Romancing SaGa 2is one of the few games in the series that has a more streamlined plot. In it, we have to defeat the Seven Heroes who, well, aren’t that heroic anymore. In the classic version, I had no idea why I was fighting them, but the remake,Revenge of the Seven, presented their backstory.
In the past, seven heroes saved the world from monsters. However, the Termite Queen and her termites proved to be trickier than expected.
To face the horde of termites, the heroes fused their souls with beasts to have the power needed to defeat the queen. However, despite managing to temporarily suppress the termite threat, the cost was high, and heroes became villains.
The seven heroes are mildly interesting, each with their own peculiarity and distinct appearance. However, the game suggests, in almost every Memory collected (a feature showing their backstory), that the Termite Queen was the real threat that nearly destroyed the world and, consequently, led to the heroes' downfall.
And we face this nasty bug in the game. But the Termite Queen is so easily defeated in-game that it takes away all the weight out of the heroes' backstories and their insufferable struggles.
Listen, I watchedHunter X Hunter, and I know how menacing insect monsters can be, but not here inRomancing SaGa 2.
1Lufenians
Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin
Fextralife Wiki
I had a blast playingStranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin. It’s such amindless action RPG, sprinkled with a fun Job System and just a few Soulslike elements enough not to scare me away. I focused entirely on the gameplay because if I tried to take the story seriously, I would have dropped the game.
Since the first trailer,Stranger of Paradisebecame a meme. Seeing Jack yelling “Chaos” slowly turn into a drinking game might have helped boost the game’s marketing, but it also contributed to its decline.
After all,Final Fantasyhas always been known for its multifaceted, complex stories that poke at our deepest curiosities.
And even though Jack constantly tries to summon Chaos as one does with Beetlejuice, the villains who portray this charade are the Lufenians, the real antagonists.
At the end of the game, if you understood anything, it’s revealed that Jack and his friends are stuck in a simulation of the highly advanced Lufenian civilization. This should already be enough for you to understand how ludicrous things are.
The Lufenians devised a time-traveling/dimension-hopping technology where they dump all darkness that comes their way into other worlds, which is a neat way of introducing stages from every mainlineFinal Fantasyin the game.
But for plot reasons? Way too farfetched for my taste and uninspiring. How the hell would I take any of this revelation and “plot twist” with a straight face? Even after accepting that our then-medieval protagonist carries an iPod. I only wish we had the opportunity to punch those condescending Lufenians directly in the face.
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