Complete Monster/Final Fantasy



""You cannot kill me. Do you know why? The flesh remembers, Rapha. It remembers fear, cold and trembling. But it will not always be so. In time, your fear will blossom into another flower - and I shall have that one as well." —Gerrith Barrington, Final Fantasy Tactics"

Due to being such a long-running franchise, the Final Fantasy series is bound to have Loads and Loads of Characters. Among them are some seriously screwed-up individuals that put the rest of it's villains to shame.

Final Fantasy II

 * Emperor Mateus Palamecia, the warmongering leader of the Palamecian Empire and the main villain of the second game. Although he does not appear frequently in the story, his influence can certainly be felt through the incredibly dreary and hopeless atmosphere. Using the powers of Hell itself, he unleashed hordes of demons into the world and forced it into a state of constant desperation. In order to remove the threat of Deist and their wyvern riding warriors, the Dragoons, Mateus poisoned the wyverns' water supply, wiped out the creatures then exterminated the weakened Dragoons. He also enslaved the peoples of Salamand and Bafsk, the latter of which he forced to construct the Dreadnought, an air warship which he uses to rain death upon cities that oppose his rule. And because this apparently wasn't enough for him, he continued to ravage the world with an incredibly powerful airship and a destructive Cyclone. What makes it even worse is that if you take the time to talk to the villagers, you can see just how badly he shattered their lives. Mateus proves so evil that even after he's killed midway through the game, his soul goes on to conquers Hell and return to the the world of the living, intending to destroy it with his newfound power.
 * Dissidia goes to great lengths to show how much of a bastard he is. Whereas most of the other villains are at least humanized in some fashion (even Kefka, the insane monster clown!), everything he does is aimed to make the player hate him more. He intends to be the only one to survive the current cycle after Chaos and Cosmos are defeated, leaving him the master of creation. Keeping this a secret from his allies, he shamelessly manipulates them into serving his own agenda, making it seem like his plan is for their common good.
 * In the Dawn of Souls edition, his soul gets split in two and his light side appears, asking the heroes for forgiveness and promises to grant them eternal life if they accept. The heroes don't buy it, and they turn out to be right. Yes, the Emperor is so evil that even his light side is a bastard.
 * What makes him more hateful is that he wasn't made to be evil (Like Exdeath or Cloud of Darkness), and nor was he insane (like Kefka). He's just an asshole.

Final Fantasy IV

 * In Final Fantasy IV, there is depraved Mad Scientist Doctor Lugae, a guy so monstrous (transforming one of the party's members' parents into chimerae as well as gleefully altering his composition into a monster himself) that he disgusted Noble Demon Rubicante to the point where he had to explain to the party he was as offended with Lugae's behaviour as them. Remarkably, he has himself very little screen time, but hoo boy, does he make good use of it. Hojo might as well have been following in his footsteps.
 * The true Complete Monster of this entry? Zemus. According to his wiki, he was the only voice among the Lunarians, same bloodline as Cecil and Golbez/Theodor, who kept pushing for world domination, but was forced by his own people to fall into a millennium-long coma to allow humanity to evolve until the two could coexist peacfully together. Even in this state, he was still capable of manipulating Golbez to carry out his Final Solution-esque dreams of an all-Lunarian utopia, which involved not only committing the atrocities listed above, but also using the artificial abomination Giant of Babil, which was capable of dealing massive amounts of racially-based genocide on a global scale. And it wasn't just Golbez who was manipulating Kain during his fight with Paladin!Cecil; it was Zemus, but it was done indirectly and unintentionally. Probably. Let's just say that Omnicidal Maniac doesn't even begin to cover this guy's psychological diagnosis. Also, it is also strongly implied that he was also responsible for the brainwashing of the four essences incarnations, including Cagnazzo, and thus was also responsible for the atrocities committed by Cagnazzo.

Final Fantasy V

 * ExDeath certainly qualifies as such. Despite being born of an evil tree, he chooses to act in the most despicable possible way and revels in it. For one thing, his castle was heavily implied to be made out of his enemies' remains, some of which give off the sense that they are alive. He sank an island with possible innocents just to demonstrate what happens if they try to go against him and his plans, After tricking the characters into breaking the seal, he thanks them by torturing them with the crystals, and then tortures Galuf's grandchild. He also ends up shattering the remaining crystals so the two worlds would fuse back together just to get his hands on the void, and upon gaining it, his first acts are to have Lenna's kingdom sucked into the void, as well as having her possessed by a demon just to spite the party. It gets worse when, after gaining some more control over the Void, he actually goes as far as to suck up nearly every small village on the planet, including Bartz Klauser's hometown, Lix. Suffice to say, Bartz does not take this well at all, even going so far as to drive the airship quite dangerously in his rage and grief.

Final Fantasy VI

 * Make no mistake, just because Kefka Palazzo was insane didn't make him any less monstrous or more sympathetic. This psychopathic, manipulative Monster Clown of Final Fantasy VI is one of gaming's most famous Complete Monsters in spite of his Freudian Excuse . While some of his dialogue is darkly comical, his actions are portrayed in a horrific and often tragic light. The poisoning of Doma and the impact it had on the character of Cyan was a major example of this. He embodies despair, hatred, and death and believes that life is meaningless, finding destruction fun because "precious lives" are lost...and commits his atrocities laughing. Even when he met his end at the hands of the returners, he still managed to destroy all magic and bring the Espers to extinction.
 * Also, when Kefka has his rematch with the Esper swarm in Thamasa, he disables their powers, an action that is also strongly implied to have resulted in the deaths of the Magitek Armored Mooks accompanying him in the process. Although it's extremely unlikely that he intended for their deaths (since the attack was intended to be aimed at the Espers), his reaction afterwards (which is giving a brief laugh) implies that he didn't care if his powers would kill his comrades in the process or not.
 * Kefka's laundry list of atrocities includes:
 * Dissidia Final Fantasy deconstructs this by painting Kefka Palazzo in a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds type in his final scene, but it is to be noted that he nonetheless still qualifies even in that, seeing how some of the other villains (even the Emperor) were implied to be quite disgusted with Kefka's actions, going by their pre-battle quotes. And that's not going into his corruption of Kuja and torturing of Terra.
 * That said, Kefka's basically a mad dog - an Ax Crazy psychopath who has no place in this world, or in any world for that matter. It's not entirely his fault, but that doesn't mean he should be excused, either - while it's sad that he only finds meaning in destruction, he still needs to be stopped. Think of it this way: his personality (minus the extreme narcissism), is more or less The Joker taken Up to Eleven and beyond.
 * The game also heavily implies that the only person that Kefka cares for, if at all, is himself, to the point of extreme narcissism, even more so than in the original Final Fantasy VI, evidenced when the player fights a mirror Kefka:
 * Dissidia Final Fantasy deconstructs this by painting Kefka Palazzo in a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds type in his final scene, but it is to be noted that he nonetheless still qualifies even in that, seeing how some of the other villains (even the Emperor) were implied to be quite disgusted with Kefka's actions, going by their pre-battle quotes. And that's not going into his corruption of Kuja and torturing of Terra.
 * That said, Kefka's basically a mad dog - an Ax Crazy psychopath who has no place in this world, or in any world for that matter. It's not entirely his fault, but that doesn't mean he should be excused, either - while it's sad that he only finds meaning in destruction, he still needs to be stopped. Think of it this way: his personality (minus the extreme narcissism), is more or less The Joker taken Up to Eleven and beyond.
 * The game also heavily implies that the only person that Kefka cares for, if at all, is himself, to the point of extreme narcissism, even more so than in the original Final Fantasy VI, evidenced when the player fights a mirror Kefka:
 * Dissidia Final Fantasy deconstructs this by painting Kefka Palazzo in a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds type in his final scene, but it is to be noted that he nonetheless still qualifies even in that, seeing how some of the other villains (even the Emperor) were implied to be quite disgusted with Kefka's actions, going by their pre-battle quotes. And that's not going into his corruption of Kuja and torturing of Terra.
 * That said, Kefka's basically a mad dog - an Ax Crazy psychopath who has no place in this world, or in any world for that matter. It's not entirely his fault, but that doesn't mean he should be excused, either - while it's sad that he only finds meaning in destruction, he still needs to be stopped. Think of it this way: his personality (minus the extreme narcissism), is more or less The Joker taken Up to Eleven and beyond.
 * The game also heavily implies that the only person that Kefka cares for, if at all, is himself, to the point of extreme narcissism, even more so than in the original Final Fantasy VI, evidenced when the player fights a mirror Kefka:
 * Dissidia Final Fantasy deconstructs this by painting Kefka Palazzo in a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds type in his final scene, but it is to be noted that he nonetheless still qualifies even in that, seeing how some of the other villains (even the Emperor) were implied to be quite disgusted with Kefka's actions, going by their pre-battle quotes. And that's not going into his corruption of Kuja and torturing of Terra.
 * That said, Kefka's basically a mad dog - an Ax Crazy psychopath who has no place in this world, or in any world for that matter. It's not entirely his fault, but that doesn't mean he should be excused, either - while it's sad that he only finds meaning in destruction, he still needs to be stopped. Think of it this way: his personality (minus the extreme narcissism), is more or less The Joker taken Up to Eleven and beyond.
 * The game also heavily implies that the only person that Kefka cares for, if at all, is himself, to the point of extreme narcissism, even more so than in the original Final Fantasy VI, evidenced when the player fights a mirror Kefka:
 * That said, Kefka's basically a mad dog - an Ax Crazy psychopath who has no place in this world, or in any world for that matter. It's not entirely his fault, but that doesn't mean he should be excused, either - while it's sad that he only finds meaning in destruction, he still needs to be stopped. Think of it this way: his personality (minus the extreme narcissism), is more or less The Joker taken Up to Eleven and beyond.
 * The game also heavily implies that the only person that Kefka cares for, if at all, is himself, to the point of extreme narcissism, even more so than in the original Final Fantasy VI, evidenced when the player fights a mirror Kefka:

"Kefka: Oh, who's THAT handsome devil?!""

Final Fantasy VII

 * Professor Hojo, the Mad Scientist from Final Fantasy VII. While he isn't the primary antagonist, he is responsible for nearly everything bad in the game and is generally thought of as one of the most evil villains in the franchise. While his atrocities are too numerous to list completely, here are some of the most notable:
 * His worst offense takes place prior to the game proper, when he
 * It's also heavily implied that he was manipulating most, if not all, of Sephiroth's actions for no other reason than to see his research blossom, and if the novellas were anything to go by, he even possessed Sephiroth to grant him more power and, more importantly, bear final witness to the results of his research after he was killed. Heck, until Crisis Core had placed the implications of Genesis doing this act, it was also implied that Hojo was the one who wrecked one of the mako generators at the Nibelheim Reactor to lure Sephiroth to the reactor and receive his first clue about his possible origins.
 * In Dirge of Cerberus
 * To sum up the depravity of Hojo, as well as his direct responsibility for virtually everything bad that happened in the game barring the things Jenova caused years before he was born, he's basically the Final Fantasy equivalent of Dr. Josef Mengele.
 * There's this other guy named Fuhito in one of the prequels, acting scientist for the original AVALANCHE. Let's just describe his mindset in a single expression: Hojo's his hero. The kicker? Hojo likes him. A lot. Enough to seriously consider leaving Shinra to work with the guy. He found a way to copy part of Shinra's SOLDIER program. What did he do with the data? Invent his own variant. Complete with monstrous degradation of the mind and turning the subject into monsters. He takes two of the SOLDIERs Zack later remembers and turns them into abominations on par with Hojo's aberrations. And worst of the lot, he found an ancient Ultimate Summon that had been broken long, long before. So he implanted a piece in an innocent girl and transformed her into a weapon to be AVALANCHE's spearhead against Shinra, while the piece started sucking out her life to rebuild itself and he established a firm powerbase to release the Summon to burn the entire freaking world. In the end, he wound up taking it all and merging with it. We all know what happens when you do that.
 * While not coming off as despicable as Hojo, Jenova and President Shinra are contenders for this trope as well. The former being the other Bigger Bad behind Sephiroth along with Hojo, and the latter being willing to mass murder several people in the slums and give Aerith over to Hojo in the first place all to further his plans of finding "the promised land" and sucking up it's boundless energy to create a Neo Midgar empire, which he admits is all so that he can have limitless money and power. And unlike Barret, who led AVALANCHE in terrorist actions without thinking of the lives they'd cost, Shinra knew damn well that innocent people would die in the attack on Sector 7 that he intended to frame AVALANCE for, and he didn't care, despite Reeve's protests. And he declines rebuilding the sector afterwards, too! What a dick.

World of Ivalice (Final Fantasy Tactics and Final Fantasy XII)

 * Final Fantasy Tactics has several antagonists in the story that at least have some sympathetic qualities, like Delita Heiral. Not so for Hashmal, who is responsible for all of the bloodshed in the conflict just to revive the fallen Ultima, as well as turning his host body Folmarv Tengille into an abusive father who murdered his own son and massacred an entire castle, kidnapping Alma so that he could use her as a host body for Ultima. At this point, he's already one of the most despicable characters in the game, but then he decides to resurrect the recently deceased Zalbaag and force him to fight Ramza. What. The. Hell.
 * turns out to be one, so much that it's not funny. He murdered his own father for power and, along with his childhood friend, Duke Bestrald Larg, he plunged Ivalice into civil war against Duke Goltanna. Then he backstabs Larg as well, and when his brothers Zalbaag and Ramza call him out on his actions, he has the audacity to be offended. And when he merged with Adrammalech, he murdered Zalbaag as well. This all arguably makes him worse than Folmarv/Vormav.
 * Gerrith Barrington, the Grand Duke and liege lord of Riovanes, is arguably the most evil character in the whole game. He razed Rapha and Malak's village so he could use their special powers to claim the throne of Ivalice for himself. He later ups the ante as one of these with his sexual abuse of Rapha and manipulative indoctrination of Malak. He's also very fond of torture, and even more fond of rape. And unlike Don Corneo from Final Fantasy VII, this scumbag's sexual offenses are played entirely straight, as shown when Rapha tries to kill him and has an emotional breakdown and Barrington gloats about her trauma and tries to gun her down in cold blood, despite realizing she's too broken to ever harm him. Needless to say, there's much satisfaction and joy to be had watching him being thrown off his castle to his demise by Marquis Elmdore's henchwoman Lettie.
 * Final Fantasy XII features Judge Bergan, who decides, on a whim, to slaughter half the population of Mt. Bur-Omisace, including Gran Kiltias, who was the in-game equivalent to the pope. He enjoys killing anyone who would stand between him and his goals, including his ally, Judge Drace. His ultimate goal is to dominate everything with sheer physical might, no matter what happens to anyone else.
 * Romeo Guildenstern from Vagrant Story at first seems to be a deeply pious and righteous man, but as the game goes on, he is revealed as a ruthless, power hungry would-be tyrant who is a servant of darkness. The Foreshadowing begins when he slaps his lover hard enough to draw blood from her after a psychic link is in her head, and proceeds to display no concern for her after. He later murders her, a woman who genuinely loved him, as his sacrifice to the Dark. Once this is done, Guildenstern takes the power of the forbidden city, Lea Monde, intending to establish a bloody dictatorship as the world's eternal tyrant. Charismatic, calculating and utterly ruthless, Guildenstern is one of the greatest villains in Ivalice's history.

Final Fantasy XIII

 * Barthandelus/Galenth Dysley from Final Fantasy XIII is easily one of the least sympathetic main villains in the series. His goal is to kill everyone in Cocoon so that their deaths can bring the Maker back to the world. And he makes it very, very clear that he has absolutely no remorse for the mass slaughter he seeks to bring about and has not the slightest bit of care for human life. When the characters first encounter him, he brutally murders his personal guards and Jihl. His worst offense is probably when he shatters the crystallized Dajh and Serah at the end of the game (even though those weren't actually them, but imitations, in an attempt to break the Party's spirit). The fact that he absolutely reeks of Nightmare Fuel at times doesn't help. Even before killing the personal guard, he gives a brief hint at his true nature when she first encounters him:

"-

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 * Unlike the other fal'Cie, Gala of Final Fantasy Type-0 is significantly less well-intentioned. He starts the game off by possessing the well intentioned Marshall Cid Aulstyne and nuking a fair chunk of Cid's own nation Milites, which we see on screen. Then he starts a genocidal war throughout the world with the hopes of massacring everyone. When the heroes go to stop him, he decides to nuke their home of Class Zero and kill many children and young teenagers who were left behind and who were innocent bystanders. Like the other fal'Cie, he experiments on humans and painfully and sadistically turns them into l'Cie to fight for him. Unlike the l'Cie of the past, these l'Cie have no free will and should they fail, they ultimately die. When that plan was thwarted, he tries to use Cid to destroy the entire universe, causing Cid to kill himself. Gala's ultimate plan is to open Etro's Gate and end existence, which he feels is meaningless and imperfect. Unlike the other fal'Cie, however, Gala plots to eradicate Etro herself and take over the tattered remains of existence so he could be the true God. He shows no regret for his crimes and has no excuse other than his desire to be the supreme ruler of the gods.
 * Unlike the other fal'Cie, Gala of Final Fantasy Type-0 is significantly less well-intentioned. He starts the game off by possessing the well intentioned Marshall Cid Aulstyne and nuking a fair chunk of Cid's own nation Milites, which we see on screen. Then he starts a genocidal war throughout the world with the hopes of massacring everyone. When the heroes go to stop him, he decides to nuke their home of Class Zero and kill many children and young teenagers who were left behind and who were innocent bystanders. Like the other fal'Cie, he experiments on humans and painfully and sadistically turns them into l'Cie to fight for him. Unlike the l'Cie of the past, these l'Cie have no free will and should they fail, they ultimately die. When that plan was thwarted, he tries to use Cid to destroy the entire universe, causing Cid to kill himself. Gala's ultimate plan is to open Etro's Gate and end existence, which he feels is meaningless and imperfect. Unlike the other fal'Cie, however, Gala plots to eradicate Etro herself and take over the tattered remains of existence so he could be the true God. He shows no regret for his crimes and has no excuse other than his desire to be the supreme ruler of the gods.

Final Fantasy XIV

 * Final Fantasy XIV gives us Asahi sas Brutus. As a (supposed) ambassador from the Garlean Empire who later reveals himself to be a sociopathic follower of Zenos yae Galvus, Asahi's main goal is to sabotage the peace between Doma's leaders by constantly trying to provoke the Player Character, and it was revealed that he was the one who hired the mercenaries in the first place, in order to fake his good nature. However, his nastiest act by far is after his parents had adopted his cousin, Yotsuyu. When Yotsuyu got mistreated by Asahi's parents, Asahi came out with the brilliant idea to sell her to an abusive drunkard for money and political connections, as well as selling her to a brothel. Later, after Yotsuyu regained her memories, Asahi set her parents on her, which resulted them being brutally killed. And when the prisoner exchange happens, Asahi tries to invoke the primal Tsukuyomi into Yotsuyu and callously shoots her multiple times when she tries to die peacefully, all the while sadistically mocking the player that attacking him in retaliation would result in a massive war.

Final Fantasy XV

 * The Dawn of the Future: Bahamut, the Draconian, is the leader of the Astrals and a tyrant who views all the world as his garden. Angered by the war of the ancients in the past, Bahamut was barely stopped from erasing the world, later arranging the fate of Ardyn Izunia to spread the monstrous Starscourge and see the world overrun by Daemons. Believing mankind to be flawed and obsessed with his own view of destiny, Bahamut intends to erase the world entirely, having no compunction killing the Astrals when they attempt to defend humankind.

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles

 * Larkeicus is an immortal Clavat and a nasty piece of work. Originally, his goals were for the good of humanity, as he invented special crystal powered inventions to give the people of the world untold riches. Once the crystals began vanishing, though, the citizens blamed the collapse of the world on Larkeicus. They found a crystal in the forest and at first, Larkeicus wanted to investigate it, hoping to find more crystals. He instead had a change of heart and killed the villagers (including the children) in the village near the forest, which disgusted his apprentice Veriaulde the Yuke. Veriaulde tried to stop his master, but was knocked out. Sherlotta, the only survivor of the massacre, was a prime target of Larkeicus as she was given the ability to spawn crystals. Larkeicus decided to capture her and experiment on her and his apprentice so he could obtain immortality and be treated like a god again. Because of his master's experiments, Veriaulde transformed into a monster on contact with any crystals, which was a boon for Larkeicus, who wasn't concerned with the Yuke's well-being. Throughout the game, Larkeicus is shown to have free agency and is perfectly able to stop what he's doing, but is too engrossed in the scientific experiments he is conducting to really care about his apprentice or anyone else.

Final Fantasy: Legend of the Crystals

 * In Final Fantasy: Legend of the Crystals, Ra Devil is a malevolent cyborg who seeks to become Deathgyunos, the God of Oblivion. He starts by stealing Cid Previa's brain from his grave before murdering his young grandson Mid, and kept the brain alive and in perpetual torment in order to forcibly extract the knowledge of the elemental crystals that stabilize the world. Two hundred years later, Ra Devil returns to Planet R and steals the crystals for himself, dooming the entire world to destruction. Setting his sights on the Wind Crystal, he launches raids on Rouge Island and later on the city of Tycoon. He then abducts the heroine Linaly, whose body hosts the Wind Crystal and uses her as a living battery to drain the energy of the universe and complete his transformation. And when the heroes arrive to interrupt the process, Ra Devil fights back against them and sadistically electrocutes Prettz and Rouge in front of their friends.

Dissidia Final Fantasy

 * Shinryu from Dissidia willingly turned Chaos into a Nigh Invulnerable, Ax Crazy force of destruction, knowing full well that this will likely destroy the world he's supposed to be watching over, purely out of spite. Not only that, but To wit, he took advantage of Cid's grief and rage over his wife's death and tricked him into a Deal with the Devil under the guise that he would  However, what happened instead was that Shinryu

Bravely Default Flying Fairy

 * Dr. Qada, the Salve-Maker of Eternia's Black Blades, is the Duchy's resident Mad Scientist and an obese psychopath who stands leagues over his more sympathetic compatriots. An utter sociopath willing to sacrifice leagues of Eternia's own men against the order of his superior Kamiizumi in the name of research, Qada's experiments with the horrific Toxic Mist— tales of which are relayed through the ghosts of his victims—killed thousands of men—including some of Eternia's own swordbearers—and ruined parts of the land itself, with Qada studying the effects of his work on the infected corpses. Qada, as The Medic, also helped to heal both sides of Luxendarc's conflict, purely so he could use their healthy bodies as test subjects for further research. Qada's ambition extends to planning to wipe out the Council of Six with his equally-treacherous compatriots Fiore DeRosa and Erutus Profiteur to take over Eternia themselves, with Qada planning to unleash a fatal plague through Luxendarc and being completely unsure as to whether he wants to be remembered as a gloried hero for providing an antidote or a vile, disease-spreading madman. The vilest of the Eternian forces in every world he's seen in, Qada's own superior Kamiizumi is reviled by him and kills Qada himself in one of the parallel worlds as a testament to Qada's endless, amoral thirst for knowledge, no matter the cost.
 * Airy, fittingly titled "the Evil One", is the Piercer of Boundaries and chief servant to the evil god Ouroboros. Posing as a helpful fairy ally to the Warriors of Light in their mission to reactivate Luxendarc's corrupted crystals, Airy is in truth behind the opening of the Great Chasm and the wide swath of destruction it caused throughout Luxendarc, traveling from world to world and manipulating the heroes into purifying the elemental crystals and thus linking those worlds to Ouroboros. Airy takes sadistic delight in manipulating the heroes like puppets and butchers them after she is done with them, having repeated the process with tens of thousands of worlds over a course of millions of years. Once she's ousted as Ouroboros servant, Airy, in the false ending, quickly slaughters the party while taunting them about how she's manipulated them. Forced to rest in the Dark Aurora after being cheated of purifying the last crystal, Airy, once confronted by the revived heroes, decides to torture the warriors of light for five thousand years to bide her time, and pretends to have been possessed purely so she can shatter an already despondent Agnes's will further by revealing she is exactly the remorseless demon she appears to be. A deceitful monster under her seemingly innocent, childish exterior, Airy's singular wish was to allow her master access to the Celestial Realm in order to destroy all reality.
 * Ouroboros himself, as the God of Destruction, plots to wreak havoc on the Celestial Realm, and is responsible for every catastrophic event in the game's plot. Unseen until the game's true ending, Ouroboros pulls the strings behind his servant Airy and oversees her link the tens of thousands of worlds that comprise reality in a bid to break the boundaries between them, utterly destroy all of them, and bring chaos to the Celestial Realm to recreate reality in his own twisted image. Ouroboros devours his pleading servant once he finally tires of her, and in the final battle, obliterates world after world for the sheer purpose of breaking the heroes' spirits, nothing less than utterly gleeful once they beg him to stop. Ouroboros, motivated solely by boredom and a lust for chaos, strife, hatred, and suffering—things he considers exciting—goes down as the greatest evil in the story.
 * From the sequel, Bravely Second: End Layer, Lord Providence, the master of the devious fairy Anne, is the ruler of the Celestial Realm and the source of all the game's misfortune. After his takeover of the Celestial Realm, Providence nourishes himself off the utter despair of a woman named Vega, feeding off her depression over being separated from her lover Altair in the Celestial Realm. In a bid to completely break Vega, Providence corrupts Vega's positive memories and turns them into the nightmarish Ba'al and orchestrates a scheme to have his servant Anne remove the Moon from Luxendarc, planning to allowing the Ba'al to ravage Luxendarc before he plunges the world into despair and annihilates it—all for the purpose of permanently breaking Vega's lingering hope so he can feast off her despair forever. Having Anne first remove Airy and Ouroboros as a threat to his plans, Providence oversees Anne's complex manipulations and gives her the order to utilize the Ba'al Diamante to raze Luxendarc in the second timeline. After Anne's defeat and Altair is reunited with Vega through the will of the heroes, Providence personally confronts the heroes and continues to leech off Vega's lingering despair to empower himself, cruelly stating that obliterating Luxendarc would be so pointlessly absurd—something he considers delightful. In the final battle, Providence directly addresses the player themselves, and turns the game against their control in an attempt to delete their save file. A nightmarishly callous sadist of a god, Providence's plans don't necessarily entail the catastrophic damage that Ouroboros does, but makes up through the sheer pointless cruelty of his plot.

Octopath Traveler

 * Out of the many villains inhabiting the eight tales of Bravely Default's Spiritual Successor, the absolute worst of the lot has to be Lyblac, the daughter of the thirteenth god Galdera, as well as the architect of every single misfortune in the game in her bid to open up the Gate of Finis and hand the world over to Galdera for the subsequent annihilation of all humanity. For a full century, Lyblac deceives and manipulates everyone around her, causing the fall of both Matthias and Yvon to lives of evil and murder for the purposes of her plans while implicitly having Geoffrey Lockhart murdered by the Obsidians to cover up the Gate of Finis. Lyblac, dealing with the corrupt sellsword Werner, also set in motion the events that led to the fall of Hornburg, destroying an kingdom full of lives to take control of the Gate. Finally, Lyblac attempts to use those of the Crossford lineage in her attempt to have him bear Galdera's essence, slowly reducing Graham of them to a tortured monster as the consequence for escaping her and simply opting to use his son Kit as her next choice for the vessel. Described as a lethal poison by her own uneasy allies, Lyblac is an evil witch truly worthy of the epitaph "Daughter of the Dark God."
 * Another example is Lucia, the Big Bad of Cyrus Albright's path, and an ambitious scholar who seeks and values ultimate knowledge of the world, even over the lives of humanity itself. Allying with the abovementioned Lyblac in corrupting Headmaster Yvon into evil, Lucia then commissions the amoral sorcerer Gideon to perform dozens of horrifying blood experiments on innocents, resulting in their agonizing deaths, to perfect a working blood crystal. After orchestrating Yvon's death, Lucia reveals her plans to harness immortality and then spend years amassing all knowledge that humans are unaware of - such as cures to illnesses or things that would help humanity progress - then horde and keep them all for herself, just for the pride of being the smartest entity on the entire planet.
 * Yet another one is Werner, the Big Bad of Olberic Eisenberg's path, who was once a mere sellsword with lofty ambitions before he was given a chance to realize his dreams by Lyblac, at the cost of the entire kingdom of Hornburg - a price Werner considered more than worth paying. Werner wins his trust with the local people of Hornburg by arranging bandit attacks on border villages and beating them back with his own warriors, the Black Brotherhood, before integrating within Hornburg's own royalty and arranging the assassination of the king and his personal guard. The resulting fallout destroys countless innocent lives and annihilates the entire kingdom, while Werner walked away from the ashes a rich man. When Olberic, one of Hornburg's last soldiers, finally tracks him down, Werner sets himself up as the despotic ruler of Riverford, regularly having innocent people burned alive on trumped-up charges or solely as a means to curb-stomp any rebellion. When he eventually tracks down the resistance, Werner proceeds to have all of them massacred while also murdering his own men simply because they refuse to fight the much-stronger Olberic, even going so far as to pridefully gut himself in front of Olberic at the very end rather than admit his guilt in destroying thousands for his own self-gain.
 * Another still is Helgenish, from the first chapter of Primrose Azelhart's path, who is bar none the most repulsive Starter Villain in the game, even matching the likes of Lyblac herself in sheer malevolence. A depraved, obese tavern-keeper who employs several exotic dancers to entertain his guests, Helgenish brutalizes and demeans the women under his care while beating any who try and fight back to near-death, leaving them in the gutter to die a slow agonizing death. Helgenish favors Primrose herself, raping and abusing her to assert his control of her, and when Primrose defies his orders with the help of her only friend Yusufa, Helgenish has her brutally tortured. And when Primrose comes back, Helgenish murders Yusufa right in front of Primrose's very eyes, hysterically mocking her tearful last words and then topping it off by saying that "if she'd shown that kind of potential earlier, maybe I would have kept her on longer!"
 * Rufus, the left hand of the Crow Men, and one of the leaders of the Obsidians, was involved in the murder of Primrose's father while maintaining the Obsidians' various connections in the present. When Primrose tracks Rufus down, he's maintaining the Obsidian Parlor, a whorehouse specializing in unwilling prostitutes Rufus hands out to the whims of powerful and depraved men for a profit while keeping a personal harem himself. Rufus is seen giving a woman to serve the incestuous desires of a priest in his service as just one example of the many lives he's ruined to the services of the Obsidian Parlor, while gleefully mocking Primrose even to his last breath.
 * And last, but certainly not least, we have Simeon the "Puppet Master", the head of the Crow Men, the master of the Obsidians, and the bane of Primrose's very existence. As master of his "Wings", Simeon has a hand in all forms of mass murder, assassinations, and human trafficking, all while eliminating anyone who could stand up to his organization's rule, notably murdering Primrose's father with his own bare hands. A complete psychopath who gets the most joy out of life by hurting and tormenting others, Simeon takes sick glee in befriending Primrose and developing a romance with her, only to quite literally stab her in the back, make her watch a play of Simon's own production showcasing the tragedies and traumas of her life that ends with her and Simeon in a "happily ever after", and then make one final attempt on her life, never ceasing his vicious mockery and proclamations of his desire to see her die screaming in despair.