Ultimecia, worst FF villain ever?

Summoner Yuna

Summoner Yuna

The pirate and the princess
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One of the most important aspects of the story in an FF is the villain. A good villain can add to the game, while a bad villain can make the story weak. With four FF's under my belt (FFVII, FFVIII, FFX, and FFXII) I started analyzing villains and came to the conclusion that Ultimecia is the worst FF villain for a very simple reason: she has no backstory, she's just there to fill a villain role. She's the main antagonist yet we know nothing about her. The sorceresses are a big plot point in FFVIII, but they're hardly explained. They are just hostile beings but there's nothing more. And this irks me. Sephiroth might be overrated and overhyped, but at least he got focus and a decent backstory. Same with Seymour in FFX, you get a glimpse at how twisted he is in his trail of thought when he wants to "ease Spira's suffering" through death. This villains actually have characterization and motives, both of which Ultimecia lacks. Vayne is a great villain because he has motives, methods and a character which are unprecedented in a main FF villain, in my opinion. He wants the best for his people, he even believes in democracy, yet he's an absolut tyrant when it comes to achieving otherwise reasonable goals. Ultimecia lacks everything a villain needs to be succesful. She's only a bad witch lady who wants to "compress time" (wtf is that supposed to mean?) for no apparent reason except doing it for the lulz. :wacky: Not only that but her story is a mess. She's from the future but wants to control a sorceress from the past (Adel)? What's her relation with Adel? Did Ultimecia inherit her powers from her?

Anywho, opinions?
 
Despite the fact that FFVIII is my favorite of the series...I'd have to strangely agree. Normally I emphasize with the villain and understand what they are trying to achieve and why. But with here I really couldn't delve into her mindset. She was simply bland... As you said, she had a very small backstory in which doesn't fully describe her full jump into 'evil'.

With that said, I don't know if I fully agree in her being the "WORSE"...although at the moment I cannot think of anybody else worse lol.
 
Well, Ultimecia is a traditional villain. A villain who just does it to be evil and wants to take over the world. Since you haven't played the old games I'll mention the older FF villains.

Villains such as Xande (III), Zeromus (IV), and X-Death (V) don't explain why they have become evil or their reason for doing terrible things. They're just evil.

In FFV there was no explanation for X-Death's reason for merging the two worlds into one and control the Void. He was just evil and power hungry.

In FFVI Golbez was controlled by Zemus. Zeromus was the spirit and hatred of Zemus incarnate.

It is annoying that Squaresoft didn't take the time to explain Ultimecia's motives and where she came from.
 
FFVIII is one of my favourite games, especially since it's home to Squall, the smexiest male character in black leather ;)

However, I admit that Ultimecia wasn't a very developed villain. Yes gamers only found out about her after the half-way point of the game, but aside from her desire to compress time, that's all we really know about her desires.

She wanted to compress time so that she would be the only person to exist then. Why she wants to be alone, no one knows.

We can assess that Ultimecia is rather manipulative from the way she "guided" Seifer to his "romantic dream", but that's simply her personality.

Arguably, Adel had more info in the game since she was paramount in the flashback scenes with the young Laguna.

I'm sure that Ultimecia was more than an afterthought in the plot made by the story writers, but her "screen time" was very limited even though she possessed Edea for most of the first half of the game.

So, I don't hate Ultimecia despite the lack of info, but it would've been nice to know more about her origins and such -_-
 
Cerridwen said:
Well, Ultimecia is a traditional villain. A villain who just does it to be evil and wants to take over the world. Since you haven't played the old games I'll mention the older FF villains.

Villains such as Xande (III), Zeromus (IV), and X-Death (V) don't explain why they have become evil or their reason for doing terrible things. They're just evil.

In FFV there was no explanation for X-Death's reason for merging the two worlds into one and control the Void. He was just evil and power hungry.

In FFVI Golbez was controlled by Zemus. Zeromus was the spirit and hatred of Zemus incarnate.
Click to expand...

In excuse for most of those really...limitations. Most characters didn't get great development like the games now days. They couldn't drill us with much because of space.
 
As much as I love FFVIII I have to agree that Ultimecia was a pretty crappy villain. I just didn't get the whole time compression thing and why she would want to have past, present and future together. She'd be prettty darn bored if only she could live in a world like that :gasp:

I would have liked to have known more about her really. She seemed a little out of place to me. The entire sorceress backstory was lacking really......they could have done a better job with it seeing as the rest of the story was great imo -_-
 
Ultimecia seemed like a "filler" to me. Square must've had lack of time and decided to do it the quick way: "We need to finish a game so add an almighty boss in the end so they can finish the game with a bang". Seriously since the time they said
Ultimecia controls time and space and is behind these mind controling games
the game was rushed with no explanation whatsoever on the what and why.
Stilll FVIII remains a awesome game :P
 
you see i found ultmacia to be a rather rubbish 'super villain' in comparrison to Seymour guado who wanted to merge with Sin and destroy Spira and also Sephiroth who just wanted to use the planet as a vessel to take over the galaxy and cause it pain and suffering
 
Ultimecia was overpowered, that attack hell something I forget what was it called, also the limitbreak system in FF8 was stupid so it's obvious that you won't be able to land hits with great damage because you need 10% or less from you HP to have a limitbreak, the summons wasn't powerful especially Eden who take 5 minutes to attack and then deal only 9999HP damage, so I think that's the only reason was FF8 maybe had a strong monsters otherwise they all are easy.
Sephiroth however is way stronger, like when you fight him in FF7, he summon Super Nova but they didn't make Super Nova too much powerful so they don't overpower him.
 
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You can land awesome hits on characters, you must have been playing poorly or something is what I can honestly say.

Ultimecia wasn't too bad, or too great, I'm indifferent to her really.

You want a poor villain? I give you the VERY last boss of X.
 
Well, at least Yu Yevon had a decent backstory and whatnot. He was awful as a final boss, I'll give you that. But his role in the overall plot of X was included in a better way than Ultimecia's.
 
i dont think shes the worst (that honor goes to exdeath of FFV fame) she does appear a bit too late to make much of an impact
 
Late?
I think you are forgetting that Ultamecia controlled Edea for the first two discs.

Compared to other FF bosses she isn't that bad. I'm not a fan of seph really, Kefka is a nihilist, which is a pretty poor reason for destroying the world. ExDeath has already been dealt with. It's only X and XII that have antagonists with interesting motives.

Ultamecia is not a well developed character, that doesn't mean she is bad. Either SE couldn't be fucked or they wanted to make her mysterious, we don't know much about the world she lives in, so it could very well be purposeful that she is very mysterious.
Having an undeveloped character is a reflection on the writers, just because her motives aren't in FFVIII, doesn't mean she doesn't have motives.
 
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Ultimecia did have a motive..... She wuz trying to eliminate SEED and make a time compressed realm that she can rule over. Think before u post.
 
Im only doing this because someone is bound to stumble upon this and say this but in a not so nice way. The way you worded your post made it seem like out of all the final fantasy you found the worst villian to be ultimecia. I just thought you would of made yourself less vulnerable to scrutny if you had just said "worst you've encountered so far", "out of the games you've played" etc. once again just looking out for you bro. And sephiroth isn't overly hyped, im no fan boy but i can appreciate him and his fame. If you delve into his history, his skills and his demeaner and attitude and you would understand that the man is just ridiculously unfair in terms of ability..
I also would like to say that i believe that ultimecia was the worst FF Villian.. even though you have only played a few FF's you hit the nail right on the head
 
fuoff209 said:
Ultimecia did have a motive..... She wuz trying to eliminate SEED and make a time compressed realm that she can rule over. Think before u post.
Click to expand...

Erm, no. She had a goal, but no motive. Why did she want to do that? Sephiroth had a motive, Vayne had a motive, Seymour had a motive. Sometimes villains don't need motives to be compelling, but they do need some kind of backstory. Try to think before before you criticize. And yes, I have only played a few FF's but that's because I've just started with the series.
 
Well, after beating the game I found myself so incredibly curious about Ultimecia, and I read some theories on her. Take note that Ultimecia is from the future, and that Squall and crew know about her. Since they know such a powerful being has yet to be born, I'm sure that Seed would have readied themselves to welcome the arrival of their fearsome guest in the future.

So, Generations go by and Ultimecia is not forgotten; thus having discrimination of sorceresses (With the mindset of all newly appointed sorceresses having the chance to become Ultimecia). As the discrimination continues, a sorceress breaks down from the hatred she has endured and proclaims herself as Ultimecia. In actuality, the fear and hatred toward Ultimecia created an Ultimecia of reality. Now I found this very intriguing.

Remember Edea's/Ultimecia's Inauguration Address?

"...Lowlifes. ...Shameless filthy wretches. How you celebrate my ascension with such joy. Hailing the very one you have condemned for generations."

Here Edea/Ultimecia shows a hatred of the people, could it be that she is responding to the discrimination she has endured in the future? She then mocks them for hailing her, "the one they have condemned for generations". However, the thing is that they don't know who Ultimecia is yet.

"Have you no shame? What happened to the evil, ruthless sorceress from your fantasies? The cold-blooded tyrant that slaughtered countless men and destroyed many nations? Where is she now? She stands before your very eyes to become your new ruler."

The "sorceress from your [their] fantasies" refers to the Ultimecia that they don't even know yet, and also refers to the Ultimecia that the future generations have heard about but have not witnessed. She mocks them even more for making her their leader, and showers herself in the peoples' stupidity.

"A new era has just begun. This is reality. No one can help you. Sit back and enjoy the show. Rest assured, you fools. Your time will come. This is only the beginning. Let us start a new reign of terror. I will let you live a fantasy beyond your imagination."

To close her address, Ultimecia happily states that the fears of the poeple become reality. She is here to reak havoc, and show the present generations and the future ones pain beyond belief. This is all for revenge, and she loves every moment of it.

Now that is all out of the way. But if an un-named sorceress from the future accepts the title of Ultimecia, she must believe that she will be defeated by Seed, but does she? There is no point to die like how the stories say that Ultimecia did. So there must be a reason to go though all this trouble. The un-named sorceress wants to deny her Ultimecia-like destiny and prove history wrong by surviving and gaining the power to mold the universe her way.

And with that, the background of Ultimecia is explained, it is a theory of course, and I give credit to whoever came up with it. It is actually a very logical way of seeing Ultimecia in a new light. I found myself loving this back-story, though it did take some thinking. Personally, I like it when things get people to think and not make it really obvious, but that's just me.
 
Wow, very interesting theory. It's sort of what I imagined. However, wasn't Adel the sorceress that ruled Esthar with an iron fist before Laguna became President? Was she possessed by Ultimecia too? It's just that the time travel mechanics in the story of this game are so confusing. But I loved your post, and I feel that the whole revenge/ discrimination thing should've been expanded upon instead of relegated to an obscure speech. I'm just saying that the whole thing could've been handled better. If they had gone that route to explain Ultimecia, instead of introducing her at the very end of the game, then I think she would've been a decent villain. Congrats on finding that theory though, it was very interesting to read it! ^.^
 
^ Thank You

You got me thinking about the Adel situation, and I may have an answer. But before that, I have to restate that Ultimecia's goal was to complete a spell called Time Compression.

"In order for Ultimecia to exist in this time, she must take over ze body of a sorceress from ze present. But ze machine must have a limit. Ultimecia probably needs to go back further in time to achieve time compression. Only Ellone can take her back further into ze past."

The machine Dr. Odine is talking about is an "Elloneish" machine that can transfer Consciences into the past. However, that machine has a limit as to how far it can send to the past. So, Ultimecia has to find the real Ellone to make the make leap to the right time period to complete the Time Compression spell. Maybe this is why she traveled to a little before the start of FF VIII.

Anyway, after that is explained, we kill the Man-Woman known as Adel, and Ultimecia once again pocesses Rinoa. now this is where it gets interesting...

"Ellone will send Rinoa back to ze past with Ultimecia. Ellone will have to send Rinoa and Ultimecia inside another sorceress she knows in the past. Edea or Adel... Zat's up to Ellone. Once Ultimecia iz in ze past, she'll use ze time compression magic. We will see some influence here. I don't know vat kind of influence, but once Ellone feels it, she'll cut Rinoa and Ultimecia off from ze past. Rinoa will come back to this world. Ultimecia also goes back to her own world."

Now, when I first read your question I was wondering if Ellone sent Rinoa and Ultimecia separately or together. Well, thanks to that quote we know it was together. In the game, Rinoa came back to the present and said she saw the young Adel, which probably means that she and Ultimecia were transferred into Adel and not Edea.

Well here goes my theory. I think that the incoming minds of Rinoa and Ultimecia shattered Adel's sanity. Ultimecia needed to gain control of Adel to complete the Time Compression spell, and unfortunately she succeeded. Shortly after, Ellone sends both Rinoa and Ultimecia back to their rightful timelines. So my final thoughts are that Ultimecia caused Adel's streak of madness. And to connect to the topic, it seems that Ultimecia not only caused the Lunar Cry, and the slaughter of the SeeDs+who knows what else in her timeline, but she also caused Adel's Tyranny over Esthar 17 years prior to the start of the game. Not bad, not bad at all for the main villain.

Also I agree that the story/plot of FF VIII took above average effort to try to peice together. Though I am crazy enough to make sense of Ultimecia I don't know if I want to touch the Time theory:X. The whole could have been executed better, but I still love the game.
 
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