Vayne Solidor

Summoner Yuna

Summoner Yuna

The pirate and the princess
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Vayne as a villain

Every game has a villain. But, IMO, what sets FF apart from the other games is that the villains tend to be more developed and interesting than your average RPG villain. Sephiroth, even though some people think he's overrated, is actually a pretty good villain with plenty of backstory and motives. Ultimecia was an exception. She lacked those two things that make a villain compelling. Kuja was good, he had backstory but his motives were so, I don't know, too unreal. I just didn't empathize with him. Seymour, on the other hand, was a villain with twisted motives done right. He was just plain nuts. His motives revolved around a total and complete misconception of good. Yes, he wanted to end the suffering of Spira, By destroying it. His totally sick psyche is what makes him so efficient as a villain, just like Sephiroth.

Now on to Vayne. What I liked about Vayne was not only his personality but also is that his motives were essentially political. No world destruction. He just wanted to introduce order and rule in a Machiavellian way. His motives are so different from what we're used to. It also helps that his voice actor was pretty good. So I really enjoyed Vayne as a villain because of the different things he brought to the table, villain-wise.

So, who else enjoyed Vayne as a villain?
 
I have to say I did enjoy Vayne as a villain. Some people think he is mediocre, but I disagree. FFXII failed for me in quite a few areas, but not it's villain. FFXII had a far more realistic story than it's predecessors, and with a story rooted in real world issues like politics, war, invasions and occupations, it made sense to have an antagonist whose motives were not so maniacal. Kefka, Sephiroth, Kuja and the like are all villains whom I rate pretty highly, but it's a refreshing change not to have some lunatic who wants to blow shit up or kill everything. Vayne doesn't perhaps fit the cliche definition of a FF villain, but for me his displays of ruthlessness were perfectly done, he was fiercely intelligent, and he had a commanding presence.
 
I'm in between with Vayne. He did have some good political motives, but it seemed to me that it kind of failed at the end when you had to kill him. And when he killed his father. Why did he need to do that? But I agree with Demaris, he doesn't quite fit the "FF villain" bill.
 
I can approach this question from two different angles: Vayne as a character and Vayne as a boss. Since they're fairly different questions, I'll address each separately. :wacky:

Vayne as a boss fight was garbage. I don't really have a problem with the mechanics behind Twelve's combat system...but they started doing this thing with bosses that frustrated me. Palings and Magick Shields are just...obnoxious. I know they were attempting to make the bosses more "difficult", but I thought it was just a cheap way to extend battles. -_-

As far as a character though...I think they did a good job with him. Twelve had a lot of story POTENTIAL (a lot of that was wasted), but Vayne was a fairly bright point in that story. I did like the deviation from the traditional FF villian mentality (RAAAGH IMMA KILL THE WORLD RAAGH), it was indicative of Twelve's depature from the "FF formula" that had prevailed for ten games prior.

So, I liked his character, yes. The boss fight was lame, but he was a fun guy overall. :monster:
 
Only half way through Final Fantasy 12 [ giving the game a second chance XD ]

So far Vayne just seems like a guy behind the scenes, controlling world chaos and ruining people's life's while he sits on his throne and hardly gets any harm done to him..

Vayne seems like a realistic bad guy so far, which is good for a storyline and is unique for the Final Fantasy series.

But Sephiroth and Kuja are kind of realistic too expect in a more Fantasy pattern and design. Sephiroth basically symbolizes the fear and nightmares from Cloud's past.
Sometimes we fear that our mistakes from the past might return to haunt us and that is what Sephiroth shows. Kuja shows maybe that villains are maybe not all so evil, but lost frustrated and highly misunderstood..

You could argue that Vayne murders heaps of people's life's, but so did Sephiroth. Heck Kuja murdered and slaughtered heaps of innocent people and many families were killed or orphaned.

Vayne is doing what many older Final Fantasy Villains did before him, but doing it in a different style. Though kind of prefer the Kuja and Sephiroth style, rather than the Vayne style...

So far...

Not calling Vayne a bad villain, Vayne is being a brilliant villain..
just don't like his style of doing things, compared to earlier villians..

 
Vayne isn't really a villain. He's just really mean and powerful. And deranged.^_^
The REAL villain would be the people you used to kill Vayne.:P
 
"Is Vayne evil"? That question has a simple answer to me.

"Was Hitler evil?" is a similar question. Unless you're an egomaniacal psychopath hell bent on taking down country after country like dominoes and establish a totalitarian order- you wouldn't see Hitler or Vayne as being THAT evil.

Yes, Hitler and Vayne were/are villains, but they were doing what they thought was for good. Which is why Vayne is the most realistic villain yet.

Nevertheless in the evil and twisted department Vayne doesn't hold a candle to Hitler.

Vayne wanted man to be able to shape their fates and not by faceless gods.

Hitler wanted to create a master Aryan race by killing all Jews and such etc.

 
I actually do enjoy Vayne as a boss, I'm not quite finished with the game just yet so I can't say anything about the boss fight with him. But there really aren't many FF villains that I like or rate high in books, the only ones that I really liked was Sephiroth, Seymour and Vayne.

Yeah Seymour was alright in my book =P

Anyways, all in all Vayne is a good villain so to say. At first I didn't really like him, couldn't stand him even and I couldn't tell why, maybe it was because he was in the villain role. But as time went on and the game progressed he grew on me, and I guess he's not really that bad.

At least he loves his younger brother, Larsa. I think. o_O
 
I really liked him. He's one of those villains who you can like for a time and, therefore, kinda like all the time. He was definately an entertaining villain, a little like those villains who invite their enemies to dinner. You just like them. Most villains, of which Seymore is a good example, just pisses me off. Whenever I see them I get pissed but whenever I saw Vayne, I just laughed.
 
I didn't really like it to be honest. A politician.. it didn't strike the right chord for me.

I could see it coming though at the start of the game (The FMV where he gives his speech to be precise) that he would be the final boss, and I remember hoping to GOD that he wouldn't be. Alas, he was.

I hoped that Venat would have been the final boss, since she looked the part and it would have been more appropriate. Instead, she was absorbed by Vayne and he turns into some metallic Bahamut. No.

As a villain in general, he was ok. His selfish, arrogant attitude made me want to pummel him to death which is a plus (Y) If a villain doesn't make me feel that way then they're not a villain lol XD
 
Ang said:
I really liked him. He's one of those villains who you can like for a time and, therefore, kinda like all the time. He was definately an entertaining villain, a little like those villains who invite their enemies to dinner. You just like them. Most villains, of which Seymore is a good example, just pisses me off. Whenever I see them I get pissed but whenever I saw Vayne, I just laughed.
Click to expand...

From the beginning when he made his inaugural address as consul i thought he was a fag and I burst laughing.:P
 
kaeltor said:
From the beginning when he made his inaugural address as consul i thought he was a fag and I burst laughing.:P
Click to expand...

I could copy and paste this into a thread about Seymour and nobody would ever know. Goes to show they don't make manly villains like they used to.

On a more serious note, Vayne was alright. Lacked the "damn, he's good" factor because I don't recall him doing anything that caught me off-guard in the entire game, but I've seen worse villains. Like... Necron. -_-
 
It very much depends on how you look on the villain.
You can look at him as a enemy and then you'll mainly care about how he tries to achieve his goals and what challenges he offers to the party along the game.
Other way, is to consider him as one of the more important characters in the game. Then you'll probably pay more attention to "why?" he is doing what he is doing, as well as about his past and the like.

Mine is probably the later. Thus I like Kuja, Jecht (who I consider FFX's main villain) and I consider Semyour a nice villain.

I quite enjoyed Vayne as well. It is easy to understand what he is trying to do and why. I believe any politician who gains power, will simply try to gain even more power. While simple motive, I felt like he was the kind of villain which I wanted to reach only at the end and then the beat him up and stop his ambition .
 
I did love that about FFXII. A lot of political intrigue, much like Ivalice's first release with FFT. Though Vayne did have a darker side, killing his brothers and such, he did so because of political reasons.

Bent on dictatorship and scheming behind the scenes, he did present a very realistic villain, though his badass factor was almost non existent. At least Sephiroth had top badass factors >.>
 
Vayne was a fantastic villain though he did remind me A LOT of Adolph Hitler. I image Square-Enix was going for that sort of thing. Vayne was a very could talker. His speechs were not only well thought-out but quite admirable. He wasn't my favorite... The favorite slot is still given to Seymour followed closely by Sephiroth... but Vayne certainly met my bloodlust for a strong villain.
 
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The developers didn't make it clear that Vayne was the main willain at the start like FF3 with Cloud of Darkness. At least the big body and tentacles were the points that I really like defeating at the end, and that it ties up with the ending.
 
So, I didn't see a thread for this yet, so i thought I would make one. For those of you who have played FFXII, you will obviously know who Vayne is and what his goal is. But do you think that he did it for what he thought was the good of the kingdome (Archadia) or was it just a selfish wish? Post your thought here.
 
I think that in part, Vayne wanted to free Ivalice from the Occuria. However, he was also misguided by a lust for power and desire to establish himself as the new Dynast King.

He thought that by eliminating any opposition to Archadia, he would actually do some good. He was simply delusional. Yes, he had a goal in mind, but that came in second to his own selfish desires.
 
Pretty much the same concept here, so I'll merge the two threads together.

[Threads Merged]
 
Vayne wasn't as much of a villain as I hoped he would be. I was actually disappointed to know he was more of a 'misguided' soul rather than pure evil. I think Dr. Cid had more of a evil streak than Vayne but Vayne was mildly interesting to watch on screen.

I just wish he had more personality...or more screen time. It sort of bugged me that the only time you battle Vayne is all the way at the end of the game. Unlike Seymour in FFX who you constantly ran into, Vayne really was nowhere to be seen for most of the game and all the Judges died off pretty quickly which disappointed me even more.
 
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