Rate the bad guys! (Spoilers, duh.)

[Dunefar]

This is like the various old rating topics. I give you a list of bad guys and you rate them from 1 to 10, with one being shit and ten being awesome incarnate. You then say why and debate ensues. It's a simple format that makes for good discussion! When time has passed(Probably a week, maybe a little more or less),  I'll total them up, post the results and rankings and then throw out a new batch.

Also, feel free to make writeins if I miss anyone obvious or popular.

Final Fantasy 1:

Garland/Chaos

Final Fantasy 2:

Leon
Emperor

Final Fantasy 3:

Hein
Xande
Cloud of Darkness

[Dunefar]

Final Fantasy 1:

Garland/Chaos: 4/10. Gets points for style. For an 8 bit villain, he works about as well as you could hope for.

[Yoshiken]

Garland: 6/10. 2D as expected, but otherwise, works pretty well. Loses a point for creating a time paradox. *HATES time paradoxes as plot points*

[Dunefar]

Garland: 6/10. 2D as expected, but otherwise, works pretty well. Loses a point for creating a time paradox. *HATES time paradoxes as plot points*

Agreed, though I think it works about as well as it can in FF1. Minimal plot so you don't sink into a time loop mumbo-jumbo morass. You see it, game's over, that's it.

[AAA]

Garland: 6/10. Gets an extra point for knock you all down.

Hein: 5/10 Meh.

Xande: 5/10 Meh.

Cloud of Darkness: 5/10 Meh

Choose more interesting villains plz

[Random Consonant]

Garland/Chaos - 2/10.  Knocks people down, otherwise, was there.

Hein - 1/10.  Was there.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Final Fantasy 1:

Garland/Chaos - 6/10. Just above average to me, though this is colored by either nostalgia or leniency for how early in the lifespan of RPGs this game came out. Also, I like the Time Paradox. It holds up pretty well on the weirdness scale of FF villains.

Final Fantasy 2:

Leon - 3/10. zOMG traitor brother! Wasn't really original even when it first came out... he gets 3 points for having more personality than the rest of the main cast.
Emperor - 4/10. Generically evil emporer! He gets more backstory in other publications, so I'm inclined to give him a few more points than I would based solely on his in-game appearance.

Final Fantasy 3:

Hein - Who?
Xande - 6/10. Not outstanding, but not a horrible version of fear/jealousy corrupts. He was afraid of dying and fucked the world up for that. I can respect that in a villain.
Cloud of Darkness - 3/10. Kind of mindless and all... Really not much to say about her. 1 point for her Dissidia appearance, 1 point for her FF12 backstory, and 1 point for boobs.

[SnowFire]

Final Fantasy 1:

Garland/Chaos - 6/10.  He has a plot twist, which is better than your average 8-bit villain.  I like the deal with the bats really being the Lefeinish warriors and the Temple of the Fiends being at the center of the cross created by the 4 elemental dungeons.  Time loop is weird but cool enough.

Final Fantasy 3:

Hein - 1/10.  Evil dude who lives in a castle waiting for heroes to beat him up who messed up a town.  FF3 needs to seriously figure out the difference between "bad" villains and "corrupted" villains; you get conflicting signals.  On one hand, there's some dialogue about how Hein was a normal lord who one day got possessed by EVIL, on the other hand there's also stuff about how you should extremely kill Hein with no compunctions.  Not a whole lot on why some people get possessed by darkness and not others - were their natures susceptible?  Who knows.  Meh. 

Xande - 6/10.  Reminds me vaguely of Raistlin from Dragonlance as far as "gifts" gone horribly wrong (shame they took the 'light and darkness are both good!' from Dragonlance, too).  Anyway, the basic plot of "As a superpowerful being, to avert mortality I will stop time" is pretty cool.  And he even has an excuse to send minions to mess with Our Heroes, because by restoring time they've "killed" him.  Basically Xande would have been a perfectly serviceable villain in his own right a la Kuja; deciding that he got possessed by the CoD for no damn good reason was a horrid design choice.

Cloud of Darkness - 2/10 Evil entity from nowhere who threatened world 1K years ago yet strangely slow at dragging world into void.  Plan for voiding world quite nebulous, mostly hang around doing nothing until puppet-Xande dies.  Fact that Xande got completely possessed makes both of them lamer; you'd think the CoD-controlled Xande could have done something more than hang out in the Crystal Tower waiting, basically (the Lynx school of villainy?).  Will have slumber party with Necron 12 years later, possibly be caught kissing. 

[Dhyerwolf]

Final Fantasy 1:

Garland/Chaos: 3. Eh. Yeah, great for 8 bit, but I don't feel overly inclined to boost his score up too much.

Final Fantasy 2:

Leon: 6. A few points for pre-emptively owning Kain.

Final Fantasy 3:

Hein: ...He's um...I just played FF 3 too...
Xande: 3. Not inclined to give out too many points just for having a motivation.
Cloud of Darkness: 1.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Final Fantasy 1:

Garland/Chaos: 5/10. See Dune, more or less. I like him, but not enough to give him an objectively good score.

Final Fantasy 2:

Leon: 4/10. I really liked that he wasn't mind controlled. That's about the only plot depth FF2 really had.
Emperor: 2/10. Cliched attempt to cash in on Star Wars' popularity. EMPERORS = BAD.

Final Fantasy 3:

Hein: 2/10. He sucks and barely exists, but I reserve 1's for people who offend me a bit more.
Xande: 4/10. Had a decent motivation at least. Just... awful stage presence.
Cloud of Darkness: 4/10. The opposite of Xande. Bonus point for being a female final boss since those are rare and such.

Awesome group, here.

[Lance]

Final Fantasy 1:

Garland - 1/10. No.

Chaos - 4/10. Rating him and Garland separately since I've always kind of viewed them as separate characters. Anyway, Chaos was a pretty effective antagonist given the minimal plot of FF1, but I'm still not quite sure what his motivation was. What was he fighting for again? What made him evil? He was just supposed to be the embodiment of "chaos" or something, right? Eh, the fact that I can't remember means it must not have been very compelling.

Final Fantasy 3:

Hein - ...don't remember him in the slightest.

Xande - 6/10. Pretty darn good, all things considered. He had the motivation, the justification, and the personality to be an effective villain. The cop-out CoD possession plot twist hurts him a bit, but he's a strong antagonist otherwise.

Cloud of Darkness - 3/10. Just kind of there and doesn't do much until the very end. Still, she gets points for providing a difficult-as-balls final boss fight that I still remember fairly clearly to this day.

[superaielman]

Garland/Chaos: 5/10. It's at least a memorable villian, which is more than you can say about any NES villian excepting maybe Saro.

[Meeplelard]

Final Fantasy 1:

Garland/Chaos: 5/10.  Original villain for the era.  Is not an "OMG EVIL OVERLORD!" but just a good guy turned bad, and had an actual complex scheme.  of course, being NES writing, it can only go this far.

Final Fantasy 2:

Leon: 5/10.  More or less agree with Elfboy, except I give an extra point for the fact that he didn't have a forced atonement or anything; he was still a bastard in the end, and game makes it clear he only joined you cause you were the lesser of two evils.
Emperor: 3/10. I want to give him higher, cause Dissidia makes him awesome!  But I can't.  He's the first main villain whose actually got prominence in an NES game, which counts for something...and the "Take over hell" scheme was kind of neat...but yeah, can't justify him as getting higher.

Final Fantasy 3:

Hein: DNR.  Not a villain, just a random throw away boss with slightly more plot cause the game hypes his game play trait in order to beat you over the head with "USE A SCHOLAR!" which doesn't really count.
Xande: 4/10.  Interesting and unique villain...but problem? ALMOST NO SCREEN TIME.  He doesn't get any flashbacks, gets one scene where he rants about evil, then gets road pasted, and the rest is pretty much just "fill in the blanks yourself" based on some basic info we learned. 
Cloud of Darkness: 4/10. Female Villain in an NES game has to count for something.  Also, she felt genuinely threatening despite only two scenes (which is more than Xande got -_-; )*AND* I give a nod to the fact that she was basically immune to the Power of Light for once, instead of just crumpling over to it; irony that a "Cloud of Darkness" needs the power of Darkness to actually defeat, but it was a neat twist to finally see "Dark =/= Evil" being used for the first time, and she's pretty much entirely related to that.

[Rozalia]

Final Fantasy 1:

Garland/Chaos - Giving him a 5. While a very weak story due to its time his plot powers spawned a spin off. +3 for that.

Final Fantasy 2:

Leon - Can't remember much about him. A good guy turned bastard who doesn't waste anytime taking over after the emperor dies. 2
Emperor - Wasn't his motivation (I use this word here lightly as I think its mentioned like once) due to the whole balloon daughter incident thing or am I misremembering. If they actually used that as his main reason for invasion as he felt wronged or something of the sort then he'd be a far better villain. As it stands he's generic emperor who tries to take over the world, hell and then heaven. Gets 2 cool points so I give him a 4

Final Fantasy 3:

Hein - The guy isn't a main villain (He's on say Garuda's level) so I'll rate him differently. From what a Vaguely remember about him didn't he defeat a whole army in combat or something like that (and his barrior is also hyped as the next best thing since sliced bread). I can't for the life of me remember what the hell happened to make him evil so I'll give him a 6 as again he isn't a main villain and giving him a 1 due to that wouldn't really be fair.
Xande - The whole Cloud of darkness thing at the end was terrible. Also needed some flashbacks or some scene shifts to his tower to beef his plot up a bit. 3
Cloud of Darkness - Can't say much as there isn't much. The whole darkness, Light unite! thing was somewhat different then everything at the time I guess. 2

[Talaysen]

Final Fantasy 1:

Garland/Chaos: Knocks people down/10

Final Fantasy 2:

Leon: Who cares/10
Emperor: Who cares/10

Final Fantasy 3:

Hein: Who cares/10
Xande: Who cares/10
Cloud of Darkness: Who cares/10

[Dunefar]

This first batch was pretty dry, so I'm going to update later today. Get your votes in now!

[Tonfa]

Final Fantasy 1:

Garland/Chaos: 6/10. Immortal line, otherwise doesn't do much.

Final Fantasy 2:

Leon: 6/10. Smug bastard. Ends up being more of a groundwork for a good antagonist than actually being one, this being in FF2, but the effort was there.
Emperor: 3/10. PLOT TWIST gains him one style point, otherwise extremely bland.

Final Fantasy 3:

Hein: 2/10. Extremely bland.
Xande: 2/10. Extremely bland.
Cloud of Darkness: 2/10. Extremely bland.

[OblivionKnight]

Garland/Chaos - 7/10.  Garland is awesome.  Wish the writing were better, but he still kicks ass.  The puny knight that plays a Xanatos Gambit with time itself.  He's awesome, and also powerful enough to become the embodiment of chaos itself.  

Leon - No rank, don't consider him a bad guy, much in the same vein I wouldn't consider Kain in this either.
Emperor - 5/10.  Earns points for persistence.

Hein - No rank, nothing more than a boss with a castle named after him.
Xande - 4/10.  Could make something of his scheme, but...nothing.  Garland honestly gets more, and better, time than him.  At least he has a cool, evil look to him.
Cloud of Darkness - 3/10.  Points for boobs, and nothing more.  Looks a lot sexier in FF3DS, though, so another point.  The design is evil and works, but...it's an entity of destruction...kind of like if Meteor were the final boss of FF7.  So not that interesting.

[Dunefar]

The results are in!

Final Fantasy 1:

Garland/Chaos: 4.89, 14 rankers

Final Fantasy 2:

Leon: 4.33, 6 rankers.
Emperor: 3.50, 6 rankers.

Final Fantasy 3:

Hein: 2.83/DNR, 6 rankers.
Xande: 4.30, 10 rankers.
Cloud of Darkness: 2.90, 10 rankers.

---

Top ten highest ranked villains:
1. Garland/Chaos: 4.89, 14 rankers.
2. Leon: 4.33, 6 rankers.
3. Xande: 4.30, 10 rankers.
4. The Emperor: 3.50, 6 rankers.
5. Cloud of Darkhess: 2.90, 10 rankers.
6. Hein: 2.83/DNR, 6 rankers.

Top ten lowest ranked villains

1. Hein: 2.83/DNR, 6 rankers.
2. Cloud of Darkhess: 2.90, 10 rankers.
3. The Emperor: 3.50, 6 rankers.
4. Xande: 4.30, 10 rankers.
5. Leon: 4.33, 6 rankers.
6. Garland/Chaos: 4.89, 14 rankers.

---

Let's move along past that staggeringly mediocre group! With the 16 bit era we get some competent villainy at last! I hope. Feel free to DNR or do write-ins if you like.

Final Fantasy 4:

Milon
Cagnazzo
Valvalis
Rubicant
Golbez
Baigan
Zemus/Zeromus.

Final Fantasy 5:

X-Death
Gilgamesh

Final Fantasy 6:

Kefka
Gestahl
Ultros

[Tonfa]

Final Fantasy 4:

Milon: 3/10. Rar I have returned from the dead to suck again.
Cagnazzo: 2/10. Extremely bland.
Valvalis: 2/10. Extremely bland.
Rubicant: 3/10. Honor !!
Golbez: 3/10. One point for HAND OF FATE.
Baigan: 2/10. No, the fake 6th party member thing is so transparent it does not even deserve an extra point.
Zemus/Zeromus: 1/10. At least he didn't fail up a good plot.

Final Fantasy 5:

X-Death: 5/10. Rar I am a tree. Splinter is memorable. Also the scene where he punts various places including the Moogle Village into the Void is pretty good.
Gilgamesh: 9/10. Today, we fight like men! And women! And women who dress like men!

Final Fantasy 6:

Kefka: 2/10. A few amusing lines, but just go away.
Gestahl: 2/10. Never does anything.
Ultros: 6/10. Moderately amusing.

[OblivionKnight]

Milon - 1.0 - Really...uh...no.  Just no.
Cagnazzo - 1.0 - LOL I AM KING BARON!
Valvalis - 1.0 - I AM WIND GIRL FROM NOWHERE!
Rubicant - 5.0 - Needed more time, but at least he got lines outside of when you killed him.  And was generally interesting.
Golbez - 2.0 - MIND CONTROL!!!  At least he has Manos.  And plot power?
Baigan - DNR - The hell?
Zemus/Zeromus - 2.0 - Wins for the thuper gay speak.  Nothing else is decent.

X-Death - 1.5 - All he had going for him was...evil tree.  I don't remember any other story or background >_>
Gilgamesh - Mmm...tempted to DNR (see Ultros below), but...I think I will. give an actual rank.  9.0 - Is awesome.  Only concerns are that his final scene is missable, and that he probably gets a lot more hype than he deserves >_>  Otherwise, he is pretty cool.

Kefka - 7.0 - Gay clown is an interesting villain archetype, for all that I think he's a bit overrated.  
Gestahl - 3.0 - Just...not interesting.  
Ultros - DNR...don't really see him as a bad guy.  Also a bit random <_<

[Dunefar]

Final Fantasy 4:

Milon: 3/10. Creepy zombie guy. There's not much to him after that.
Cagnazzo: 4/10 Gets points for always being an asshole on screen, between throwing Cecil out of Baron and getting the twins stoned.
Valvalis: 1/10. Random fanservice.
Rubicant: 7/10. He had only a few scenes but he made the most of them. While he didn't win awards for depths, he hit his niche very well.
Golbez: 3/10. Eh. Golbez never does much for me.
Baigan: 1/10. Meh.
Zemus/Zeromus: 3/10. Shows up, gives semi coherent speech, dies. He's hobbled by being last minute. A better era of writing could've integrated him into the overall plot with far more skill.

Final Fantasy 5:

X-Death: 1/10. Stupid tree.
Gilgamesh: 1/10. Stupid fucking gimmick with overrated music. Go die.

Final Fantasy 6:

Kefka: 3.5/10. I don't much care for Kefka, though I admit he's effective and has some good scenes. He's just not my type of bad guy.
Gestahl: 5/10. Does his role as scummy tyrant well.
Ultros: 1/10. Stupid gimmick.

[Ultradude]

Final Fantasy 4:

Milon - 2
Cagnazzo - 2
Valvalis - 2
Rubicant - 5 - Could have been interesting!
Golbez - 3 - Hypnotic magical hand.
Baigan - 0
Zemus/Zeromus - 2

Final Fantasy 6:

Kefka - 8 - Insane sadistic clown minion becomes main villain, conquers world. Loses the most points for the nihilism at the end thing.
Gestahl - 3 - Lolevilemperor.
Ultros - 6 - Not much of a villain really, but amusing.

[Meeplelard]

Final Fantasy 4:

Milon: DNR.  2 scene wonder whose just a random boss tossed in to follow up Lich from FF1.
Cagnazzo: 3/10. Unlike Milon, he actually does stuff relevant to the plot other than "Random boss".  That said, its a cheap rip off of Lamia Queen from FF2, without the "O_o" scene.
Valvalis: DNR.  Same as Milon.  The fiends were not equal in plot.
Rubicant: 6.5/10.  Ok, he has actual screen time similar to Cag, and actually felt like a genuine henchman instead of an arbitrary pawn.  Being the first truly honorable villain deserves some credit.
Golbez: 4/10 in FF4o.  FF2's Leon but mind controlled, and the game just brushes the events under the rug; he does get points for being genuinely threatening whenever he appeared though.  6/10 in FF4DS: hey look, BACKSTORY AND INCLINATIONS OF WHAT KIND OF GUY HE MIGHT BE LIKE!  You know, the exact things FF4o COMPLETELY LACKED with Golbez?  Its not enough to make him really good, but it at least salvages him some.
Baigan: DNR.  Random pawn who gets one extra scene early.
Zemus/Zeromus: 1/10.  Zemus is worse than Xande in everyway, and Zeromus worse than Cloud of Darkness.  Zemus has the whole "Lacks screen time" issue but unlike Xande, we don't even know he exists until 90% of the way into the game and we learn very little about him.  Zeromus is one of the worst "Final Boss for the sake of being the final boss" throw ins ever; I mean, seriously? RAR I AM HATE! FEAR ME!?  What the fuck?  I'm pretty sure this is the single worst villain in the series -_-

Final Fantasy 5:

X-Death: 5/10.  Complete and utter cliche, but at least he has screen time!  Gets a point for being a FUCKING TREE.
Gilgamesh: 7/10.  Generally a riot.  First comic relief villain in the series, and he pulled it off hilariously.

Final Fantasy 6:

Kefka: 8/10.  The first villain with remote sense of personality beyond "I eat babies!"  and an actual original idea.  You know, he's not some EVIL INCARNATION or SUPER ALIEN or something, just a guy...who gains a lot of power throughout the course of the game...and his threat values are hinged upon what he WILL do, not what he can do.  The fact that he does all this while having some comedic moments actually adds to the freak nature.  Probably the first main villain in the genre, let alone the series, to show actual worth, and doesn't hinge upon "LUKE I AM YOUR FATHER" values.
Gestahl: 3/10.  Tool.  Basically exists to be a fake villain until Kefka takes over.  Not much else...
Ultros: 7/10.  See Gilgamesh, for the most part.  Antics were even sillier in some regards (Seriously...he's trying to trash the Opera...WHY? WITH A 4 TON WEIGHT!?)

[Yoshiken]

Final Fantasy 4:
Milon - Hrm. A difficult one, but I've always liked Milon for some strange, strange reason. I think it was that... FFIV was my second FF, after VII, so Milon was really the first truly memorable boss that I ever fought in an RPG. 5/10, because, despite personal preference, he's very 2D, minimal screentime, etc.
Kainazzo - Ehh. Stupid fight, pretty worthless as a character, looks ugly. Gains a point for twin-killing. (I like Palom/Porom, I just also found it to be a pretty funny scene for some reason.) 2/10.
Valvalis - Gah. That fight. I hated it. Does nothing as a character, fight of evil. GRAH. 1/10.
Rubicant - I like Rubicant a lot. I think it's the whole honour thing, but I've -always- liked Rubicant a lot. Helps that Fire's my favourite element of the four and I love his cloak. I've even cosplayed sprite-version of Rubicant before! Uhh, yeah. Anyway. 8/10.
Golbez - I... kinda liked Golbez. As a villain, mind. I didn't like the whole Star Wars-esque "I am your father brother" thing... Hrm. 6/10.
Baigan - Pfft. Screw you. Gains a point for the fake "Baigan joined the party!" thing. 2/10.
Zemus/Zeromus - Okay. Uhh. Entity of hatred. That's all Zeromus has, other than epic music. Zemus, on the other hand, actually has a whole reason for doing what he's doing. I'll settle on a 5/10.

Final Fantasy 6:
Kefka - Yeah, I'm a Kefka fan. He's the sort of villain who you love, because he's hilarious, while hate at the same time, 'cause of the things he actually does. (For some reason, I'm fine with a villain destroying a town, but poisoning everyone in one?! That's just inhumane! >_>) Possibly the only 10/10 I'm gonna give.
Gestahl - Ugh. Gestahl. Boring politician-villain ("And, now, for my next evil plan, I will BRING IN A NEW LAW!") and you don't even fight him. How dull. Keeps points for his little treachery act (Leo ;_; ) and what personality he has. 3/10.
Ultros - Aww, how can you not love Ultros? He's awesome, although not for his villainy. If we were going based solely on villainy here, he'd be, like, 2/10. For the whole personality, he's probably... 8/10.