Uh, yeah. Ratings are for *dramatic* worth, or my ratings at least. A
really compelling miserable failure is dramatically awesome, even if the character is lame, so uh I never understood the need for a Seifer clause really (everyone's read Death of A Salesman in high school, yes?). Meanwhile too many games are filled with characters who are theoretically awesome but totally fail as characters, often because they're in fact too flawless! So yeah. That out of the way.
Final Fantasy 7:
President Shinra - 6/10. Not much screentime, but he seemed interesting enough from what we learn of him.
Rufus - 8/10 Best villain in the game? Sure. Hell, he's even right about the "use the Huge materia to blow up Meteor," and the PCs actively annoy me for interfering with Shinra's efforts to save the world (and pretending it's for the world, rather than a more believable "They tried to kill us! Revenge!").
Heidigger - 6/10 Amusing.
Scarlet - 5/10 There.
Sephiroth - 8/10. Loses the tiebreak to Rufus by a lot though, this is a low 8. Lots of style, but I definitely far prefer SOLDIER Sephiroth. Once he goes batty and loses it, he's less interesting and more "rargh destroy."
Reno - 7/10
Rude - 7/10
Elena - 7/10. See notes above re: Seifer clause. Sure, ineffective, but a good character; the Turks needed someone who actually cared to play off of.
Jenova - DNR, your average evil thingy from space.
Tseng - 6/10? Don't know that much about him aside from having a soft spot for Aeris, really.
Hojo - 5/10. Yes, let's inject Jenova cells into random things and call it science. I think there's a line somewhere in the game that says that Hojo pales in comparison to Professor Gast, which is a great understatement.
Palmer - 6/10 LARD. Amusing.
Don Corneo - 6/10. Sure, another amusing enough comic relief villain.
Final Fantasy 8:
Edea - DNR. Edea is never really a villain, as Ulty gets credit for Edea's actions on Disc 1-2. Though Ulty-possessed Edea definitely has more style than Ulty.
Ultimecia - 4/10. Slightly loopy plan that breaks down if you think about it too hard (though apparently semi-explained in Ultimania). Some points for relentlessness and Time Kompression is a somewhat more original evil plan than usual (less "destroy everything" and more "everything is me").
Seifer - 8/10. Seifer was good for what he was: a pathetic foil to Squall hungry for approval, a role he played excellently. He does lose a few points for the story not being quite so consistent, and trying to make him out to be an actual threat a bit by the end of Disc 3.
Fujin - 6/10 Amusing.
Raijin - 6/10 See above.
Adel - 3/10 Random imprisoned sorceress.
Final Fantasy 9:
Kuja -
Conflicted. Kuja's story absolutely has great potential, but I can't help but think that they muffed the implementation somewhat. Giving him ultimate power to zap Terra also felt a bit towards the villain Gary Stu side of things. And what was the deal with his fashion sense? Wasn't a fan of the ending either, but that was more Zidane's fault. Uh... call it 7/10, I guess.
Brahne - 3/10. Now here's a villain who sucks both ways. The game is explicit that she wasn't mind-controlled at least; there's something where she admits she lusted for power, which gets minor credit, I guess. Sadly she never gets beyond villainous Disney stepmother level.
Thorn/Zorn - 3/10. Whatever. Was not terribly amused by them.
Necron - 0/10 Much worse than Zeromus. Zeromus was at least directly connected to Zeemus, who pulled strings in the main plot of FF4. Necron is literally out of nowhere and has nothing to do with the plot of the game.
Lani - 2/10. I'd have forgotten her existence if it wasn't for the DL. A villain this unmemorable can't be that great.
Beatrix - 3/10. Massively wasted potential. An entirely phoned-in version of the "noble badguy following orders."
Garland - 5/10 I guess? Somewhat sympathetic, plan was definitely a bit wonky, though.
