Game Overview: The Villains of Final Fantasy Week 5

Insert another credit, because it’s time for your weekly video game news and you’ve just hit the Game Overview screen.

With every Final Fantasy game there exists great (and not so great) teams of heroes bent on saving the world from some sort of evil force. While we could take a look at those heroes, let’s instead take a look at the evils that motivate these heroes to do what they do.

It should be noted that this feature will be full of spoilers.

Week 1 – Garland
Week 2 – Emperor Mateus of Palamecia
Week 3 – The Cloud of Darkness
Week 4 – Zeromus

Final Fantasy V took a step back from the ridiculously large cast of characters in FF IV and refocused on a cast of four characters in order to fully emphasize the hardcore, awesome job system implemented within the game.

The new four light warriors (one of whom was quite unfortunately translated as Butz…) were united by trans-dimensional travelers as they attempted to solve the crystal shattering crisis affecting the entire planet. Once it became apparent that they were fighting a concerted evil entity, they found out the dreaded monster’s name: Exdeath!

Exdeath. What a terribly generic name for a decently evil villain! His ultimate goal was to unite the two dimensions and harness the power of the Void to erase existence. Pretty basic and common villain stuff, par for the course for a Final Fantasy game. His evil deeds do include sinking an entire island and killing off one of the Light Warriors in plain view of his granddaughter. She eventually takes up his mantle as a Light Warrior and fights the good fight with all his abilities, but the loss of a character you’d just spent about half to 3/4 of the game with is one FF players won’t feel for another few years.

Then things start to get weird. You see, Exdeath was originally…a tree. I’m not kidding. A tree. A malevolent tree who somehow managed to get himself into the form of a man, but who returns to his tree form near the end of the game.

Tree…

Evil Rating:

One of the first permanent deaths in a Final Fantasy game of your core group, the sinking of an entire island, and the merging of two dimensions while shattering crystals. Not a bad rap sheet.

8/10

Cool Rating:

One word: Tree.

1/10

Images:

Exdeath (Amano Artwork)
Tree Form (in game)

Video: