ryanegeiger said:
No, Sephiroth was decidedly NOT the 'evilest' villain ever, he was a metro-sexual cry baby with a serious Oedipus complex.
My vote is going to have to go to Kefka. There was nary a non-evil bone in that clown prince's body. Plus, he wasn't some 'up in the clouds' kind of bad guy, he was in your face, nipping at your proverbial heels throughout most of your encounters with him, then he became quite god-like and decided destroying the world for his own personal amusement would be a good weekend adventure.
Plus, he's the only villain on record that ACTUALLY destroyed the world.
I'm going to have to agree with you there, on both accounts. Unlike other video game villains, whose reasons for being evil are usually shoe-horned into the story in a pathetic effort to make you "try to understand," yet still hate them enough to kill them in the end. Kefka was just evil. No motives - he was just evil, and dead crazy to boot. I think it's fair to compare him to the Joker from Batman - in fact, he's probably based on that character. As they say in the new trailer - "some men just want to watch the world burn."
As for villains that most inspire hate, I'd have to go with Saturos from Golden Sun. Everything he did was just mind-bogglingly ANNOYING. He wasn't necessarily evil, but he did have a way of just getting under your skin. Granted, he did some cliche things, like "you just beat me because I wasn't at my full strength" kind of things, but still - damn I hated that guy.
The best part about it is that in the next game, after going through an entire game absolutely hating him, you realize he wasn't actually a villain per se. He was just mean.
OK, as far as annoying villains? Damn, but the RIVAL from Pokemon red/blue. After those games, your rival was just some misunderstood kid. But, when you're 12, and you're the kind of kid that plays pokemon and gets picked on, the Rival was always there to ruin your day. Unless you were an obsessive-compulsive level-grinder, it was always a tough fight until about half-way through the game, because his strongest pokemon always had the advantage over your strongest.
Ad Avis from Quest for Glory II and IV was pretty evil and awesome. You go through the whole game hearing about how evil Ad Avis is, and then you get to him, and he hypnotizes you so you have to do his bidding and nearly bring about the end of the world!
Baba Yaga from Quest for Glory I: Because she turns you into a toad, and then eats you.
The Nightmares from Zelda: Link's Awakening. They don't have lofty, world-domination goals, but,They just want to invade the dream-world of the good Wind Fish (hey - that's me name!), turn it into a nightmare, and make it sleep endlessly. And when you enter the dream, they make you encounter your nightmares too. And, they messed with your head - telling you that if you woke up the Wind Fish (which to your understanding is the only way to leave the island), you, as part of the dream, will vanish as well.