Top 30 Final Fantasy Villains - #22

#22 - Warrior of Darkness

(Final Fantasy XIV)

I am not the biggest fan of Final Fantasy III. Mainly, it feels like everything that game does is done better by another game in the series. One of its better ideas was the idea of balance between light and darkness, and that light overwhelming darkness is just as bad as darkness winning. It felt kind of wasted in III, but Final Fantasy XIV takes full advantage of that premise, through the Warriors of Darkness.

Since XIV is another MMO, some backstory is in order. Originating from a parallel world to the one the game takes place, that world’s equivalent of the player character successfully eradicated all darkness. This backfired, however, and the land was engulfed in a wave of blank, burning, perfection without an equal and opposite reaction. Using the same technique the main villains of XIV, the Ascians, use to travel through the Lifestream (basically the afterlife, for those uninitiated) to reach the main game’s world, he and his mercenary companions plan to cause a flood of darkness, sacrificing this world in order to restore balance to his own.

He doesn’t have much in the way of personality, for the most part being a typical smug schemer who is trying way too hard to be mysterious, and since his design is meant to reflect the generic placeholder main character stand-in, that’s nothing to write home about either. However, when he reveals his origin, you can feel the anguish in his words when he rages that his world is being overrun by light even though- or even because- he did everything right. Final Fantasy XIV’s villains have this tendency to save their tragic backstories and motivations for after they’ve been defeated (join me at #18 and #15 for more on that), but usually, it works just fine.

Really, there are two things that make the Warrior of Darkness really work. The first is the concept of his backstory and motivation, which takes a concept that has existed in the series before and takes it to its logical conclusion. The second is the battle against him, which is one of the best, most intense fights in the entire game, which is one of the few times you actually get to fight alongside pretty much all the main characters, has multiple epic moments, and an absolutely awesome finish, which is sadly undercut by the ultimate solution to the Warrior’s plight, which is… I don’t know, it feels a little too cheap and easy and undercuts most of his actions.

Honestly, this guy would’ve easily made the top 10 if his personality was more interesting and his mission was given a more satisfactory conclusion. Despite this, the core concept of his character sets him apart from the cliche stereotypical messenger of darkness these type of stories tend to welcome, and his awesome boss fight is what cements his position on the list.