Top 30 Final Fantasy Villains - #23

#23 - The Turks

(Final Fantasy VII)

(From left to right: Rude, Reno, Tseng, Elena)

I honestly considered putting Rufus Shinra in the same spot as these guys, but I decided that the Turks deserved their own spot on the list. And before you ask, no, I don't know why they're called the Turks.

Remember the Shinra corporation from when I talked about Rufus? Well, meet their secret police, the Turks. They do a little of everything: spy work, sabotage, kidnapping, the occasional murder, that sort of thing. Namely, these are the guys who do Shinra's dirty work, and not only do they do it well, but they do it in style.

You run across the team, or members of it, throughout the game, and each of them has their own memorable quirk to them. There's Reno, the cool, levelheaded, cynical, experienced one; there's Elena, the one whose inexperience and loose tongue makes all of her scenes entertaining; there's Rude, the quiet, serious one who, deep down, is just as much of a dork as the rest of them; and then there's Tseng, the leader who... uh... he certainly, uh, exists.

Aside from Tseng, who gets so little screen time that the English dub accidentally killed him off (not even kidding), all of them are memorable, and unlike Rufus, the fights against them are challenging and fun. But the best part about them is seeing them just do their thing. During one encounter, you catch them casually discussing their crushes, and in another, they don't bother trying to apprehend you simply because they're on break. They're so likeable and charismatic that you'll honestly forget that Reno dropped an entire city on another city and killed thousands just to get 6 guys.

The final aspect that really makes them stand out, however, is their role in the Wutai arc. When both Elena and one of the main characters, Yuffie, get kidnapped, the two groups have no choice but to put aside their differences to rescue the both of them. This sidequest is purely optional, but it's nice to see this whole new side to the Turks, and if you do go this route, you can actually talk your way out of your final confrontation with them.

It's practically a law that any RPG has to have a quirky squad of minor villains to face, and as far as those go, the Turks are probably one of the best, most memorable in the series.