My second stop in my villain examination is the second Final Fantasy game, primarily because it's the one that comes after the first. I came into this game knowing that there was a little more character interaction waiting for me, so there was a good chance I wouldn't have to kill any protagonists.

Of course, that remained to be seen. From what intelligence I was able to gather from the local royalty, they were trying to take on the emperor, first through his commander, the Black Knight. They were terrorizing their enemies with a new technological terror, a ship with the ability to destroy an entire town. But the rebels were determined to prove that the more the empire tightened their grip, the more municipalities would slip through their... wait a minute. This sounds incredibly familiar. I must see if I can help them use this information in the war effort.

When that didn't help, I tagged along with the heroes for a little while--peacefully, this time. But they didn't care for the constant reminders of their grammatical inferiority. I'm starting to think it's a cultural thing.

Speaking of cultural things, I polled the country folk while we travelled the confusingly non-linear world map, and found them to be helpful in dealing with whatever happened to be going on in their own little lives... Not a lot of focus on the evil empire whose yolk they were all supposed to be suffering under. I pondered this as I stood at the ocean relieving myself, which is another thing they don't seem to do here, when Leviathan showed up and ate me.

At least I can be sure he got the worst taste in his mouth. You know, it's funny how I started looking for the positives in the unpleasantness I managed to create for my enemies. Eating me qualifies Leviathan as my enemy, right? He's got taste, though. In addition to eating me, he also seems to have a taste for matching furniture. But he must have some kind of medical problem: eats, yes, but not so much with the digesting.

Also, a clearly marked digestive system. In hindsight, the door marked "ENTRANCE" would have been the better choice.

I passed by a city the empire's airship, DREADNAUGHT, had destroyed. Much in the way of rubble, but no 8-bit corpses. Still, the scene was frightening from the perspective of my 8-bit renderiing, especially with all the little people and all their "woe is me" talk: "My house," "my leg," etc. So I figured I'd better catch up with the heroes. After all, if anyone is safe, it's the people you play as. Except for the guy they left crushed under a boulder.

So plan B is to go somewhere they're going to protect, and stay safe with the women and the children or whatever.

Feeling suddenly uncomfortable with Plan B, I decided to take matters into my own hands. No one could tell me anything about the Emperor, so if I was going to finish my Magi mission, I'd have to go myself anyway. The plus side of this plan was that I alone wouldn't have to bother carrying any phoenix downs. The down side was that I wouldn't have anyone to use any on me, should I need it. So I went recruiting from the ranks of the rebels, where I was privy to all kinds of the most sensitive and important rebellion information.

One thing I've definitely discovered is that 8-bit makes me cranky. This was about the point where I gave up on the plot, and just focused on the Magi mission. The less interaction with the rest of this well-watered population, the better. My strategy involved moving faster than the Nintendo system could allow, making my travels much faster and less hindered, except for when there were people directly in my way.

What I've discovered about mini-bosses is that they take damage from exessive ranting. What really finished him off, though, was when I hit him with a basic English quiz. Paper cuts are the worst, apparently. Which finally brought me to my ultimate goal, Emperor Doel!

Where I got the answers to all my questions, save one: Why did I go through all this? Seriously, I never even played the game all the way through. Couldn't do it. So what do I have to show for this?

He's what Emperors always are when they're final bosses, ever since Star Wars. He kinda looked scary, but meh.

General Surliness:

What's my motivation?

I wish I could do that:

Shit-your-pants factor:

Total Villain Score:

I brought my notepad with me when I spoke to him, but the frustration with the waste of time he represented got the better of me, and beat him to death with it instead of filling out the categories. Then I left.

Before I left the world, however, I had one more objective that I hadn't yet tossed in frustration. Tylor asked me to pick him up some Silver armor, to hang in his living room. Sadly, this distraction did nothing for my mood.

That's not Tylor, it's just some guy.