Final Fantasy Villains (Hardback)
From FF1 to FF16
Imprint: White Owl
Pages: 184
Illustrations: 100 colour illustrations
ISBN: 9781399079457
Published: 30th May 2025
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Final Fantasy Villains celebrates and analyzes the major villains of the series, all the way from the original princess-kidnapping Garland to the sociopathic Annabella Rosfeld. While other wikis might give dry chronicles of their actions, this book tells us who they are, where they come from, and what motivates them. Are they the heroes of their own stories? What did the original designers intend? In the absence of official intent, what might their backstories be, given what we see on screen? The book even deep dives into some of the more obscure villains, like the opera-crashing Ultros and the school bully Seifer. It also looks at some characters traditionally thought of as heroes in villainous lights, such as Cecil during his dark knight phase and Kain when he succumbs to his jealousy.
Each major villain’s write up contains at least one image, including the suplexed phantom train from Final Fantasy VI, and a humorous caption. All sixteen of the main line titles are covered, in addition to one bonus chapter on Final Fantasy Tactics. The author writes about these characters with a mixture of tongue-in-cheek levity and more serious analysis where appropriate, connecting them to some of the emotions that make us all human.
This is an excellent guide of information for anyone who is a fan of the Final Fantasy games and general lore. I had fun reading through this!
NetGalley, Heather Stewart
First and foremost, I am kind of biased because anything Final Fantasy automatically is awesome in my book, so take the review with a grain of salt. I really enjoyed the book. It goes through FF1-16 talking about the different villains and some monsters and their background within the games and some of the author's own interpretation of the villains, it seems.
NetGalley, Kristi Stoneking
Some of the descriptions are very tongue-in-cheek and provide some humor throughout the book, but most of the time, the author did a great in-depth job of describing the villains. He even mentions some of the more obscure villains and monsters, which was pretty neat.
I love the illustrations throughout the book as it brought me back to each game as I was reading it, and now I want to replay FF7 again for the 100th time. Great read for Final Fantasy fans!
Both tongue-in-cheek and informative. The author clearly knows their stuff, this is basically a love letter to ff villains.
NetGalley, Mercy Fowler
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
NetGalley, Marissa Morris
All the information you could ever want all wrapped up in a neat book!
It was super informative and even had some stuff i had no idea of.
About Michael Greenhut
Michael Greenhut was born in the Bronx, New York, in 1978. He is a professional game programmer and an occasional writer of fiction and nonfiction. Currently, he lives in Fort Lee, NJ with his wife and son, and works for Playmatics. Michael has worked on casual games, educational games, and just plain weird games. His favorite video games are Final Fantasy IV, Suikoden 2, Chrono Trigger, and Life is Strange.
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