The Final Fantasy franchise features an impressive cast of menacing characters -- from its many iconic villains and their maniacal world-rending schemes to terrifying monsters and characters with dark secrets. While it's not exactly a franchise known for its horror chills, Final Fantasy has never been a stranger to bizarre, unnerving, and downright spooky moments, which can be all the more surprising because JRPGs aren't typically known for their scares.
Of course, these spooky moments could never happen without a cast of similarly spooky characters to make them come about, and any good villain must inspire a certain amount of fear in the player. Whether they're mad clowns, otherworldly forces of destruction, or unassuming beasts that conceal deadly threats, Final Fantasy has no shortage of terrifying characters to offer.
Ultimecia (Final Fantasy VIII)
Ultimecia is the primary antagonist of Final Fantasy VIII and is notable for being the franchise's first major female villain. She's an unnaturally powerful sorceress gifted with powers over time, and a penchant for manipulating the psyches of her enemies. Like many antagonists in the series, she wishes to ascend to some sort of godlike form, aiming to become omnipotent by subsuming all of time-space within herself. Sounds pretty standard so far, but Ultimecia has a number of twists to her that set her apart, and she's a major reason why Final Fantasy VIII is still one of the most underrated titles in the series.
What really makes her spooky, however, are her powers of mind manipulation. They allow her to exert forces of possession over individuals, and she can manipulate specific elements of a target's subconscious to bring them to life, or manipulate them towards her own ends. This eerie ability is the cause for many of Final Fantasy VIII's most unnerving scenes, with many a young player being creeped out by a possessed Rinoa's unnatural gait as she attempted to vent herself into the vacuum of space at Ultimecia's command.
Emet-Selch (Final Fantasy XIV)
Emet-Selch is the Ascian antagonist of Final Fantasy XIV's third expansion -- Shadowbringers. His character has been met with near-universal praise, with many heralding him as easily the best antagonist of Final Fantasy XIV, and perhaps one of the highest-ranked main villains in the whole Final Fantasy franchise. A master manipulator bent on returning the world to its pre-mortal state via the Reing, Emet-Selch is far more eccentric, talkative, and engaging than those of his order are typically known to be.
Emet-Selch is a distinctively written character that exudes stage presence whenever he's on-screen, but he's also that unique sort of villain who's able to make his insane world-ending schemes make a certain degree of sense. Indeed, Emet-Selch is the very embodiment of the oft-repeated "when the villain's speech starts to make sense" meme, which is precisely what makes him so intimidating, and occasionally scary.
Tonberries (Recurring)
This is technically cheating because a Tonberry isn't a character but a recurring enemy type, yet they still deserve a spot on this list on of the panic and fear that they inspire in the hearts of Final Fantasy players. Easily one of the best enemies in all of Final Fantasy, they appear lovable at first glance, but these things are among the most dangerous enemies to be found in the Final Fantasy bestiary. They behave uniquely on the battlefield -- slowly creeping closer towards the party until they're in range to inflict instant death on the player.
Compounding their instant-kill attack, Tonberries will counter any damage they receive with an ability called "Karma." Karma is even more distressing because it scales its damage alongside the number of monsters the player has dispatched, meaning that higher-level characters will take the most punishment. If all of that didn't make things bad enough, Tonberries typically boast deep HP pools, meaning that defeating them before they've knifed the party to death is no small undertaking. Watching a squadron of Tonberries shuffle towards the party with unblinking eyes is always an unnerving experience.
Jenova (Final Fantasy VII)
Although Sephiroth gets most of the fanfare for being Final Fantasy VII's main villain, he wouldn't have been able to get nearly as far as he had without from his mom -- Jenova. The only issue here is that his mom is the calamity from the skies, an ancient alien life form bent on assimilating all life on the Planet. She (or "it") doesn't play a very active role in the game's story, her malevolence constantly hangs in the background, playing a crucial role in many of the game's most important plot points, which make up one of the best Final Fantasy stories.
As such, Jenova isn't so much a character as she is a presence. She doesn't have dialogue, ideals, or character growth like most Final Fantasy villains do; she's just this monstrous, mysterious thing from outer space. It's precisely that unknowable nature that makes her so frightening. The audience finds her in the background of so much of the game's story, but so little is known about her that it's impossible not to get a little spooked. Furthermore, her cells, which are present in both Cloud and Sephiroth, have the ability to seize control of their host on occasion, which makes it hard to tell where Jenova ends and the characters themselves begin. She's also just one of the creepiest-looking things to come out of Final Fantasy VII.
Sephiroth (Final Fantasy VII)
Sephiroth needs little in the way of introduction, as he's by far the most recognizable antagonist the franchise has to offer. As such, it might seem a bit cliche that he's landed so high up on this list, but rest assured that his fame is well-deserved. Sephiroth continues to reign as one of Final Fantasy's most beloved, and terrifying, antagonists on of how excellently Final Fantasy VII sets him up as a formidable foe. Easily one of Final Fantasy VII's best characters, he's routinely shown to vastly outclass the combat abilities of the player, making him an imposing presence whenever he takes the field.
Final Fantasy VII features a number of clever scenes that make it clear just how dominant of a force he is. In a scripted flashback battle, for example, Cloud struggles to even scratch an imposing dragon, but when Sephiroth's turn comes around he swats it aside without a second thought. During the party's pursuit of Sephiroth, which takes up a good chunk of the game, he's consistently one step ahead of the player, leaving terrifying destruction in his wake. One such example is the impaled corpse of Midgar Zolom -- a serpent that the player had no choice but to flee from, but that Sephiroth dispatched with grim efficiency.
Kefka (Final Fantasy VI)
There are few Final Fantasy antagonists that are as purely malevolent as Final Fantasy VI's Kefka. While many of his villainous counterparts throughout the rest of the series have complex motivations and twisted ambitions for the world's future, Kefka is just a raving murderous lunatic with way too much power. He's introduced to the player as a simple attendant to who the audience assumes is the main antagonist, but as the game goes on the player begins to learn that he has a penchant for senseless violence that outstrips even that of his imperialist allies. Kefka's transition from court jester to mass murderer to vengeful mad god is one of the most unsettling and compelling character arcs any Final Fantasy villain undertakes.
One of the scariest things about him is that while many other Final Fantasy villains pledge to annihilate the world and remake it in their own image, Kefka actually manages to pull it off (albeit not completely). Around midway through the game, the party is powerless to stop the mad clown as he channels ancient magics to ascend to godhood and usher in a wold-rending calamity. That Kefka is able to successfully bring about an event of such apocalyptic magnitude sets him apart as among the most formidable antagonists in the franchise, and that he does it for no reason other than to satisfy his own maniacal bloodlust makes him all the more terrifying.
