Are <5.0 main villain> fanboys also supportive of <6.1-6.5 main villain>? *SPOILERS*

[Absimiliard]

(Also, his story even now is better than IV Golbez's, which is a game with far less excuses.)

Have you played the DS port of FFIV or any variation of The After Years, out of curiosity? The former makes apparent several key aspects of Golbez's story that, while supposedly intended, were conspicuously absent from the original and all of its non-DS ports. The latter fills in even more blanks while also addressing the matter of seeing the rest of his redemption arc through.

I'm not going to say XIV's Golbez isn't more fleshed out by the time they're done with him, but I do think people are selling the original quite a bit short.

[Cleretic]

I shouldn't need to play another game to state an opinion regarding a game I'm currently playing.

I mean if you're saying 'they butchered Golbez', that's a claim you can only make with authority if you've actually played the game Golbez is from.

I have played it, and I can tell you there's not much to butcher; Golbez is probably the worst FF villain among the ones with actual... y'know, characters. XIV's Golbez has actual agency and XIV Zeromus is more than a last-minute 'Space Flea From Nowhere' final boss, that puts them both above the originals.

Have you played the DS port of FFIV or any variation of The After Years, out of curiosity? The former makes apparent several key aspects of Golbez's story that, while supposedly intended, were conspicuously absent from the original and all of its non-DS ports. The latter fills in even more blanks while also addressing the matter of seeing the rest of his redemption arc through.

I'm not going to say XIV's Golbez isn't more fleshed out by the time they're done with him, but I do think people are selling the original quite a bit short.

Specifically, I played a few versions of FFIV in part, the one I actually completed was the pixel remaster last year. IV was never exactly a game that grabbed me. That's nice that Golbez gets more non-brainwashed scenes, but it doesn't really factor in for me; scenes added that long after the original don't really feel like they should be used to excuse it. Also, doesn't really solve the problem that he spends most of the game mind-controlled by a secret villain with even less characterization; technically speaking, the problem with FFIV's villains might not be that Golbez is underbaked, it's that Zemus is, since he's essentially the one we're fighting against the whole time.

I know the story of The After Years from reading a Let's Play of it at some point, but I don't count The After Years because it's bad and FFIV doesn't deserve being shackled with that.