Is it weird that I like Zenos as a villain?

[SugarPuff]

I was on the fence at first but ended up liking him, overall. It was interesting to have a villain not primarily motivated the usual revenge, greed, fear, hatred, or some intermingling of the three. Ironically, that's what made a little ambivalent in the beginning but when it was all said and done I thought, yeah, despite his insanity I do kind of get what drove that guy after all. I enjoy...not plot twists necessarily but things that make me go back and think about what's happened from a different perspective.

[Soge01]

Wish they would add Garleans as a playable race.....problem is Garleans can't use magic normally

Yeah, unless this were another RPG game that limited specific job classes to a particular race I could easily see Garlean fitting in as another race or even another clan. But you never know, something could happen in the future of this game that allows us to play as then. I mean, they can already produce magic in a way via their magitek machinations and their magitek armor already puts them at a far superior level in terms of combat capability in comparison to even the Warrior of Light.

I want all of the named Garleans to have their armor available as gearsets.

I totally agree with you 100%; I've personally been craving Nero, Zenos and Livia's gear for so long!

[Gun-Cat]

He is the worst villain we had in XIV so far and SE would be hard pressed to make one worse than him in the future. The is very much a personal taste, but I can't bring myself to enjoy the kind of anime villain that he is. I could understand both Gaius and Thordan's motives for why they do what they do but Zenos just seems like every saturday morning anime villain rolled into one, just to be killed like a b*tch in a regular dungeon. I know a lot of his fans enjoy his "He is just like us and wants to fight!!!!" aspect, but this doesn't work for me. Just because my character gets roped into this and is portrayed more like a force of nature than anything else in the story doesn't mean I see it like that.

Hopefully 5.0 will do a lot better on the villain front.

[Berteaux_Braumegain]

I thought he was boring as a villain. Just another spoiled prince, bored with life, yada yada. I would much rather have had Yotsuyu as the main antagonist this expac. She was complex, had an elaborate and interesting backstory, was crazy and hell and just plain evil, yet you sympathized with her due to the cruelty she had to endure and you could understand what drove her to hate everyone around her so much. They could have done so much more with her storyline and character with the complexity they had already given her. The focus on Yotsuyu is what made 4.3 one of the best story patches to date in this game.

There is nothing to sympathize with or special about Zenos and his character is very one dimensional. He is just another yawn-worthy, emo villain with a big sword which is a all too common and much overused character type in the FF series already.

Personally, while I agree the Tsukuyomi scenario was great and that Zenos is kind of whatever in motivation, the thing that won Zenos out for me was that he was at least unapologetically evil.

Yotsuyu spends the whole game killing Domans and then the story tries to play the sympathy card by giving her a family so unsubtly evil that

they had her brother kicked her dying body after shooting her repeatedly while calling her a whore. And this is AFTER he triggered her sex slavery PTSD with her similarly evil parents who immediately scream at her that she's worthless and want to sell her back into sexual slavery as soon as they get a moment alone.

It felt a bit hamfisted, especially compared to Fordola's similar background of being isolated and mistreated by her country men.

Zenos is just "I have eye powers. Guess I'll become a dragon." Sure, it's not deep or emotional, but it feels less jarring than a woman who tried to make a son kill his parents for laughs suddenly getting a tragic story.

[Vahlnir]

I think it was fine for his age since he seemed late 20s to mid 30s from my perspective.

I haven't heard how his voiced fared in Japanese and other languages(assuming there are more than English and Japanese dubs)

His JP voice is only slightly deeper but definitely similar. Admittedly, I like the JP voice more because he doesn't sound like a sniveling imperial brat.

[Ramesses]

When I mentioned him being my second favorite villain in XIV right behind Gaius(Both really are some of my favorite villains in the FF series),people seemed to raise an eyebrow and wonder why.

I mean it's ok if you don't like the character,I just didn't know it's an oddity to like him tho.

It's just me tho but personally I love the build up to his encounter,how he immediately establishes his presence and might the moment you encounter him for the first time in Rhalgar's Reach.And while sure Square could've composed a different theme,I love how they used the White Raven's(Nael Van Darnus) theme for him personally.

And my god his voice actor did such an amazing job with how much HAM he puts into the voice especially in the scene before the battle with Shinryu

Again that's just me and my weird taste and people probably have justifiable reasons not to like the character,I just felt like I was one of the very few minority who did when I first mentioned him

You're correct, Zenos is a very well written "villain"... so was Nael. I like both.

And yes, the voice acting was absolutely superb and fitting... a little over done in a couple of his scenes but brilliantly executed overall.

[Edax]

I liked him! I was dig characters like him who just trounce the main protagonist and co and puts them in their place. I actually wish to know more about Zenos and if a gunblader job class were ever established in FFXIV, I'd hope to his gear will be added to the game as glamour so I could dress up like him. Heck, I'd go so far as to make a character as close as I can get to his appearance if all that happened.

I thought that was dumb. Even Captain Madison from Sastasha can trounce the player if they fought him mono e mono. The game from the very start has conditioned us to fight bosses with a party, so having to fight a tough boss one on one establishes nothing.


And it's a stereotypical anime villain setup. "I'm so powerful, I don't have to care." Or "Your 1000 years too early to face me!" No reason for why he's powerful, no backstory for why he's so sadistic, no reason why he's got the loyalty of so many disloyal ashats. I can't even say he's two dimensional. Just another insane person that's been given power in the world because we needed a bad guy to do bad things.
"He's the most diplomatic man I've ever met! Promote him to Ambassador at once!" - Probably Zenos


Lady Iceheart made a better villain because she was three dimensional. She had motivations, beliefs and could be reasoned with. She wasn't all about power or destroying the world. Some may even debate if she was a villain. That's the mark of better writing.

[JackHatchet]

I liked Zenos, but he seemed like an idiot.

He claimed that all he wanted was a good fight, but then somehow completely ignored all the warrior tribes of dragon people north of Doma. It just seemed stupid that 'the guy who likes to fight' turned a blind eye to the zone full of other guys who like to fight. I never understood it.

[NessaWyvern]

Something to be said about Zenos, after he got those eyes, he technically had the echo that would have been stronger than Fordola's, which makes you wonder if he saw your characters entire past, and that his statements about your character might not be false. I mean, we do play the game to challenge ourselves and find stronger foes to beat, and Zenos does mention something along those lines about our character.

[Berteaux_Braumegain]

I thought that was dumb. Even Captain Madison from Sastasha can trounce the player if they fought him mono e mono. The game from the very start has conditioned us to fight bosses with a party, so having to fight a tough boss one on one establishes nothing.


And it's a stereotypical anime villain setup. "I'm so powerful, I don't have to care." Or "Your 1000 years too early to face me!" No reason for why he's powerful, no backstory for why he's so sadistic, no reason why he's got the loyalty of so many disloyal ashats. I can't even say he's two dimensional. Just another insane person that's been given power in the world because we needed a bad guy to do bad things.
"He's the most diplomatic man I've ever met! Promote him to Ambassador at once!" - Probably Zenos


Lady Iceheart made a better villain because she was three dimensional. She had motivations, beliefs and could be reasoned with. She wasn't all about power or destroying the world. Some may even debate if she was a villain. That's the mark of better writing.

We're given a reason why he's powerful, though. It's the Resonant. Remember how Fordola could auto-predict attacks coming her way by virtue of her magic eye? Same reason Zenos is basically untouchable until the level gap closes. That's why Yugiri trying to assassinate him failed.

It's not really ever said one way or another, but I'd be inclined to believe that Zenos has the Resonant active 100% of the time whenever he's out and about with his helmet on.