The Reason Zenos.

[AnimaAnimus]

I personally cannot stand Zenos in any game, but I can see why SE uses him, he is one of their cookie-cutter "neckbeard with a big sword" villains. I could totally picture him in the real world hacking at melons in his front lawn cause "katana is best sword and no one messes with me or my big katana cause I will cut you down to defend my waifu" ...you know the type. Sephirot is their biggest example of this archetype. And you can make as many arguments as you want about his motivations, but when it comes down to it, he is nothing but an incel with a big sword and mommy issues, it people eat it up for some reason.

But SE loves their cringy villains (and heroes), because they appeal to a small but very very loud and vocal group. I had hopes with Iceheart, and again with Yutsu, and then again with Emet, but nope, they are all killed off the moment their stories got really good only to be replaced with the weird Naruto kid in math class and I become the Witcher meme of "/sigh ...f---" It's like SE is scared of having a really well developed villain that had motivations beyond "look at my big sword! come at me bro! cackles in bad anime villain tropes" which is sad.

The story always gets super good, then we revert back to something like Zenos.

[Berteaux_Braumegain]

I personally cannot stand Zenos in any game, but I can see why SE uses him, he is one of their cookie-cutter "neckbeard with a big sword" villains. I could totally picture him in the real world hacking at melons in his front lawn cause "katana is best sword and no one messes with me or my big katana cause I will cut you down to defend my waifu" ...you know the type. Sephirot is their biggest example of this archetype. And you can make as many arguments as you want about his motivations, but when it comes down to it, he is nothing but an incel with a big sword and mommy issues, it people eat it up for some reason.

I'll play devil's advocate for Sephiroth, even though I don't really like the villain. Spoilers for VII in the tags.

He's a purposeful parallel to Cloud. Cloud wants to be a Soldier First Class so he can keep his promise to Tifa. He fails. He then hides his face when he goes back home because he's too embarrassed, but he still moves on with his life despite failing to be who he wanted to be. After he gets caught by Hojo, he gets made to believe he was a Soldier due to his messed up memories, and his big moment of growth is addressing that he never was a Soldier and moving on past that.

Sephiroth, meanwhile, finds out the circumstances of his birth aren't what he thought and just deludes himself more and more. He points out the Makonids are just monsters, but then has nothing to say when Zack points out he's similar. So instead of addressing that fact, he tricks himself into believing he's a Cetra. That proves untrue, so now he tries to shape himself into a god because he's bigger and better than all of these "lowly humans". And then he gets killed by Cloud and Co.

The main problem with Sephiroth is that the compilation (and other guest appearances he has in games like Kingdom Hearts or Dissidia) just uses him as the "omg, he's so cool and epic" character without any of the nuance.

[Lersayil]

I'll play devil's advocate for Sephiroth, even though I don't really like the villain. Spoilers for VII in the tags.

He's a purposeful parallel to Cloud. Cloud wants to be a Soldier First Class so he can keep his promise to Tifa. He fails. He then hides his face when he goes back home because he's too embarrassed, but he still moves on with his life despite failing to be who he wanted to be. After he gets caught by Hojo, he gets made to believe he was a Soldier due to his messed up memories, and his big moment of growth is addressing that he never was a Soldier and moving on past that.

Sephiroth, meanwhile, finds out the circumstances of his birth aren't what he thought and just deludes himself more and more. He points out the Makonids are just monsters, but then has nothing to say when Zack points out he's similar. So instead of addressing that fact, he tricks himself into believing he's a Cetra. That proves untrue, so now he tries to shape himself into a god because he's bigger and better than all of these "lowly humans". And then he gets killed by Cloud and Co.

The main problem with Sephiroth is that the compilation (and other guest appearances he has in games like Kingdom Hearts or Dissidia) just uses him as the "omg, he's so cool and epic" character without any of the nuance.

Weren't those plot bits brought in later, in Crisis Core though? I still prefer him over Zenos, since he at least had goals and plans other than self-entertainment, but I do agree with the guy above... he was kinda flat (akin to Zenos) in the OG game.

[Berteaux_Braumegain]

Weren't those plot bits brought in later, in Crisis Core though? I still prefer him over Zenos, since he at least had goals and plans other than self-entertainment, but I do agree with the guy above... he was kinda flat (akin to Zenos) in the OG game.

No, everything I mentioned was from the original VII.

The part with Zack is sorta Crisis Core-y, I suppose, but even in the original that dialogue happened. It's just that Cloud superimposed himself over Zack in the flashback.