That makes even less sense.

It's a great insult if you think really long about it though.

If he was the puppet master he'd be able to control Sephiroth and make decisions for him.  But Sephiroth was an experiment that went out of his hands.  He's just an onlooker past being the catalyst.  Do you know what a puppet master even is?

"Let's not forget he was felled by Soldier washout.....a lowly Shinra guard." Irrelevant, and narrow minded when it comes to testing whether or not a villain is truly impactful.  It's not what you do (or don't do) , it's how it happens and how it all impacts and flows through a story. 

It's nice to have a check list of things that a villain has done or feats they have accomplished, and Sephiroth has a lot of those; but that pales in comparison to any unique qualities a villain can bring, or qualities that impact a story as a continous stream of events that not only build as time goes on, but grows.  I'm not referring to "big events" or "important characters being offed" .  I'm referring to how the story progresses in relation to a character as well as how involved said character is, how relevant, how much detail even depending on the nature of the story and if more detail works for it.  In FF7's case it does as it is a more cerebral story than other FF games.  

Sephiroth was a very effective villain off and on screen.  When he's talked about, it's in fear or reverence in the game and we are gradually introduced to him and see his work at hand but never quite meeting him.  He's one of the few FF villain to this day that has a presence off screen and the only one that has such a nature of fear impacting a FF game's story off screen.  Sin didn't even put that much malice into FFX's story.  Why?  That just wasn't how the story was presented.  Sin was personal for one character, but served more as a vessel of destruction..  Manipulation is  another thing.  One of the many effective qualites  Sephiroth had going for him throughout the game.  Complete manipulation, over Jenova, over Cloud and just a presence of fear for anyone trying to get in his way that remained omnipresent as the story went on.    

It's very contrived, just like the oedipus complex insult.

Yeah, but the greatest insult to a heterosexual man is to question his gender/sexuality.

For the record, I haven't played FF VII, I was just commenting on your post about how he killed his mother.

Hojo is the most influentual character in FFVII. Sephiroth isn't even present most of the game. Hell even Cloud's theft of Zack's identity is the result of Hojo. You take Hojo out of FFVII and there is no FFVII. Sephiroth is the flash. Hojo is the substance. 

lol Please.

Kefka was a maniacal clown with magic powers who literally just wanted to see the world burn.

Sephiroth was an overrated pansy with severe mommy issues....who just wanted to see the world burn?

This new guy............*shrug*



FFIX was a solid game, but in all honesty, I personally lost interest in the FF series outside of Tactics when they got to VII and went the futuristic anime type route. I just really loved the SNES/Genesis era of rpgs. Not just FF, but Chrono Trigger, Phantasy Star, Shining Force, Breath of Fire, Illusion of Gaia, Mario RPG, etc. etc. To me, there's just no topping that gen for high quality rpgs.

Kefka, very hard to top.

Yep, but we can't compare Final Fantasy to Xenogears in the areas of character development and story. :P Krelian was a great villain though, because he wasn't entirely bad, and his goals were very human in the same way people do bad things in the real-world. He even felt regret at the end, but knew there was no way to go but forward for him after all that he had done to get there. What made Xenogears so great though, was that the events of the game were because of the actions of multiple persons who aligned together very loosely, and all had their own - ever-chaning or static - goals: Emperor Cain, Gazel Ministry, Krelian, Miang, Ramsus, Elementals, etc, etc.

I honestly doubt anyone could top them.