Okay where do I start on this psychopathic, clown-faced villain. I will say that while a few bad-guys have cause for their ways, Kefka came off as being sadistic and genuinely evil. I takes a lot to get me to really hate a character and Square succeeded in this with Kefka.

The Story of Kefka Palazzo
During a Magitek experiment, Emperor Gestahl’s court Mage Kefka was given the ability to wield powerful magic – at the price of his sanity. Forcing a “Slave Crown” on the head of Terra, he forces her to attack and unleash hell on the city of Narshe in order to gain the frozen esper Shiva.  With motivations of his own, Kefka poisons allies, corrupts innocents and forces nations to war each other in order to accumulate the power of the Espers. Once accomplished, he uses the powers to raise a floating continent in which to summon the “warring triad”, a set of statues that can grant him the power of a god.

Once given god status, Kefka creates a tall tower out of debris and settles in at the top, striking down anyone who refused to worship him. The weapon he uses to do this is called “The Light of Judgement” and  the world falls to ruins under his iron fist. When Terra (with whom he had once enslaved) escaped from his clutches, she formed an alliance with a thief named Locke and assembled a motley crew bent on taking down the corrupt Kefka. Entering the world of chaos, the brave Terra ascends Kefka’s tower and battles him, forcing him to reveal his true form. In the confrontation, Kefka reveals his true intent at destroying life itself and Terra brings the wrath of the espers on him to snuff out the Light of Judgement.

Kefka as a Video Game Boss
Annoying, difficult and memorable – while many tout Sephiroth to be their favorite Final Fantasy bad guy, purists like myself will always bring up the K man – hell I beat Sephiroth in literally 2 minutes. Kefka is really the original of the legendary Final Fantasy form changing, mega bosses and defeating him actually brings about a sense of accomplishment and hope for Terra’s world.

How Evil is Kefka
Kefka defines evil, he has absolutely no good feelings, his cruel and extremely annoying laugh sends chills down your spine and he has no qualms with poisoning his own people. Kefka also holds the ultimate evil intent which is to destroy the world itself, while other badguys may want to do this due to their belief that the world has no hope, or maybe a tragedy from the past, Kefka wishes it just because. His insanity knows no limit and even though he is decked out as a grinning clown, Kefka is absolutely scary. It saddens me that due to Final Fantasy 6 being made for an older game system and being followed by an extremely good game in Final Fantasy 7, the memories of this cruel boss will only fade in lieu of the “cool” bad guy in Sephiroth. Still with the host of baddies that Final Fantasy has created, to be one of the memorable ones is truly a feat, and Kefka is a name that will be around for a bit – at least to me.