The Super Nintendo Entertainment System is home to over 1,750 games, and a few dozen of them are considered true Role-Playing Games. The SNES era contains many of the best top-down pixel RPGs on the market. The writing and detail in each game is a major improvement over what was seen on previous consoles.
This list aims to celebrate the best villains that originated from the classic SNES era. Villains from NES or other older console game that got ported to SNES will not count for this list.
Beware! This list contains some spoilers for various series!
10/10 Porky Minch AKA Pokey (Mother 2 / Earthbound)
Pokey is a reoccurring villain in the Mother/Earthbound series. His most well-known appearance is in the second entry. Initially, he seems like just a neighborhood prankster, but as the story progresses, it is revealed he is helping Giygas try to take over the world.
Although he only appears a few times in the story, Minch’s personality and deranged acts make him hard to forget. Most notably, he tried to sacrifice Paula to a terrorist cult. Still, he does play a smaller role in his game’s overall story compared to most other villains on this list.
9/10 Exdeath (Final Fantasy 5)
Inside an ancient tree, many evil spirits combined to create Exdeath. The world of Final Fantasy 5 was split into two long ago. Exdeath seeks to unite his world and the world of the protagonist together, so he can gain access to a supreme power called the Void.
Exdeath is a great indicator of the progression RPGs made at writing villain backstories. While his motivation is still a little basic, the lore behind his creation and goal are a large step up from many villains that came before him.
8/10 Lunarian Zemus (Final Fantasy 4)
Zemus is an alien from Earth’s second moon who believes Lunarians are superior to Earthlings. Most Lunarians are peaceful and want to sleep until the day humankind evolves to their own level, that way both races can live as equals in harmony.
Zemus, however, plans to wake them up and use his mind-control powers to have them eradicate humankind. He has shown the genre’s ability to write better narratives than what was seen on older consoles, even before Exdeath was created.
7/10 Kain Highwind (Final Fantasy 4)
Early on Kain is the main rival of the protagonist Cecil. They share a similar profession and love interest. While Cecil tries to redeem himself for the crimes the Dragoons have committed at the start of the game, Kain gets roped deeper into the side of evil by Golbez.
He actively helps lead humanity closer to its destruction, even going as far as to use his own love interest as a hostage. His motivation to overcome his rival is more interesting than Zemus and most older villains from the Final Fantasy series.
6/10 Magus (Chrono Trigger)
Magus was once a citizen named Zanus in a highly advanced kingdom in the past. He was sent through a time wormhole to the Middle Ages. There he cursed a knight into becoming a frog and fights Chrono’s party. Depending on the player’s choices, Magus could be seen as either a true villain or an anti-hero.
It is possible to either kill him or recruit him into the party in the later half of Chrono Trigger. He’ll reveal that his true motivation is simply to defeat Lavos, the game’s final boss. Since he’s more neutrally aligned, it’s unfitting to rank him very high. Details in his storyline are, however, more interesting than Kain and many other villains from this era.
5/10 Earth Dragon Loptous (Fire Emblem Genealogy Of The Holy War)
Loptous is an ancient dragon who was sealed inside a tome long ago. After taking control of a human named Gair, he created a religion that worships himself. He ruled over an entire continent for many generations, and during that time asked for uncountable blood sacrifices.
His crimes are much more maniacal than the previous villains on this list. During the era that the main storyline takes place, he possesses Julius, the step-brother of the game’s second protagonist. This makes fighting him feel very personal.
4/10 Bishop Ladja (Dragon Quest 5)
This dark wizard may not be the main mastermind villain in Dragon Quest 5, but he is the most prominent villain seen throughout the story. He kills the protagonist’s father right in front of his eyes, makes the very young hero into a slave for nearly a decade, and turns both him and his wife into stone statues for many more years, resulting in them not being able to raise their own children.
Fighting Ladja feels like you’re fighting someone who ruined the protagonist’s entire life. Defeating him feels like an even bigger personal victory for the protagonist than it does defeating Loptous/Julius.
3/10 Emperor Arves (Fire Emblem Genealogy Of The Holy War)
Arves is the leader of one of Jugral’s many countries. He creates an elaborate plan to take over the entire continent, and unlike many villains, actually completely succeeds at his goal. By the end of the first half of the game; Arves is the leader of the entire continent, killed off a majority of the game’s playable characters, and has almost nothing standing in his way.
He is one of the most effective villains from the SNES era. If it wasn’t for his son Julius leading the country so poorly, the nation likely would’ve been a world superpower for a very long time to come.
2/10 Kefka Palazzo (Final Fantasy 6)
Another extremely effective villain is the mad jester Kefka. By the end of Final Fantasy 6, he manages to destroy a large portion of humankind. If not for the party during the final battle, Kefka surely would have succeeded in finishing off what little remained.
He doesn’t have redeemable qualities similar to Kain and Magus, yet doesn’t feel basic like many just being evil for the sake of it villains are. His personality and maniacal laugh make him very memorable, even more so than others like Pokey. The way Kefka represents insanity and nihilism is executed extremely well.
1/10 Oersted AKA Odio (Live A Live)
Oersted is the protagonist of the game’s secret medieval era chapter. He tries saving his kingdom from a dark wizard but is deceived by his best friend into killing their own beloved king. By the end of the chapter, he falls into despair and seeks to destroy the entire time-space continuum. It is then revealed that every previous chapter’s final boss is an incarnation of him. This includes a prehistoric T-Rex, an Edo Japan samurai, a building-sized cult status, a rogue futuristic supercomputer, and many more.
The final chapter has two variations. Although the good ending sees every other protagonist in the game overcome his schemes, the bad ending where you play as all the main bosses throughout the game has Oersted destroy everything you previously fought so hard to protect. He encompasses everything that is interesting in a villain; a tragic backstory, massive relevance to every plotline, deep symbolism, and destructive displays of power.
