VILLIANS: HOW DO YOU MAKE THEM UNIQUE?

Villains should believe what they are doing is right. Most people don't identify their actions as evil even if they are. And if you can convince the player that in some way the villain is right or has a point then you have created a dynamic villain, one we can relate with. (Look at someone like Magneto from X-Men. He is in part right, but often does the wrong thing to achieve his agenda.)

Arguing with Magneto is tricky. He's a versatile character and changed a lot. The truth is that he is complicated and often he can't be called a villain at all. But he really doesn't justify his manners, not always. Sometimes he just wants to kill X-men or destroy something (Uncanny X-Men).
Also he again works as a mirror to x-men. He's a mutant too and just got another approach which can turn out to be the right one in the end.
So, you're basically right and i wanted to jump in to say that I like X-men. But same as Joker, Magneto is a character with history and we sometimes give them more credit for that than individual story arcs.

author=Sooz
*My favorite part is the SPINE CHILLING LAUGH that I kept hearing about. Even in context, it's super clear that this is only scary to children, in the same way that this terrified some kids, but is unlikely to affect any normal adult.

That logo is so nostalgic of my childhood, I can't see why anyone thought it was scary.

author=suzy_cheesedreams
I personally think there are far better FF villains... Kuja...

This. If Kefka had some sort of purpose outside of just being a wily jackass, he'd be Kuja. Kuja was everything that Kefka was supposed to be, all the way down to someone truly inhuman, but he also had genuine feelings about his own well-being and that's what made him stand out. When he was hurt, he laughed it off because "how could I be hurt? surely this is some cruel prank", but then he really looks at his own blood and realizes "holy shit, I'm mortal; I'm weak" and you can feel him shaking in fear.

Bahamut scorching him in the end of disc 2 is what caused him to develop into what he would truly become throughout the rest of the game. He actually grew as a character as the world around him and his perception of it changed, which is something Kefka never did. Kefka was the same guy from page 1 up to God Mode, so if you didn't like the initial package, there was literally no way to redeem him.

The only thing Kuja lacked was a moment where he curled up into a ball in his palace and cried, but I'm sure that wasn't what Square at the time wanted to do with a scary BBEG. He makes up for it, however, during his final talk with Zidane in the Iifa Tree.

I think Benny is a decoy antagonist, even though he's the instigator of the plot's beginning. He can come to, in a narrative sense, a fairly anti-climactic end.

I did enjoy smacking Mr. House with a golf club, though.