Ranking Final Fantasy Main Characters (MMOs and Tactics Included)
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- Опубликовано: 14 июл 2024
- #FinalFantasy #StarOcean #jrpg
To celebrate the release of Final Fantasy XVI, I decided to release 16 videos ranking different aspects of the Final Fantasy series. In this video, we're going to rank the main characters of the main series games, plus Tactics.
Final Fantasy Ranking Playlist: • Final Fantasy Ranking ...
Timecodes:
0:00 - Intro
0:55 - 16. Final Fantasy I
1:44 - 15. Final Fantasy XI
3:39 - 14. Final Fantasy XIV
5:41 - 13. Final Fantasy III
6:45 - 12. Final Fantasy V
7:18 - 11. Final Fantasy II
8:26 - 10. Final Fantasy VI
11:43 - 9. Final Fantasy XII
13:22 - 8. Final Fantasy VIII
17:24 - 7. Final Fantasy XIII
20:09 - 6. Final Fantasy XV
22:54 - 5. Final Fantasy Tactics
24:33 - 4. Final Fantasy X
28:50 - 3. Final Fantasy IX
31:04 - 2. Final Fantasy IV
34:46 - 1. Final Fantasy VII
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Игры
Thank you for highlighting the similarity between Squall and Lightning. I never understood why people compare her to Cloud
I think there's an intentional naming convention with several FF characters. Cloud, Squall, Lightning, and Rain all have the aerial weather theme going on in their names. All 4 of them are extremely competent soldiers and are considered to be the "ace" by their respective parties. Lightning does have some Advent Children-esqe movements, which offers more similarity to Cloud than Squall in terms of visual presentation. And I do think the beginning of XIII is an intentional callback to VII, so I do think there are some more surface level similarities to Cloud that were done intentionally, but in terms of her characterization and personality, she is much closer to Squall. I think most video games aren't that good at media analysis, and thus they're only able to recognize the surface level visual stuff, which leads to the Cloud comparisons. They also might not know what a squall even is and not recognize the weather theme.
TL;DR I can understand the comparisons to Cloud, and some of them are valid, but I think the better character comparison is Squall.
Great videos! I’m watching them all
Thank you! I hope you enjoy them! : )
I might be biased, since FFXV was my introduction to the series, but Noctis is just my favorite, and I'm glad that I'm not the only one who thinks he's underrated.
Noctis is a great character! If you watch me video on "The Order I Beat Them" you'll see that XV was not my first Final Fantasy, but I think it's great.
Where would Clive fit into this ranking now?
Gut reaction is #3, just below Cecil.
Clive for sure got my #1 spot
Giving Squall his due. I love it.
He's great.
FF6 - Celes
FF13-2 - Noel
FFX - Tidus
FF8 - Squall
FF7 - Cloud
Interesting. I consider Terra to be the main of FF6 and Serah to be the main of 13-2.
If you enjoyed this video, be sure to check out the other rankings in the series: ruclips.net/p/PLXjn34wFCMP-6Kl56Fn2Ig3msOHqZAVhv
Love your list.
Thanks Gohan!
Bro, ur break downs of the Ff series is incredibly good. I’d love to hear your thoughts on Chrono trigger or other square soft era jrpgs.
Thanks bud! I do mention a few other Square rpgs in passing in these videos. I'm a big Chrono Trigger, and if it was a Final Fantasy, it would be my 2nd place favorite. I think very highly of it and have beaten every game in the franchise (Trigger, Radical Dreamers, Chrono Cross and Complex Dream) as well as fan games (Chrono Alter, Prophet's Guile and Chained Echoes). Outside of Final Fantasy, the Chrono franchise is my favorite Square series, but I also put Xenogears on basically the same pedestal. My two favorite non FF RPGs are easily Chrono Trigger and Xenogears by a pretty significant margin, but I also really like Brave Fencer Musashi and thought that game had a lot of charm.
We should do a collab video sometime where we just chat about whatever comes to mind, be it FF or music. Maybe a livestream or something for your channel.
The My Chemical Romance music for Squall's segment cracked me up
THANK YOU! I thought it was hilarious but nobody else commented on it. Truly you have refined taste.
@@gregtroyan when will you be adding 16? Clive is probably one of my favs now. They have really made a good job with him
@@henrymontes3626 There's no plans for adding XVI to these lists anytime soon. The videos took about 6 months to make, so redoing them to add XVI would be a pretty big undertaking. I also don't own a PS5 and am strapped for cash atm due to household medical expenses, so really my only hope in playing the game is hoping for a PC port that allows you to lower the specs so it can run on my PC that can run XV on low settings, but I'm not optimistic in that regard. I'm considering doing a reaction to the cutscenes and then maybe doing a followup video of where the game would rank in narrative categories (Story, Opening, Ending, Villain, Main Character). But as far as playing XVI, it's probably a few years away for me.
Great video. Looking forward to the stuff you have coming up, but I'm surprised you didn't do "ranking every Final Fantasy by Cids". Sure, FF1 would get the default last place, even with a retconned Cid, but the rest would be a fun bunch to rank.
Honestly, just didn't think of it, hahaha. That's a really good idea!
Also, I apologize in advance in regards to where ARR ended up in my overall ranking.
A chocobo and moogles ranking list would be cool too
@@cerealguy9979 I did consider that one but didn't think I would have enough to say in that regard. But now that I'm thinking of it, I do see possibilities.
Really liked the list! And i enjoyed your break down of a lot of the characters strengths and weaknesses. I agree that Terra is the protagonists of 6 being the first olayable characters, in the logo and central to the act one plot. That being said she spends about 8% of my total play time in my party lol i have never heard anyone say lightning isn't the main character for ff13 other than when i was joking with a friend of mine because is spent so long grinding post game with fang, snow and vanille that i was like "lightning hasn't been relevant for the last fifty hours lol" absolutely great character though and by the end of lightning returns she is probably top five for me
I still need to finish Lightning Returns but the little bit of it I played I really enjoyed. My wife fell off playing the game and I've got a pretty big backlog ahead of Lightning Returns, but I really wanna finish it.
Cecil is absolutely the most charismatic main character of any Final Fantasy game, on top of that he's the only true leader of these parties in these games, nobody else has more leader traits than Cecil does which is why I love the guy, FFIV in general though is still one of the best Final Fantasy games and I know people are expecting an FFIX remake but to be honest an FFIV remake would make more sense, so long as it doesn't have the story problems that FFVIIR does because while I love the game the FFVIIR story is just a mess and I always shut my brain off whenever nonsense happens, to me it's an ultimate fanservice game which isn't a bad thing, I just think the story unfortunately gets sacrificed to please fans.
I like the 3D remake of IV, personally. I'm not sure if I need another one anytime soon. I think the VII Remake project does a great job with character and themes, though I've only watched some cutscenes here and there, including the controversial ones. I was pretty skeptical overall but after Rebirth I'm pretty favorable towards that project and what they are doing, which is taking the same themes of the original but moving around lore to re-examine the themes. I'm fine with that as long as the characters remain true, since the original game is still easy enough to play. It's like how Batman gets re-done a million times. I'm fine with a new twist every now and then.
If they remake ff8 I would love to see squall voiced by Zach Aguilar
Top 3 should be Cecil, Terra and Cloud in that order
Well, we have two of the same top 3.
Yuna>>>
YES DAMMIT YUNA I SAID IT! (Although i do love Cecil Noct and Clive)
but great list now that i finally finished XVI im gonna check out the rest of your videos
Nice! Looking forward to reading your comments!
And I do think Yuna is great.
@@gregtroyan going through them right now but also playing so not typing as much
I think Squall is the most misunderstood MC in FF. His personality was very realistic for a child with such intelligence and talent who grew up in isolation. It made him an introvert with a superiority complex. Basically, he's Matt Damon from Good Will Hunting (1997)- he knows he smarter than everyone else and that naturally leads him to anti-social behavior. Though, Squall has a far better development arc, I think Snape works pretty well as a comparison. From curmudgeon to hero.
I think these features were spotlighted further by a supporting cast full of idiots, and a mostly nonsensical story that too often forced Squall to be the "straight man" to keep things from going off the rails. Everyone trying to anoint him the leader early in the game was really more of a reaction to how unqualified most of the rest of the cast would be in a leadership role.
Over the course of the game, Squall is socialized and actually develops into a real leader. He also improves the people around him and by the end, the characters that seemed like airheads and idiots are far more competent. Also, I know he dresses like a guy in an emo band, but I didn't really view him as being emo, just a guy that had some legit issues to work out.
Other main characters go through journeys of character growth (Cloud, Cecil), but neither of them felt as grounded and believable as Squall. I could also never hate him because I agreed with every thought he had, even if they weren't the nicest thoughts. Squall would probably never be someone elected president. But him being the leader of a fighting force, by the end of that game, it made sense. I think he's a great character.
Squall is the best protagonist in FF8, he's a total bad ass. He starts off flawed but ends up growing up. I'd say Cloud is the second best. I don't really feel there are bad FF characters, but FF13 and FF12 are terrible games. Lightning was the only reason I finished the game. 12 was bad enough I didn't even care to finish it.
I don't think any of the games are terrible, including XIII and XII. I like them all for different reasons. XII can be a bit difficult to finish though, especially the PS2 version.
@@gregtroyan
I meant to write Squall is the best FF character in the FF series. I hope they remake it and if they do I hope they and more to being a SEED mercenary and really flush out the whole garden rivalry thing. Yeah I don't know FF13s soundtrack is pretty good but the story was below average and there was nothing epic about the game, lightning was cool but the game itself was bad. 12 was just worse in every way. Having played 6, 7, 8 and 10 before these ones, set a really high bar that those two entries fall super short of, I will say 15 was started off great but failed the landing and I hated how the dlc wasn't included in the game for a more smooth experience, also paying extra for them was horrible, plus they cut a lot of content from 15. 15 could've been a top 3 FF game in the series. I haven't played 16 since I'm a PC gamer now but I can't wait to try it, the protagonist looks like a bad ass that I can get behind and the story seems interesting too.
#1 Cloud- Skilled, Competent, Badass, Stoic. He's the Ace. He's a guy that commands the attention on screen despite having an all-time great cast around him. He's the closest thing FF has to an MC like Solid Snake.
#2 Zidane- an improved version of Locke from FFVI, who should have been the real MC of that game. Zidane always picks everyone up around him even while secretly dealing with his own issues.
#3 Cecil- Cecil is a great character, who you admire even as a dark knight. His writing is a little cartoony, but by 1991 standards, that's fine. No other character was the moral center of his game the way Cecil was.
#4 Squall- He's the closest any FF MC comes to feeling like a real person, and has the most character growth of any FF MC over the course of his game. His arc, from an "emo" curmudgeon to someone genuinely heroic, has a lot of similarities to Snape's arc in Harry Potter. I also just liked that Squall has a sharp intellect and has no time for bullshit... I found that refreshing. He had plenty of cool factor from his limit break and use of R1 button, too.
#5 Locke - There really isn't a true MC in VI (Celes makes a better argument than Terra, IMO). That said, Locke has the most leadership qualities. He's not the MC, but if he were, I'd have him ranked at this spot.
#6 Tidus- A little too annoying for me, but FFX is undoubtedly his story. Always down to earth even though he could have big-timed the rest of the cast. Sacrifices himself without a second thought.
#7 Ramza- Both as a fighter and character, Ramza is fairly generic in a game full of amazing and dynamic characters. I emotionally connected with his character, but it would feel wrong to rank him higher than this.
#8 Vahn- I like Vahn, but he's kind of a watered down Zidane, and the game doesn't really feel like his story (which if you know the backstory of how XII was made, makes complete sense).
#9 Bartz- FFV is a strange game where all the supporting characters get pretty well fleshed out arcs, but the MC is mostly just a random dude who's best friend is a Chocobo. But, I like it that way. It is consistent with the "adventurer" theme of the game.
#10 Firion. I've beaten this game, but I don't really remember a lot about this character.
*Haven't yet played 13, 15, 16.
I wonder if the 14 WoL would at least beat out FF3 by the time you reach endwalker.
The more and more you get into the game the more it gives your main character caracterization at times msking clear choices that aren't yours to make. At times having long 1 on 1 interactions with big villains were they make such choices. Regardless though. Good list.
My suspicion is that I wouldn't rank WoL above Luneth after Endwalker, but I would like WoL significantly more by that point. I've been wrong about my hunches with these games before (ended up falling in love with XI) so I could be completely off base. Thank you for the kind words.
I have FF14 as the best MC on account of it's me! 😀 But honestly my top 3 would be the same as yours, just maybe in a different order depending on the day. So far I am really liking Clive though.
I've heard good things about Clive but haven't seen anything of XVI beyond the trailers and a little bit of the combat tutorial. I'm definitely curious to see where he would end up.
Also, good taste in your top 3 and playing as yourself in XIV. :D
I’ll always argue Squall for #1, just above Cloud. I connected with Squall deeply so I’m biased
I totally get it. We all have our biases.
Zidane #1 for sure.
Reasonable take.
you put terra below Vaan, wow
Yep.
Yeah this list is blowing my fucking mind.
@@Yung.Ert. Vaan is better written and more nuanced. 🤷♂️
Squall was thrusted into leadership by Cid cuz he is the time traveller who created SeeD
Is it ever clear that Edea told Cid about that?
@@gregtroyan that's a logical extrapolation based on the events of the game. There's no way the game could have written a scene like this into the game prior to the reveal in the end unless it was done in an incredibly vague way and it's not necessary. The player constantly thinking "Why is Cid putting so much on reluctant 17 year old," is rewarded with the lightbulb moment at the end of the game. In this instance, less is more.
9:43 honestly, Terra is my favorite protag in the series lol. The character I connected to the most, because I went through a time where I was really depressed and I was a unapproachable person in society. I also didn’t know how to love, loving was a concept I had just forgotten, I felt like I didn’t love anyone and nobody loved me.
Ff6 was the game that really helped me get through my depression, and helped me relearn concepts I had forgotten, and just overall pushed me to help myself and get better.
So yeah Terra’s my favorite protag lol
I appreciate your honesty and having the courage to share that with me, especially after I was so critical in this video. While Terra might not work for me as a character, I'm really glad she worked for you and respect that. You rock mate. Thank you for sharing. 👊
And more than that, I'm glad she helped get you through those hard times. She might not work for me, but she clearly works for a lot of people.
Glad you enjoyed FF6 and it got you through some rough times. Greg generally poops on VI and slurps all over VII and later games in the series.
Pay him no mind, we know how fantastic VI is. You couldn't pay me to play VII.😋
@@Michael----- I'm also pretty favorable to II and IV, not just games that came out after VI. 😜
Also, I personally like Luneth and Firion more than Terra, but she's definitely a better character than either of them. I think she's a victim of the size of VI's cast and is unfortunately a little one note. If she was combined with Celes I would be singing a much different tune, but I just didn't vibe with her personality. Or rather, I liked her quite a bit initially but she didn't develop enough over the course of the game to satisfy me narratively. To me, she's basically unchanging up until the WoR, where her arc abruptly concludes. A more gradual shift would have done more for me, personally, but that's my taste. A lot of people love her and I get it, just wished her writing was a hair stronger.
Where would you put Clive in the list?
No idea. I was too busy finishing these videos to dive into XVI so I cannot say at this time.
Tl;dw: Cloud was the first, because of course he was.
Obviously.
Not sure why Squall so low and Cloud so high when they are extremely similar characters
They really aren't that similar. There's a lot of major differences between the two of them.
Haven't watched it yet, but sure that Squall didn't get the no. 1 position he deserves.
I won't spoil it for you.
How did mr migraines make number 1
Strong personality, good arc with gradual development, layered and nuanced, not being one-note, etc.
I told you all the reasons in the video! 😜
terra as a character resonates a lot with trans women, who often feel like they are from another world and need to learn maternal love and how to love themselves. her story likely was not written intended to be an allegory for the trans feminine experience, but it is now viewed as one in retrospect
I've never seen that take before, but it makes sense. My thing with Terra is that I really liked her initially, but she doesn't really grow or change at all until the World of Ruin, which is a bummer for me.
Too much of an ff7 Stan
I'll pretend to like something else more to seem cooler.
@@gregtroyan, you don't have to pretend. I understand bias is going to seep in to these kinds of lists, and it is a good thing. It's important we all have different opinions, but I don't think you approached these lists with the amount of objectivity you claimed.
@@whitleylevi As I say at the beginning of each of video, I literally say, "These lists are just my personal opinion, trying to balance objectivity and personal preference, and likely failing to satisfy anybody."
For example, I think The Beatles are the greatest band of all time (objectively) and they're my favorite band (personally). There just happens to be an overlap. Frozen is my favorite movie of all time (personally), but I'm not sure if it's the greatest of all time (objectively). With FFVII, there's just a lot of overlap where I think it happens to be the GOAT in a whole bunch of categories, both from an objective and personal standpoint, so I can pretend that I think something else is objectively better, but if I really don't think it is, I'm not going to knock it down points because it also happens to coincide with my personal preference. Like, if Michael Jordan is my favorite NBA player of all time, should I not pretend he's the GOAT when I look at him objectively? Sure, there's a couple things LeBron is better at, but overall, I still make Jordan my GOAT because he's the best in a bunch of categories, like VII just happens to be the best in a bunch of categories.
dude all your vids are so biased torwards ff7 -_-
I can't help how good it is!
Also, watch the Expanded Universe video.
Opening the video, checking if he puts Cloud first, closing immediately, because he is the most overrated character in the franchise. Seeing he is first, instaclosing video, after leaving this comment.
Thanks for the nuanced and intelligent discourse.
Are you by chance an FFVI fan?
Not really, I consider 4 & 8 as my personal favourites and even tho 16 was really easy, I liked it a lot. I am hyped for the dlc next week.
@@jTyloo I ranked Cecil 2nd. Very underrated great character.