Like this page and what I do here? Consider supporting me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/davidvinc [0:25] - 10) Vincent - Final Fantasy 7 [1:23] - 9) Gepetto - Shadow Hearts 2 [2:13] - 8) Cray - Breath of Fire 4 [3:07] - 7) Rico - Xenogears [4:06] - 6) Ziggy - Xenosaga Episode 1 [5:00] - 5) Gordon - Final Fantasy 2 [5:46] - 4) Gilder - Skies of Arcadia [6:30] - 3) Forte - Shining the Holy Ark [7:20] - 2) Badrach - Valkyrie Profile [8:09] - 1) Half the Cast - Radiata Stories
10) Vincent is only useful in Ruby wep with that mugshot that I've seen in Calebhart42's hundo speedrun. 7) Rico sucks, but I'd expected to be Maria too especially that ridiculous way she fights with fisticuffs as if she thinks she's Tifa. 6) Never thought Ziggy sucks in the 1st game, but he doesn't suck in the 3rd game. Bluemetal uses him in his speedrun in the 3rd game. *Gimme critz, boi* 2) Finally a worthless character in a VP1. Was expecting the 1st archer in chapter 1 who voice act as Richie from Pokemon... Good enough...
@@Eddie2P You can also figure out how to use Cait sith. Even if you don't break the Red flag for instant victory, you CAN trick the game into forcing lucky girl and toy soldier which are ridiculously powerful all game. (one to boost everyone's crit to 100%, and the other to do 5x damage) There is no flag preventing you from forcing these two.
Ziggy actually had really good stat growth. In the higher levels, his strength shoots through the roof. There is also a hard boss towards the end of the game that is ONLY weak to fire, and if you didn't buy the semi-useless flamethrowers early on, Ziggy's your only hope. In Xenosaga II, he gets the ability to Ground enemies, which is crucial to dealing out damage. Ziggy + Chaos with 3 boosts apiece could take out half of a boss's HP in one combo. It was in Xenosaga III that Ziggy came into his own. With the ability to increase his own HP and draw aggro, he played the role he was supposed to play all along: the ultimate damage sponge, who could also dish out a hit at the right time.
Why, oh why they couldn't go back and take the best combat features from the whole saga and overhaul it... Customization and attack levels from 1, breaking combinations from 2, and the boost and break systems from 3. *sigh*
The problem with Ziggy in Episode 1 is that his strength was almost completely maxed out by default. Adding tech points to his strength didn't really do much. And he only had one other weapon in the game, while other characters got so many more. I of course pursued everyone's ultimate weapons, and it ended up that with his strength stat maxed out with tech points. MOMO was actually ahead of him in strength by 2 points with her ultimate weapon. And I never allocated to her strength stat either. He just plain got screwed in Episode 1. But your assessments of Episode II and III are spot-on. As an aside, it was also fun making him use Choke.
I disagreed with that also. Always liked him, in all three versions of the game actually. Maybe Xenosaga III is the one in which Ziggy becomes less useful because Jin outspeeds him and is a strong tank also. However, Ziggy is way better than Junior and Shion as a character in all establishments imo. Ofc, no other character is comparable to Kosmos and Chaos, which are powerful as hell.
Vincent is... yeah. You got me. I was about to point out that all his weapons are long range, but there is a long range materia so EVERYONE can be long range.
"Why do you want that sickly wuss for long range? I am long range AND I can take a beating!" - Barret Wallace Beast Flare on a fire-absorbing enemy.... D'OH!!
@@EchoFoxtrot21 Aside from weapon selection and limit breaks, there is no significant distinction between characters in FF7. The random, uncontrollable nature of Vincent's limit breaks is what brings him down. (Cait Sith's limit breaks are even more random, another reason many players despise him.) As for Yuffie, other than the Morph trick with her ultimate weapon, her distinction is that she's the only character other than Aerith to have a healing limit break. (Cait Sith's slots don't count).
Vincent would be worse if Aerith lived. If you hack her back into the game you'd know. Her rods actually give boosts to her magic and you know how magic and summon materia take of a percentage of HP? If you put enough on her it will decrease to 10HP and if you put one more it'll overflow and go up to 9999 HP no matter her actual HP is. With Comet,Contain,Ultima with Quadramagic she'll nuke everything. Especially with the Princess Guard equipped with two knocked out party members and comet 2. While Vincent's HP isn't as low as hers making the materia combinations to overflow more limited and his magic stat isn't good enough to get much use from it.
Just a few thoughts... You put Vincent on the list.... The best way to use Vincent...take advantage of his high magic stats and always give him a deathblow materia...combined with the Death Penalty and mastered materia and CAUTIOUS use of his Limit Break...he's a powerhouse...and Ziggy...Ziggy is the best tank in the game
that's actually not very good. the deathblow trick is highly overrated, it's not actually better damage. Not to mention, you can still use cait sith and get Lucky Girl to make EVERYONE 100% crit, which invalidates deathblow and allows 3 people instead of one to get crits on much stronger attacks. he is not a powerhouse at any point of the game.
Love that you caught the connection between Gordon and Edward. They're practically the same when you get down to it, but Gordon's infinitely more useless.
@@TreyeParker His Limit makes him uncontrollable. That's his biggest flaw. I remember using Vincent against that dragon boss amd he kept healing it with his fire attacks. No way to tell him to stop.
There's an easier fix for the OG. Just make them controllable with special commands, that's all. Cool thing would be a secondary limit break that ends the transformation. What they pretty much did with summons in FFX later.
I love Vincent, so ain't nothin' gonna stop me from using him. But I hear ya loud and clear about the limit breaks. One time I had to actually kill him just to change him back so that I could revive him and get him using magic and items again. I learned the hard way to never use his limit breaks in boss fights. Oh, yeah. And Gordon. Not gonna lie; I was so glad when he left the party in FF 2.
Giving the references between FFII and FFIV (although two separate worlds) I know at lot of fans (myself included) that used to believe Gordon was the father of a "certain spoony bard".
It hurt to have Vincent on this list, but I have to accept the truth: he is a cool useless character. No multi-attacks, growth materia slots, can’t control monster limit breaks, and he’s just unfortunately bad.
And Anastasia is pronounced Anna (short vowel souns) Stah (long vowel) ze (long vowel) uh (short vowel). We had a Russian immigrant back in highschool who'd flip whenever the subject of the 1918 October Revolution came up in History class. The animated movie Anastasia is very controversial in Russia because they implied that Rasputin had something to do with the Romanovs deaths...even though Rasputin himself was killed by the Bolsheviks before the Romanovs.
@@Chelaxim yeah, I'm familiar with the history surrounding the Russian Revolution / the Romanov Dynasty / Grigori Rasputin. It's really interesting stuff. P.S. Loving your username. I just completed XC for the first time last night actually, and it's immediately become one of my all time favourite games. Can't wait to play XCX and XC2 now!
@@Chelaxim In the animated movie, isn't Rasputin undead or a lich or something? Doesn't make it more "accurate" but it's kind of an excuse for how he's still around.
What made me hate Vincent was that if you get him right away then the next boss you face absorbs his element. So you go, sweet, new character, let's try him out, and then get wrecked. It's the only limit break in the game that you have to avoid using sometimes, and otherwise there's no great difference between the characters. Caith Sith has a limit that can break the game. Aeris' healing ability can be situationally great because limits take priority over other actions in an emergency. The other character can all do damage. Vincent's is the only one that can ever be outright bad, and bad enough to get you killed.
Aerith can make you pretty much invincible, and she can give everyone else limit breaks, so I would actually call hers the best in the game. But yeah, Vincent, for all the crap you have to go through to get him and build him up, is underwhelming as hell.
@@SamWeltzin If you go into a battle with Cait Sith's limit ready you can one shot anything in the game. I think the only exception is Ruby Weapon while it's invincible. Aeris' limit might be better in fights where there's more than one form but she doesn't stay around long enough for that to matter.
@@Altitudes Oh, yeah. This is just purely from a utility point of view. I know that in speedruns, players use Cait Sith's stuff all over the place 'cuz there's a way to manipulate it to get what you want every time.
In Radiata Stories' defense, at least the characters have distinct personalities, despite most of them being useless in battle. Looking at you, Chrono Cross.
No stats could make me put Yuffie in my party. Once she stole my materia, she was dead to me. DEAD. I was severely under-leveled for that part, dependent heavily upon my materia. She. Is. Evil. (I was better prepared my second play through lol)
There's also the case that in order to get Vincent at all requires you to complete a rather annoying side quest and beat Lost Number, who if you fight as soon as you get there will be quite tough. Too bad the rest of these are only here for being completely outclassed by others. Maybe some day designers will learn to balance their casts better.
fortunately, there is some incentive to fighting lost number other than that, since it gets you reds final limit break. once you do that, there is no reason to not recruit vincent while you are there
Vincent is sub par until he gets the death penalty, which powers up over time with each enemy kill in the game. A fully powered up death penalty requires 65,535 enemy kills, which is easily achievable with powerful materia combinations by the time the weapon is achieved, making him the most powerful character in the game, able to kill Ruby Weapon in a single attack.
As much as I like Gilder’s personality in Skies of Arcadia, I do agree; either Enrique or Drachma are better choices to pick for your fourth party member in the end
Lol radiata stories' cast really is something else. At least the useless characters in chrono cross are customizable so they can do something, most of radiata's characters are simply useless. And the worst thing is how 95% of the magician guild is completely CRAP.
You beat me to it man, at first he looks bad but man when you give him a good weapon, and time his attacks while enemies are in the air, he's so good at producing crystals for exp.
Chie in Persona 4 is rendered obsolete the moment Teddie joins your party. He's a much better ice mage and physical attacker, and he's a great healer to boot. Kanji is pretty bad as well, but he can sometimes be useful.
If I could make a small request. I was browsing your videos and think it would be much more helpful if you could sort your top 10 lists playlist into groups (or just make new playlists) for your best/worst jrpg party members, the most annoying top 10s, etc. I like hearing your takes on jrpg games and have seen many of your videos. But if I could set it to play some of the similar videos in order then I like to listen to stuff like this while I'm at work or doing other tasks. Anyway just a small critique but I think it would help a lot for others who may feel this way as well. Thanks for hearing me out dude. Keep on making these vids. Good stuff
Slade the Priest from Shining Force CD Book 2. By the end of the game, he had 22 HP and 17 defense and was getting one-shot by everything. He was at Level 3 Vicar.
2 pointless facts about Gordon: 1: One time, when playing the NES version, I did kill him and leave him dead. When he joined my party for the second time, he was in a sort of, what I like to call, "zombie" state. I didn't try everything, but he was "alive" with zero HP. If I recall correctly, he could not hit anything when attacking (a standard miss) and anything, even a gust of wind (a miss), would kill him. I don't think curing him or resting in an inn helped any. 2: To really put his weakness in perspective. There is an alleged prototype of FF2 out there with an official English translation. I know of no real proof, but it is accepted as being legitimate. His name was changed to Edward.... Why Square wanted to name a weak character Edward, I'll never know.
I don't agree with one thing: your point against Rico is that he's a tanker that doesn't work in this function. But in Xenogears there are no tank-type skills to aggro the enemies. So, this role simply don't apply in the game. His main function in the game is being the strong guy with high physical damage, and that he does. But it is clear that he ended up being underutilized in the game. There are several tips that a more elaborate background for him and other characters was planned, but a lot didn't end up being in the final cut.
Vincent makes a great Mage. Best option for it really once Disc 1 ends. The only other 2 decent options being Cait Sith, who's just too slow for my taste and i hate Slots and Red XIII who only shine in the role if you beat the Ancient's Forest early in Disc 2 (which means grinding a green chocobo at the very least). If you do, he's going to be your best Mage for the rest of the game since his Spring Gun Clip weapon raises his Magic by 70. But going back to Vincent, yes his limits suck but tbh if you properly set up a character to operate as a tank (trough Cover and other materias) its a non-factor since he'll hardly ever take any damage. Also his limit's Magic attacks scale insanely well with his Magic Stat. Beast Flare can hit for 9999 almost as soon as you get him and he can spam it if you're lucky. Just... don't use that strat vs Materia Keeper.
Vincent is actually good with strong magic and attack by default if you equip him well, just never use his limit break it makes up for it, although Cid/Barrett can be interchanged with him with enough levels and/or special stat boosting elixirs
Im surprised you never mentioned Black Belt from the first FF. His job change was bugged and caused him to lose stats, making his base job more powerful than the upgrade.
I think Vincent is one of the most interesting characters in FF7,because he is adding more deepness into the story,which is accentuating the research of the Shinra Company, especially Hojo.His past is also connected with the Turks and Sephiroth.And his character design is just great, in my opinion.He is not really useful in combat,but his appearance is just great as Cait Sith's is too (especially because of his role as a double agent).Sorry for spoilering xD Best cast in general of all parts of the series,by the way.
Storywise and personality, he and Jr. are the best in the good-side. This game becomes a gem when talking about villians, however. So many outstanding bad guys.
I always felt like good villains have a big part in making stories great. I honestly wish we could've spent more time with Jin, Margulis, and Pellegri.
Bald bull yea. I don't know why there's so many vincent simps...he seemed like a last minute addition to ff7. He has no significant quest or dialogue...only one scene with lucretia in the cave and a dialogue against the hojo boss. He has high magic but cait sith has the same magic with higher HP and you don't lose control of him when you use his limit.
@@alanlee67 He looks cool, has a great theme, his backstory is interesting and overall he is a cool character, gameplay wise his limit breaks kinda make him bad, but it was never "that bad".
@@alanlee67 ironically, the last minute character was Tifa. the short of this? The love triangle was always there, but with the idea of Yuffie and Aerith. However, when they debated who should die (barret, Cid, Aerith) it came around that they're now selling to the west, so killing a black dude would have been bad (which was already a well known problem in media of killing off black characters) and Cid's arc hadn't been finished about going to outer space so they made Aerith the one. HOWEVER that just left Yuffie and there was another problem. AGain, with the US. Yuffie's 16. AoC is 18. They didn't want to make her older because it sort of ruined the whole 'child rebelling against tradition' and her upbringing in Wutai. So they took Yuffie being a bartender and Aerith being Cloud's childhood friend and made Tifa and it worked out pretty well. The reason Yuffie and Vincent because 'optional' characters was due to disc space. They didn't want to do CG for them towards the end of development. Vincent was obvious because of his low role in the game, but Yuffie got pushed out of her main role in the game.
Rico was a missed opportunity in Xenogears, but I'd still choose him over Chu Chu, Rico's gear can at least be upgraded to be ok later on, the only use I had for Chu Chu was for Marlute if you didn't set your gears properly for it
When I first beat Skies of Arcadia, I brought Gilder to the final dungeon because I didn't realize you could switch him out. But I didn't mind; his awesome swag always made him a delight to be around. There's something endearing about a Captain who gladly abandons ship just to get away from his stalker.
I actually made Yuffie my mage after Aerith died and used all my magic source on her. Vincent was also in my final party and set him up nicely. Though his Limit break sucks. But loved his side story. In one of my nth playthroughs, my final party would always be Cloud, Yuffie, and Cid.
My vote for worst party members, by a mile is everyone you’re not directly controlling in FF7 Remake. I just staggered a giant boss and put you into punish mode because I want you to stand there and block while I direct everyone else. /s
Gilder's one saving grace is his aura works on 1HKO spells. If you don't know where to get or didn't grind for silver rings, that can save you A LOT of frustration. In a game that doesn't sell many of the better gears, I like having him around just so I don't have to keep changing accessories. Also with the ability to BUY stat up seeds, Enrique is actually the one that CAN be totally useless... if you grind enough gold. I totally did this once, spend all my money on DEF boost seeds, and the final boss was doing damage under 500. Worth doing on a second or third playthrough just for the lols.
It would be interesting to see archetype an breakdown- in these vids of the worse characters the same archetypes come up over and over. It would be interesting to see when these archetypes are done well. (Slow def tank or scientist type as an example)
Worst character...I'd honestly have to say Lulu from FFX, more specifically the International version. (Don't remember if it's true with the vanilla but I suspect it is there too) While useful for elemental exploitation early in the game her stats in her initial sphere grid don't line up with what you would expect for a Black Mage, focusing more on evasion and magic defense over Magic Power, causing her output to be surprisingly low despite her role later on. Know who does beef up their Offensive capabilities? Yuna. Despite her role as the White Mage / Summoner she has a lot of nodes dedicated to upping her Magic Power. To the point that if you teach her the 'Ra' Level spells she'll do more damage with them than Lulu would with her 'Ga' level spells. While also being able to heal and keep her summoning utility. Once I found that out Lu was on Permanent Bench Duty.
Underpowered 4th characters are a bit of a tradition in Final Fantasy II. Gordon is a particular pain, however, because of WHERE he joins up: In the middle of a dungeon far from civilization. That makes him a bit of a pain to level up. Yes, you can get a Chocobo from the Chocobo Forest and use Cid's airship to return to Kashuan, but not too many know about it. (It's the first appearance of the Chocobo in the series!) Gordon doesn't stick around too long, either. Leila and Ricard both stick around a little while at least. As for the last 4th character, the game is practically over when he finally joins. Actually, all of the 4rh characters in FF II suck. (Except Minwu. Minwu rocks.) PS: If you decide to play Final Fantasy II, play the GBA (Dawn of Souls) or the PSP (25th Anniversary) versions. You'll save yourself a lot of grief.
There is a good reason why episode 2 was the "9th" North American Final Fantasy. Release episode 2 in 1991, and the Final Fantasy IP (in North America) may have never recovered. Just ask Actraiser how it's doing after it's second game. "As for the last 4th character, the game is practically over when he finally joins." Poor Leon. He's the fourth main character and is turned heel by the Emperor and his mob until the end! Should have just scrapped the secondary characters (FIVE of them, Scott doesn't count for obvious reasons) and just stick to managing the four main characters. Thank goodness they fixed this problem for episode 3. Sad that it was the "12th" North American Final Fantasy. But I can understand why they would release episode 4 "second" in order to take advantage of the SNES's technology while it was brand new at the time.
@@SuperUkcats The Famicom FF2 had horrible balance issues. Those have beeb corrected somewhat in the GBA and PSP versions, but the game can still be a chore if the player isn't able to grasp and take advantage of the game's mechanics. The reason why FF2 and FF8 are considered the black sheep of the series is because the gameplay design team tried to change too many things at once, triggering a slew of unforeseen problems. When you experiment, you run the risk of failure. Such is the nature of experiments.
@@stevenmorton2059 - Exactly. Though at least those two (as bad as they are) aren't a bunch of online only games! Grand Theft Auto 5 (which is actually 7, but that's for another day) and Red Dead Redemption 2 do it correctly by including both online AND a full fledged offline mode. If Dragon Warrior 10 can continue to add enough offline content, then that would save that one from being the worst one of the eleven.
@@SuperUkcats I disagree with the practice of mixing console and online-only games in a series. MMORPG's (Like FF14 and DQ10) are fun, but they are completely different animals from conventional console RPG's. I'd be fine with it if they released as spinoff titles rather than main-line games. A big problem with FF8 is that it wasn't "meant" to be played the way most players try to play it. There is no need to draw 100 of every spell before proceeding. I find the game to be more challenging and less tedious that way, and certainly more fun. Likewise, in FF2, there is no need to level skills and spells to Level 16. It is serious overkill. That's like grinding to Level 99 before proceeding in other FF games.
@@stevenmorton2059 "I'd be fine with it if they released as spinoff titles rather than main-line games." Which is what those idiots should have done to begin with! I bet if Enix was still their own company, 10 would have not been an online game. So until Final Fantasies 11 and 14, along with Dragon Warrior 10 include a FULL FLEDGED OFFLINE mode like GTA 5 and Red Dead 2, they will be the worst games in the series to those that don't play online games!
I'm recently replaying Shining The Holy Ark and honestly i kinda agree with Forte being the least useful party member. By the time he rejoins he is superfluous. Mainly because Forte isn't the only one who can use AOE magic as you have 4 party members who can use them at this point. Also he joins at Level 15 when everyone else is either is or is at close to promotion. I used to think that Basso was the least useful, But then i realised that he still has his uses and you've had him for at least 3 dungeons by the time Akane joins, Though i do wish that he and Doyle had AOE and/or Special attacks at will to make them do something other than just attack. All in all Forte, Gepetto and Vincent are 3 black mages who redundant at the time of recruitment.
Cray was the biggest disappoint in the history of Tiger people. How did we got from the awesome Kat, to the dont this just beat all Rei... to ... cray -_-
In single target boss fights, sure, Enrique or Dracha got an edge, but Gilder as I remember him has more speed than either of them, and his two damage techs are both multi-target attacks. This lets him mow through trash quickly, compared to them, thus letting you get through the endgame sections a bit faster... sort of. He also gets his base Spirit stat contribution at lower levels than Enrique or Drachma, meaning more Spirit at the start of battle (though this kinda moot unless you get into the level 50s). The other thing is, is that Aura of Denial works against attacks that inflict status ailments, whereas Delta Shield only blocks magic, and Justice Shield only reduces damage taken (and doesn't work on everything, actually). It also has a lower spirit cost than either, making up for being slightly worse. But it will block instant death. It will block physical or specials that confuse. It ain't bad, and the voice line is cool! With as easy as the game is, I'd rather style on enemies with Gilder than have marginally better damage single target damage with the other two party members. Enrique is hard to pass up, as Justice Shield does keep Fina safe, but meh!
Cray in BoF4 is actually usefu when treated like a tank. He has large amounts of health and can deal exceptional damage with the right weapons. However, some of them are rarely available until the end of the game, a few of which can only be obtained either via fishing or by stealing from enemies (not easy in game).
Ziggy's attacks only fire-based? Executioner, Cross Lancer, Cyclone and Lightning Fist are NOT fire-based. Yes, he got shafted in Xenosaga 2, but in the first game he's still useful if you know how to set him up.
'Half the Cast.' 'Laughs' Accurate. Honestly, probably more than that actually. Also Badrach over......Gray I think his name is? That's mildly shocking.
@@davidvinc With Chrono Cross I honestly think most of the characters could be made good with some effort. Radiata Stories that is NOT the case. No one but Jack can learn more moves, so it's blatant that most of the characters become inferior to the guys you get last. Early Fighters aren't gonna compare to either of the Orcs for instance. I'm kinda baffled they did that.
Vincent is good for holding summon materia - after doing a few summons, by the time his MP get low he'll have a limit and can transform. Bonus HP, no need for MP. And still literally and other character is better :P
I would agree with pretty much all of these. Some like Cray, I wanted him to be good. I like Cray, I just can't bring myself to use him. One that is more useful than you would think is Badrach. He's not the _worst_ character in Valkyrie Profile, he's not good either. Like Lucian though he has a hidden ability. Lucian can make CT crystals appear more easily. Badrach does this with EXP crystals. If done correctly he can speed up the grind.
For Radiata Stories that's kind of the point. Grabbing people for the friend list isn't about having all the strongest. It's just about collecting all the ones you can. Kinda like Pokemon except way more useless. Pick the personalities you like and run with it.
2 of my favorites on this list, Rico and Vincent. They both can be quite frustrating to use at times. I remember citan getting 3 turns to Ricos 1 at one point in the game.
I don’t think Vincent is the worst character in FFVII, unfortunately, I would still pick Cait Sith (don’t hate me). If you spam a lot of counter materias and kills using Vincent’s ultimate weapon death penalty, he counters like a beast, similar to Barret and Cid. Cloud too, but the problem is that his ultima weapon is subject to his current HP percentage, just like Cait Sith’s HP Shout.
His ultimate weapon is actually based on the number of kills he's accrued throughout the game. It's reason why he can one shot any enemy in the game once he's gotten enough kills.
I've gotta nominate the old geezer Darius from Vandal Hearts. He's the last character you get in the entire game, and it's such a disappointment. To be fair, after Zohar anybody else was bound to be a disappointment. The best use I could find for Darius was to make him a Hawkknight and have him fly around and pick up the hidden items so the rest of my party could focus on actual combat. Maybe occasionally providing support. Sure, you can make him another archer, but do you really need that many on the same team? Kira, Diego, and even Amon are all much more useful in that respect. He seems to only really exist to round out your party to twelve total members.
Cray is pretty useful setting up those massive one hit combos and absolutely required for stealing (with his buffs and debuffs) But yea, his club hits like a kids toy and he can't tank crap
Agree with Cray. Scias outclasses him in damage and you're better off using Ershin for Earth magic once she gains access to the high tier spells. Some other characters I feel are bad as well if you're planning to do more lists . Spar(Breath of Fire II): Late character and having weak stats. Fran(Original FF XII): Terrible stats and long animation. Al-cid(FFTA2): Has only 1 job he can use that's terrible and is only gotten in the postgame. Richard(Tales of Graces): A jack of all stats magic knight that's outclassed in both attack and magic. Ms. Mowz(Paper Mario: TTYD): Low HP, terrible damage, she has a healing move but it costs way too much FP. Chris and Jill(Project X Zone): Last characters recruited, slow, and low damage output. Magus(Chrono Trigger): Recruited late, no dual techs, and no triple techs with Crono which means you need one of those stones to use the triple techs he has with the other party members.
I don’t remember if you ever covered her, but Melody from Nostalgia (on the DS) definitely belongs on the list. Even maxed out, her spells are pathetically weak compared to Eddie’s physicals, Fiona’s healing, and Pad’s utterly broken instant death move. By endgame the only value she had was tossing out items.
Gilder's inclusion in this list actually gives me an idea for a different top 10 jrpg party members series you could do. Call top 10 best jrpg part members that you're forced to leave on the bench. Gilder is actually a perfect candidate for this. Fina is the real worst character in this game, but you're stuck with her. If you had full party customization in skies of arcadia, you would easily just run Vyse, Aika, Drachma, and Gilder. His damage potential is really good despite not matching Drachma, so would easily have a spot in the party. Sure Enrique has some solid defensive support, but would you really need the defense if you didn't have to carry around Fina's dead weight all game? Not to mention, if you could bench Fina, Pirate Shield would be a much better ability because you could use it knowing that whoever gets hit is going to do a strong counterattack. Don't get me wrong, I totally agree that he has no place in the party with how the game works, but just imagine how overpowered it would be if him and Drachma could both be in the party at the same time.
Hooray! Rico is finally on this list. And Badrach does suck. Not only is he a terrible character in the story and in battle, but his name is a dumb pun on the words "Bad luck." As for Vincent, I'd still take him over Cait Sith. I don't really think any character in Final Fantasy VII is that terrible, though. If I were to use Vincent, I'd just make him use spells in a boss fight rather than his limit (and I wouldn't care about his crappy limits in a regular encounter). I mean, I still wouldn't use him over Cloud, Tifa, Cid, or Yuffie, but I seldom use half the cast, anyway. Two of the entries have characters I don't recall that well. I know I rarely used Ziggy, but I rarely used like half the characters in the Xenosaga trilogy. Also, I can barely remember anyone from Skies of Arcadia aside from its main trio; it's been forever since I played that game. Lastly, of course most of the characters are useless in Radiata Stories. The game has 176 recruitable characters, and only like four can be used in battle at a time (and Jack, the protagonist, is the only one who can be controlled directly). The non-Jack characters basically don't matter, and they just exist to be recruited.
What made Rico annoying was his role was basically usurped by Maria. Maybe if the game was finished we would have gotten a proper Rico role but as it stands you tend to not use him.
agreed with vincent, in battle his Limit Breaks kill his use... and its not like his Ultimate Weapon makes up for it, you need so many kills for it hit 9'999 that its not worth the time, sure it can abuse the over-flow glitch but Barret can too and much easier/faster.
Gilder has a niche against one of the hardest optional bosses in Skies of Arcadia: Legends, whose special attack causes confusion to the whole group and is an absolute nightmare to deal with without Gilder's status shield. Other than that, Enrique is pretty much the main man from the moment you get him. Gonna be honest, I never really used Drachma for anything. I guess he IS more useful than Gilder overall, but against randoms Aika just takes care of everything with her area specials so it doesn't really matter who your 4th character is, and against bosses Enrique's shield is just too bloody useful. Unlike Gilder with THAT ONE BOSS, there's not a single battle that made me wish I was using Drachma instead of Enrique, though granted this is more about Enrique being kinda busted than about Drachma being bad.
Let me defend Badrach a bit: 1. You can try to send Badrach in Valhalla late game if u do not want him around that much, I did and Freya did not punish me. 2. Badrach is extremely great for getting those crystals
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[0:25] - 10) Vincent - Final Fantasy 7
[1:23] - 9) Gepetto - Shadow Hearts 2
[2:13] - 8) Cray - Breath of Fire 4
[3:07] - 7) Rico - Xenogears
[4:06] - 6) Ziggy - Xenosaga Episode 1
[5:00] - 5) Gordon - Final Fantasy 2
[5:46] - 4) Gilder - Skies of Arcadia
[6:30] - 3) Forte - Shining the Holy Ark
[7:20] - 2) Badrach - Valkyrie Profile
[8:09] - 1) Half the Cast - Radiata Stories
10) Vincent is only useful in Ruby wep with that mugshot that I've seen in Calebhart42's hundo speedrun.
7) Rico sucks, but I'd expected to be Maria too especially that ridiculous way she fights with fisticuffs as if she thinks she's Tifa.
6) Never thought Ziggy sucks in the 1st game, but he doesn't suck in the 3rd game. Bluemetal uses him in his speedrun in the 3rd game. *Gimme critz, boi*
2) Finally a worthless character in a VP1. Was expecting the 1st archer in chapter 1 who voice act as Richie from Pokemon... Good enough...
@@Santouryu3 Maria is good with spells.
At least Vincent's limit break doesn't intentionally give you a game over.
Which character's limit does?
Cait Sith?
@@vittoriopugliese3352 - Yeah. One of the combinations on his Slots is just a game over for the player. Sucks to suck.
"It isn't Cait Sith that's the worst" Vincent didn't wipe my party the second time I tried to use him
The randomness is bad enough, but there should never be a "bad" result to a Limit Break, let alone one that kills you...
I agree, the limit breaks determine the good characters more than other factors.
Thats why I just use Dice lol
@@EchoFoxtrot21 its bad late game decent when you get him tho
@@Eddie2P You can also figure out how to use Cait sith. Even if you don't break the Red flag for instant victory, you CAN trick the game into forcing lucky girl and toy soldier which are ridiculously powerful all game. (one to boost everyone's crit to 100%, and the other to do 5x damage)
There is no flag preventing you from forcing these two.
Ziggy actually had really good stat growth. In the higher levels, his strength shoots through the roof. There is also a hard boss towards the end of the game that is ONLY weak to fire, and if you didn't buy the semi-useless flamethrowers early on, Ziggy's your only hope. In Xenosaga II, he gets the ability to Ground enemies, which is crucial to dealing out damage. Ziggy + Chaos with 3 boosts apiece could take out half of a boss's HP in one combo.
It was in Xenosaga III that Ziggy came into his own. With the ability to increase his own HP and draw aggro, he played the role he was supposed to play all along: the ultimate damage sponge, who could also dish out a hit at the right time.
Why, oh why they couldn't go back and take the best combat features from the whole saga and overhaul it...
Customization and attack levels from 1, breaking combinations from 2, and the boost and break systems from 3. *sigh*
The problem with Ziggy in Episode 1 is that his strength was almost completely maxed out by default. Adding tech points to his strength didn't really do much. And he only had one other weapon in the game, while other characters got so many more. I of course pursued everyone's ultimate weapons, and it ended up that with his strength stat maxed out with tech points. MOMO was actually ahead of him in strength by 2 points with her ultimate weapon. And I never allocated to her strength stat either. He just plain got screwed in Episode 1.
But your assessments of Episode II and III are spot-on. As an aside, it was also fun making him use Choke.
I disagreed with that also. Always liked him, in all three versions of the game actually. Maybe Xenosaga III is the one in which Ziggy becomes less useful because Jin outspeeds him and is a strong tank also. However, Ziggy is way better than Junior and Shion as a character in all establishments imo. Ofc, no other character is comparable to Kosmos and Chaos, which are powerful as hell.
@@c8tina Agree, choke is hilarious on some enemies.
Vincent is... yeah. You got me. I was about to point out that all his weapons are long range, but there is a long range materia so EVERYONE can be long range.
"Why do you want that sickly wuss for long range? I am long range AND I can take a beating!"
- Barret Wallace
Beast Flare on a fire-absorbing enemy.... D'OH!!
@@stevenmorton2059 Yuffie is long range fast and somewhat strong.
bs, if you knew how to use him he was a awesome addition.
I think Yuffie has the most utility in the game behind Cloud. Red & Tifa are close.
@@EchoFoxtrot21 Aside from weapon selection and limit breaks, there is no significant distinction between characters in FF7. The random, uncontrollable nature of Vincent's limit breaks is what brings him down. (Cait Sith's limit breaks are even more random, another reason many players despise him.)
As for Yuffie, other than the Morph trick with her ultimate weapon, her distinction is that she's the only character other than Aerith to have a healing limit break. (Cait Sith's slots don't count).
Vincent would be worse if Aerith lived. If you hack her back into the game you'd know. Her rods actually give boosts to her magic and you know how magic and summon materia take of a percentage of HP? If you put enough on her it will decrease to 10HP and if you put one more it'll overflow and go up to 9999 HP no matter her actual HP is. With Comet,Contain,Ultima with Quadramagic she'll nuke everything. Especially with the Princess Guard equipped with two knocked out party members and comet 2.
While Vincent's HP isn't as low as hers making the materia combinations to overflow more limited and his magic stat isn't good enough to get much use from it.
He's slow, He's slow, He's slow. Im noticing a trend. I agree completely.
Just a few thoughts...
You put Vincent on the list.... The best way to use Vincent...take advantage of his high magic stats and always give him a deathblow materia...combined with the Death Penalty and mastered materia and CAUTIOUS use of his Limit Break...he's a powerhouse...and Ziggy...Ziggy is the best tank in the game
Amen! Vincent deserves more love.
that's actually not very good.
the deathblow trick is highly overrated, it's not actually better damage. Not to mention, you can still use cait sith and get Lucky Girl to make EVERYONE 100% crit, which invalidates deathblow and allows 3 people instead of one to get crits on much stronger attacks.
he is not a powerhouse at any point of the game.
Love that you caught the connection between Gordon and Edward. They're practically the same when you get down to it, but Gordon's infinitely more useless.
Oh Vincent... Here's hoping they make you worth it in the Remake
Right,I hope he's gonna be badass and fun like he should be !
Vincent isn't THAT bad, just other options are so much better.
Wait what's wrong with Vincent
@@TreyeParker His Limit makes him uncontrollable. That's his biggest flaw. I remember using Vincent against that dragon boss amd he kept healing it with his fire attacks. No way to tell him to stop.
His limits don't do alot of damage either. Be better to use mug and added cut. You can get an item this way versus watching a slow attack animation
Caith Sith: So you just flip your gun and shoot it?
Vincent: Ye
The moogle Caith Sith is riding: We suuuuuuck
except cait's still better than Vincent and an actually good support character. Lucky girl is an extremely strong limit break.
@@dragames - Long as you don’t get Death Joker.
@@LucaxCorp you can rig slots to get those limit breaks np. The only time you get the red flag is when you try getting instant victory.
I know how to improve Vincent in Remake Part 2. Make his monster transformations like the summons of the game and give them a time limit.
There's an easier fix for the OG. Just make them controllable with special commands, that's all. Cool thing would be a secondary limit break that ends the transformation. What they pretty much did with summons in FFX later.
David: if your slow, you got to go!
Why was I literally thinking this lol.
When you put it that way, Cid in FF IV: The After Years is TOAST!
I love Vincent, so ain't nothin' gonna stop me from using him. But I hear ya loud and clear about the limit breaks. One time I had to actually kill him just to change him back so that I could revive him and get him using magic and items again. I learned the hard way to never use his limit breaks in boss fights.
Oh, yeah. And Gordon. Not gonna lie; I was so glad when he left the party in FF 2.
Giving the references between FFII and FFIV (although two separate worlds) I know at lot of fans (myself included) that used to believe Gordon was the father of a "certain spoony bard".
It hurt to have Vincent on this list, but I have to accept the truth: he is a cool useless character. No multi-attacks, growth materia slots, can’t control monster limit breaks, and he’s just unfortunately bad.
Gepetto is pronounced "jeh-peh-toe". He's named after Gepetto from Pinocchio - because he's a puppet master.
And Anastasia is pronounced Anna (short vowel souns) Stah (long vowel) ze (long vowel) uh (short vowel).
We had a Russian immigrant back in highschool who'd flip whenever the subject of the 1918 October Revolution came up in History class.
The animated movie Anastasia is very controversial in Russia because they implied that Rasputin had something to do with the Romanovs deaths...even though Rasputin himself was killed by the Bolsheviks before the Romanovs.
@@Chelaxim yeah, I'm familiar with the history surrounding the Russian Revolution / the Romanov Dynasty / Grigori Rasputin. It's really interesting stuff.
P.S. Loving your username. I just completed XC for the first time last night actually, and it's immediately become one of my all time favourite games. Can't wait to play XCX and XC2 now!
@@Chelaxim In the animated movie, isn't Rasputin undead or a lich or something? Doesn't make it more "accurate" but it's kind of an excuse for how he's still around.
@@Chelaxim It was a group of royals that killed Rasputin.
What made me hate Vincent was that if you get him right away then the next boss you face absorbs his element. So you go, sweet, new character, let's try him out, and then get wrecked. It's the only limit break in the game that you have to avoid using sometimes, and otherwise there's no great difference between the characters. Caith Sith has a limit that can break the game. Aeris' healing ability can be situationally great because limits take priority over other actions in an emergency. The other character can all do damage. Vincent's is the only one that can ever be outright bad, and bad enough to get you killed.
Yeah materia keeper absorbs fire 🔥. One time I did enough grinding to have death gigas vs materia keeper it was a pretty fun battle.
Aerith can make you pretty much invincible, and she can give everyone else limit breaks, so I would actually call hers the best in the game.
But yeah, Vincent, for all the crap you have to go through to get him and build him up, is underwhelming as hell.
@@SamWeltzin If you go into a battle with Cait Sith's limit ready you can one shot anything in the game. I think the only exception is Ruby Weapon while it's invincible. Aeris' limit might be better in fights where there's more than one form but she doesn't stay around long enough for that to matter.
@@Altitudes Oh, yeah. This is just purely from a utility point of view. I know that in speedruns, players use Cait Sith's stuff all over the place 'cuz there's a way to manipulate it to get what you want every time.
That last part is technically wrong. A bad roll with Cait Sith will have you seeing a game over screen, but I agree everywhere else.
In Radiata Stories' defense, at least the characters have distinct personalities, despite most of them being useless in battle. Looking at you, Chrono Cross.
HAHAHAAHHAHA
WhatCHA talkin' about? ;)
Yuffie and Vincent are at opposite ends of the usefulness spectrum Ninjas >>>>>>> Edgelords.
Yay, Yuffie awesome!
What about a combination of the two, though? Sasuke from Naruto taught us that an edgelord ninja can be powerful.
No stats could make me put Yuffie in my party. Once she stole my materia, she was dead to me. DEAD. I was severely under-leveled for that part, dependent heavily upon my materia. She. Is. Evil. (I was better prepared my second play through lol)
Yuffies useless tho
@@Vyloka she is source maker
There's also the case that in order to get Vincent at all requires you to complete a rather annoying side quest and beat Lost Number, who if you fight as soon as you get there will be quite tough.
Too bad the rest of these are only here for being completely outclassed by others. Maybe some day designers will learn to balance their casts better.
oh god Lost Number....
*reduced to 13 year old me huddling on the floor in fear*
fortunately, there is some incentive to fighting lost number other than that, since it gets you reds final limit break. once you do that, there is no reason to not recruit vincent while you are there
Vincent is sub par until he gets the death penalty, which powers up over time with each enemy kill in the game. A fully powered up death penalty requires 65,535 enemy kills, which is easily achievable with powerful materia combinations by the time the weapon is achieved, making him the most powerful character in the game, able to kill Ruby Weapon in a single attack.
As much as I like Gilder’s personality in Skies of Arcadia, I do agree; either Enrique or Drachma are better choices to pick for your fourth party member in the end
Gilder’s the trash mob killer
Lol radiata stories' cast really is something else. At least the useless characters in chrono cross are customizable so they can do something, most of radiata's characters are simply useless. And the worst thing is how 95% of the magician guild is completely CRAP.
Felix, Genius, Cecil, and Curtis are the only useful ones.
Vincent Valentine can one shot any enemy in the entire game if you get set up for that. And unlike Cait Sith, you're not needing to rely on RNG.
Badrach is really good for knocking gems out of enemies. He goes into my "level up" party. He's great.
Thank you, someone else gets it!
Yeap! I mean he's not my main member, but I use him for that.
Lorenta, Freya, and Lawfer/Braums are my party members
You beat me to it man, at first he looks bad but man when you give him a good weapon, and time his attacks while enemies are in the air, he's so good at producing crystals for exp.
Chie in Persona 4 is rendered obsolete the moment Teddie joins your party. He's a much better ice mage and physical attacker, and he's a great healer to boot. Kanji is pretty bad as well, but he can sometimes be useful.
If I could make a small request. I was browsing your videos and think it would be much more helpful if you could sort your top 10 lists playlist into groups (or just make new playlists) for your best/worst jrpg party members, the most annoying top 10s, etc. I like hearing your takes on jrpg games and have seen many of your videos. But if I could set it to play some of the similar videos in order then I like to listen to stuff like this while I'm at work or doing other tasks. Anyway just a small critique but I think it would help a lot for others who may feel this way as well. Thanks for hearing me out dude. Keep on making these vids. Good stuff
Slade the Priest from Shining Force CD Book 2.
By the end of the game, he had 22 HP and 17 defense and was getting one-shot by everything.
He was at Level 3 Vicar.
Also differentiated by there weapons. Vincent and Barret have overflowable weapons. Also Vincent is the best mage except Aerith.
As a fellow David who enjoys RPGs, I'm loving all your catty comments about these meeeeeh characters.
2 pointless facts about Gordon:
1: One time, when playing the NES version, I did kill him and leave him dead. When he joined my party for the second time, he was in a sort of, what I like to call, "zombie" state. I didn't try everything, but he was "alive" with zero HP. If I recall correctly, he could not hit anything when attacking (a standard miss) and anything, even a gust of wind (a miss), would kill him. I don't think curing him or resting in an inn helped any.
2: To really put his weakness in perspective. There is an alleged prototype of FF2 out there with an official English translation. I know of no real proof, but it is accepted as being legitimate. His name was changed to Edward.... Why Square wanted to name a weak character Edward, I'll never know.
I don't agree with one thing: your point against Rico is that he's a tanker that doesn't work in this function. But in Xenogears there are no tank-type skills to aggro the enemies. So, this role simply don't apply in the game. His main function in the game is being the strong guy with high physical damage, and that he does. But it is clear that he ended up being underutilized in the game. There are several tips that a more elaborate background for him and other characters was planned, but a lot didn't end up being in the final cut.
Vincent makes a great Mage. Best option for it really once Disc 1 ends. The only other 2 decent options being Cait Sith, who's just too slow for my taste and i hate Slots and Red XIII who only shine in the role if you beat the Ancient's Forest early in Disc 2 (which means grinding a green chocobo at the very least). If you do, he's going to be your best Mage for the rest of the game since his Spring Gun Clip weapon raises his Magic by 70.
But going back to Vincent, yes his limits suck but tbh if you properly set up a character to operate as a tank (trough Cover and other materias) its a non-factor since he'll hardly ever take any damage.
Also his limit's Magic attacks scale insanely well with his Magic Stat. Beast Flare can hit for 9999 almost as soon as you get him and he can spam it if you're lucky. Just... don't use that strat vs Materia Keeper.
Vincent is actually good with strong magic and attack by default if you equip him well, just never use his limit break it makes up for it, although Cid/Barrett can be interchanged with him with enough levels and/or special stat boosting elixirs
*Sees Vincent in the thumbnail
Me: "Say sike right now.."
Im surprised you never mentioned Black Belt from the first FF. His job change was bugged and caused him to lose stats, making his base job more powerful than the upgrade.
I think Vincent is one of the most interesting characters in FF7,because he is adding more deepness into the story,which is accentuating the research of the Shinra Company, especially Hojo.His past is also connected with the Turks and Sephiroth.And his character design is just great, in my opinion.He is not really useful in combat,but his appearance is just great as Cait Sith's is too (especially because of his role as a double agent).Sorry for spoilering xD
Best cast in general of all parts of the series,by the way.
Sad Ziggy sucked so bad because his back story is incredible.
Storywise and personality, he and Jr. are the best in the good-side. This game becomes a gem when talking about villians, however. So many outstanding bad guys.
I always felt like good villains have a big part in making stories great. I honestly wish we could've spent more time with Jin, Margulis, and Pellegri.
I just finished a VII play through for the first time in at least ten years, and even though I recruited Vincent, he rode the bench.
Bald bull yea. I don't know why there's so many vincent simps...he seemed like a last minute addition to ff7. He has no significant quest or dialogue...only one scene with lucretia in the cave and a dialogue against the hojo boss. He has high magic but cait sith has the same magic with higher HP and you don't lose control of him when you use his limit.
@@alanlee67 He looks cool, has a great theme, his backstory is interesting and overall he is a cool character, gameplay wise his limit breaks kinda make him bad, but it was never "that bad".
@@yagokain4189 the limit break kills it for me.
@@alanlee67 ironically, the last minute character was Tifa. the short of this? The love triangle was always there, but with the idea of Yuffie and Aerith. However, when they debated who should die (barret, Cid, Aerith) it came around that they're now selling to the west, so killing a black dude would have been bad (which was already a well known problem in media of killing off black characters) and Cid's arc hadn't been finished about going to outer space so they made Aerith the one. HOWEVER that just left Yuffie and there was another problem. AGain, with the US. Yuffie's 16. AoC is 18. They didn't want to make her older because it sort of ruined the whole 'child rebelling against tradition' and her upbringing in Wutai. So they took Yuffie being a bartender and Aerith being Cloud's childhood friend and made Tifa and it worked out pretty well.
The reason Yuffie and Vincent because 'optional' characters was due to disc space. They didn't want to do CG for them towards the end of development. Vincent was obvious because of his low role in the game, but Yuffie got pushed out of her main role in the game.
Yeah gotta admit that I rarely used Vincent in my Final Fantasy VII play throughs he spent most the time on the bench next to Cait Sith and Aerith
Rico was a missed opportunity in Xenogears, but I'd still choose him over Chu Chu, Rico's gear can at least be upgraded to be ok later on, the only use I had for Chu Chu was for Marlute if you didn't set your gears properly for it
Sucks that Ziggy is on this list. Despite his low speed and fire only elements, he’s a tank.
Yeah, after Enrique's justice shield, I never used anyone else, lol. Poor Gilder~
When I first beat Skies of Arcadia, I brought Gilder to the final dungeon because I didn't realize you could switch him out. But I didn't mind; his awesome swag always made him a delight to be around. There's something endearing about a Captain who gladly abandons ship just to get away from his stalker.
I actually made Yuffie my mage after Aerith died and used all my magic source on her. Vincent was also in my final party and set him up nicely. Though his Limit break sucks. But loved his side story. In one of my nth playthroughs, my final party would always be Cloud, Yuffie, and Cid.
Vincent's not that bad he's a long range character so he takes less damage and the chain saw limit isn't that bad a 5x attack is pretty nice
My vote for worst party members, by a mile is everyone you’re not directly controlling in FF7 Remake.
I just staggered a giant boss and put you into punish mode because I want you to stand there and block while I direct everyone else. /s
Gilder's one saving grace is his aura works on 1HKO spells. If you don't know where to get or didn't grind for silver rings, that can save you A LOT of frustration. In a game that doesn't sell many of the better gears, I like having him around just so I don't have to keep changing accessories. Also with the ability to BUY stat up seeds, Enrique is actually the one that CAN be totally useless... if you grind enough gold.
I totally did this once, spend all my money on DEF boost seeds, and the final boss was doing damage under 500. Worth doing on a second or third playthrough just for the lols.
It would be interesting to see archetype an breakdown- in these vids of the worse characters the same archetypes come up over and over. It would be interesting to see when these archetypes are done well. (Slow def tank or scientist type as an example)
Vincent had so much potential... until the first time you bring him to a boss fight
Worst character...I'd honestly have to say Lulu from FFX, more specifically the International version. (Don't remember if it's true with the vanilla but I suspect it is there too) While useful for elemental exploitation early in the game her stats in her initial sphere grid don't line up with what you would expect for a Black Mage, focusing more on evasion and magic defense over Magic Power, causing her output to be surprisingly low despite her role later on.
Know who does beef up their Offensive capabilities? Yuna. Despite her role as the White Mage / Summoner she has a lot of nodes dedicated to upping her Magic Power. To the point that if you teach her the 'Ra' Level spells she'll do more damage with them than Lulu would with her 'Ga' level spells. While also being able to heal and keep her summoning utility. Once I found that out Lu was on Permanent Bench Duty.
Underpowered 4th characters are a bit of a tradition in Final Fantasy II. Gordon is a particular pain, however, because of WHERE he joins up: In the middle of a dungeon far from civilization. That makes him a bit of a pain to level up. Yes, you can get a Chocobo from the Chocobo Forest and use Cid's airship to return to Kashuan, but not too many know about it. (It's the first appearance of the Chocobo in the series!)
Gordon doesn't stick around too long, either. Leila and Ricard both stick around a little while at least. As for the last 4th character, the game is practically over when he finally joins.
Actually, all of the 4rh characters in FF II suck. (Except Minwu. Minwu rocks.)
PS: If you decide to play Final Fantasy II, play the GBA (Dawn of Souls) or the PSP (25th Anniversary) versions. You'll save yourself a lot of grief.
There is a good reason why episode 2 was the "9th" North American Final Fantasy. Release episode 2 in 1991, and the Final Fantasy IP (in North America) may have never recovered. Just ask Actraiser how it's doing after it's second game.
"As for the last 4th character, the game is practically over when he finally joins."
Poor Leon. He's the fourth main character and is turned heel by the Emperor and his mob until the end! Should have just scrapped the secondary characters (FIVE of them, Scott doesn't count for obvious reasons) and just stick to managing the four main characters.
Thank goodness they fixed this problem for episode 3. Sad that it was the "12th" North American Final Fantasy. But I can understand why they would release episode 4 "second" in order to take advantage of the SNES's technology while it was brand new at the time.
@@SuperUkcats The Famicom FF2 had horrible balance issues. Those have beeb corrected somewhat in the GBA and PSP versions, but the game can still be a chore if the player isn't able to grasp and take advantage of the game's mechanics. The reason why FF2 and FF8 are considered the black sheep of the series is because the gameplay design team tried to change too many things at once, triggering a slew of unforeseen problems. When you experiment, you run the risk of failure. Such is the nature of experiments.
@@stevenmorton2059 - Exactly. Though at least those two (as bad as they are) aren't a bunch of online only games!
Grand Theft Auto 5 (which is actually 7, but that's for another day) and Red Dead Redemption 2 do it correctly by including both online AND a full fledged offline mode.
If Dragon Warrior 10 can continue to add enough offline content, then that would save that one from being the worst one of the eleven.
@@SuperUkcats I disagree with the practice of mixing console and online-only games in a series. MMORPG's (Like FF14 and DQ10) are fun, but they are completely different animals from conventional console RPG's. I'd be fine with it if they released as spinoff titles rather than main-line games.
A big problem with FF8 is that it wasn't "meant" to be played the way most players try to play it. There is no need to draw 100 of every spell before proceeding. I find the game to be more challenging and less tedious that way, and certainly more fun.
Likewise, in FF2, there is no need to level skills and spells to Level 16. It is serious overkill. That's like grinding to Level 99 before proceeding in other FF games.
@@stevenmorton2059 "I'd be fine with it if they released as spinoff titles rather than main-line games."
Which is what those idiots should have done to begin with!
I bet if Enix was still their own company, 10 would have not been an online game.
So until Final Fantasies 11 and 14, along with Dragon Warrior 10 include a FULL FLEDGED OFFLINE mode like GTA 5 and Red Dead 2, they will be the worst games in the series to those that don't play online games!
I knew Gilder was gonna be on this list. Shame because he's fun outside of stats. Love his style.
Gordon does indeed suck, but Minwu is one of my favorite FF characters of all time.
I loved the Ricos arc in Xenogears. I'm a sucker for battle arenas.
The sewer monster was a cool section.
Why does Vincent's limit breaks have elemental damage? No one else does.
Not true, Yuffie's Landscaper. Granted, she has the strongest limit breaks besides.
Ziggy looks like David Bowie, is it a Ziggy Stardust reference?
I think yes. Too bad he doesn't play a koto.
I might be late to this video, cause work schedule, but I'm here for it!
I'm recently replaying Shining The Holy Ark and honestly i kinda agree with Forte being the least useful party member. By the time he rejoins he is superfluous. Mainly because Forte isn't the only one who can use AOE magic as you have 4 party members who can use them at this point. Also he joins at Level 15 when everyone else is either is or is at close to promotion. I used to think that Basso was the least useful, But then i realised that he still has his uses and you've had him for at least 3 dungeons by the time Akane joins, Though i do wish that he and Doyle had AOE and/or Special attacks at will to make them do something other than just attack.
All in all Forte, Gepetto and Vincent are 3 black mages who redundant at the time of recruitment.
Poor Vincent, I might have recruited him, but I barely use him due to his berserk-mode.
Cray was the biggest disappoint in the history of Tiger people. How did we got from the awesome Kat, to the dont this just beat all Rei... to ... cray -_-
Well, it's a good thing that I decide my party members in games exclusively on how much I like them without any regard to stats.
In single target boss fights, sure, Enrique or Dracha got an edge, but Gilder as I remember him has more speed than either of them, and his two damage techs are both multi-target attacks. This lets him mow through trash quickly, compared to them, thus letting you get through the endgame sections a bit faster... sort of. He also gets his base Spirit stat contribution at lower levels than Enrique or Drachma, meaning more Spirit at the start of battle (though this kinda moot unless you get into the level 50s).
The other thing is, is that Aura of Denial works against attacks that inflict status ailments, whereas Delta Shield only blocks magic, and Justice Shield only reduces damage taken (and doesn't work on everything, actually). It also has a lower spirit cost than either, making up for being slightly worse. But it will block instant death. It will block physical or specials that confuse. It ain't bad, and the voice line is cool!
With as easy as the game is, I'd rather style on enemies with Gilder than have marginally better damage single target damage with the other two party members. Enrique is hard to pass up, as Justice Shield does keep Fina safe, but meh!
Dude you’re cool because youve legit played every RPG.
Hey David. Is Shadow Hearts any good? I'm not sure if I should try it out
The series is one of my absolute favorites.
Gilder is my favorite 4th party member in Skies of Arcadia.
Cray in BoF4 is actually usefu when treated like a tank. He has large amounts of health and can deal exceptional damage with the right weapons. However, some of them are rarely available until the end of the game, a few of which can only be obtained either via fishing or by stealing from enemies (not easy in game).
Slight correction on Cait Sith - it's actually pronounced "Kett-Shee". It means "Cat of the Fairies" in Irish. :-)
Ziggy's attacks only fire-based? Executioner, Cross Lancer, Cyclone and Lightning Fist are NOT fire-based. Yes, he got shafted in Xenosaga 2, but in the first game he's still useful if you know how to set him up.
Lucia in Shadow Hearts II breaks the game. I absolutely love her
'Half the Cast.'
'Laughs'
Accurate.
Honestly, probably more than that actually.
Also Badrach over......Gray I think his name is?
That's mildly shocking.
Yeah, it's probably more like 90% of the cast
@@davidvinc With Chrono Cross I honestly think most of the characters could be made good with some effort.
Radiata Stories that is NOT the case.
No one but Jack can learn more moves, so it's blatant that most of the characters become inferior to the guys you get last.
Early Fighters aren't gonna compare to either of the Orcs for instance.
I'm kinda baffled they did that.
Vincent is good for holding summon materia - after doing a few summons, by the time his MP get low he'll have a limit and can transform. Bonus HP, no need for MP.
And still literally and other character is better :P
My worst nightmare realised......finally waking up in an RPG Game and fighting to save the new world.....and ending up on this list still
I would agree with pretty much all of these. Some like Cray, I wanted him to be good. I like Cray, I just can't bring myself to use him.
One that is more useful than you would think is Badrach. He's not the _worst_ character in Valkyrie Profile, he's not good either. Like Lucian though he has a hidden ability. Lucian can make CT crystals appear more easily. Badrach does this with EXP crystals. If done correctly he can speed up the grind.
For Radiata Stories that's kind of the point. Grabbing people for the friend list isn't about having all the strongest. It's just about collecting all the ones you can. Kinda like Pokemon except way more useless. Pick the personalities you like and run with it.
Rico now? There are no words. Another great character crucified for being slow. Geez.
2 of my favorites on this list, Rico and Vincent. They both can be quite frustrating to use at times. I remember citan getting 3 turns to Ricos 1 at one point in the game.
I don’t think Vincent is the worst character in FFVII, unfortunately, I would still pick Cait Sith (don’t hate me). If you spam a lot of counter materias and kills using Vincent’s ultimate weapon death penalty, he counters like a beast, similar to Barret and Cid. Cloud too, but the problem is that his ultima weapon is subject to his current HP percentage, just like Cait Sith’s HP Shout.
His ultimate weapon is actually based on the number of kills he's accrued throughout the game. It's reason why he can one shot any enemy in the game once he's gotten enough kills.
Ziggy was actually pretty good, now granted i have not played it a long time but he wad always a core party member for my teams.
At least Ziggy is great in Xenosaga 3 with his monstrous break ability lol
I've gotta nominate the old geezer Darius from Vandal Hearts. He's the last character you get in the entire game, and it's such a disappointment. To be fair, after Zohar anybody else was bound to be a disappointment. The best use I could find for Darius was to make him a Hawkknight and have him fly around and pick up the hidden items so the rest of my party could focus on actual combat. Maybe occasionally providing support. Sure, you can make him another archer, but do you really need that many on the same team? Kira, Diego, and even Amon are all much more useful in that respect. He seems to only really exist to round out your party to twelve total members.
Cray is pretty useful setting up those massive one hit combos and absolutely required for stealing (with his buffs and debuffs)
But yea, his club hits like a kids toy and he can't tank crap
The only thing I liked about Mr Valentine was the purple Behemoth-esque bo-ped he morphed into.
4:09 memories of some hook up on Grindr back then lol. "You have a nice chest, but please don't talk". 🥴😂
LOL! I've been there too, they open their mouth and the pink purse falls out!
Agree with Cray. Scias outclasses him in damage and you're better off using Ershin for Earth magic once she gains access to the high tier spells. Some other characters I feel are bad as well if you're planning to do more lists
.
Spar(Breath of Fire II): Late character and having weak stats.
Fran(Original FF XII): Terrible stats and long animation.
Al-cid(FFTA2): Has only 1 job he can use that's terrible and is only gotten in the postgame.
Richard(Tales of Graces): A jack of all stats magic knight that's outclassed in both attack and magic.
Ms. Mowz(Paper Mario: TTYD): Low HP, terrible damage, she has a healing move but it costs way too much FP.
Chris and Jill(Project X Zone): Last characters recruited, slow, and low damage output.
Magus(Chrono Trigger): Recruited late, no dual techs, and no triple techs with Crono which means you need one of those stones to use the triple techs he has with the other party members.
I don’t remember if you ever covered her, but Melody from Nostalgia (on the DS) definitely belongs on the list. Even maxed out, her spells are pathetically weak compared to Eddie’s physicals, Fiona’s healing, and Pad’s utterly broken instant death move. By endgame the only value she had was tossing out items.
She was covered. I think the main issue was enemies having high Magic Defense.
Yeah, I dealt with her in part 3 of this series.
Gilder's inclusion in this list actually gives me an idea for a different top 10 jrpg party members series you could do. Call top 10 best jrpg part members that you're forced to leave on the bench. Gilder is actually a perfect candidate for this. Fina is the real worst character in this game, but you're stuck with her. If you had full party customization in skies of arcadia, you would easily just run Vyse, Aika, Drachma, and Gilder. His damage potential is really good despite not matching Drachma, so would easily have a spot in the party. Sure Enrique has some solid defensive support, but would you really need the defense if you didn't have to carry around Fina's dead weight all game? Not to mention, if you could bench Fina, Pirate Shield would be a much better ability because you could use it knowing that whoever gets hit is going to do a strong counterattack. Don't get me wrong, I totally agree that he has no place in the party with how the game works, but just imagine how overpowered it would be if him and Drachma could both be in the party at the same time.
Hooray! Rico is finally on this list. And Badrach does suck. Not only is he a terrible character in the story and in battle, but his name is a dumb pun on the words "Bad luck."
As for Vincent, I'd still take him over Cait Sith. I don't really think any character in Final Fantasy VII is that terrible, though. If I were to use Vincent, I'd just make him use spells in a boss fight rather than his limit (and I wouldn't care about his crappy limits in a regular encounter). I mean, I still wouldn't use him over Cloud, Tifa, Cid, or Yuffie, but I seldom use half the cast, anyway.
Two of the entries have characters I don't recall that well. I know I rarely used Ziggy, but I rarely used like half the characters in the Xenosaga trilogy. Also, I can barely remember anyone from Skies of Arcadia aside from its main trio; it's been forever since I played that game.
Lastly, of course most of the characters are useless in Radiata Stories. The game has 176 recruitable characters, and only like four can be used in battle at a time (and Jack, the protagonist, is the only one who can be controlled directly). The non-Jack characters basically don't matter, and they just exist to be recruited.
What made Rico annoying was his role was basically usurped by Maria. Maybe if the game was finished we would have gotten a proper Rico role but as it stands you tend to not use him.
agreed with vincent, in battle his Limit Breaks kill his use... and its not like his Ultimate Weapon makes up for it, you need so many kills for it hit 9'999 that its not worth the time, sure it can abuse the over-flow glitch but Barret can too and much easier/faster.
Gilder has a niche against one of the hardest optional bosses in Skies of Arcadia: Legends, whose special attack causes confusion to the whole group and is an absolute nightmare to deal with without Gilder's status shield. Other than that, Enrique is pretty much the main man from the moment you get him. Gonna be honest, I never really used Drachma for anything. I guess he IS more useful than Gilder overall, but against randoms Aika just takes care of everything with her area specials so it doesn't really matter who your 4th character is, and against bosses Enrique's shield is just too bloody useful. Unlike Gilder with THAT ONE BOSS, there's not a single battle that made me wish I was using Drachma instead of Enrique, though granted this is more about Enrique being kinda busted than about Drachma being bad.
Radiata Stories! I really tried to make Leona work. She has a nice kit. Felix never left my party!
Lol I enjoyed using #10, #8, #7 and #2.
I could not find a usage for Makoto in p5. She can do like everything every other character can do but worse, I only used her as a back up
Kain from Phantasy Star sucked worse than Hugh as there were no healing spells and very little TP to be of use for every battle.
I think you just don't know how to use Vincent properly. He is able to take down Ruby Weapon solo if you play and boost him right.
Let me defend Badrach a bit:
1. You can try to send Badrach in Valhalla late game if u do not want him around that much, I did and Freya did not punish me.
2. Badrach is extremely great for getting those crystals
Gordon is the worst of the FF2 tag alongs. That game gets a bad rap it's not that bad.
I waited three games for Ziggy to develop..... can we go for 4 maybe ?
Can you make a JRPG list of useless characters your forced to use in your party for certain battles?