I honestly love these videos. Stuff like this is what makes RPG's so fun, just having OP characters or figuring out the mechanics that allow you to destroy the games difficulty if you know what you're doing.
I'm surprised Erik from DQ11 hasn't been mentioned. He's pretty much a level grinding assistant. Dual wielding w/ boomerangs for clearing enemy groups, ultra useful Pep Powers, like double turns w/ buffs, guaranteed rare items & item steals, a guaranteed critical hit move, & generous status infliction moves WITH moves that deal extra damage to status inflicted enemies **and that's without considering Divide setups that triple the damage output!**
I love these lists, not only do they show some amazing characters (with fantastic descriptions), but they also help me find another rpg to play or character to find. Thank you for your amazing videos!
For the games that I've actually played, I mostly agree, however I've found that I can make Roan a speed demon. When I play, I can make him have 2 turns for every turn Ryudo takes and that really helps a lot.
your channel is awesome, I'm in my late 30's and finding out games i never knew about thanks David. Specially that last one with the dragon omg i want it.
Sync Nova hm? I don't remember that. Her line shot isn't to bad. Good enough to replace her bad basic hit. The cat claw attack is nice. To bad that one couldn't have a 3 set combo move attack. Like fire,firera & firega. First left paw,then right paw and cat bite attack. Hell Rita should have had a pet cat. Her persona is like one at times. Can be that move was to be of her cat. Rita also reminds me to Leon in Star Ocean 2. Personality,smart and weapon.
So much as you don't mind hearing the words "Blah, Blah, Blah" in your sleep for all the Tidal Waves she'll be spewing forth after the grinding is done!!!
I 100% agree with the #1 choice. If he dies in battle, then you did something wrong to make that happen. He is a tank, healer, and DPS wrapped in one package.
@@johnsmith-jw1do If I ever defend a fictional character its because I believe that the character is misunderstood like Squall from FFVIII but it has nothing to do with waifu crap or stupid illusions of sleeping with a fictional character. The character is a symbol for ideas that correlate to real life.
I did enjoy how much you could mess with the turn order in Mana Khemia. You could set up so many DoTs that just covered the turn order, not too mention Anna always deciding it’s her turn. It was rather neat. Granted, one boss counters the DoT game hard, but that made me like that boss even more for punishing it.
It's quite broken. I remember using that skill on the last boss only (and not before) since this already easy game would have been a complete snooze fest. As long as you have enough skill point healing you stun the opponents forever since Millenia reaches her next turn long before the stun wears off, making it possible to perma-stun everyone.
because of how stupid strong it is, many people, including me, consider the core of valmar to be the true final boss, where if you can beat it, the ensuing boss rush and final boss will be a relative breeze.
Still waiting for Maria from Star Ocean 3. In a game with fists, daggers and swords, Maria has a gun. And not the typical BS JRPG sword is still better than gun, but actual gun is at the top of the weapon food chain. Aiming Device, Scatter Beam, Radiation Bots and of course, Energy Burst.
Seriously, I slapped an orichalcum on her gun as soon as I could, and she was basically broken for the rest of the game. I got all the "no damage" and "beat the boss within so many seconds" trophies for pretty much every boss after that point... Including the last boss.
In term of raw stats, Peppita is the strongest for late game dungeons. Put Dream Hammer on heavy attack and she’s unstoppable. I got beat Ethereal Queen within X minutes trophies with her
Huh, Didn't realize that about Maria or Peppita. Peppita for me was a bit of a joke. (you get her as a level 1, when you're mid way through the game) I'd keep her level 1 for long time then let join a battle just to see how many levels she'd go up.
If you ever do a Part 5, I find there are several characters to choose from in Dragon Quest 11 that I thought were just simply unfair. Veronica, being the main mage she can cast Kaboom, so if you max out her Magic Might attribute, as well as unlock her Kaboomle panel, she can take out most enemies in a single shot, she also learns magic burst (although it drains ALL of your MP) which can knock off from 1/3 to 1/2 of bosses HP! And she has the Mighty Magic Burst pep with Serena which does about 1k more damage than by herself! Jade, the opposite of Veronica, she's just the monk class from FF1, high critical hit ratio, devastating group attacks, and she has a pep power with Sylvando and the Luminary called Electro light, where if it goes well, you replace the original enemies with Metal Slime enemies, and if you do everything right according to a guide, you can get upwards to over 700k exp, one time it leveled me up a solid 10 levels in 1 battle! She makes grinding a breeze! Erik, dude can learn Critical Claim which is a guaranteed critical hit (usually set to between 300-400 damage) no dodge, no defense, nothing. Combined with Jade's electro light, you'll guaranteed get at least 1 Metal Slime enemy because of it with no risk! Again, breaks grinding. He also learns divide, and fatal flash (which is a high crit chance move that does more damage than critical claim if you equipped duel swords onto Erik). Also I'd like to nominate Bombette, Paper Mario 64, she gets me through the toughest fights when needed and has the highest attack out of all partners, as well as having multiple variations of bombing techniques ranging from single enemies, ground enemies, to ALL enemies! Jessica, Dragon Quest 8, she learns twin dragon lash early if you go down her Whips path, which with the amount of dragons in the game, and how much damage it does to a single enemy, is ABSURD! After that, I go down her staff category to increase her amount of spells and MP and not surprisingly, she becomes a CANNON!
Yay! Anna's in the list,thanks! Pamela is broken too though, as she's immune to physical attacks, can self-revive over and over, heal parties, be much stronger with low HP, AND ERASE enemies' resistances
This made me want to play Albert's Odyssey...but then I remembered the grueling load times of the Saturn and how my save got deleted the last time due to the battery dying...nope!
For Glenn... You aren't choosing so much to let kid die but that you don't know how you would save her. It's a realist vs optimist argument. As well, Glenn of CC and Frog of CT are 2 different characters, it's a reference to the original and I think in lore it explains he is named after a hero from a past age.
Colette from Tales Of Symphonia. While she's meh at first, after unlocking the first seal, she gets access to *Angel Feathers*, which enables her to spell guard cancel her non-directional melee attacks to build damage, combos, or force block breaks like a front-liner. Her strength growth is ridiculously high for a character with high magic & she gets high-tier light spells like *Judgement, Holy Song (which stacks with other stat buffs), & Grand Cross.* As if those don't make her good enough, she gets top-tier tech skills in both T-type & S-Type. For *S-type* she gets para ball; a mid-range single-targeting projectile that she throws twice, has great stun, & has great range for its cost. Torrential para ball is the same except she tosses FOUR, which leads into all types of combos, guard breaks, & lock down. For *T-type* she gets pow-pow hammer, which launches numerous hammers on one target & she can spell guard cancel the endlag, which is beyond broken for guard breaks & combos. She also gets Ray Satellite, which has her launching a chakram directly in front of her that hits 5 times & lingers there. She can spell cancel right after she shoots it, making it totally broken for combos. She gets Triple Ray Satellite later, which launches 3 in front of her, each hitting 5 times, & it's still spell guard cancellable. Think it ends there? Well, it doesn't. She has great Compound Special Attacks with most of the cast. She has EX Skills that break her even more in *Life Thief, Item Getter, Super Guard, & Spirit Thief.* Those skills recover HP & TP in proportion to the combo number. The higher, the better. Super Guard makes her impervious to physical damage if in critical health. All her weapons are given to you in places you have to go, making her low maintenance. Item Getter allows a 100% item steal from her item thief tech, giving her great utility. Colette is a really overlooked unit.
I think she only has Grand Cross in the remaster, which then makes Genis completely obsolete, as she now has a new Unison attack with Raine, Gospel, which completely outdamages Prism Stars. So now a team of Lloyd, Colette, Raine and Zelos/Kratos becomes amazing. Other than that, Elize is ten times more broken, especially in Xillia 1.
@@asmodeus58XX Genis is useful for his wide spells and Absolute off-the-grounding enemies. In all honesty you could replace zelos/kratos with genis. The only gripe is that some characters have bad AI and that keeps them from being too overpowered.
actually Colette is the worst character in Tales of Symphonia, is not that you can't make her work is just that her strong attacks are the angelic arts and well if it happens to Colette be the only one alive her sacrifice can revert the flow of the battle. Still most of her attacks are close range and her animations are longer than most of the other melee characters, at least her part in the colliseum is not a pain compared to Raine and Genis
@@Jamesmor999 Spell guard cancelling COMPLETELY breaks her as she's the best abuser of it by far with spirit & life thief. Being able to cancel pow-pow hammer before the animation ends is dumb. Ray Satellite techs are better if spell cancelled. Her only real flaw is she lacks reliable healing spells.
@@Jamesmor999 The worst is Sheena by far, and I say Regal is easily second worst, but you never really need him in the party, unlike Sheena and Colette. If you want, you can use Presea instead of Lloyd, the good old days where main protagonists weren't broken and/or mandatory, but I prefer speedy characters anyway. I do use Guy instead of Luke all the time though.
I’ve always really found Seven to be a little underwhelming. Yeah sure, they can auto attack ridiculously fast, but they draw Aggro like Reyn and don’t have the stats to back it up. Unlike Melia or Shulk who can deal massive damage in one hit and get out of the Aggro
Oh yeah he’s easily the best aside from The Hero. Having a variety of spells including Fullheal, Multiheal, and Kazing. Among other good ones. Having a bunch of skills from other Dragon Quest games that no one else has access to and being a strong fighter. A great alternative to Kiryl in the post game.
Gosh, you make me wanna play all of the games when you do these lists. So imagine how full my back catalogue is now 😄 there's also so many I don't know, so you're giving me great suggestions too haha
kinda late to the party but Ash Lambert as the vandaler in vandal hearts 1. As vandaler he blocks every single attack that isn't behind him, has the strength to one shot everything, has every spell in the game, plus has an infinite amount of every item in the game.
Glad you brought Rune up, my favorite Phantasy Star Character. You didn't do him justice though. He has so much TP and skill points that he almost never has to physically swing a stick at a foe (which is good because he is god awful at that). So because of him never having to use anything physical he can just equip magic shields (he can hold 2 of them) and be your parties tank as well. Til the end of the game with those 2 shields he is the most bulky party member. Place 2 shields on him and let him lead the party and you pretty much never have to worry about regular attacks on your other party members since enemies target by who is in the lead 1st. Phantasy Star has a habit of giving broken party members to help new parties along. Kireek in PSO for example, but unlike Kireek Rune doesn't have a possible bad ending where he gets corrupted by Dark Falz
The game certainly does. The first time you get him in your party, you could just have him use Hewn and Gra to clear out most enemies to level up your party. You could even take his starting weapon and get a free healing item (in combat only though) for free. And lastly he and Chaz has one of the best combination attacks that you're likely to use against midgame to endgame boss fights a lot.
Spellbinding Eye is basically a MUST for the final boss. I was playing a hard mode playthrough recently, and I'd forgotten how much of a nightmare he was on normal mode. He was getting 3-4 turns for each turn of mine, with at least 2 turns against my one when he was slowed to a -5 speed stat while my speed on all characters was +5. Basically, the ONLY way I managed to get through it was to just constantly cast SE ever 2-3 of Millenia's turns, just so that I could keep him locked down enough for me to finish him off (I completely forgot about using SE in the battle until I was about 2/3s of the way through his HP)
You mentioned Richard from Suikoden V last video (total agreement), but I also nominate Zerase. She has a crazy magic stat and an absolutely killer rune, and if you give her the Magic Absorb Rune, she'll forever remain stocked with all of her most powerful magics and just destroy every enemy you face. Richard can at least be felled by magic, but if you stick Zerase in the back of your party, you're basically guaranteed to win every fight.
HEY! Nice shouting out Valsu form The 7th Saga. I still can't believe how broken his Elixir spell is. I once did a solo run with him as a teen. My dad thought I was crazy but then I was laughing once he learned Elixir.
If I recall right, Gryzz's breaths are calculated based on a formula based on a certain stat... So at high levels, it doesn't heal that much, though it's still useful (and cheap). Also, it's not just immunity to poison. He has high resistance to all status effects (I think). Thus I recall that one of the boss fight, he really shines as the boss kept paralysing the whole party except for him (so yes, he kept the party alive and slew the boss himself). Btw, so glad to see my boy Glenn in the list!
I totally get why it'd be easy to miss secret characters that require your party to die. I remember in Tales of Symphonia that you would get a title with really good stat growth if you get to a certain point in the game without any of your party members dying. Ever since then, I was straight up reset battles if anybody died in any JRPG I play
Fun to see this list!! I enjoyed seeing one of my favourites Valsu. 7th saga was one of the handful of RPGs I had growing up so have grown to love this game. I probably replay about once a year.
Love the lists, David. Keep 'em coming! How about Isis from SaGa 2 (Final Fantasy Legend II)? 99 all stats, 999 HP, Flare, and Masamune, Aegis, and Heart MAGI which is the only thing in the game that can resurrect your team in a battle. She always goes first and obliterates everything.
Isis technically wouldn't be considered OP for one reason alone... her force use of flare/masamune didn't allow her to be that ridiculously overpowered unless you sold all your other user's gear to keep buying tents so she can get all her flares back. If you want to talk about OP for that game, I'd compare it to the TIME you get them. Mask in Ashera's tower is far closer to that status as he comes ridiculously overstated for the time he's there. ISIS may have 99 in all stats, but that limited her still. You could easily have far stronger Mutant/human/robots and in actuality, monster could be stronger (Madame butterfly is a ridiculously powerful monster that gives Isis a run for the money. Absorb alone puts it on a damage level and survivability that Isis can't touch. There are other monsters that have stronger uses or invulnerability). If Isis had some slots freed up, she could have been far more useful
Some characters I can see how there might have been an oversight or several in design, but how can you justify giving your team someone 20+ levels above them for an extended period of time? I nominate Gogo from Final Fantasy 6. People assume Mimic is all he can do and call him a gimmick character, but if you go to his status screen he can 'equip' up to three class abilities. So he can use Blitz, Steal, and Runic all at once. Or Tools, Dance and Lore (instantly knowing all the ones Strago knows). He's flexible that way.
WhiteFangofWhoa Gogo is a jack of all trades, master of none character. Yes he can do anything, but his awful states means his spells, blitzes and tools will be a lot weaker that those of his counterparts. Also, he can’t equip espers so you can’t raise his stats. Still, Gogo is a lot better than Umaro in the secret character department.
i mean the time you get gadwin in grandia is not too extended tbh. it is maybe like 15 % of the game at most. the game was released for 2 disks for ps1 and he joins you for the last quarter of disk 1. i mean i actually also love how they do not make a difference between "i control the character" power and "he is my opponent". also, while gadwins stats are sky high, he is slow as fuck. justin and feena will get 2 turns before he gets his 1st usually. so yes, he makes the section he is in basically unlosable, but he doesn t make it a "oh, gadwin goes first, 1 shots everything and the others just watch."
That timewalk thing reminds me of Machis in I think the first Cold Steel. He has a move where he can speed up everyone around him, so it's basically: Speed up -> The fastest throws a 200 cp food -> everyone spams the s-craft/break -> Speed up -> Repeat until boss is dead.
well that trick/combo has been a staple in the series since trails in the sky where you did that with agate and schera + a healer. Agate has a skill that makes him recover (i think it is 120 cp) at the cost of 60 % of his max hp. the loop is basically schera accelerates -> healer heals agate -> agate sacrifices his hp to get enough to spam an S craft. S craft with him immidiately. 4th character does something else. definitely one of the more efficient tactics on highest difficulty in this game, and by how biased this game is towards magic the only viable physical attacker strategy. in crossbell you can do the combo with elie as accellerator, randy as S Craft Spammer and tio as heal. in cold steel i and ii that combo can be done with gaius, machias and elliot. didn t play 3 yet, but my guess is this strategy will return there too.
Jazz from Eternal Sonata can get pretty OP. He has a ridiculous reach and attack range, so the best way to beat a crowd of enemies in the game is: get them grouped up and swing away, the combo counter goes up in a flash and you can decimate them with a finisher
OMFG. So much love to you for including 7th Saga on this list!! NO ONE talks about this game enough!!! I normally used Lejes (the Demon) when I was younger and paired him up with Esuna (the Elf) for a magical power house but then Stone Pison would come along and ruin my day! I started replaying this game recently and now as an adult who understands the strategy better, I too have come to understand how absurdly powerful Valsu is! You are simply amazing for putting this on the list, literally made my jaw hit the floor with shock!!
I don't know if you'd agree, But I personally think that the War Magus from the etrian odyssey 2 remake is amazing. The only thing they can't do is elemental damage, and even then, they don't need to most of the time.
The Mighty Elixir spell would make ANYONE god tier, even if that was the ONLY ability they had. party refresh each turn for free ad infinity? sign me up.
On your bit about Disgaea --- I find that I love the Netherworld Hijinx, since it allows for a much greater range of possibilities than sticking with what's been done over and over. I honestly credit the series with getting me out of a large RPG slump I was in. What also helps is that the series actively encourages you to find ways to utterly break it, which sates the munchkin in me.
Here's who I think should show up as the best party members. Goombella from Paper Mario and the Thousand-Year Door. With (or despite) having all of Goombario's abilities (with a Charge P Badge equipped), what puts her above the rest is Rally Wink. It grants Mario an extra turn. Fiora from Xenoblade Chronicles. Give her Dunban's abilities and she can heal after any crits, which her other abilities increase the chances of. A Tank with Crit damage. Considered Melia, but her AI sucks.
My older brother was the Sega kid. I was an only gets to play when it's 2 players kid. Basically, Tails, Streets of Rage and my personal favorite, Toejam & Earl
You could make a case Lucina counts, since she is basically Chrom, with a base stat boost from her mother and the sum of her parents' growths. It's kind of true of all the children, but you can breed useless children with the others, but Chrom is already a very good, all around character so any additional stats would just make him exponentially better and Lucina has a head start on him and then gains so many stats. She can end up a little broken or extremely broken depending on who her mother is and if you are doing a extreme low level run. Though you could also argue she is the real main character and Chrom and Robin are just supporting characters paving the way for her grand entrance.
Ive watched alot of your content so far. Really like your style. Keep up the good work. A topic is be interested in you talking about if you haven't is linearity in rpgs vs more open progression paths in both the travesable world and character progression. Think ff10 vs ff12 vs ff13
How has Radiant Dawn Haar not made it onto one of these lists? The dude is an absolute beast, and the only thing that makes his presence short of criminal is that he ends up with the already super powerful Greil Mercs instead of the Dawn Brigade. If he and Jill switched places in Part 3 then Jill would be relegated to being Mia's taxi and Haar would go on to straight win the war for Daein.
I have a suggestion for a character. Maria from Star Ocean 3 PS2/XBOX 360. She alone makes the bosses in the post game beatable, in fact she's almost necessary in order to beat them on the hardest difficulties.
On top of how great Rune is in PS4, you can also equip him with 2 shields at all times and have him only use magic, cranks his Def and makes him a tank. Can't remember the name of the 2 end game shields I'd equip him with but they would make him pretty much invincible... like every attack only hits him for 1hp. Dude was legit overpowered!
Millenia ...one of my favorite characters in one of my favorite games. For the dry humor and insuts alone. Fun game well worth the numerous replays I have done.
There is a playable character that isn't a main character in Phanasty Star 3 that you can picked up in exactly 1 of the 4 third generation timelines that starts with stats that are better than most other playable characters maximum stats across the board. And she enters the party at low to mid level with her level gain being based a pond experience as most other characters would have if already fully leveled or passed fully leveled.
I think Peppita from Star Ocean 3 us good. Once she learns power dance your set. Then getting healing and magical dance though it does take a while to level it up, can be pretty useful. Her panic dance can confuse enemies which has gotten me out of a few tight spots here and there. Then the best combo in my opinion is dream hammer and power dance. I was able to beat the ethereal queen within ten minutes thanks to that combo.
You mentioned "evasion tank" Fie in an earlier video, but not also mentioning "walking nuke" Laura is like a crime. With the right setup and an attack buff, Laura can basically one-shot every single enemy in the game using a fully loaded S-Craft. You can also just link her with Fie and have her gain free attacks/free CP recovery by getting her to perform follow-up attacks whenever Fie hits an enemy (since she almost always unbalances on hits). They are the reason why almost everybody's party setup in Trails 1/2 is Laura - Fie - Rean - literally anybody else (mostly Emma or Alisa). Another character that comes to mind is the "birdman" character that you get at the beginning of Tactics Ogre - Let us Cling together. Hits like a truck with his crossbow (in a game where ranged weapons are broken), flies everywhere (ignoring terrain penalties, being able to take the most advantageous positions on the map easily), can take hits reasonably well and, most importantly, never leaves you (according to my memory, unlike other broken characters). Many "siege the castle" missions can be basically solo'd by him flying over and taking out all the ranged units before your main party comes trodding in.
i mean that was exactly my setup in trails of cold steel 2, it was almost the same in 1. in CS 1 it was a close call between gaius and fie for me in the role of evasion tank and it was a bit of competition there - in CS II though fie just sealed the deal. she wasn't that op in cs1 and the linear level growth in speed made her speed advantage diminish over the course of the game (which did not happen with the change in status calculation in CS ii) and she did not have inherent 30 % evasion. but ye, i basically explained why this character setup is so great in the comment in the last video and how hard it is to lose with it, and well - you could say, fie (backed by alisa with cp regen) makes it basically impossible to lose. laura on the other hand makes it almost impossible to not win xD. i mean let s be honest, most characters in Cold steel are strong and have their merits. gaius in CS II is a fine characters but fie does the role of evasion tank just better. elliot is a great healer but that merit is useless if you don t tank any damage, and on the rare instance you do need healing seraphic ring does the job. sarah is a fusion between laura and rean, can technically role compress both of them if you want to use someone else. she just doesn t have quite the raw power of laura and her delay skill ends up breaking formation unlike arc slash. machias is clearly a lot better than his archetypal counterparts josette and noel [i consider the earth element tank gunner an archetype in the series] and has a lot of it going for him (that is ultimately not needed like elliot). the only characters in the class vii cast i found really lacking is millium and to an extent jusis. his buff is super useful, but as raw mage he is 3rd after elliot to me and as physical hitter he can t compete. and well, millium - she is the only character who i had trouble hitting the enemy with. that should say a lot. crow in CS 1 was also quite fun to play with. i mean if i go over all the other guest characters and characters you have for the final dungeon this comment will take ages.
oh ye. i checked my save and i actually completely forgot that gaius has 1 unique thing about him over his "role competitor" fie. he is the "Agate" of this game. aka he has a skill that sacrifices HP for CP. combining him with machias ability to accelerate the turn order, they build the duo of schera/agate for this duology. pair them up with elliot and you have the perfect healer to complement these 2. definitely a viable way to play this game. Outside of that machias has a backup heal which cures debuffs, is naturally tanky and is good at spreading status. gaius has a decent skillpool and is the 2nd best evasion tank (i. e. for this role the first loser) and a good hitter on rean level [aka good but not outstanding]. and well, elliot is the most shallow in terms of variety, but he is very good at what he s supposed to be good at. i mean overall the combo feels just like "taking an unncessary risk" if you can just infinitely delay everyone with rean and fie and destroy everything under the sun with laura - including orbal washing machines XDXDXDXDXDXDXDXD
You ever play the Ys games? Ricotta from Ys VIII is super overpowered, and I love her. She has the best stun skill in the game. The supposed downside of the skill is that she gets dizzy for a couple seconds after using it, but you can negate that by dashing out of the dizzy animation and just spam it. On top of that, she has a high damage skill that can quickly finish enemies once they are stunned. Toss on an SP-reducing accessory, and she's a one-person wrecking machine.
reminds of of lloyd's burning heart from trails series. 50 % attack and 50 % speed for 5 turns - but you faint after using it? - well, unless you just keep using it on turn 5 again.
How about Noa from Legend of Legaia? When you first get her she's not the most physically powerful, but she makes up for it with her high agility. Legend of Legaia is an interesting JRPG where you can use a combination of up down left and right moves to attack. Defense is therefore split into upper defense and lower defense for the high and low hits. Some attacks will combine into an art,which are basically combos in fighting games, except in a JRPG. Agility in Legaia affects art blocks, which affect how many times you can attack and combine moves into arts. Noa has the highest agility and speed. Speed allows her turn to happen first consistently. Agility allows her to hit more times, therefore dealing more damage than the other two heroes. That alone is strong, but that's not all. You can also use a special command called "Spirit" which reduces damage, and increases the number of art blocks you can use, for the next turn. With this combination of high agility, spiriting, and a few levels, she can potentially 3 shot the first boss. Her high agility means she'll, barring some shenanigans, be the first to max out her art block and get to hit the most out of all the party members. All this would be great on it's own, but later on she gets an upgrade that powers up her left attack, causing it to hit twice. Spamming left wouldn't do much you may think, but you'd be wrong. This lets her hit up to 18 times in one turn, possibly dealing the most damage out of any other character. The only real issue is she's very frail and doesn't have the most amazing stats. She has the lowest upper defense, lowest HP, the lowest intelligence, lowest MP, and the lowest attack of the three characters. Also she loses the biggest advantage of her high agility when everyone else also maxes out their art blocks. However early to mid game she's amazing, late game she's still able to keep up, and late game she's amazing again. Basically, she deserves to be number 6, 7, 8 or 9 on one of these lists. I think 6 or 7 personally, but that's up to you.
In the End Game of Phantasy Star IV It is generally a consensus that the strongest fifth character is Raja The best white mage character and the only character in the game that can replenish Tech Points. And he was just as broken during the time he is a mandatory character.
Fun note: Valsu's version of Ice 1 is actually different from everyone else's. Its scaling makes it absolutely monstrous compared to all but Esuna's Ice 2, and even that is a pretty fair competition. The *rest* of Valsu's toolkit makes him quite literally invincible. You don't even need to recruit help. Just solo the whole game like a man.
1. "Like a man" 2. Use Valsu. Pick one. Elixir is a god mode cheese spell. Couldn't bother ever brining him along. And, you're wrong about his Ice 1. It's the same spell the others use, exactly.
Always using Glenn in every replays! =)) Yeah, not only he's the best green element character, he can equip the Einlanzer, the best sword in the game! And even more he can dual wield TWO Einlanzers @@! Making him super high attack and more damage on his skills! He appears and joins the party pretty early in the game! He even got a cool combine skill with Serge! :v Definitely OP, a must have character! =))
Khoa Ha Easily one of the top 5 best characters in the game. I always ran Serge, Glenn and Orlha. I experimented a lot with other line ups but I found these three work really well together. Only down side is you get Orlha kinda late.
Alcaste that’s a good group too. I usually use Norris with Lynx and Radius but I switch out Radius once Karsh becomes available. Karsh is another really good one and he’s easily the second best green element user behind Glenn.
I find funny the fact that Chrono Cross actually rewards you for not caring about Kid, like, if you decline her 1st offer to join you get Leena, which is a good healer earlygame. And of course Glenn when u choose to dont save her xP
Rita is the most awesome. And her sismance with Elise is great too. Don't you dare insult her! She even is so competent, she can forego the incantation of spells and says Blablabla, because she's just THAT good.
All of the master monk candidates in Shining Force 2. Why do the healers have some of the highest attack stats? If I'm remember correctly any master monk will end up with over 100 attack if leveled up.
To Glenn in Chrono Cross.. He's one of the best characters, no doubt, but there's also Leena (her maidenheart allowing her to regain elements early in the game is really good and her maidenfaith giving 20% phys damage, 99% accuracy AND an auto revive is the best skill in the game. Against the bosses with a lot of health, you can see how broken it is especially for a mage character who has fantastic magic to also be able to keep up with the heavy phys characters... the problem... only those two bosses you get to see how powerful it is on as the other ones die too fast.)
Marona from Phantom Brave. Only unit in the game that doesn't run on a timer. Somewhere halfway trough the game i just stopped even using anything else, as it was too much effort when i could just kill everything with marona alone without having to bother with the summon system.
Rune was not broken. Wren was virtually indestructible near the end of the game and Rune was one of the only characters I saw die. However, Rune was a great character and proves you can build a functional magic user without needing to make magic weaker than physical attacks by end of the game. Very few people know about 7th Saga, and fewer still talk about it at all. I haven't played it yet but it's high on my list. Thanks for the recommendation on Valsu. :)
Rune can equip TWO Psy Shields, buffing his magic and making him a literal tank (with low HP though). You can prett ymuch put him 2nd rank behind Wren and you'll be fine.
I honestly love these videos. Stuff like this is what makes RPG's so fun, just having OP characters or figuring out the mechanics that allow you to destroy the games difficulty if you know what you're doing.
Even though you seemed to hate her, Rita's endgame Tidal Wave was recognized. My respect, good sir!
I'm surprised Erik from DQ11 hasn't been mentioned. He's pretty much a level grinding assistant. Dual wielding w/ boomerangs for clearing enemy groups, ultra useful Pep Powers, like double turns w/ buffs, guaranteed rare items & item steals, a guaranteed critical hit move, & generous status infliction moves WITH moves that deal extra damage to status inflicted enemies **and that's without considering Divide setups that triple the damage output!**
In Draconian Mode he's pretty crap until WAAAAY late in the game after he gets divide because of the way enemy defense works.
@@LukesLog95 By Draconian mode you mean super strong monsters adjustment right?
You get a like for mentioning Albert Odyssey. I didn't play very many Sega Saturn games when I was younger, but I did love that one.
I love these lists, not only do they show some amazing characters (with fantastic descriptions), but they also help me find another rpg to play or character to find.
Thank you for your amazing videos!
For the games that I've actually played, I mostly agree, however I've found that I can make Roan a speed demon. When I play, I can make him have 2 turns for every turn Ryudo takes and that really helps a lot.
your channel is awesome, I'm in my late 30's and finding out games i never knew about thanks David. Specially that last one with the dragon omg i want it.
Dang it must have been 20 years since I played Grandia 2, but I still remember Spellbinding Eye making the final boss a cakewalk
Rita Mordio makes grade grinding easy for Vesperia.
Blah blah blah, grade farming! Also Rita's Wallis (a melee attack) is op as hell at high usuage lol.
Sync Nova hm? I don't remember that. Her line shot isn't to bad. Good enough to replace her bad basic hit. The cat claw attack is nice. To bad that one couldn't have a 3 set combo move attack. Like fire,firera & firega. First left paw,then right paw and cat bite attack. Hell Rita should have had a pet cat. Her persona is like one at times. Can be that move was to be of her cat. Rita also reminds me to Leon in Star Ocean 2. Personality,smart and weapon.
So much as you don't mind hearing the words "Blah, Blah, Blah" in your sleep for all the Tidal Waves she'll be spewing forth after the grinding is done!!!
I prefer spamming Negative Gate or Violent Pain for grade farming.
I 100% agree with the #1 choice.
If he dies in battle, then you did something wrong to make that happen. He is a tank, healer, and DPS wrapped in one package.
Mamaori (Tokyo Mirage)-1) Jumps in front of attacks. 2) Massive HP, Strength, and Defense. 3) Invalidates the Anti-Horse skills. 4) Healer tank
I’m so glad Albert Odyssey got some love. It’s been a long time since I played that game.
“Even though Rita is a totally annoying psychotic bitch.”
As someone who loves Rita as a character, I can still say this is 100% accurate.
"No matter how much you white knight for them, they'll never sleep with you"
SEGATA SANSHIRO HAS ENTERED THE CHAT
Is it just me or is simping trending everywhere atm?
Yeah, that was a stupid line. I know he was trying to be funny but well duh.
Shots fired! You plebs will never understand my love for Nina
@@johnsmith-jw1do If I ever defend a fictional character its because I believe that the character is misunderstood like Squall from FFVIII but it has nothing to do with waifu crap or stupid illusions of sleeping with a fictional character. The character is a symbol for ideas that correlate to real life.
I did enjoy how much you could mess with the turn order in Mana Khemia. You could set up so many DoTs that just covered the turn order, not too mention Anna always deciding it’s her turn. It was rather neat.
Granted, one boss counters the DoT game hard, but that made me like that boss even more for punishing it.
Holy cow! I've never used the spell binding eye on the final boss. I might try this on the switch version.
It's quite broken. I remember using that skill on the last boss only (and not before) since this already easy game would have been a complete snooze fest. As long as you have enough skill point healing you stun the opponents forever since Millenia reaches her next turn long before the stun wears off, making it possible to perma-stun everyone.
because of how stupid strong it is, many people, including me, consider the core of valmar to be the true final boss, where if you can beat it, the ensuing boss rush and final boss will be a relative breeze.
Still waiting for Maria from Star Ocean 3. In a game with fists, daggers and swords, Maria has a gun. And not the typical BS JRPG sword is still better than gun, but actual gun is at the top of the weapon food chain. Aiming Device, Scatter Beam, Radiation Bots and of course, Energy Burst.
Seriously, I slapped an orichalcum on her gun as soon as I could, and she was basically broken for the rest of the game. I got all the "no damage" and "beat the boss within so many seconds" trophies for pretty much every boss after that point... Including the last boss.
In term of raw stats, Peppita is the strongest for late game dungeons. Put Dream Hammer on heavy attack and she’s unstoppable. I got beat Ethereal Queen within X minutes trophies with her
Huh, Didn't realize that about Maria or Peppita.
Peppita for me was a bit of a joke. (you get her as a level 1, when you're mid way through the game) I'd keep her level 1 for long time then let join a battle just to see how many levels she'd go up.
If you ever do a Part 5, I find there are several characters to choose from in Dragon Quest 11 that I thought were just simply unfair.
Veronica, being the main mage she can cast Kaboom, so if you max out her Magic Might attribute, as well as unlock her Kaboomle panel, she can take out most enemies in a single shot, she also learns magic burst (although it drains ALL of your MP) which can knock off from 1/3 to 1/2 of bosses HP! And she has the Mighty Magic Burst pep with Serena which does about 1k more damage than by herself!
Jade, the opposite of Veronica, she's just the monk class from FF1, high critical hit ratio, devastating group attacks, and she has a pep power with Sylvando and the Luminary called Electro light, where if it goes well, you replace the original enemies with Metal Slime enemies, and if you do everything right according to a guide, you can get upwards to over 700k exp, one time it leveled me up a solid 10 levels in 1 battle! She makes grinding a breeze!
Erik, dude can learn Critical Claim which is a guaranteed critical hit (usually set to between 300-400 damage) no dodge, no defense, nothing. Combined with Jade's electro light, you'll guaranteed get at least 1 Metal Slime enemy because of it with no risk! Again, breaks grinding. He also learns divide, and fatal flash (which is a high crit chance move that does more damage than critical claim if you equipped duel swords onto Erik).
Also I'd like to nominate
Bombette, Paper Mario 64, she gets me through the toughest fights when needed and has the highest attack out of all partners, as well as having multiple variations of bombing techniques ranging from single enemies, ground enemies, to ALL enemies!
Jessica, Dragon Quest 8, she learns twin dragon lash early if you go down her Whips path, which with the amount of dragons in the game, and how much damage it does to a single enemy, is ABSURD! After that, I go down her staff category to increase her amount of spells and MP and not surprisingly, she becomes a CANNON!
I should say a Part 4/5 like your worst JRPG party members lists
Yay! Anna's in the list,thanks! Pamela is broken too though, as she's immune to physical attacks, can self-revive over and over, heal parties, be much stronger with low HP, AND ERASE enemies' resistances
This made me want to play Albert's Odyssey...but then I remembered the grueling load times of the Saturn and how my save got deleted the last time due to the battery dying...nope!
For Glenn... You aren't choosing so much to let kid die but that you don't know how you would save her. It's a realist vs optimist argument. As well, Glenn of CC and Frog of CT are 2 different characters, it's a reference to the original and I think in lore it explains he is named after a hero from a past age.
Colette from Tales Of Symphonia. While she's meh at first, after unlocking the first seal, she gets access to *Angel Feathers*, which enables her to spell guard cancel her non-directional melee attacks to build damage, combos, or force block breaks like a front-liner. Her strength growth is ridiculously high for a character with high magic & she gets high-tier light spells like *Judgement, Holy Song (which stacks with other stat buffs), & Grand Cross.*
As if those don't make her good enough, she gets top-tier tech skills in both T-type & S-Type. For *S-type* she gets para ball; a mid-range single-targeting projectile that she throws twice, has great stun, & has great range for its cost. Torrential para ball is the same except she tosses FOUR, which leads into all types of combos, guard breaks, & lock down.
For *T-type* she gets pow-pow hammer, which launches numerous hammers on one target & she can spell guard cancel the endlag, which is beyond broken for guard breaks & combos. She also gets Ray Satellite, which has her launching a chakram directly in front of her that hits 5 times & lingers there. She can spell cancel right after she shoots it, making it totally broken for combos. She gets Triple Ray Satellite later, which launches 3 in front of her, each hitting 5 times, & it's still spell guard cancellable.
Think it ends there? Well, it doesn't. She has great Compound Special Attacks with most of the cast. She has EX Skills that break her even more in *Life Thief, Item Getter, Super Guard, & Spirit Thief.* Those skills recover HP & TP in proportion to the combo number. The higher, the better. Super Guard makes her impervious to physical damage if in critical health. All her weapons are given to you in places you have to go, making her low maintenance. Item Getter allows a 100% item steal from her item thief tech, giving her great utility. Colette is a really overlooked unit.
I think she only has Grand Cross in the remaster, which then makes Genis completely obsolete, as she now has a new Unison attack with Raine, Gospel, which completely outdamages Prism Stars. So now a team of Lloyd, Colette, Raine and Zelos/Kratos becomes amazing. Other than that, Elize is ten times more broken, especially in Xillia 1.
@@asmodeus58XX Genis is useful for his wide spells and Absolute off-the-grounding enemies. In all honesty you could replace zelos/kratos with genis. The only gripe is that some characters have bad AI and that keeps them from being too overpowered.
actually Colette is the worst character in Tales of Symphonia, is not that you can't make her work is just that her strong attacks are the angelic arts and well if it happens to Colette be the only one alive her sacrifice can revert the flow of the battle.
Still most of her attacks are close range and her animations are longer than most of the other melee characters, at least her part in the colliseum is not a pain compared to Raine and Genis
@@Jamesmor999 Spell guard cancelling COMPLETELY breaks her as she's the best abuser of it by far with spirit & life thief. Being able to cancel pow-pow hammer before the animation ends is dumb. Ray Satellite techs are better if spell cancelled. Her only real flaw is she lacks reliable healing spells.
@@Jamesmor999 The worst is Sheena by far, and I say Regal is easily second worst, but you never really need him in the party, unlike Sheena and Colette. If you want, you can use Presea instead of Lloyd, the good old days where main protagonists weren't broken and/or mandatory, but I prefer speedy characters anyway. I do use Guy instead of Luke all the time though.
One character I found pretty OP is the last team member in xenoblade. They do a lot of damage and are able to tank damage decently well.
Yeah but you really have to invest in her for that in the first place
I never found her that useful, she does lots of damage but I prefer using Shulk since he can do the same and also support.
I’ve always really found Seven to be a little underwhelming. Yeah sure, they can auto attack ridiculously fast, but they draw Aggro like Reyn and don’t have the stats to back it up. Unlike Melia or Shulk who can deal massive damage in one hit and get out of the Aggro
@@prismatic8333 So going for agility like Dunban is out of the question ?
Alex Ursu Nobody can go for agility like Dunban. Especially super late game because naked Fiora is just a bad strat
He really did do my girl Rita dirty.
You need to mention psaro the manslayer from dragon quest 4. He's literally the main bad guy but he joins your team after you defeat him
Perhaps in part 4?
Oh yeah he’s easily the best aside from The Hero.
Having a variety of spells including Fullheal, Multiheal, and Kazing. Among other good ones.
Having a bunch of skills from other Dragon Quest games that no one else has access to and being a strong fighter.
A great alternative to Kiryl in the post game.
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[0:24] - 10) Glenn - Chrono Cross
[1:24] - 9)
Gadwin - Grandia
[2:24] - 8)
Rune - Phantasy Star 4
[3:23] - 7)
Anna - Mana Khemia - Alchemists of Al-Revis
[4:23] - 6)
Cream - Sonic Chronicles: Dark Brotherhood
[5:29] - 5)
Desco - Disgaea 4
[6:27] - 4)
Rita - Tales of Vesperia
[7:28] - 3)
Valsu - The 7th Saga
[8:34] - 2)
Millenia - Grandia 2
[9:34] - 1) Gryzz - Albert Odyssey: Legend of Eldean
Will Titania from Fire Emblem Path of Radiance be on a future one of these?
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Most overpowered character ever is Ash from Vandal Hearts as a Vandalier.
FF7 Aerith Gainsborough is broken best magic character and best Limit breaks Great Gospel is break.
*Cream: every game she's playable in
I was not expecting Sonic Chronicles to make it on this list!
I was. Seen requests with good arguments.
Ive been having a bad week. Thanks for the upload!
Much love rpg fan
@@Stolaz83 You too, brother.
Throwing in classic MTG references even, nice. :D
I never played the game he was referencing so that mtg analogy was really helpful lol.
So in other words, Elixir is the Win the Game spell. (Not a bad thing in such a hard game with so many characters!)
Gosh, you make me wanna play all of the games when you do these lists. So imagine how full my back catalogue is now 😄 there's also so many I don't know, so you're giving me great suggestions too haha
Yep, Cream is OP
Also in terms of the last game it kinda makes sense for that guy to be OP if you really think about it...
He's a freaking dragon
Cream the Rabbit is the most OP character in every game she's appeared in. If she got all the chaos emeralds she'd destroy the universe.
Michael Lewis: The JRPG KING!
"I love me a good bitch" XD
The well-written ones are such a delight, I totally agree lol.
kinda late to the party but Ash Lambert as the vandaler in vandal hearts 1. As vandaler he blocks every single attack that isn't behind him, has the strength to one shot everything, has every spell in the game, plus has an infinite amount of every item in the game.
Glad you brought Rune up, my favorite Phantasy Star Character. You didn't do him justice though. He has so much TP and skill points that he almost never has to physically swing a stick at a foe (which is good because he is god awful at that). So because of him never having to use anything physical he can just equip magic shields (he can hold 2 of them) and be your parties tank as well. Til the end of the game with those 2 shields he is the most bulky party member. Place 2 shields on him and let him lead the party and you pretty much never have to worry about regular attacks on your other party members since enemies target by who is in the lead 1st.
Phantasy Star has a habit of giving broken party members to help new parties along. Kireek in PSO for example, but unlike Kireek Rune doesn't have a possible bad ending where he gets corrupted by Dark Falz
The game certainly does. The first time you get him in your party, you could just have him use Hewn and Gra to clear out most enemies to level up your party. You could even take his starting weapon and get a free healing item (in combat only though) for free. And lastly he and Chaz has one of the best combination attacks that you're likely to use against midgame to endgame boss fights a lot.
Spellbinding Eye is basically a MUST for the final boss. I was playing a hard mode playthrough recently, and I'd forgotten how much of a nightmare he was on normal mode. He was getting 3-4 turns for each turn of mine, with at least 2 turns against my one when he was slowed to a -5 speed stat while my speed on all characters was +5.
Basically, the ONLY way I managed to get through it was to just constantly cast SE ever 2-3 of Millenia's turns, just so that I could keep him locked down enough for me to finish him off (I completely forgot about using SE in the battle until I was about 2/3s of the way through his HP)
You mentioned Richard from Suikoden V last video (total agreement), but I also nominate Zerase. She has a crazy magic stat and an absolutely killer rune, and if you give her the Magic Absorb Rune, she'll forever remain stocked with all of her most powerful magics and just destroy every enemy you face. Richard can at least be felled by magic, but if you stick Zerase in the back of your party, you're basically guaranteed to win every fight.
"I am able to separate a character's personality from their use in battle."
Me: chuckles nervously as I bench Tora the second Morag became available.
HEY! Nice shouting out Valsu form The 7th Saga. I still can't believe how broken his Elixir spell is. I once did a solo run with him as a teen. My dad thought I was crazy but then I was laughing once he learned Elixir.
If I recall right, Gryzz's breaths are calculated based on a formula based on a certain stat... So at high levels, it doesn't heal that much, though it's still useful (and cheap). Also, it's not just immunity to poison. He has high resistance to all status effects (I think). Thus I recall that one of the boss fight, he really shines as the boss kept paralysing the whole party except for him (so yes, he kept the party alive and slew the boss himself).
Btw, so glad to see my boy Glenn in the list!
The Elixer spell is so broken it's actually kinda comical
Personality and content always on point. I wish we could have been best friends growing up.
I totally get why it'd be easy to miss secret characters that require your party to die. I remember in Tales of Symphonia that you would get a title with really good stat growth if you get to a certain point in the game without any of your party members dying. Ever since then, I was straight up reset battles if anybody died in any JRPG I play
Aww man....i really miss Mana Khemia Battle system, i really had fun with that game that I'd always wish that enemy never dies
Fun to see this list!! I enjoyed seeing one of my favourites Valsu. 7th saga was one of the handful of RPGs I had growing up so have grown to love this game. I probably replay about once a year.
So glad to see Valsu get some love! 7th Saga is one of my favorite RPGs of all time and I hardly ever hear people talk about it.
It’d be cool if you did a Let’s Play of Breath of Fire II.
I was waiting for Rune to appear.
Love the lists, David. Keep 'em coming! How about Isis from SaGa 2 (Final Fantasy Legend II)? 99 all stats, 999 HP, Flare, and Masamune, Aegis, and Heart MAGI which is the only thing in the game that can resurrect your team in a battle. She always goes first and obliterates everything.
Indeed. While not as deliberately OP as Isis, Borgin from SaGa 3 is also the ultimate healer/nuker as like her, he only joins at the very end.
Isis technically wouldn't be considered OP for one reason alone... her force use of flare/masamune didn't allow her to be that ridiculously overpowered unless you sold all your other user's gear to keep buying tents so she can get all her flares back.
If you want to talk about OP for that game, I'd compare it to the TIME you get them. Mask in Ashera's tower is far closer to that status as he comes ridiculously overstated for the time he's there.
ISIS may have 99 in all stats, but that limited her still. You could easily have far stronger Mutant/human/robots and in actuality, monster could be stronger (Madame butterfly is a ridiculously powerful monster that gives Isis a run for the money. Absorb alone puts it on a damage level and survivability that Isis can't touch. There are other monsters that have stronger uses or invulnerability).
If Isis had some slots freed up, she could have been far more useful
Some characters I can see how there might have been an oversight or several in design, but how can you justify giving your team someone 20+ levels above them for an extended period of time?
I nominate Gogo from Final Fantasy 6. People assume Mimic is all he can do and call him a gimmick character, but if you go to his status screen he can 'equip' up to three class abilities. So he can use Blitz, Steal, and Runic all at once. Or Tools, Dance and Lore (instantly knowing all the ones Strago knows). He's flexible that way.
WhiteFangofWhoa Gogo is a jack of all trades, master of none character. Yes he can do anything, but his awful states means his spells, blitzes and tools will be a lot weaker that those of his counterparts. Also, he can’t equip espers so you can’t raise his stats. Still, Gogo is a lot better than Umaro in the secret character department.
i mean the time you get gadwin in grandia is not too extended tbh. it is maybe like 15 % of the game at most. the game was released for 2 disks for ps1 and he joins you for the last quarter of disk 1. i mean i actually also love how they do not make a difference between "i control the character" power and "he is my opponent". also, while gadwins stats are sky high, he is slow as fuck. justin and feena will get 2 turns before he gets his 1st usually.
so yes, he makes the section he is in basically unlosable, but he doesn t make it a "oh, gadwin goes first, 1 shots everything and the others just watch."
@@seblepage If Gogo had normal stats he would be stupid broken. They had to nerf his stats. Even as is, he can be broken as shit if used correctly.
My parents were the same way. I wanted a Sega, and I had to earn it. Cream was also OP in some of the Sonic GBA games.
Wow, Mana Khemia. So much nostalgia.
That timewalk thing reminds me of Machis in I think the first Cold Steel. He has a move where he can speed up everyone around him, so it's basically: Speed up -> The fastest throws a 200 cp food -> everyone spams the s-craft/break -> Speed up -> Repeat until boss is dead.
well that trick/combo has been a staple in the series since trails in the sky where you did that with agate and schera + a healer.
Agate has a skill that makes him recover (i think it is 120 cp) at the cost of 60 % of his max hp.
the loop is basically schera accelerates -> healer heals agate -> agate sacrifices his hp to get enough to spam an S craft. S craft with him immidiately. 4th character does something else. definitely one of the more efficient tactics on highest difficulty in this game, and by how biased this game is towards magic the only viable physical attacker strategy.
in crossbell you can do the combo with elie as accellerator, randy as S Craft Spammer and tio as heal.
in cold steel i and ii that combo can be done with gaius, machias and elliot. didn t play 3 yet, but my guess is this strategy will return there too.
Jazz from Eternal Sonata can get pretty OP. He has a ridiculous reach and attack range, so the best way to beat a crowd of enemies in the game is: get them grouped up and swing away, the combo counter goes up in a flash and you can decimate them with a finisher
I was thinking the same thing! I guess you could debate Frederic or Allegretto too, depending on which one is the "main hero."
OMFG. So much love to you for including 7th Saga on this list!! NO ONE talks about this game enough!!! I normally used Lejes (the Demon) when I was younger and paired him up with Esuna (the Elf) for a magical power house but then Stone Pison would come along and ruin my day! I started replaying this game recently and now as an adult who understands the strategy better, I too have come to understand how absurdly powerful Valsu is! You are simply amazing for putting this on the list, literally made my jaw hit the floor with shock!!
I am here for this consistent , fun content David.
But you forgot Chuchu man. The most OP character everm
I don't know if you'd agree, But I personally think that the War Magus from the etrian odyssey 2 remake is amazing. The only thing they can't do is elemental damage, and even then, they don't need to most of the time.
The Mighty Elixir spell would make ANYONE god tier, even if that was the ONLY ability they had. party refresh each turn for free ad infinity? sign me up.
Love your number 1 choice. Didn't think anyone else played Albert Odyssey on Saturn. Always thought Gryzz was broken.
On your bit about Disgaea --- I find that I love the Netherworld Hijinx, since it allows for a much greater range of possibilities than sticking with what's been done over and over. I honestly credit the series with getting me out of a large RPG slump I was in.
What also helps is that the series actively encourages you to find ways to utterly break it, which sates the munchkin in me.
Here's who I think should show up as the best party members.
Goombella from Paper Mario and the Thousand-Year Door. With (or despite) having all of Goombario's abilities (with a Charge P Badge equipped), what puts her above the rest is Rally Wink. It grants Mario an extra turn.
Fiora from Xenoblade Chronicles. Give her Dunban's abilities and she can heal after any crits, which her other abilities increase the chances of. A Tank with Crit damage. Considered Melia, but her AI sucks.
yeah, Melia can be a total beast but only if you're personally controlling her...the AI never seems to know how to use her effectively.
I was the opposite. I was a Sega kid and missed out on the snes. So I played all of those early Sonic games.
My older brother was the Sega kid. I was an only gets to play when it's 2 players kid. Basically, Tails, Streets of Rage and my personal favorite, Toejam & Earl
Will you add Titania from Fire Emblem Path of Radiance in a future vid of best party members?
You could make a case Lucina counts, since she is basically Chrom, with a base stat boost from her mother and the sum of her parents' growths. It's kind of true of all the children, but you can breed useless children with the others, but Chrom is already a very good, all around character so any additional stats would just make him exponentially better and Lucina has a head start on him and then gains so many stats. She can end up a little broken or extremely broken depending on who her mother is and if you are doing a extreme low level run. Though you could also argue she is the real main character and Chrom and Robin are just supporting characters paving the way for her grand entrance.
I'd forgotten how cute Anna is. I got Mana Khemia Christmas of 2009 and beat it the next month. Game has some great character designs.
Ive watched alot of your content so far. Really like your style. Keep up the good work. A topic is be interested in you talking about if you haven't is linearity in rpgs vs more open progression paths in both the travesable world and character progression. Think ff10 vs ff12 vs ff13
How has Radiant Dawn Haar not made it onto one of these lists? The dude is an absolute beast, and the only thing that makes his presence short of criminal is that he ends up with the already super powerful Greil Mercs instead of the Dawn Brigade. If he and Jill switched places in Part 3 then Jill would be relegated to being Mia's taxi and Haar would go on to straight win the war for Daein.
I have a suggestion for a character. Maria from Star Ocean 3 PS2/XBOX 360. She alone makes the bosses in the post game beatable, in fact she's almost necessary in order to beat them on the hardest difficulties.
Yo mana khemia was the shit surprised to see it here
Glenn with dual Einlanzer is so ridiculous
On top of how great Rune is in PS4, you can also equip him with 2 shields at all times and have him only use magic, cranks his Def and makes him a tank. Can't remember the name of the 2 end game shields I'd equip him with but they would make him pretty much invincible... like every attack only hits him for 1hp. Dude was legit overpowered!
Millenia ...one of my favorite characters in one of my favorite games. For the dry humor and insuts alone. Fun game well worth the numerous replays I have done.
SOMEONE ACTUALLY PLAYED SONIC CHRONICLES DARK BROTHERHOOD.
Yes Cream is a monster, broken all the way
There is a playable character that isn't a main character in Phanasty Star 3 that you can picked up in exactly 1 of the 4 third generation timelines that starts with stats that are better than most other playable characters maximum stats across the board. And she enters the party at low to mid level with her level gain being based a pond experience as most other characters would have if already fully leveled or passed fully leveled.
Wow, Time Walk being my favourite Magic card, having one living one in your team is just nuts :o
Jenn from Lunar 2. Once she gets her martial arts outfit she is fast and has some good techniques and can attack a number of times.
I think Peppita from Star Ocean 3 us good. Once she learns power dance your set. Then getting healing and magical dance though it does take a while to level it up, can be pretty useful. Her panic dance can confuse enemies which has gotten me out of a few tight spots here and there. Then the best combo in my opinion is dream hammer and power dance. I was able to beat the ethereal queen within ten minutes thanks to that combo.
David you are so awesome, I wish I had knowledgeable friends like yourself!
Chrono cross was the initial reason I got a ps2 as a kid. I loved that game so much such a great story, music and setting.
You mentioned "evasion tank" Fie in an earlier video, but not also mentioning "walking nuke" Laura is like a crime. With the right setup and an attack buff, Laura can basically one-shot every single enemy in the game using a fully loaded S-Craft. You can also just link her with Fie and have her gain free attacks/free CP recovery by getting her to perform follow-up attacks whenever Fie hits an enemy (since she almost always unbalances on hits).
They are the reason why almost everybody's party setup in Trails 1/2 is Laura - Fie - Rean - literally anybody else (mostly Emma or Alisa).
Another character that comes to mind is the "birdman" character that you get at the beginning of Tactics Ogre - Let us Cling together. Hits like a truck with his crossbow (in a game where ranged weapons are broken), flies everywhere (ignoring terrain penalties, being able to take the most advantageous positions on the map easily), can take hits reasonably well and, most importantly, never leaves you (according to my memory, unlike other broken characters). Many "siege the castle" missions can be basically solo'd by him flying over and taking out all the ranged units before your main party comes trodding in.
i mean that was exactly my setup in trails of cold steel 2, it was almost the same in 1. in CS 1 it was a close call between gaius and fie for me in the role of evasion tank and it was a bit of competition there - in CS II though fie just sealed the deal. she wasn't that op in cs1 and the linear level growth in speed made her speed advantage diminish over the course of the game (which did not happen with the change in status calculation in CS ii) and she did not have inherent 30 % evasion.
but ye, i basically explained why this character setup is so great in the comment in the last video and how hard it is to lose with it, and well - you could say, fie (backed by alisa with cp regen) makes it basically impossible to lose. laura on the other hand makes it almost impossible to not win xD.
i mean let s be honest, most characters in Cold steel are strong and have their merits.
gaius in CS II is a fine characters but fie does the role of evasion tank just better.
elliot is a great healer but that merit is useless if you don t tank any damage, and on the rare instance you do need healing seraphic ring does the job.
sarah is a fusion between laura and rean, can technically role compress both of them if you want to use someone else. she just doesn t have quite the raw power of laura and her delay skill ends up breaking formation unlike arc slash.
machias is clearly a lot better than his archetypal counterparts josette and noel [i consider the earth element tank gunner an archetype in the series] and has a lot of it going for him (that is ultimately not needed like elliot).
the only characters in the class vii cast i found really lacking is millium and to an extent jusis. his buff is super useful, but as raw mage he is 3rd after elliot to me and as physical hitter he can t compete. and well, millium - she is the only character who i had trouble hitting the enemy with. that should say a lot.
crow in CS 1 was also quite fun to play with.
i mean if i go over all the other guest characters and characters you have for the final dungeon this comment will take ages.
oh ye. i checked my save and i actually completely forgot that gaius has 1 unique thing about him over his "role competitor" fie.
he is the "Agate" of this game. aka he has a skill that sacrifices HP for CP. combining him with machias ability to accelerate the turn order, they build the duo of schera/agate for this duology. pair them up with elliot and you have the perfect healer to complement these 2. definitely a viable way to play this game. Outside of that machias has a backup heal which cures debuffs, is naturally tanky and is good at spreading status. gaius has a decent skillpool and is the 2nd best evasion tank (i. e. for this role the first loser) and a good hitter on rean level [aka good but not outstanding]. and well, elliot is the most shallow in terms of variety, but he is very good at what he s supposed to be good at.
i mean overall the combo feels just like "taking an unncessary risk" if you can just infinitely delay everyone with rean and fie and destroy everything under the sun with laura - including orbal washing machines XDXDXDXDXDXDXDXD
A top 10 of OP antagonist in JRPG could be a good idea.
You ever play the Ys games? Ricotta from Ys VIII is super overpowered, and I love her. She has the best stun skill in the game. The supposed downside of the skill is that she gets dizzy for a couple seconds after using it, but you can negate that by dashing out of the dizzy animation and just spam it. On top of that, she has a high damage skill that can quickly finish enemies once they are stunned. Toss on an SP-reducing accessory, and she's a one-person wrecking machine.
reminds of of lloyd's burning heart from trails series. 50 % attack and 50 % speed for 5 turns - but you faint after using it? - well, unless you just keep using it on turn 5 again.
How about Noa from Legend of Legaia?
When you first get her she's not the most physically powerful, but she makes up for it with her high agility. Legend of Legaia is an interesting JRPG where you can use a combination of up down left and right moves to attack. Defense is therefore split into upper defense and lower defense for the high and low hits. Some attacks will combine into an art,which are basically combos in fighting games, except in a JRPG. Agility in Legaia affects art blocks, which affect how many times you can attack and combine moves into arts. Noa has the highest agility and speed. Speed allows her turn to happen first consistently. Agility allows her to hit more times, therefore dealing more damage than the other two heroes.
That alone is strong, but that's not all. You can also use a special command called "Spirit" which reduces damage, and increases the number of art blocks you can use, for the next turn. With this combination of high agility, spiriting, and a few levels, she can potentially 3 shot the first boss. Her high agility means she'll, barring some shenanigans, be the first to max out her art block and get to hit the most out of all the party members.
All this would be great on it's own, but later on she gets an upgrade that powers up her left attack, causing it to hit twice. Spamming left wouldn't do much you may think, but you'd be wrong. This lets her hit up to 18 times in one turn, possibly dealing the most damage out of any other character.
The only real issue is she's very frail and doesn't have the most amazing stats. She has the lowest upper defense, lowest HP, the lowest intelligence, lowest MP, and the lowest attack of the three characters. Also she loses the biggest advantage of her high agility when everyone else also maxes out their art blocks.
However early to mid game she's amazing, late game she's still able to keep up, and late game she's amazing again. Basically, she deserves to be number 6, 7, 8 or 9 on one of these lists. I think 6 or 7 personally, but that's up to you.
I noticed you never mention Hexyz Force at all (from what I remember) which is a damn shame
It’s sitting at the top of my list of best PSP RPGs.
Yes! Rita Mordio!
Btw, I always have Desco magichange with val so he can sport that big ass blade. Haven't played D5 complete + yet.
Oh, Grandia music for the intro. I'm actually playing through the original Grandia now xD
"Theme of Grandia" is the wonder of adventure distilled.
@@MrTomFung It really is.
Me too. I'm playing through it for the first time
In the End Game of Phantasy Star IV
It is generally a consensus that the strongest fifth character is Raja
The best white mage character and the only character in the game that can replenish Tech Points.
And he was just as broken during the time he is a mandatory character.
Fun note: Valsu's version of Ice 1 is actually different from everyone else's. Its scaling makes it absolutely monstrous compared to all but Esuna's Ice 2, and even that is a pretty fair competition. The *rest* of Valsu's toolkit makes him quite literally invincible. You don't even need to recruit help. Just solo the whole game like a man.
1. "Like a man" 2. Use Valsu. Pick one. Elixir is a god mode cheese spell. Couldn't bother ever brining him along. And, you're wrong about his Ice 1. It's the same spell the others use, exactly.
GLENN! GLLEEEENN! You did me good, bb.
Always using Glenn in every replays! =))
Yeah, not only he's the best green element character, he can equip the Einlanzer, the best sword in the game! And even more he can dual wield TWO Einlanzers @@! Making him super high attack and more damage on his skills! He appears and joins the party pretty early in the game! He even got a cool combine skill with Serge! :v Definitely OP, a must have character! =))
Khoa Ha Easily one of the top 5 best characters in the game. I always ran Serge, Glenn and Orlha. I experimented a lot with other line ups but I found these three work really well together. Only down side is you get Orlha kinda late.
@@jordanjackson4840 Orlha is awesome. My main group is Serge Glenn and Norris. Just seems right.
Alcaste that’s a good group too. I usually use Norris with Lynx and Radius but I switch out Radius once Karsh becomes available. Karsh is another really good one and he’s easily the second best green element user behind Glenn.
I find funny the fact that Chrono Cross actually rewards you for not caring about Kid, like, if you decline her 1st offer to join you get Leena, which is a good healer earlygame. And of course Glenn when u choose to dont save her xP
It's almost like someone at Square secretly hated her and wanted to subtly encourage players to not use and recruit her.
Kudos for using Rune's theme when talking about him.
Rita is the most awesome. And her sismance with Elise is great too. Don't you dare insult her! She even is so competent, she can forego the incantation of spells and says Blablabla, because she's just THAT good.
All of the master monk candidates in Shining Force 2. Why do the healers have some of the highest attack stats?
If I'm remember correctly any master monk will end up with over 100 attack if leveled up.
To Glenn in Chrono Cross.. He's one of the best characters, no doubt, but there's also Leena (her maidenheart allowing her to regain elements early in the game is really good and her maidenfaith giving 20% phys damage, 99% accuracy AND an auto revive is the best skill in the game. Against the bosses with a lot of health, you can see how broken it is especially for a mage character who has fantastic magic to also be able to keep up with the heavy phys characters... the problem... only those two bosses you get to see how powerful it is on as the other ones die too fast.)
When you mentioned having to let someone die to get Glenn, my mind immediately jumped to Valkyria Chronicles. That game has some mean unlocks.
Marona from Phantom Brave.
Only unit in the game that doesn't run on a timer. Somewhere halfway trough the game i just stopped even using anything else, as it was too much effort when i could just kill everything with marona alone without having to bother with the summon system.
I came to see if Peter from Shining Force II was here. He carries so hard in that game! Great video!
I did mention Peter in a previous part :)
@@davidvinc oops now i see it. RUclips recommended them out of order :(
Thank you always david for the good content.
Rune was not broken. Wren was virtually indestructible near the end of the game and Rune was one of the only characters I saw die. However, Rune was a great character and proves you can build a functional magic user without needing to make magic weaker than physical attacks by end of the game.
Very few people know about 7th Saga, and fewer still talk about it at all.
I haven't played it yet but it's high on my list. Thanks for the recommendation on Valsu. :)
Rune can equip TWO Psy Shields, buffing his magic and making him a literal tank (with low HP though). You can prett ymuch put him 2nd rank behind Wren and you'll be fine.