One of the worst is Penelo from FF12. There was a lot of game previews, with her awesome descriptions and renders. Said that she likes to dance and sing very much. And what we got in result? Poor character like Vaan.
Final Fantasy XII and Dragon Quest VIII have a bunch of winners. One of the standouts in my opinion would have to be Judge Gabranth. He played a pretty memorable role in Final Fantasy XII's story, and he looks awesome with or without the armor.
Sazh: "It's sad when the most well developed character in the game is also comic relief."
Lightning: "I'm pretty much Ashe, only my character arc ends a 1/4th way through the game and every moment afterward is me giving generic motivational dialogue or shooting off one-liners. You can't lose hope Hope. Get it? Cause that's your name."
Snow: "Heroes don't need deconstructions!"
Hope: "Oh no! My self-esteem issues are suddenly back because the devs forgot to give me an Eidolon."
Vanille: "My character arc is even shorter than Light's and only really exists as a secondary element to Sazh's. Then the game pulls that same Eidolon crap with me, like they did for Hope."
Fang: "Better than me, my character development consists of three cutscenes."
Villains
Orphan: "Because you can't have a JRPG without an evil nihilist."
Cid: "I'm so tragic. I only wanted to help the people, but there was nothing I could dooooooo! Granted as the president of Cocoon I could easily have given Sanctum forces the order to evacuate everyone. I also probably could have warned the Cavalry that attacking Orphan would end in failure and had them, with their MASSIVE FLEET OF AIRSHIPS, help the evacuation effort."
Yaag: "I'm pretty much Cid without the excuse of being a l'Cie. But I'll still have a more dramatic suicide than him! *explodes*"
The judges made excellent antagonists, and I'm not just saying that because I like the way their armor looks. : P The battles were exciting and their motivations were all over the place in a compelling sort of way. (from what I can remember...)
It's too bad that Zodiac version never released outside of Japan. I wanted to fight Judge Zargabaath. : (
Best: Final Fantasy XII cast (villains and heres, excluding Vaan and Penelo, wich aren't bad, just not that good)
Worst: Tidus, horrible, horrible character.
I actually like the 4 Heroes of Light cast too. And Yangus, if we count DQ games.
Sazh is also a cool character.
Worst? Hope, Snow, and 95% of Nomura characters. I do like some of Nomura characters, but honestly, most of them look the same. But I guess it's not all his fault since he has the burden of practically designing every Square-Enix characters right now.
But he didn't have too. Vaan is the player, the character through which you observe the story. He actually HELPS to make everything more epic, sort of story-teller of what really happened...
I think all FFXII's cast is pretty good, except for Penelo that really didn't get enough screen-time to develop. A classic for many FF's characters... except XIII, where finally everyone is really more or less developed to a certain extent.
As for my favorite characters I'd say (sticking to FF for now):
Sazh
Gabranth
Balthier
Sephiroth
Tidus
Yuna
Zack from CC
and others...
In Suikoden 1,2,4,5 your character cant even talk at all. And you pick him a name. This goes for Serge from Chrono Cross as well. But I havent saw anyone saying he is worst. Actually, Serge is one of my favorite characters + his name is just like mine.
Vaan maybe has Alladin style outfit, but it doesnt help him a lot. He is just annoying little brat with unstable psychic. Cant forget his swinging on cage with Basch, screaming like an idiot.
And even if you close eyes on that, there is still nothing special to mention about Vaan. Balthier and Ashe are the main characters.
The great thing about Vaan is that after, a the initial few hours, you don't need to keep him in your party. I barely saw the kid outside of a few cutscenes.
Square gets a lot of flack, but thinking about this topic, it's really hard to pick ONE single character that stands out because they have made so many great games with interesting ensemble casts.
I think there are very few games that make you care about so many characters, especially considering how much they grow and change throughout the story.
I do have a suggestion for worst:
RUSH SYKES. I've only played The Last Remnant for about three hours so far, but never have I hated a character so quickly. He is extremely annoying, stupid, and incompetent.
I'm trying to articulate why I liked Joshua so much, now that I think about it. His actions, especially in the week you spend with him, do something I don't often see in games.
That is to say it helps capture this feeling that Neku isn't really a hero, and he doesn't really have any clue whats going on. Its not "Neku vs the Big Bad", it feels like you're looking in from the outside at some much larger fight concerning people who are a lot smarter and more capable then you, and you're just running along trying to catch up.
Joshua feels like something of a G-Man style character, in that he has some larger plan you don't understand but you get some glimpses at and he's using you to advance his goals. And this is all the feeling I get from the week you spend with him, not including the ending and post-notes.
Which just advance that feeling even more, as well as validating it
Posted pic again since I love her visual design and she is indeed such an awesome character. We need to have mature badass women like Emma in more video games.
Plywood said:
Badass through and through and I love her armor design.
"I'll show you the strength of Athlum!"
"Weakling!" (When she KO's an enemy)
"Hang in there!"
"I'll make you remember the name Emma Honeywell"
"Pull it together!" (When she heals a union)
"Are you holding back?" (When a team member delivers a weak hit on an enemy)
"This isn't even worthy of a training battle!"
RUSH SYKES. I've only played The Last Remnant for about three hours so far, but never have I hated a character so quickly. He is extremely annoying, stupid, and incompetent.
Cid: "I'm so tragic. I only wanted to help the people, but there was nothing I could dooooooo! Granted as the president of Cocoon I could easily have given Sanctum forces the order to evacuate everyone. I also probably could have warned the Cavalry that attacking Orphan would end in failure and had them, with their MASSIVE FLEET OF AIRSHIPS, help the evacuation effort."
Yaag: "I'm pretty much Cid without the excuse of being a l'Cie. But I'll still have a more dramatic suicide than him! *explodes*"
Worst
ff7-RedXIII, Cat sith
ff8-Quistis, Irvine
ff9- Steiner,Zidane
ff10- Seymour, Tidus (argh that voice)
ff12- all of them apart from Balthier
ff13- all of them
I'm trying to articulate why I liked Joshua so much, now that I think about it. His actions, especially in the week you spend with him, do something I don't often see in games.
That is to say it helps capture this feeling that Neku isn't really a hero, and he doesn't really have any clue whats going on. Its not "Neku vs the Big Bad", it feels like you're looking in from the outside at some much larger fight concerning people who are a lot smarter and more capable then you, and you're just running along trying to catch up.
Joshua feels like something of a G-Man style character, in that he has some larger plan you don't understand but you get some glimpses at and he's using you to advance his goals. And this is all the feeling I get from the week you spend with him, not including the ending and post-notes.
Which just advance that feeling even more, as well as validating it
RUSH SYKES. I've only played The Last Remnant for about three hours so far, but never have I hated a character so quickly. He is extremely annoying, stupid, and incompetent.
I found it funny that every other character of note, when they first meet Rush, seems to be taken aback by the fact that this dope of a kid is related to the famous remnant researchers. Stick with it. TLR is actually one of the better games from SE this gen (at least, the PC version is anyways).
Isn't Sazh a hopeless race joke character in the original/Japanese FFXIII?
EDIT: Rush and his sister are easily the least interesting characters in The Last Remnant(the game is full of good/cool ones if you explore it). Like Vaan and Penelo, but worse. And like FFXII I get the feeling David was suppose to be the main character.
He's one of the most well developed and likable characters in the game, with an interesting backstory and believable growth as the game progresses. He has moments make you go HELL YEAH and ones that make you feel sorry for him, but also maintains consistent traits that define him. He has his share of interesting relationships with the other characters in the game, some of which serve to drive the story.
Worst: Hope from FF13.
This guy is a whiny bitch, and the dramatic tension between him and another character is undercut by the fact that he could solve the whole thing by SAYING FIVE WORDS to him. Instead, this drama that is more stupid than dramatic ends up being dragged for hours and hours until you just don't care and don't want to see him on-screen anymore.
I found it funny that every other character of note, when they first meet Rush, seems to be taken aback by the fact that this dope of a kid is related to the famous remnant researchers. Stick with it. TLR is actually one of the better games from SE this gen (at least, the PC version is anyways).
Oh my god, oh my good god! FFIV is my forever favorite. This group has such good chemistry and has a great buildup through the game; furthermore, Cecil Harvey is one of the best leading characters in the series. The guy isn't some cryptic "I'm a fckn badass" dude - no, he is with us the entire game and we see his regrets, his hopes, and his redemption. As for the party as a whole, I think this game really took the job classes and made strong characters intertwined with them. It's dated but the charm is in the simplicity. And yeah, don't let Cecil's prettyboy charms deceive you...
anybody who's played the game knows he's a cold as ice murderer
Get the game on PC and embrace the awesome. I don't even care for most JRPGs, but Last Remnant has one of the most engrossing battle systems that I've ever encountered. It's really that good.
EDIT: On topic. David Nassau is a surprisingly good character as well. Sorry about the quality, it's just really shitty compression.
The great thing about Vaan is that after, a the initial few hours, you don't need to keep him in your party. I barely saw the kid outside of a few cutscenes.
You had to use him whenever you entered a city. That design choice never made sense to me. You should be able to switch to any character just like out on the field, or at least have it locked to whoever your party leader is.
Kaine is awesome. Loved her outbursts and mood-swings throughout the game. She was definitely at her best when with Emil and when she got heated in the middle of battle.
Sazh is the best character S-E has made in years. Yeah, he's the wacky black guy, but he also seems like a real person with strengths and flaws. He's the most reasonable thinker when everyone else wants to charge in and be heroes. It's rare to have the comic relief ALSO be the straight man.
And he just wants to save his son. Sounds like a good motivator to me.
Probably one of my favorite game antagonists. Very well told and layers motivations for his actions. His backstory was just a lot of fun to play
read
.
There may be worse characters, but my main annoyance with these two was that they served no point in the story other than to throw on the cover to satisfy Squares "Androgynous hero and his friend" quota.
