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Weakest playable character in an RPG that isn't a joke character?

Willenium

Member
latest

This one hurts to say because this is BY FAR my favorite character design, despite Strago never riding a scooter or having weird bird buddies in FF6.

As a usable character, this dude is just too much work. He's a blue mage so you have to hunt down specific monsters and hope that they blast you with their specific spells AND hope that the old coot doesn't die.

Also, you get Relm at the same time who has absolutely monstrous magic stats.
 

Sterok

Member
You're judging units solely by their base stats? Cath has an 85% speed growth compared to Astore's 50%. It should only take a few chapters for her to surpass him.

How is Cath getting any levels with 3 base strength and E-rank swords halfway into the game at best? Astore will have already grown from his solid bases since he can actually fight pretty well.
 

Kinsei

Banned
250


Akira from Live a Live. He's a healer but there is absolutely no reason to put him in your party since Cube outclasses him in every way.
 

Parfait

Member
Code:
[img]https://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/bof/images/1/1b/BoBF2.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20080229031537[/img]

Bow from Breath of Fire II. In a normal situation he would be an interesting character, but he leaves the party so early and joins back so late that by the time you can use him again he's lagging so much behind the rest of the team that he is useless.
Bow had the best healing in the game, a bow that could shoot twice, and a great fusion if you wanted Rin in your party(you wanted rin in your party). By no means was he useless, and he was easy to catch up to your party in any case. It's a trap to believe he was useless just because he came back into your party so late.

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Peco from Breath of Fire III

He isn't bad once you level him, but you have to actually make an effort because he starts at level 1 when you obtain him.
Him starting at level 1 was the point. The master system of the game meant that you had to watch your leveling carefully depending on what master you set to each character, since they influenced your level up stats. Peco becomes the strongest character in the game because he'd have no wasted levels without a master, and if you do it right, no master overleveling.

lymle_ssb4_request_by_elemental_aura-d6ymgil.jpg


Lymle from Star Ocean: The Last Hope. Aside from her awful, awful dialogue, she's the slowest character on the battlefield. Her physical attacks are slow and weak, her attack magic is very quickly outclassed by Myuria, and her healing magic is outclassed by Sarah. Even Edge can use basic healing techs, so she's pretty useless once the party expands.
Her physical attacks are slow and weak because she's a mage, you don't do those with her. Everyone's healing magic is outclassed by Sarah. Lymle's got one of the best dodges (and back dashes) in the game, outclassed by only Meracle and Bacchus. This also makes her decent at medium range as she has more than just regular spells, she also has her Cerberus attacks, a lot of which are greatly disruptive in regular fights. If you wanted Star Ocean 4 useless, Faize was already mentioned, and Edge is pretty down there, but not totally awful.

I don't remember if he's useless or not, but I remember be a little pissed when this guy joined my group in Star Ocean:

hqdefault.jpg

He's not useless, but yeah he came out of nowhere and it was pretty annoying if you didn't know about it. He's a mage, a healer, and has access to earth magic which could be useful, i guess.
 
Statistically there will enevitably be a lot of Fire Emblem characters that fit this.

The Geomancer in FFV always sort of sucked.

I always felt like Naoto from persona 4 was weak because you get he so late so you don't have her s link built up, and she has the instant kill spells which are shoddy when it comes to successfully hitting the enemy.
Love her character though, just wish maybe you got her a couple dungeons prior.

Gobi from Breath of Fire 1 kind of sucked. I just played that recently and he is only useful underwater.

Cloud from FFT I've always heard is more trouble than he's worth.

I can't wait for this thread to become: person A complains about a character they dislike, then person B comes in with the speed runner tech knowledge bomb about how with the right setup you can pull some broken shit.
wat? naoto's instant kill moves work great, 90% sucess if they are weak and if even if not weak it will work more often than not
 

Atlantis

Member
Her physical attacks are slow and weak because she's a mage, you don't do those with her. Everyone's healing magic is outclassed by Sarah. Lymle's got one of the best dodges (and back dashes) in the game, outclassed by only Meracle and Bacchus. This also makes her decent at medium range as she has more than just regular spells, she also has her Cerberus attacks, a lot of which are greatly disruptive in regular fights. If you wanted Star Ocean 4 useless, Faize was already mentioned, and Edge is pretty down there, but not totally awful.

Lymle really gets screwed over by the way weaknesses are spread out throughout the game. EVERYTHING seems to be weak to Thunder or Ice but Fire weaknesses are rare as hell. She's still the best healer until Sarah (the last character, so for awhile) joins, but that's pretty much her only niche. She hits a power spike offensively at that point, but in the PS4 version Myuria completely eclipses her.

Powerful as a healer, but offensive lacked a lot

Raine increases the party's damage quite a lot actually. Photon is probably the best offensive spell in the entire game and she has an attack buff that lasts the entire battle. That's on top of being the best healer.

Raine is amazing.
 

DemiMatt

Member
Wut? Agrias is not only pretty good (even if way outclassed by the ridiculously broken Orlandeau later), but she's far from the weakest of her respective game, when you can pick between Cloud and friggin' Malak...

By the time you get Malak I already had a more powerful enough group to warrant not using him (since he starts off so weak). Same with Cloud, when you first get him he is level 1 and even when you level him up his attacks take 17 turns which don't do much damage. LIke I think Agrias is great, but on repeat play throughs of the game she is really outclassed by those with faster move speed & more range.

IIRC I bought some throwing items that made him do considerable damage with them, but that was all of his utility for me lol.

I tried that but he didn't do nearly enough damage like Shadow does in FF6.
 

FLAguy954

Junior Member
280


Not only is he not a joke character, he is the main character.

Roy is so bad in his own game (Fire Emblem 6). He might not be the worst (jury's still out for me lol), but he is the most disappointing. He can't promote and he does nothing., and you are required to bring him along.

Goddamn Roy was so fucking useless.

I was so excited to play as him back in the day being a huge Smash Bros Melee fan.
 

rataven

Member
Aeris is no heavy hitter, but you can steal a weapon for her early on that does decent damage for quite a while (can't remember the name of the staff but you steal it off the chariot enemy in the train graveyard). Give her your best bangle and move her to the front row. She'll put in work.
 

PK Gaming

Member
You're judging units solely by their base stats? Cath has an 85% speed growth compared to Astore's 50%. It should only take a few chapters for her to surpass him.

But you said.

Considering thieves can't promote in FE6 there's no reason to care about their combat skills. Speed is all that matters so that they can actually do their job and steal things (especially in FE6 where there's little money available outside of stealing), and Cath does that best.

So which is it?

Realistically, she's not gaining levels on him, straight up. Astole isn't a combat unit either, but his higher durability and generally better bases make him a better thief.

My top 3 choices

FF9 - Amorant
- I really just have no idea how to make this guy do good damage, he always fell short compared to Zidane or even Steiner. He was slow, had low damage, and his abilities never seemed particularly strong and I he didn't seem useful as a support over Dagger or Aiko.

FFT - Agrias
- Great for a first time play through, she has Holy Blade and can deal lots of damage, however she has an incredibly low movement range, super slow, and squires or ninjas can do more DPS more quickly than her.

FFX - Auron
- He deals a lot of damage and is super tanky, but later in the game he just can't get enough speed to deal enough DPS to outweigh is slow speed.

All 3 of these characters are good. Especially Amarant, who picks up No Mercy, which lets him do like 5k around level 40.
 

Crayolan

Member
But you said.



So which is it?

Realistically, she's not gaining levels on him, straight up. Astole isn't a combat unit either, but his higher durability and generally better bases make him a better thief.



All 3 of these characters are good. Especially Amarant, who picks up No Mercy, which lets him do like 5k around level 40.

Obviously you need to put them in combat a little bit to level up, but it's not like you have you have to have them out on the front lines. Just set up easy kills for them. It's easier for Astore to gain those levels, but in the end you'll be doing the same thing to level up either of them.
 

Burning Justice

the superior princess
Even with all the duds in Fire Emblem and Chrono Cross and Final Fantasy, I'll go with a controversial pick, too - Marle from Chrono Trigger.

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Edit: Her design is great even if her spritework isn't, and she's outpaced by everyone else in terms of damage. Couple that with her dedicated role as healer being stepped on by heals from people with actual combat utility like Frog and Ayla, and she's only really useful for Techs and battles of attrition.

Nope. Haste alone is enough to make Marle better than most of the other characters in the game.
 

Reset

Member
280


Not only is he not a joke character, he is the main character.

Roy is so bad in his own game (Fire Emblem 6). He might not be the worst (jury's still out for me lol), but he is the most disappointing. He can't promote and he does nothing., and you are required to bring him along.

Roy has the most broken weapon in the series. He's able to kill anything once he gets his sword.
 

PK Gaming

Member
Obviously you need to put them in combat a little bit to level up, but it's not like you have you have to have them out on the front lines. Just set up easy kills for them. It's easier for Astore to gain those levels, but in the end you'll be doing the same thing to level up either of them.

Ideally, Astolfo isn't even going to pick up that many levels either. He's a thief, with a specific niche. Leveling him (or Cath) up is just counterintuitive. And by the time you get Cath, she needs significant babying just to not die to a single enemy. You can straight up forgot about using her on hard as well.
 

SoulUnison

Banned
Just for the record, Hope isn't just the best mage in XIII, he's also the most relatable member of the playable party and arguably the one who experiences the most character growth.

By the end of the game, he and Sazh were the best characters in the story, by far.
 

jdstorm

Banned
Just for the record, Hope isn't just the best mage in XIII, he's also the most relatable member of the playable party and arguably the one who experiences the most character growth.

By the end of the game, he and Sazh were the best characters in the story, by far.

I didn't like Sazh at all. It was like being stuck with Michael from Lost. I think i spent most of my time with Sazh screaming WWWWAAAAAALLLLLTTTTT at the TV.

I liked Lightning a lot more. Sure she was grumpy, but who wouldn't be if you were stuck with that party. Hope was great though.
 

Andrin

Member
Just for the record, Hope isn't just the best mage in XIII, he's also the most relatable member of the playable party and arguably the one who experiences the most character growth.

By the end of the game, he and Sazh were the best characters in the story, by far.

No lies detected.
 

Ogodei

Member
+ Fiona. Tormund is trash as well because of availability.

Tormod, Muarim, and Vika have fuck-all availability in that game, though Muarim comes in nice and strong, by any point which you could re-use him later on you've got one or more Royal laguz on your side.
 

Dr. Worm

Banned
Hitmonchan fucking sucks in the original Pokemon games. Its claim to fame is that it can learn all of the elemental Punches, but since they run off its pitiful Spc stat, there's little point to using them. It learns no damaging Fighting-type moves naturally, so unless you want to dump the Submission TM on it, it's stuck using Mega Punch or Strength to deal damage.

Besides having a bit more physical Defense, there's no real reason to take it over Hitmonlee, which has better Attack and Speed stats and Fighting-type moves via level-up, while still retaining Machine access to Mega Punch and Strength anyway for Normal coverage. Not that this makes Hitmonlee good, but if you want to add a Fighting-type from the Dojo to your squad, the choice is obvious.
 

Morrigan Stark

Arrogant Smirk
Him starting at level 1 was the point. The master system of the game meant that you had to watch your leveling carefully depending on what master you set to each character, since they influenced your level up stats. Peco becomes the strongest character in the game because he'd have no wasted levels without a master, and if you do it right, no master overleveling.
I'm sure that's true, but it's too much work. I never bothered.


By the time you get Malak I already had a more powerful enough group to warrant not using him (since he starts off so weak). Same with Cloud, when you first get him he is level 1 and even when you level him up his attacks take 17 turns which don't do much damage. LIke I think Agrias is great, but on repeat play throughs of the game she is really outclassed by those with faster move speed & more range.

My point is that Agrias is by no means the weakest character in the game. Not by a long shot.
 

Laughing Banana

Weeping Pickle
I figured anyone would be able to tell this is obviously from a character perspective. Dude is a loser.

Well that's not what this thread is about, isn't it.

Not sure how you would factor this into a determination of strength/weakness, but Steal is very useful in FF9.

Not to mention there's actually an attack that raises its power proportionately to how much you stole with him, making him one of the easiest characters in the game (besides Freya) that can easily produce 9999 damage every round in battle. (well, to be fair, it's rather easy to do that with plenty of characters in FFIX)
 
This one hurts to say because this is BY FAR my favorite character design, despite Strago never riding a scooter or having weird bird buddies in FF6.

As a usable character, this dude is just too much work. He's a blue mage so you have to hunt down specific monsters and hope that they blast you with their specific spells AND hope that the old coot doesn't die.

Also, you get Relm at the same time who has absolutely monstrous magic stats.
Haha, for the final battle Strego was so useless for me since I didn't put the time in that I kept him in kappa status with kappa equipment just so he'd be semi-useful.
He still overpowered Cyan.
 
Noel from SO2, Dias isn't great either.

Airslash spam literally kills gods in that game, it's better than Claude's. Indalecio without limiter is a bitch to hit if you try to use other killer moves, since the best way to beat him is to lock him down and try to spam attacks to keep him still, Dias with airslash definitely helps with Claude landing a hit with his eternal sphere. Dias doesn't have too many other great attacks and a slow normal attack, but this is a Star Ocean game, once you find one good move, you just spam the shit out of it.
 
You're judging units solely by their base stats? Cath has an 85% speed growth compared to Astore's 50%. It should only take a few chapters for her to surpass him.

Yeah, base stats (and movement) are what defines characters, not growths (not that Cath will be getting level ups to begin with).
 

SolVanderlyn

Thanos acquires the fully powered Infinity Gauntlet in The Avengers: Infinity War, but loses when all the superheroes team up together to stop him.
Airslash spam literally kills gods in that game, it's better than Claude's. Indalecio without limiter is a bitch to hit if you try to use other killer moves, since the best way to beat him is to lock him down and try to spam attacks to keep him still, Dias with airslash definitely helps with Claude landing a hit with his eternal sphere. Dias doesn't have too many other great attacks and a slow normal attack, but this is a Star Ocean game, once you find one good move, you just spam the shit out of it.
Dias and Air Slash beat every boss for me, lol
 
I just want you all to know that anyone who trash talks Hope is on Santa's naughty list.

Shana from The Legend of Dragoon. More of a healer but when you max out her Dragoon spirit levels you get some nasty attacks and she becomes OP.

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My friends back in the day thought I was crazy for using Shana/Miranda in my party, but she's very underrated. Item slots are so limited in the game, so it's easier to just carry a few MP recovery items and heal with Shana instead. Her high agility and SP gain allow her to be in dragoon form most of the time anyway, so her low damage output isn't as much of a problem.

Hard to choose between her and Meru though. Meru is a damn beast with maxed Perky Step and agility equip.

Chrono Cross has all sorts of playable characters, several of them bad and/or questionable, but this bastard is by far the worst one. He really is the "perfect" combination of garbage combat ability, awful personality, and horrible outfit. You have to make a certain decision in the first half of the game, and saying yes to it results in this chucklefuck joining you. Saying no means you can get one of the best party members in the game (Glenn, the rad swordsman), but even if that weren't the case, I could still see people saying no just to avoid being around Korcha any longer. Truly one of the worst characters in any RPG.

Yeah, you get Korcha if you choose yes, but you never actually have to use him. You also get Razzly, who IMO is more useful than Glenn.
 

Annubis

Member
Hard to choose between her and Meru though. Meru is a damn beast with maxed Perky Step and agility equip.

It's safer to give her HP boosters though so she doesn't get one-hit KOed by some of the later bosses.
Her damage is still pretty great (high % additions and high Magic stat)

Meru and Miranda are also great against the special boss due to their high magic resist.

Kongol who's usually a fan favorite just gets decimated there.
Albert would get his ass kicked too if it wasn't for Rose Storm.
 

Linkura

Member
I always use Aerith when I play FF7. If she stuck around she would be pretty broken since her limit breaks are great.

Morgana from Persona 5 can be a good one. If you play anything less then hard I wouldn't say it applies though. His HP and defense are both very low so it isn't uncommon for him to get killed in one hit. Doesn't matter how good of a healer/mage he is if he isn't alive.

Bowman from Star Ocean 2 was considered a useless character when the game came out. But I have heard over the years he can be the best character in the game if used right.
Speaking of Star Ocean 2 (Bowman rocks), my husband actually found a way to effectively use Ernest, who is generally considered useless. I was shocked. I can't remember what it was, as it's been years. And I still don't use him personally.
 
Prompto died so much in FFXV I learned to save the Phoenix Downs for my heavy hitters, despite him having the highest DEF stats.

I was definitely gonna say Prompto too. Maybe not the weakest of all time but in recently played RPG's. Too bad, he's likable enough as a character, just always dies.
 

Zafir

Member
I'd totally agree with Aeris/Aerith.

Didn't use her much at all. Well, until I was forced to and then I had to grind her up a bit as she was under-leveled. I think that's why her
death --------
didn't affect me massively. I was almost kind of happy I didn't have to use her again...
 

Linkura

Member
Garnet in FFIX

Useless MP hog summons that do nothing but crap damage, doesn't have several important spells that Eiko has and at one point she basically gets perma silenced for a while

Why are you even here
Bless. I remember arguing with someone in 8th grade that Garnet is shit and that Eiko is far superior.
 
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