Rodney
05-29-2012, 08:25 AM
Over the next few weeks, I'm gonna be putting up threads and polls like this, asking all of you for your personal rankings of the characters from each FF game in the numbered games. You can base them on personality, usefulness in gameplay, relevance to the story, general enjoyment of each character, or even frivolous things such as their character themes. Whatever you want to base them on. Also included is a poll on which you can vote for your absolute favorite from each game.
This is my first one. It's for FF9! I'm not putting them up in chronological order. Just by what I'm feeling like doing for the time being.
So here are my rankings:
1. Quina: I've always enjoyed Quina from the moment he arrives in the party. He's always so hilariously funny to watch. It's always a wonder to see whether or not he's going to comment on something relevant to the situation or something totally irrelevant to it. His broken English is another joy to behold. And of course, there's the matter of the item in Cleyra you can only get if you remember to recruit him prior to that point. I love the trouble he gets into over food, and I love his blue magic so much, I practically became a master at using it in the game. The one thing that frustrated me is his constant going in and out of the party at will. I always loved having him around. After he was permanently with the party, I never let him out of it unless I was forced to.
2. Eiko: I think, in each game, the "perky young girl" characters are always going to rank at least top three for me. (The one game for which that might not be the case for is FF6, but we'll see when we get there.) So Eiko's kind of up here by default, but also kind of up here because I dig her so much. I like her energy, I like how she calls the other characters on their bullshit, and I like how she doesn't back down when she wants to be heard. She speaks her mind, and I admire that about her. I also like her bond with Mog. And there must've been something about her that the designers must've seen to make her more important than she initially seemed to have her take top priority of the non-Zidane characters when it came to leading to the party whenever he wasn't around. My one low point with her? Her thinking she could get Zidane when it's clear he was far too old for her.
3. Vivi: The "energetic young boy" characters will also rank high for me, so Vivi's up here largely for that reason. However, I also just dig his character. I like seeing how meek he is, but then grows stronger and stronger as the game progresses. Even without a face, I find him generally adorable to look at. I think one of my favorite scenes with him was the FMV in which he nearly collapsed (but instead backed into Garnet) when he watched Black Waltz No. 3 destroy the other black mages, and then the later one when he knocked him away from the cargo ship with his own black magic spell. I also really appreciated the friendship bond between him and Zidane, and the bond of respect between him and Steiner. I actually don't think I disliked a thing about him. He was easily a great character.
4. Steiner: If there was anything to make me love Steiner, how could it not be his tendency to lose his temper and have his brief outbursts and tantrums? That, and his constant jumping up and down, shouting, and flailing his arms around (see the FMV when he's swinging on the rope and right into the tower). Being overly dramatic when he thought he'd been drugged (but hadn't been) was a lot of laughs, too. Aside from the hilarity, there's also the matter of his general nobility and courage. I don't think there's much that he fears throughout the story. It's all about protecting everyone he cares about, especially Garnet and Vivi. His bond with the latter is one of the high points for me, as well. Plus, his eventual romance with Beatrix always made me smile. The one think I can say I didn't like about him was lying about where the cargo ship was headed, though I can understand why he did it. But other than that, I really loved Steiner.
5. Freya: Here's where we get to the characters who didn't excite me nearly as much. If there's a reason Freya's higher than the bottom three, it's mainly for one moment of the story: when she said exactly what I was thinking. When Zidane signed Vivi up for the Festival of the Hunt without his knowledge, I just commented to my brother and to myself at the same time just how inconsiderate he was to have done that. And what do you know? "Inconsiderate" is the exact word that Freya uses for it! But that's just the initial reason I liked her. Later on, I liked when she was the only one to stick up for Vivi to the Burmecians when they verbally attacked him for being a black mage. And beyond that, I did admire that she was the only one who could get Amarant out of his shell, being the sole person with whom he could truly feel comfortable conversing. The one thing I didn't like about her wasn't really her fault -- her relegation to the back-burner aside from the points I made.
6. Garnet: Sixth and seventh place were kind of neck-and-neck for me, but Garnet just edged out the one below her. Mainly, her stealth sneakiness, seen both in her attempt to escape Alexandria Castle on her own, and then awesomely drugging Zidane, Vivi, Freya, and Regent Cid. With the one below her, you knew he was sneaky. Her moments of sneakiness were more surprising. Also, I enjoyed her relationship with Eiko and her cluelessness as to how she was seen as her romantic rival. Of course, she's also among the bottom three because she did have a few things I didn't like about her -- her period of speechlessness chief among them, as well as her near-constant role as the damsel in distress, and her dependence on way too many other characters. At least by the end, she was only dependent on Zidane and, to a lesser extent, Steiner.
7. Zidane: I'm actually really surprised that I put him this low. It's not to say that I dislike him. I just like the six characters above more than I like him. I liked his self-sacrificial streak, and I liked that he enjoyed helping people even without needing a reason to. And he could provide the snark when needed. I started playing FF games fairly late (not until FF7), so a cheerful protagonist was quite refreshing after the brooding of Cloud and Squall. But he loses points for his too-much-to-handle romance with Garnet, feeling like only he should save Garnet and Eiko when Alexandria Castle was coming down, his own temporarily-brooding phase, and not letting anyone else assist him in saving Kuja when the Iifa Tree was starting to have its reaction. But other than all that, I liked Zidane. Quite a bit more than the character below him.
8. Amarant: From a battle perspective, I liked him. A good monk is nearly always a necessity. However, looking at every other aspect I listed above . . . he just sucked. I hated his irrelevance to the story, I hated his tacked-on reason for joining the party, I hated him being the one dark cloud over the party's overall bright dynamic, and I hated his personality. I don't always hate the "silent loner" characters (I liked FF10's Kimahri enough that you'll see him pretty high when I get to that thread), but I did here. Pretty much his one redeeming quality was coming out of his shell by interacting with Freya. But other than that? Amarant gets an EPIC FAIL for me.
But these are just my rankings. How about everyone else's?
This is my first one. It's for FF9! I'm not putting them up in chronological order. Just by what I'm feeling like doing for the time being.
So here are my rankings:
1. Quina: I've always enjoyed Quina from the moment he arrives in the party. He's always so hilariously funny to watch. It's always a wonder to see whether or not he's going to comment on something relevant to the situation or something totally irrelevant to it. His broken English is another joy to behold. And of course, there's the matter of the item in Cleyra you can only get if you remember to recruit him prior to that point. I love the trouble he gets into over food, and I love his blue magic so much, I practically became a master at using it in the game. The one thing that frustrated me is his constant going in and out of the party at will. I always loved having him around. After he was permanently with the party, I never let him out of it unless I was forced to.
2. Eiko: I think, in each game, the "perky young girl" characters are always going to rank at least top three for me. (The one game for which that might not be the case for is FF6, but we'll see when we get there.) So Eiko's kind of up here by default, but also kind of up here because I dig her so much. I like her energy, I like how she calls the other characters on their bullshit, and I like how she doesn't back down when she wants to be heard. She speaks her mind, and I admire that about her. I also like her bond with Mog. And there must've been something about her that the designers must've seen to make her more important than she initially seemed to have her take top priority of the non-Zidane characters when it came to leading to the party whenever he wasn't around. My one low point with her? Her thinking she could get Zidane when it's clear he was far too old for her.
3. Vivi: The "energetic young boy" characters will also rank high for me, so Vivi's up here largely for that reason. However, I also just dig his character. I like seeing how meek he is, but then grows stronger and stronger as the game progresses. Even without a face, I find him generally adorable to look at. I think one of my favorite scenes with him was the FMV in which he nearly collapsed (but instead backed into Garnet) when he watched Black Waltz No. 3 destroy the other black mages, and then the later one when he knocked him away from the cargo ship with his own black magic spell. I also really appreciated the friendship bond between him and Zidane, and the bond of respect between him and Steiner. I actually don't think I disliked a thing about him. He was easily a great character.
4. Steiner: If there was anything to make me love Steiner, how could it not be his tendency to lose his temper and have his brief outbursts and tantrums? That, and his constant jumping up and down, shouting, and flailing his arms around (see the FMV when he's swinging on the rope and right into the tower). Being overly dramatic when he thought he'd been drugged (but hadn't been) was a lot of laughs, too. Aside from the hilarity, there's also the matter of his general nobility and courage. I don't think there's much that he fears throughout the story. It's all about protecting everyone he cares about, especially Garnet and Vivi. His bond with the latter is one of the high points for me, as well. Plus, his eventual romance with Beatrix always made me smile. The one think I can say I didn't like about him was lying about where the cargo ship was headed, though I can understand why he did it. But other than that, I really loved Steiner.
5. Freya: Here's where we get to the characters who didn't excite me nearly as much. If there's a reason Freya's higher than the bottom three, it's mainly for one moment of the story: when she said exactly what I was thinking. When Zidane signed Vivi up for the Festival of the Hunt without his knowledge, I just commented to my brother and to myself at the same time just how inconsiderate he was to have done that. And what do you know? "Inconsiderate" is the exact word that Freya uses for it! But that's just the initial reason I liked her. Later on, I liked when she was the only one to stick up for Vivi to the Burmecians when they verbally attacked him for being a black mage. And beyond that, I did admire that she was the only one who could get Amarant out of his shell, being the sole person with whom he could truly feel comfortable conversing. The one thing I didn't like about her wasn't really her fault -- her relegation to the back-burner aside from the points I made.
6. Garnet: Sixth and seventh place were kind of neck-and-neck for me, but Garnet just edged out the one below her. Mainly, her stealth sneakiness, seen both in her attempt to escape Alexandria Castle on her own, and then awesomely drugging Zidane, Vivi, Freya, and Regent Cid. With the one below her, you knew he was sneaky. Her moments of sneakiness were more surprising. Also, I enjoyed her relationship with Eiko and her cluelessness as to how she was seen as her romantic rival. Of course, she's also among the bottom three because she did have a few things I didn't like about her -- her period of speechlessness chief among them, as well as her near-constant role as the damsel in distress, and her dependence on way too many other characters. At least by the end, she was only dependent on Zidane and, to a lesser extent, Steiner.
7. Zidane: I'm actually really surprised that I put him this low. It's not to say that I dislike him. I just like the six characters above more than I like him. I liked his self-sacrificial streak, and I liked that he enjoyed helping people even without needing a reason to. And he could provide the snark when needed. I started playing FF games fairly late (not until FF7), so a cheerful protagonist was quite refreshing after the brooding of Cloud and Squall. But he loses points for his too-much-to-handle romance with Garnet, feeling like only he should save Garnet and Eiko when Alexandria Castle was coming down, his own temporarily-brooding phase, and not letting anyone else assist him in saving Kuja when the Iifa Tree was starting to have its reaction. But other than all that, I liked Zidane. Quite a bit more than the character below him.
8. Amarant: From a battle perspective, I liked him. A good monk is nearly always a necessity. However, looking at every other aspect I listed above . . . he just sucked. I hated his irrelevance to the story, I hated his tacked-on reason for joining the party, I hated him being the one dark cloud over the party's overall bright dynamic, and I hated his personality. I don't always hate the "silent loner" characters (I liked FF10's Kimahri enough that you'll see him pretty high when I get to that thread), but I did here. Pretty much his one redeeming quality was coming out of his shell by interacting with Freya. But other than that? Amarant gets an EPIC FAIL for me.
But these are just my rankings. How about everyone else's?