If you could rewrite one FF character, who would you rewrite?

What it says on the tin. Maybe a game has a character that drags the experience down for you? So how would you fix them. You are not allowed to write them out of the script though.

Seymour without a second thought. He is such a failed concept. Cut everything about marrying Yuna from the plot and stop it with the jealousy baiting. Also cut it with pretending he may turn out to be an ally / good guy. Give him some genuine threatening moments. Have us strike him down as our first foray into confronting the church of Yevon, and then as that conflict progresses have the other leaders mysteriously dying off one by one, before the reveal that it's Seymour killing them off, making it seem like he somehow survived at first, before ultimately re-confronting him revealing that he actually *did die* and he's only clinging onto his semi-existence because his tormented soul still seeks revenge on Spira and Yevon. Something like that idk. And ffs use his story better to actually develop the main characters' perspectives instead of being basically a forgettable blipnote especially past Bevelle.

I would rewrite all those villains that are 'controlled' by some lame supervillain (Golbez, Edea) to either keep those people as the villain or just make the supervillain have a bit more motivation and personality. Seymour is also a good choice, as although he wasn't controlled, he was superseded by some other lame boss at the end.

Hard to choose just one. The series as a whole suffers from main party characters with limited story arcs. FF9 often feels like the writers were like "ah trout, we haven't done anything with Amarant, better give him some story here, and then forget about them for the rest of the game". They try to hide him behind some enigmatic characterization, but they fail, because as soon as you get a look behind the curtain he is quite uninteresting (I think they improved on this model with Kimarhi in X).

Freya is a prime example of someone who is interesting and welcome at the beginning of the game, and then becomes just-another-party-member for the rest of the game. A short story arc, then zip.

There are numerous examples of this: as a rule, main party characters are dealt with sequentially, and then ignored. No two characters are allowed to develop at the same time, they each get some spotlight and then are kicked off stage.

I would also change Vaan. He is someone who is presumably the main protagonist (at least from the beginning), but who is at the same time absolutely uninteresting. He's more or less an avatar you move from place to place so other characters can develop.

Instead of writing them out, can I write Balthier into a good FF? No? Then I probably pretty much agree with Karifean on the Seymour thing. He could have been a good main villain, but they didn't care to make him one.

I don’t actually mind Golbez being mind-controlled, since I think it’s an important element of IV’s central theme, but I do wish Zemus got more characterization. As he is, he’s a Saturday morning cartoon villain, which is disappointing given Golbez’s complexity. I’m not saying he has to be tragic, but at least give him what Exdeath has - an actual backstory and charisma.

Zemus is an interplanetary racist though. Does he really need a backstory? Just being a hateful prick for no reason seems true to form for me. Granted, his characterization is mostly through exposition, which is a bit of a no-no, but other than implementing a little "show, don't tell" I'm not sure how much backstory I want from him.

Genesis. His whole thing is like, Shinra did some Jenova trout on him and he's dying from it and he's got a grudge about that. His arc could be rewritten to tie in better to the eco terrorism that happens in FFVII.

Well, my choice of character to rewrite would be Machina from Type-0 (for that matter, if I could pick two in one game, I'd probably pick Machina and Rem), but I dunno how I'd go about it exactly. I don't necessarily mind his role in certain big story beats, but it'd be nice if he and his decisions were made more relatable for starters.

Zemus never really bothered me like say Necron did. Of anything my issue with Zemus compared to CoD and Necron is that there is enough backstory to him to make me want to learn more about him pre-sealing. Of anything, I would be more curious to know what the other Lunarians had planned to do with him when Cecil's world did catch up to them and they could integrate better. I mean was he just going to stay asleep forever?