extra characters

Hey, are any of the extra characters any good to use in your party. I've never tried but have heard mixed things. Any of the really good ones will do, thx alot.

Are you talking about characters like Beowulf, Reis, Worker 8, Cloud, and Byblos?

Beowulf is the greatest! :D

Beowulf is truly awesome, he's invaluable in Deep Dungeon.

Reis' Bracelet attacks are nice, but most of her Dragoneer skills are wasted if you don't use Dragons in the party.

Worker 8 is very handy in any situation that requires dumb brute strength and good distance attacks. He's completely immune to spells, both harmful and helpful.

Cloud takes forever to level up and can only use Limits with his Materia Blade. Finish Touch is the best of them. I don't use him much.

Byblos can auto-poach, which is nice, but there are many more useful units you can use in battle.

I like Cloud a lot, his limits when used with Short Charge can be quite good and I don't mind leveling him since I have to do the Deep Dungeon anyway.

Beowulf is probably the best of the secret characters though. He's awesome.

ya i like cloud but he takes a lot of time to get leveled up but when he is leveled up he is like topnotch stuff man especially his limit it is like sweet

At least Beowulf can use his abilities with the top-notch gear like the Excalibur. Poor Cloud can't even use a Rune Blade to enhance his Limit ability unless he's under Two Swords. :)

And for the unenlightened, his Limit attacks tend to rely on Magic Attack power. I was moving towards Cloud when I read the Cross-Slash description, but was extremely disappointed when I found it only delivers one strike. :|

you MUST try a party full of those aristocratic magic knights! :D lol Ramza(squire with 2 swords as the leader), and Orlandu, Meliadoul, Agrias and Beowulf in their perspective knight classes. what fun! :) then equip them all with Haste-inducing Excaliburs >D

What I really meant was any of the extra characters that are a part of the story, like agrias, rad, orlandu, all of them, not just the ones that you have to do other stuff for. But thanks anyways, you guys really answered my question well.

Well it does involve collecting Zodiac Stones. That is generally what the crew is trying to do anyway. ;)

But other than that, they really only get their own sidequest story, then its done.

Oh, so you mean everyone?

Mustadio has a weak attack power, but his ability to snipe from afar make him useful until you get Beowulf. He's still the best single character to use against undead with Seal Evil.

Agrias has some nifty attacks like Holy Explosion and Lightning Stab. She pays her own way in the party until you get Orlandu, when she's a little redundant. But no reason you can't use both of them! Her big advantage over Orlandu is she can equip perfumes and ribbons.

Rafa uses Truth which causes damage to random panels within a set area. I personally hate random area attacks, so I don't use Truth. But she has naturally low Brave, making her easy to turn into a treasure hunter with Move-Find. The lower the Brave, the better the chance of getting a rare item. Combined with her high Faith, she makes a good Mediator.

Malak uses Untruth which is similar to Truth. Everything about him is opposite of Rafa, including high Brave and low Faith. He makes a decent fighter but a lousy spellcaster unless you tinker with his Faith.
I level him up in all jobs, but I don't like to use him.

Orlandu is arguably the best character in the game. He uses the swordskills of Agrias, Meliadoul and Gafgarion! He can attack, heal, and slaughter all in one skillset. And his default sword Excalibur puts him automatically in haste. He's the Tactics equivalent of KoTR.

Meliadoul joins after Orlandu, so her Mighty Sword makes her feel redundant. She can only use swordskills that break armor, so she can only attack human opponents with it. But give her Math skills and a good perfume and she can take names with the best of them.

Rad starts out as Gafgarion's flunky. We never learn much about him, which is too bad. He's not much different from a male generic unit you can get at a Soldier's Office. The big difference is his name is the same in every game. I keep him in the party until I finish the propositions, then I dismiss him and breed monsters. Then I fill in the last ranks of the party with a male recruit I name 'Rad'.

Alicia and Lavian are flunkies of Agrias. they both start out as knights so they look alike. I like to imagine they're sisters, but that's speculation. Generics can be quite fun to have in the party. With Math Skills as a secondary ability, they can hold their own in any fight. Also leveling them up is easy if you set Basic skills as the secondary skills and just Accumulate over and over again.

Boco's a chocobo you can rescue, named for the hero's chocobo in FFV. The main reason to recruit him is you can breed chocobos early in the game. They're fun to have but I like Tiamats the best.

Well that was quite an impressive description BG-57, I thank you greatly. Now I can beat up everyone without ever dying, mwa hahahaha *cough cough* ok I'll stop now.

You know... if you have Bewoulf and Mustadio on High levels... you can duke it out with the best of them...

I had a Mustadio on Lvl 87 who could face any dragon by himself.... and Bewoulf.. well... the guy rocks!

my only problem with Orlandu particularly is he just made the game way too easy. I'd keep him recruited, but only use him in a battle that I couldnt screw around in (like in the church where you faced 4 shrine knights)

Meliadoul, Agrias, Beowulf etc never seems too unbalancing cuz they couldnt just "do it all" like Orlandu could

The only extra char I like is Orlandu. I only use Orlandu and Ramza...the rest are well-trained recruits. I personally hate Beowulf (sp?), but he does make it usefull when you are messing around, trying to lervel up. he can put enemies to sleep allowing you to gain exp at will.

On a sidenote, a great way to level up new recruites...particularly if yoy are just messing around and having fun...is to take a level 99 and have him unarmoured. Then let your new recruits attack the level 99. They will level up every hit. Just be sure to have Orlandu in your party to protect everyone else...Or Beowulf if you want, to put everyone to sleep.