which ff had the best characters?

which final fantasy do you guys think had the best character development? and please state reasons. dont just be like "fff10" and click post.

for me, i believe final fantasy 9 had the best characters. each character had something with the next character. ff9 can take silly characters and mix it with serious characters and make something between those 2. same thing if you put silly characters with silly characters or serious characters with serious characters.

lets look at amarant and eiko. if you put a person who wants to be anything but alone, and a person who wants to be nothing but alone, than you get these two. and you see it clearly in this game how eiko is always trying to talk to amarant, but amarant is always annoyed by her.

dagger and eiko formed this sisterly love for each other. this was very well developed to the end of the game. eiko ends up being adopted by regent cid, which would make her daggers cousin.


steiner and vivi has this pure respect for each other that allows them to work great as a team, which works really well during battles

lets put two serious characters with similar personality together such as freya and amarant. you get rivalry. a hate but respect type of relationship.

zidane and steiner, you see hatred and disagreements. a lot of untrust for each other. but both have a common goal. the safety of dagger.

you can see pure friendship between vivi and zidane. how zidane is always looking out for vivi. than later we find out that its not a coincidence that these two get along so well. they have similar problems and they both are going through the same things.

and the crush eiko has for zidane.

the relationship that these characters had with each other is only a part of what makes them the best. these characters each have their own personal issues and zidane helped them all get back on their feet and along the way, teaches them something. and towards the end, you see them return their favor.

we can see the character change from before joining zidane to after joining zidane.

amarant who was very competetive, and was picking fights with strangers. we can clearly see the change in him before he fights the fire guardian.

steiner who was always following orders from queen brahne, is now making choices and decisions through whats right and wrong. he ends up going against queen brahne.

eiko who was very alone until he met zidane. she became friends with everyone and even developed a crush for zidane.

vivi who was always scared and confused, learned to live life without asking "what if..?"

quina learned to go out in the world and try different things

etc...we see these changes in the characters, and thats how much of an impact the main character had towards them.


this game also had the perfect characters for the job classes.

zidane - theif
dagger - white mage
eiko - summoner
vivi - black mage
amarant - assassin
steiner - warrior
quina - blue mage
freya - dragoon/red mage


the worst characters were probably from ff7 and ff8

in ff7, the characters had no conflicts with each other. they all basically agreed with everythign. except the very beginning between cloud and barret. if cid told them their next destination or something, thats what they all agreed on. it would be cool if there was that one reject who would stand there and be like "that idea sucks"

ff8, all the characters were basically ignored except for squall and rinoa. they were all pointless storywise.

FFIX comes close, but I'd go with FFVI. The characters all had consistently well-realized personalities that developed naturally from their backstories, up through their personal scenarios, and then directly into the game's ending. Since there were over a dozen of them, it often wasn't conveyed in explicit terms how each one related to every other one, but the character development was so good that you could hypothesize pretty intelligently.

ff6 had way too many characters, and it got pretty confusing for me

Hm.. personally I think FFX, in general it was a pretty long game, and there was lots of time to introduce and learn things about each, doesn't hurt that X-2 added to that knowledge of their backgrounds.

Final Fantasy VIII's characters were the best to me. Their personalities were extremely well thought out and they actual felt like real people. Square also chose a nice number of playable characters, not too many and not too little. 6 characters was just right.

I would have to go with IX. Not only was each character interesting, but they each had their own unique abilities to contribute and interesting combinations could be used. Not everybody could learn everything (minus a few skills) at the same time ala VI-VII.

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Originally Posted by Slade

Final Fantasy VIII's characters were the best to me. Their personalities were extremely well thought out and they actual felt like real people. Square also chose a nice number of playable characters, not too many and not too little. 6 characters was just right.

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saved me from writing my own opinion. that pretty much sums it up.

I'm going with FFVI, each character was well developed and I was impressed with all of them

THE JACKEL

FFVII did, but not for the reasons you're thinking. Heidegger is clearly the greatest character in the entire FF series bar none. However, the rest of the cast of that game was seriously lame. It was almost enough to ruin the game's reputation completely, but Heidegger managed to shine through, making the game popular enough to warrant 3 spinoffs. The other games may have a greater number of good characters, but in terms of overall quality, Heidegger alone manages to make FFVII's characters that much better than any other FF game's.

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Originally Posted by DJZen

FFVII did, but not for the reasons you're thinking. Heidegger is clearly the greatest character in the entire FF series bar none. However, the rest of the cast of that game was seriously lame. It was almost enough to ruin the game's reputation completely, but Heidegger managed to shine through, making the game popular enough to warrant 3 spinoffs. The other games may have a greater number of good characters, but in terms of overall quality, Heidegger alone manages to make FFVII's characters that much better than any other FF game's.

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Seconded, more love for heidegger plz. :(

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Originally Posted by the_sandman

this game also had the perfect characters for the job classes.

zidane - theif
dagger - white mage
eiko - summoner
vivi - black mage
amarant - assassin
steiner - warrior
quina - blue mage
freya - dragoon/red mage

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I fail to see how Freya is a Red Mage. She can't cast Magic. Dagger is also a Summoner and Eiko is also a White Mage. Steiner is a Knight, not a Warrior. And Amarant is a Monk/Ninja.


Anyways, IV, VI, and IX had the best cast of characters

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Originally Posted by aerithsloveslave

Not everybody could learn everything (minus a few skills) at the same time ala VI-VII.

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Everybody can't learn everything in VI. Except for Magic if you're talking about that

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I fail to see how Freya is a Red Mage. She can't cast Magic. Dagger is also a Summoner and Eiko is also a White Mage. Steiner is a Knight, not a Warrior. And Amarant is a Monk/Ninja.

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some people think freya is a red mage. and dagger is more known for her white mage than her being a summoner. and eiko is more known for her summoning abilities than her white mage skills. and when we're talking about job classes, as in old school, i'm puttin them in categories. i'm not trying to explain what they are. steiner fits in the warrior category...and no amarant is not a ninja, he is an assassin, as you can clearly see queen brahne hiring this dude to kill zidane. nowhere in this game tells you he is a ninja or a monk.

It's sort of strange, because X has a bunch of characters I've seen many, many times before in RPGs...And yet I loved them all like I've never seen them once. X for me.

IX is extremely close though.

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Originally Posted by the_sandman

and no amarant is not a ninja, he is an assassin, as you can clearly see queen brahne hiring this dude to kill zidane. nowhere in this game tells you he is a ninja or a monk.

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Assassin and Ninja are in the same category. Even if the game doesn't say it, it's obvious that he's a Monk/Ninja, because he throws weapons like a Ninja, uses Monk abilities like Chakra, and he uses his fists


And how is it that some people think Freya is a Red Mage? She's a Dragoon, nothing more

i dont know, i've seen people call her a red mage on this forum

lol this class arguement is hilarious....but yeah lookin on the_sandmans points it does make sense and i'd probably pick FF9 for the characters and not just because of it being my favorite overall FF (taking into account graphics, story, glitchiness, length, sidequests, secrets, FMV's and soundtrack)

FFIX. All of the characters are given developement, and their motivations are beleivable. (Except Quina, but that's beside the point.)

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Originally Posted by DarkLadyNyara

(Except Quina, but that's beside the point.)

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I remember reading a FAQ some time ago, that give Quina a good reason to be in the game. FFIX(like other FFs) show to us how the power of magic and memories are conected. If you go to Vivi's home with Quina, you will see that the Quans are capable of, literally, feed themselfes with only their imaginations(memories).
Quina exist to be a comic relief, and to show to us about how magic work in the FFIX world.

Quina was awesome. I don't understand how anyone can hate on Quina.

Freya is a Red Mage because her clothes looks like one (Eventhough, she's not).

FFXII have the best characters. V is close second (Not Krile, of course).

i would say 6...but i love that game more than the rest...so i'm biased
come on...every single character had just enough backstory to get you interested, and just enough development to bring it all together