Took me a while to settle on a few of my very favorites. 3 out of 5 are FF characters, of course...and these are presented in no particular order.

#1. Ramza Beoulve
from Final Fantasy Tactics
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I've always admired Ramza for the simple fact that there is no inherent reward in anything he's doing over the course of the game. He battles the bad guys not for his own benefit, but simply because what they're doing is wrong. This quality of integrity is not often highlighted in video games, so Ramza comes to mind immediately.

#2. Cyan Garamonde
from Final Fantasy VI
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Nothing much is made of it over the course of the game, but Cyan's journey of personal growth far outweighs anything any of the other characters have to go through. His life is utterly destroyed early on in the game. His entire country gets pretty brutally murdered, up to and including his wife and young son. He makes a big deal out of not being able to forgive Kefka for this, but if you notice, this sentiment is gone by the second half of the game.

It's not entirely obvious why he never speaks of any desire for revenge again, but it's logical (and fun and heartwarming) to presume that he eventually just let it go. He does want to kill Kefka (and who could blame him), but he espouses no desire for revenge. I guess you could think that he just keeps his blinding rage to himself, but that doesn't sound like him, to me.

#3. Cecil Harvey
from Final Fantasy IV
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I know that in Final Fantasy V, you can make your character a Knight, but that's really not the same thing as the story of the game being centered around knighthood. In Final Fantasy VIII, perhaps, Squall is metaphorically referred to as a Knight, but this concept is not well-examined.

Final Fantasy IV is the only game in the whole Final Fantasy series that is about knighthood. And the cool thing about it is that, although Cecil does do some bad stuff at the beginning, the point is immediately made that he really didn't enjoy doing it. The seeds of what would become his redemption are already there; the satisfaction of bringing them to fruition is what playing through Final Fantasy IV is all about. And you can't not feel your heart swell up when you hear this fanfare.

There's something universal about the character's appeal, because even the most jaded among us has things in their past that they aren't proud of. The idea of overcoming one's past is something that anybody, in any age of the world, can and would understand.

#4. Sanic
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Seen here in his very first appearance ever in a video game, that of the air freshener attached to the rearview in the early Sega arcade game "Rad Mobile."

Yeah, I know his series has kind of crashed and burned over the years, but Sonic the Hedgehog was the first game I ever got hyped about. And I still play the hell out of it.

And finally...
#5. Chun-Li
from Street Fighter
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Because I like strong, intelligent women.