Best All-Around Cast

[Elskidor]

I can't give XII best all around, cause the only two Characters were great, Ashe and Basche, Balthier was pretty cool, and the rest are dull and uninteresting.

Now if the whole cast kept up with Ashe and Basche that would be a different story.

That is how I feel. I love the game and the three select few cast members that matter, but half the cast served little to no purpose. I enjoyed some of the other characters in the game that were not main cast though. Fran did more than Penelo or Vann, but even she was very overshadowed and not fleshed out entirely.

[VeloZer0]

The most bland goes to FF1

My vote if for FFT. I know a lot of people are going to disagree because most characters aren't in general fleshed out with a whole lot of back story, but that isn't the most important thing to me. Everyone in FFT 'fit' with the world really well. You didn't have all sorts of random throw in characters, everyone's design, personality and actions all fit very well with the narrative and world design. There wasn't a whole lot of 'why would they do that?', 'why are they all of a sudden on of the strongest heroes in the world?', or 'why do they stand out so much from every other person in the world?'.

[Forsaken Lover]

Should have a thread on the most bland cast.

That be pointless. FFVIII is the only answer.

I would call FF VIII's the most infuriating cast, not the most bland.

That would go to X, except Auron who was awesome, and Tidus who needed to shut the smurf up.

X showcased each party member's personality and history better than pretty much every other installment in the series.

You might not have liked them but none of them lacked depth or were bland compared to VIII where none of the cast develops save for Squall and Rinoa.

[Hollycat]

Should have a thread on the most bland cast.

That be pointless. FFVIII is the only answer.

I would call FF VIII's the most infuriating cast, not the most bland.

That would go to X, except Auron who was awesome, and Tidus who needed to shut the smurf up.

X showcased each party member's personality and history better than pretty much every other installment in the series.

You might not have liked them but none of them lacked depth or were bland compared to VIII where none of the cast develops save for Squall and Rinoa.

Have to agree with you here. With the possible exception of Khimari, there was a wide variety of well fleshed out characters.

[Sephiroth]

I am a bit surprised, I know many people like Final Fantasy X, me either but I have heard and read many things about certain characters being more irritating for people. Or is it that you find them well written but irritating as well?

[Loony BoB]

Villains, FFVII, no contest for me. Shinra + Sephiroth was just epic on every scale. Kefka comes second, but pure 100% villainy doesn't really work too great for me. VII was much more interesting in that regard.

For heroes... eh. It's tricky. VI had a solid cast but some were thrown in with no real personality given, and the large cast left them with little focus on each individual. VII had much more fleshed our characters, and XIII fleshed out it's characters far more than any RPG I've played before it, yet to me had a small cast and some characters were just not that great for me... hmm. Probably VII or XIII, but I just can't figure out which.

As for overall cast, VII for me because of the villians being that great and the rest of the cast being given decent airtime and at least one stage of development each.