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[Chozo]

I think people are misunderstanding the topic if they're spouting out Steiner or Quina or Chu-Chu. Seriously... if you play the game right they're all very, very useful.

I'm not sure this is quite accurate, at least if we look at it in terms of effort (to level, to get their ultimate skills, etc.):usefulness. I mean, Onion Knights can be useful once you get to the point where their stats skyrocket, but how many people want to level that far?

 

[CookieChip]

Lexis was pretty important to the story. I'd say Artea more (of course he was preloaded with the best spells).

Yeah, maybe i'm a bit biased towards Artea. Still, is just that Lexis is pretty much worthless in battle. Storywise, its debatable.

One more....

Battlewise...Full-Cure all the way baby. But storywise....oh gawd.

 

[autobzooty]

This guy. He shows up really late in the game at a low level, and then he goes away for a long time to "train," but all that training didn't seem to increase his level enough to be considered an equal with the rest of your party. And PK Starstorm isn't very useful. At least he's another guy that can heal in an emergency.

Maybe on my next playthrough I'll try to get that ultra-rare sword for him. That might help.

 

[firex]

Nearly everybody in Suikoden 4 is useless, outside of the hero, Ted, Snowe and the ninja pair.

Relm with her sketch glitch fixed is pretty useless in FF6a. I really seriously only use her in the SNES game to fuck it up and give me 255 ultima weapons and paladin shields, among other random crap.

Also Peco in Breath of Fire 3. maybe there's some convoluted way to making him a good party member, but you have to babysit him to level him up any. Actually, Nina is pretty useless in that game, too, unless you can somehow transfer all of the healing spells to her.

Peco is almost by definition useless, though. You use him once to get a new master in the game and then you're never required to put him in the party again. He uses crappy weapons, so he does pretty bad attack damage. He gains status ailment spells naturally, and ailments almost never work on enemies in BoF3.

Melvin was pretty useless for me in DQ7, too. He's just not so good in overall stats and you get him relatively late in the game, without any kind of job progress on his part, while your other 3 characters up to that point are probably working on advanced jobs or have several regular jobs mastered. And I mean overall, Melvin is pretty bad in terms of stat growth. He's like second best in Wisdom and everything else is way worse.

edit: how the hell can someone hate Poo when he's the second best attacker (best if you get him the sword of kings) and all of his armor is super strong, easy to find, and protects against multiple status ailments/damage types? Plus he's the guy with a guaranteed revive and is incredibly sustainable as a healer, since he can drain PP from enemies.

 

[ComputerNerd]

Gao was pretty awesome early on. If you have a monster with Elf Fire you are unstoppable. It does like 2000 damage when other characters are doing like 500. :lol

Perhaps. I never used him for that. Even my first time playing, I had him jump on one enemy in the Veldt. And that was it. I wasn't going to spend any more time on someone who couldn't wear decent armor, and was in stupid Berserk the entire time. He's always the first in my party to die when I take on the final level, and I don't even bother to bring him back to life.

 

[Perfect Blue]

It might just be me, but Edward in FFIV was pretty useless.

 

[godhandiscen]

And people saying Tali was useless, wtf? Ashley is far more useless than Tali.At least Tali has a useful set of skills. Wrex makes Ashley completely obsolete. She's basically there as a romantic subplot, that's all.

Exactly. I hated when the btch refused my offering for a threesome.

 

[edeo]

One more....

Battlewise...Full-Cure all the way baby. But storywise....oh gawd.

All the characters were pretty much interchangeable. There really wasn't an advantage for any characters, except for Squall's Limit Break.

Edward is pretty damn useful in the FFIV remake. His status attacks help out a lot.

 

[Chojin]

Sulik after I got him addicted to Jet in fallout 2

 

[Narag]

All the characters were pretty much interchangeable. There really wasn't an advantage for any characters, except for Squall's Limit Break.

Your avatar is over the size limit. 90 x 120

 

[cartman414]

Melvin was pretty useless for me in DQ7, too. He's just not so good in overall stats and you get him relatively late in the game, without any kind of job progress on his part, while your other 3 characters up to that point are probably working on advanced jobs or have several regular jobs mastered. And I mean overall, Melvin is pretty bad in terms of stat growth. He's like second best in Wisdom and everything else is way worse.

That's who I was trying to think of! Yeah, he just doesn't have enough built-in use to justify having around in your party when he shows up.

 

[DietSnapple]

Adoring Fan (Oblivion)- Pretty sure he's intentionally useless. But whatever, fuck this guy.

Gadgeteer (FFTA)- HAI GUYZ I'M GONNA HEAL THE OTHER TEAM MMMMMMMKAY?

 

[darkwings]

Yeah, maybe i'm a bit biased towards Artea. Still, is just that Lexis is pretty much worthless in battle. Storywise, its debatable.

One more....

Battlewise...Full-Cure all the way baby. But storywise....oh gawd.

selphie has the best attack in any rpg ever. It was very very rare, but if you got The End, it even killed (almost) all bosses in one hit.

 

[batbeg]

I think it's the nature of the Magikarp power characters to be disliked: you can turn them into juggernauts given time and patience, but they're either overkill relative to the challenges present in the game (FFT calculators being a notable example) or they're no more powerful than any other character (characters that also take less effort to reach an equivalent power level). Hence, they're rarely worth the effort unless you like the mechanic or you're a completionist.

The fact that Quina followed in the stereotypical "non-human obnoxious comic relief" mold didn't help either.

Dammit. 50 minutes later and I've only just managed to pull myself from that damn site. It should be bannable to link to it

Anyway, my point was that though Quina certainly adheres to having latent abilities which need to be worked upon, I think it's also pretty useful from the beginning as they have pretty decent attack power.

I'm much less fond of Freya, personally. And Amarant, though that's more of a character issue, as his throw skills can be useful.

 

[usea]

Lucca in Chrono Trigger, no need for this dr.slump clone, sorry. Crono+Ayla+Robo all the way.

Marle is much worse than Lucca. Lucca at least has some good dual techs, and omega flare is pretty awesome too.

 

[Chozo]

Gadgeteer (FFTA)- HAI GUYZ I'M GONNA HEAL THE OTHER TEAM MMMMMMMKAY?

It's awesome how they have him in the "help the moogles defend Goug" mission, and how you can tell how the battle is going to go in the first few turns based on how badly his abilities screw you.

 

[Tarazet]

about 80 of the Suikoden Tierkreis cast... and I thought Chrono Cross had too many characters...

The problem I have with Suikoden Tierkreis' cast is that you have these cooperative attacks, but the members of the groups that have them are exactly the same. The Blades all have the same weapons, same stats, and it usually means that if you have them in your party, they all have to be in front and the Hero is relegated to the back row with a spear.

 

[JCngplus]

Cait Sith, Red XIII, Yuffie -- FF7; both party and story wise. Sure, they're colorful characters, but I never saw the point. Then again, I only used Cloud/Cid/Vincent once I was able to get them all.

Same goes for FF8 and FFX...I only used Squall, Irvine, and Zell. Everyone else was just there for me. I didn't like them. I generally don't use women in my RPG parties. Don't get the wrong idea. XD

 

[Green Mamba]

??? I suppose, relatively to the other three party members, but having Oomph automatically makes her not useless.

And while no one can exactly oust Kimhari as the most useless FFX party member, during the later stages of the game once you've made some rounds on the Sphere Grid Lulu becomes completely redundant. Once Yuna can wield black magic Lulu is nothing really more than a Yuna with worse stats and the inability to summon.

Also:

 

[Therin]

Every dancer/bard in Fire Emblem.

 

[Fakto]

Any beastmaster in FFXI

 

[bengraven]

I found a use for her.

Spoiler

and I've never played the game

 

[DimmuBurgerKing]

:|

 

[w1ndst0rm]

which RPG party member would you say was the most pointless and utterly useless either in the story or his or her battle abilities.

Cloud.

(I didn't read the whole tread; did someone beat me to the punch?)

 

[MechaX]

Screw her and everything she stands for. Useless skills, poor healing abilities, powerful spells that take an eternity to cast (in which she would have been canceled out of it by then). Ugh.

A magic user in a game where magic sucks ass? Poor girl.

 

[Ourobolus]

Maria from Xenogears
Edward from FFIV
Kimarhi from FFX
Noel from Star Ocean 2
Cloud, Rafa, Malak from FFT
Cielo from DDS (Goddamn weakness to status ailments?!!)

I know that there are a ton that I'm forgetting though.

 

[overthehill99]

 

[watervengeance]

Every dancer/bard in Fire Emblem.

What? Dancers and Bards are awesome. Sure they may become obsolete in the last few chapters, but they're pretty useful to have in the beginning. They saved my ass quite a few times when I needed to bail out a weakened character.

 

[DimmuBurgerKing]

Orok, Suikoden V

He offers no support skills, can't be used in battle, and sucks in war. You get more use out of the lady in the castle who changes your sound settings.

Also, he looks like an asshole. Fuck you, Orok.

 

[DeaconKnowledge]

To be fair, in all of Bioware's RPGs from KoToR on once you reach a certain level all your squad mates are good for is being Meat Shields, so in essence they're all worthless.

 

[Pancakes]

Wrong. She was a huge help on insanity with her master hacking.

 

[Eccocid]

for story every 2nd tier FF girls;
Selphie, Yuffie, Rikku and teh one at ff xii! i hate them!

 

[PataHikari]

I think people are misunderstanding the topic if they're spouting out Steiner or Quina or Chu-Chu. Seriously... if you play the game right they're all very, very useful.

There are tons of characters listed here that are very useful. It's just that most people suck at RPGs and mash ATTACK ATTACK over and over again, rather then beat the game 20 levels lower and 10 hours earlier.

 

[Aexact]

What? Dancers and Bards are awesome. Sure they may become obsolete in the last few chapters, but they're pretty useful to have in the beginning. They saved my ass quite a few times when I needed to bail out a weakened character.

It's the truth. Sometimes you just want to give your best character/utility types another turn for the round. The tradeoff of course being that they were only good if you had characters you wanted to give another turn to and being the frailest units by far.

Now the real worthless folks are the prepromotes that come really late. Karla from GBA FE requires you to level Batre, who's mediocre, and she's not so great herself, outclassed by the other swordmasters. Syrene from Sacred Stones has all the problems of a Pegasus Knight (low strength, low durability, weakness to bows) and none of the leveling potential to fix them. You have to run to the middle of the map to save her too. She is not only bad, she's deterimental to the team (unless you don't subscribe to the 'no man left behind' playstyle of FE).

Other folks being listed might suck but at least they have their uses. The immortals can learn King Tolten's skills which are pretty handy (he's pretty terrible in actual battle though, especially after the immortals steal his equipment). He's also important to the storyline too if only because of his titanic screw up(s). Kihmari could become anything so thus fills the slot of whatever you're missing (and being a rather poorer copy because of it but he had his uses). Quina had that frog spell which, if you were inclined to do a low level run, is the one you're going to be seeing a lot of. I've only played the DS version but I understand that Edward comes with more skills and was therefore viable. He still dies from one hit from a turtle but he had stuff to do every turn that helped the party.

 

[DimmuBurgerKing]

Somebody said Steiner? I think I used him more often than any other character besides Zidane. Quina was, likewise, far from useless. I think the character who saw the least use in FFIX for me, at least, was Freya.

 

[HarrisonBike]

I'd have to say Kaiden was worse. The only reason I brought him along was to hear Carth.

 

[Gruco]

Mog - Moogle Charm, Imperial Air Force, Floating Island. Awesome character.

Umaro - Generally I don't use him in the end, but can be good for gambling if you've overused espers. Also, snow muffler.

Locke - can steal. Also, Cyan is unambiguously worse.

Gau - Actually one of the best characters, even with very little effort. Hell, Stray Cat alone makes him tear up WoB.

Jessica - has to be a joke reply. Not taking this one seriously.

Edward/Gilbert - good choice. Although he is awesome in the BA bonus content.

Every Blue mage - no

Chrono Cross, Suikoden, Fire Emblem, every other game with way too many characters - I think the answer does have to be in here somewhere. Lot of genuine standout turns in games like this.

Rafa - Awesome for the bonus dungeon

Malak - good choice

Dancer/Bard in FE - seriously, wtf. This is basically the same as being able to duplicate your best character. The most conistently valuable class.

Any character from FF7 or FF8 - difficult to justify given how little every character dintinguishes himself.

Poo - second worst reply, after Jessica, although FireX oversells him (Sword of kings does not make him better than Ness at attacking)

Every CT submission - seriously, you can quibble about who you like the most but the value differences between these guys just aren't that extreme.

Peco, BOF3 - this is a good choice.

 

[dcdobson]

Marle. Frog had a better healing ability and more efficient dual techs with Chrono.

 

[demosthenes]

Any beastmaster in FFXI

They're very situational but in the overall sense I'd agree.

 

[Gruco]

Marle. Frog had a better healing ability and more efficient dual techs with Chrono.

Marle had haste. Not useless.

 

[The Technomancer]

A lot of these characters are useless in the "developers couldn't be bothered to give them any useful abilities or attacks whatsoever" sense.

And than...there is Jogurt, from the original Shining Force. He looks like a character from Hamtaro wearing a white helmet, and he is just about definitively the worst character you could ever recruit in any RPG.
He has 1 hp, with no dodge chance. His attacks deal one damage. And, the only reason you might ever want him? If you do somehow manage to kill an enemy with him, he gets a ring. A ring that if worn by another character makes them look like him. That's right. His whole purpose is for you to go waaay out of your way to make other characters look like a helmet wearing hamster.

Most. Useless. Character. Ever. I mean, at least Magikarp has the promise of a Gyrados later on.

EDIT: Missed him above. Whoops.

 

[Pancakes]

I'd have to say Kaiden was worse. The only reason I brought him along was to hear Carth.

=/, His healing abilities and and biotics come in handy. There really isn't a "useless" squad member in Mass Effect, just different members for different tactics.

 

[Hours Left]

Also Peco in Breath of Fire 3. maybe there's some convoluted way to making him a good party member, but you have to babysit him to level him up any. Actually, Nina is pretty useless in that game, too, unless you can somehow transfer all of the healing spells to her.

Peco is almost by definition useless, though. You use him once to get a new master in the game and then you're never required to put him in the party again. He uses crappy weapons, so he does pretty bad attack damage. He gains status ailment spells naturally, and ailments almost never work on enemies in BoF3.

There are quite a few characters suggested in this thread that I find quite surprising.

But I'm the most surprised to see people mentioning Peco, but I guess he's still the best kept secret of BoF III.

Put just a small amount of effort into him and he becomes an unstoppable tank. The most HP in the game, excellent defense, 50% counter rate and auto HP regen. His attack is not amazing, but the right master can fix that. Seriously one of the most underrated characters in RPG history IMO.

 

[StealthGoblin]

Seconded. Kimarhi too from FFX. He was just the guy that could choose to go and learn anyone elses ability and lacked a skillset or moveset of his own. I didn't use him until I had to when at Mt. Gagazet.

 

[mistuhcahlos]

Noel from Star Ocean 2.

*Energy arrowwwwwwwww*

I thought most of the cast in Star Ocean 2 was useless. Man....fuck that game.

 

[bhhawks78]

I love shock troopers, and I always go for A-ranks. Scout spam doesn't work all the time.

Scout spam? Snipers and lancers thank you.

 

[Quixzlizx]

Scout spam? Snipers and lancers thank you.

You're one of those people who reloads after every missed shot, aren't you?

 

[ShallNoiseUpon]

Edward in FFIV.

 

[Rahxephon91]

Though I find Kimiahri really useless I do find one thing funny. On all my playthroughs I have him learn doom and then use that on the final final boss.

 

[cartman414]

Locke - can steal. Also, Cyan is unambiguously worse.

This. Basically, in any FF from 5 onward, steal nets you rare items, including stuff you can't get anywhere else.

Gau - Actually one of the best characters, even with very little effort. Hell, Stray Cat alone makes him tear up WoB.

He can be a bit confusing though, given the sheer variety of rages he learns throughout the game.

Edward/Gilbert - good choice. Although he is awesome in the BA bonus content.

Yes. Especially because he undergoes a crazy growth spurt post level 70.

Every Blue mage - no

Word. Blue magic can be fun to learn, and even more fun to use with their varied effects, filler spells aside.

Any character from FF7 or FF8 - difficult to justify given how little every character dintinguishes himself.

Cait Sith is one I'd agree with.