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The most useless RPG party member.

am playing through Valkyrie Profile PSP, and i have to say many of them are useless.
Also the annoying part is, i have to train them to transfer them to Asgard.

I am NOT enjoying the game and i really tried hard.
 
Gameplay-wise, Penelo is alongside Vaan and Ashe the most useful characters late game, because of their stats. Even though natural stats don't matter much in that game, Penelo's (and Ashe's) notably higer MP and magic in comparison to all the other characters did.

Quina is quite powerful, it just requires more work. Quina simply becomes a better version of Vivi, Eiko and Garnet late-game. Frog Drop > Flare in both damage and MP; white magic + healing doomsday are useless because of auto-regen; mighty guard and the like much better than anything white magic has to offer; Angel Snack rocked against Ozma's most powerfull attack; Limit Glove allows you to kill Grand Dragons at disk 1; Twister is like a weaker version of Vivi's meteor, but being wind elemental, not only it is very effective against a large variety of enemies, but it gets boosted by the Bracer, the best armlet for Quina. Need I say more? (Vivi becomes so unterpowered late game... :( Mid game he was so useful with Bio and the like)

Kimahri was indeed a bit useless. However, he makes a nice thief for the time you don't have Rikku, and with the advanced sphere grid, I believe, you can somewhere in Rikku's path go to somewhere in Yuna's earlier than Yuna herself, giving him early curagas and the like, plus making him useful while you don't have Yuna in the party. ...Only to become totally useless because his overdrives do little for him...:lol
 
Yogurt from Shining Force I, along with Kiwi (turtle guy) from Shining Force II. Kiwi's stats barely increase over the course of the game, he does little damage, and can't use any magic. :(

Edward from FFIV, obviously. His damage was mediocre at best, and his special ability is to run away and hide. Clearly a joke character.

In FFVI, everyone was more or less equally useful to me, because by equipping the right Espers and power-levelling, you could max out any stat on any character you wanted. Most of the characters' unique abilities were situational and not key in every fight. There are a few exceptions, though; Gau, I never used, because you can't really control him. That just didn't sit well with me. Umaro, you couldn't control either, but the biggest problem with him is that he can't equip Espers, and therefore his stats can't be leveled on par with other characters. Same for Gogo, a cool secret character who you could mix-and-match abilities with, except he'd always have mediocre stats in the end.

The game is probably more fun if you don't power-level though. Having level 99 characters with maxed out stats really trivializes the end of the game. :(
 
CryingWolf said:
Yogurt from Shining Force I, along with Kiwi (turtle guy) from Shining Force II. Kiwi's stats barely increase over the course of the game, he does little damage, and can't use any magic. :(

I thought the turtle became a super awesome mega tank if you upgraded him properly.

Edit: Yeah, he has super high defense and can soak up damage like crazy. You just have to protect him from magic attacks.

Gort was even more useful, since he could deal decent damage.
 
darkwings said:
no one is FF8 was worthless. Just learn how to junction well.
Junctioning is why they're useless. They are all exactly the same with the exception of the limit breaks. Because GFs become better with a character the longer they are attached, it's best to use the earliest line up you can thru out, though I hate Zell's limit break, so I wouldn't.
 
Mudkips said:
I thought the turtle became a super awesome mega tank if you upgraded him properly.

Edit: Yeah, he has super high defense and can soak up damage like crazy. You just have to protect him from magic attacks.

Gort was even more useful, since he could deal decent damage.

Kiwi's HP never levels decently, and what is the point of a tank character in Shining Force? You can't force enemies to attack him.

His damage was inadequate and his survivability just wasn't that good regardless. There's just no reason to use him.
 
wildthing2022000 said:
Shinjiro Aragaki
from Persona 3,
guy seemed to die as soon as I got him
, waste of time to level or use.
You need to spoiler that (like I did), there are a decent amount of people who haven't gotten far in P3 yet. Also, he was pretty awesome.

Um...let's see...a lot of the characters in Radiata Stories didn't even matter hardly at all (at least the bad battle characters in Fire Emblem have conversations). Other than a few games like FE where I have to make choices, I try to use everyone equally.
 
On the first page someone mentioned penelo from FFXII.
And she is worthless indeed. In FFXII everyone can be a kick-ass character in battle.
But while the story revolves about Basch, Balthier and Ashe, I always wondered why penelo wasn't just a NPC.
I mean Larsa en Reddas were used way more in the story. So my vote goes to her.
 
FateBreaker said:
The cat in Penny Arcade Adventures Episode 1.

It has one attack, and it always does 1 damage. And even that was inconsistent.

Wasn't it supposed to sometimes do 9999 damage? I could have sworn I saw it do that at least once.
 
pretty sure you can find some of them in suikoden... wasn't one of the usable party member in battle a cook who did pathethic damage?
 
CryingWolf said:
Edward from FFIV, obviously. His damage was mediocre at best, and his special ability is to run away and hide. Clearly a joke character.

Actually his special ability is to sing a random song with one of three effects

Put enemy to sleep
Confuse enemy
Cast Toad on enemy.

In FF4 DS he gains a whole bunch of awesome buffs.

He's not a "Joke character" he's a support character.
 
Gunloc said:
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.
Put even less effort into leveling Ryu, Rei and Momo and you have a trio that can handle anything. I don't get people bashing Momo when she's the second healer after Ryu, has great attack, and can be safely put in a place where she won't be attacked often. All you have to do to boost Ryu and Rei is give them a master like Fahl or Bunyan or Meryleep and watch them kick serious ass in the second half of the game.

Peco on the other hand requires a bunch of pointless pre-arranged babysitting and effort to make into a good character, compared to the others. His only redeeming value is his HP regen, which requires you to ruin his speed by leveling him up with Fahl.

On the other hand, Nina is awful because you have to grind her up a ton just to get useful spells, she gains like no HP unless you give her a high HP bonus master, and five of her spells are entirely worthless in boss fights (her 3 debuffs and her drain spells, as they never work on bosses). In fact, she's the worst version of Nina in the series.
 
firex said:
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.
Relm is quite possibly the best candidate for magic usage in FFVI.
 
Chozo said:
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?
Quina doesn't take very long to get all 100 frogs so her Frog Drop always does max damage. Most of the enemies you need for the best Blue Magics are easily eaten. Chu-Chu can be easily levelled by getting the stat increasers end-game, and with her whopping 60,000 HP mech she's hard to kill and can heal all mechs in battle, which is incredibly useful. Steiner has nothing difficult to get all his best techs, and he gets the best weapon and armor in the game.

In terms of effort these characters are useful beyond imagination.
 
clay_pokey.png


He's in your party at the beginning of the game, and doesnt do anything but complain and hide.
 
3/4ths of the recruitable cast in Chrono Cross. Just about everything you did somehow ended up with someone or other joining up with your party.
 
Boney from Mother 3. He seemed...... so useless compared to the other members. Kumatora and Lucas had PSI, Duster had his Theif tools. Boney....... had nothing.
 
Iceberg said:
Ramus from Lunar: The Silver Star / Silver Star Story


I might be thinking of the wrong game, but didn't he end up owning a store and let you stock up on all the best items for free at the end of the game? Kind of cheating since I recall him leaving the party early, though.
 
Edward.
Mog.
A ton of Suikoden characters.

Still liked them though. :) I don't get why people bring up FF12's characters (gameplay wise) when they are all pretty much the same...
 
Harpuia said:
Boney from Mother 3. He seemed...... so useless compared to the other members. Kumatora and Lucas had PSI, Duster had his Theif tools. Boney....... had nothing.

Fastest character in the game, could check enemies weaknesses. Since he was so fast he was the best choice for healing items, he was guaranteed to go first.
 
PataHikari said:
Fastest character in the game, could check enemies weaknesses. Since he was so fast he was the best choice for healing items, he was guaranteed to go first.
Yeah, beaten. Boney = efficient item use.

And seriously, Mog was awesome in FF6, and Relm had the highest magic stat. Cyan and Umaro were the worst characters and this is really not open for debate.

I still don't get Cait Sith when every character in FF7 is identical. Did he have notoriously bad stats or something?
 
PataHikari said:
Fastest character in the game, could check enemies weaknesses. Since he was so fast he was the best choice for healing items, he was guaranteed to go first.

I never used sniff for anything, and he eats the items, albeit that has a small chance of happening. And from my memory, his attack wasn't exactly great, so speed never really helped, aside from healing. Even so, he died pretty often when I played Mother 3.
 
The correct answer is Saduj from Ultima V, who would destroy an item required to finish the game and attempt to kill everyone in the party!
 
firex said:
I don't get people bashing Momo when she's the second healer after Ryu, has great attack, and can be safely put in a place where she won't be attacked often.
I agree with you about Momo. I thought she was very useful.

firex said:
Peco on the other hand requires a bunch of pointless pre-arranged babysitting and effort to make into a good character, compared to the others. His only redeeming value is his HP regen, which requires you to ruin his speed by leveling him up with Fahl.
I'm not really sure what you mean by pre-arranged babysitting. Just have him apprenticed to Fahl and he's set to go. If you are training him to be a tank (the most sensible option by far), he doesn't need agility. He'll never get fast enough to be worth training him with anyone that specializes in speed. Trying to balance his (or anyone's) weaknesses in BoF III is not really the best idea IMO. You just end up with a team of mediocre characters.

Focus on defense & attack and he's ready to go. Great defense, a high counter rate and auto regen/massive HP makes him almost unbeatable.
 
Whoever says Quina is weak probably never used the "eat" command much. And I was surprised to see Steiner show up in here with "weak, generic skills" because he is basically the strongest in the party. Shock is almost a guaranteed 9999 attack.
 
mallow.gif


It's been years since I've played SMRPG, but I always thought Mallow was useless once you leave the early parts of the game. Horrible character design as well.
 
Dexvex said:
Whoever says Quina is weak probably never used the "eat" command much. And I was surprised to see Steiner show up in here with "weak, generic skills" because he is basically the strongest in the party. Shock is almost a guaranteed 9999 attack.

Quina isn't weak, it's just lame as a character storywise.

And I agree with Steiner being awesome. His double skill with Vivi was pretty good.
 
sgnhh said:


It's been years since I've played SMRPG, but I always thought Mallow was useless once you leave the early parts of the game. Horrible character design as well.

That Flower saver ring and the Wii classic controller's analog sticks for his Snowy spell make him quite useful.
 
sgnhh said:
It's been years since I've played SMRPG, but I always thought Mallow was useless once you leave the early parts of the game. Horrible character design as well.

You shut your mouth.

Not that you're wrong on the first point though.

And if we're getting into Mario RPGs...
ttyd-flurrie.jpg

She's just meh. Theoretically she'd be of some use when you first get her, since she'd be the only way to hurt enemies on the ceiling without using FP or Star Power. But, unless you're crazy enough to delve into the Pit of 100 Trials at that point, you aren't going to run into any ceiling enemies until the chapter you get Vivian, another character that can hit enemies on the ceiling with her regular attack and she gets the added bonus of sometimes burning enemies. Flurrie's other skills are mostly useless and outclassed by other partners as well.
 
CryingWolf said:
Kiwi's HP never levels decently, and what is the point of a tank character in Shining Force? You can't force enemies to attack him.

His damage was inadequate and his survivability just wasn't that good regardless. There's just no reason to use him.
He does good damage, is a great tank for physical enemies, and he flies (or at least hovers) so he can cover huge tracts of land at a high rate of speed.

Just get rid of the magic using enemies first and he's great.
 
The Lamonster said:


Just finished the game (just finished, as in "literally 10 minutes ago") -- I never used her in my party :lol But then I played Infiltrator and could hack everything I ever needed to.

I used Wrex + Liara pretty much constantly :D
 
Monroeski said:
He does good damage, is a great tank for physical enemies, and he flies (or at least hovers) so he can cover huge tracts of land at a high rate of speed.

Just get rid of the magic using enemies first and he's great.

I don't want to make this into an argument, so let's just say, I found him useless. There are too many far better characters to justify using him.
 
makarov.png


He's name is Makarov and he is a unit from Fire Emblem Path of Radiance. By far the most useless unit battle and story wise.
 
Segata Sanshiro said:
Goofy from Kingdom Hearts. God, what a useless idiot.
MP Gift = Never have to use Ethers again. Make this Goofy's only MP using skill, and add in enough MP Rage and MP Haste and you can use tons of magic and skills.
 
CryingWolf said:
Kiwi's HP never levels decently, and what is the point of a tank character in Shining Force? You can't force enemies to attack him.

His damage was inadequate and his survivability just wasn't that good regardless. There's just no reason to use him.

He does high damage and has a high chance of criticals. He also has a sort of flight ability (I'm not sure why). These, with a high defense make him a pretty good character.
 
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