Worst character, in your opinion?

[Bad_Brett]

Best characters, in the following order:

1. Quina
Has the third highest strength and HP (same as Steiner!), great defensive spells such as White Wind, Mighty Guard and Auto-Life, great offensive spells such as Twister, Magic Hammer, Limit Glove, LV5 Death and of course, Frog Drop. No matter how you play, low-level game, standard game, Excallibur II run... Quina will always be the best.

2. Freya
Dragon's Crest will do max damage after killing 100 dragons, which you usually do anyway. Reis's Wind and White Draw can also be useful.

3. Amarant
Though he may be the most boring characters, he's certainly one of the best. He has the highest HP and strength and good auto-abilities such as counter-attack, return magic, and HP bonuses. His skills are among the best as well. Revive can be almost as good as Full-Life, Chakra 40% HP/MP which is great and Aura can be a life-saver.

Elan is without question the best overdrive in the game. Being able to cast auto-life and regen on all characters at once is incredibly powerful.

4. Zidane
Has the ability to steal some of the best items in the game. Thievery is the best 9999 damage skill, even though it takes a lot of time to power up. Zidane has second most HP and strength. Early in the game his overdrive is really powerful.

5. Eiko
Has really strong white magic spells such as Full-Life and Holy. Her summons are quite good and fun to play around with. With Tiger Racket equipped, she can actully do some physical damage as well, if levelled up adequately. Double White Magic isn't bad. Being able to cast 2x Holy is quite effective.

6. Garnet
Worse than Eiko in almost every aspect, but Ark can do some serious damage.

7. Steiner
Though his skills can be useful from time to time, the complete lack of defensive spells kind of makes him a loser. Shock costs 48 MP, which is too much to be really useful.

...And the worst character is...

8. Vivi
Lowest HP and strength and no defensive spells whatsoever. He can be effective in the beginning of the game if you get the Oak Staff and Doomsday can be fun if you have the right equipment. Other than that, he's pretty much useless.

***

So the best party is (with Zidane):

Zidane, Quina, Freya, Amarant

And the worst is:

Zidane, Garnet, Steiner, Vivi


The funny thing is that it took me several years to realise how bad Garnet, Steiner and Vivi actually are.

[Rowan]

Never liked Amarant. Didnt like Eiko either. Beatrix should have been a playable character instead of Amarant. Beatrix was my favorite.

[Fantasy]

Never liked Amarant. Didnt like Eiko either. Beatrix should have been a playable character instead of Amarant. Beatrix was my favorite.

wow you just hit on something i have been saying for the past 7 years. i dont think he should have ever been a playable character -he was just not important at all and his story should have ended right when he lost in madain sari-, i think beatrix should have been a playable character because what was she doing the whole time after the destroy alexandria part. i think thats a big fail on their part. im praying for a sequel

[Yuffinara]

Would have to be Cait Sith.

[che]

Would have to be Cait Sith.

You dolt, this is IX, and Cait Sith was an awesome character. Probably cooler as a character than you are as a person IRL.

[Cyanist]

Truth be told, I wasn't very impressed with any of the FF-IX characters looks-wise, but my least favorite in battle would have to be Quina. I tried very hard and went out of my way to teach him/her/it magics from various monsters, but in the end battle, it turns out the large pale creature was, regrettably, not in my line-up.

[NeoAquarius12]

Yeah. I never even gave Quina a chance because of the design and weird personality. I had fun catching frogs, but it was just such a nuisance using the character.

I tend to favor main characters, so Zidane is my clear favorite. He looks cool, acts nobly despite being a thief, and his excess speed gives him more chances to attack than most other characters. Also, his Trance attacks at the beginning are AUTOWIN.

I always use Dagger over Eiko.

I always keep Amarant around because in battle, he is incredibly strong and versatile. He will do solid damage with any attack, especially if you have some good stuff to throw. Chakra is slightly more useful than I think people realize. And No Mercy is a Kamehameha Wave, and that is badass, considering Zidane is a saiyan. Don't ask me why. Look at the connections (different planet, monkey tail, brother comes to kill him, turns out to be a good guy, can turn into super strong version of self). Plus, watching Zidane slowly impress Amarant and persuade him to help is worthwhile.

Usually my end party is ZIDANE, GARNET, AMARANT, and probably VIVI. That last one is interchangable.

[Nidogod]

From a gameplay standpoint, definitely Garnet. Eiko can do everything Garnet can do and then some. One one hand, Eiko gets esuna and dispel - the two most useful healing moves in the game as well as full life and holy - the only offensive white magic spell other than lvl 4 holy, and Garnet gets none of these. Then on the summoning end, Eiko gets the one summon whose name escapes me that gives your entire team protect, shell, and reflect and stuff based on what gem she's holding, and then there's Phoenix the end-all greatest summon because it prevents game overs. What does Garnet have that Eiko doesn't? Mini and float and ****? Thanks but no thanks.

Story wise, I think if there was voice acting Quina would drive me crazy, but since there isn't, Quina actually has more relevancy than Amarant. I love using him in battle, but his character was cookie-cutter moody loner with less depth than an Iraqi swimming pool. If he wasn't in the game or served only as a boss there would be nothing lost.

[+ Revenant +]

I'd have to say Garnet and Amarant. Garnet made for a good healer at first, but Eiko is better at both healing and summoning when she comes along. That means Garnet is only useful in the toughest battles, when you're trying to keep everyone alive. Amarant isn't much of a thief character, since Zidane filled that role from the beginning, and he's stronger.

Quina was all right if you knew how to use her, but it took time to collect some of her best techniques.

[IcyJJ]

I feel that I do not use Amarant at all. His abilities can be nice, but I would rather have Freya.

[kazooie]

I have to agree that outside of being a key character Garnet fell short. Eiko's magic was much more useful in many cases, but I'm sure if I used summons more I would prefer Garnet!

As for characters who are useful in battle but fell short in story, both Freya and Amarant were vital to my party but had very little story involvement, which is unfortunate because what you DO see of them is wonderful!

[Sheechiibii]

I didn't like Amarant. I didn't like Eiko either though but I thought Amarant could have been a much better character than he was. Eiko...would have been hard to make un-annoying.

Worst has to be Quina though by far, I hated him/her/it. The only positive was catching frogs and blue magic but the actual character was dross for me.

Xx..xX

[Cry For Garnet]

Amarant is easilly the worst of the playable characters for me, his personality and contribution to the storyline is very monotonous, predictable, and hardly entertaining in my opinion, I could have happily played the game without Amarant in it, his main contrubutions are giving Vivi and Eiko piggybacks up the trunk of the Iifa tree and being a pain in the ass at Ispen's castle, not exactly integral to the storyline.

This is closely followed by Quina, i hated the whole idea of the 'Gourmet' race, apart from Vivi's 'grandfather', Quina was another character I would not have missed if the game had been somehow made without them, he/she/it is also absolute crap in battle, I never use...whatever it is in battle unless I have to.

[Xanatos]

This is closely followed by Quina, i hated the whole idea of the 'Gourmet' race, apart from Vivi's 'grandfather', Quina was another character I would not have missed if the game had been somehow made without them, he/she/it is also absolute crap in battle, I never use...whatever it is in battle unless I have to.

I understand you don't like Quina, that's perfectly fine, but she/he/it is far from crap in battle, in fact she is by far the most useful character in FF9 thanks to her great offensive, defensive and support abilities, Quina can single handedly destroy each boss on first two discs with one mere hit, not to mention both Ozma and Necron are kinda joke with Quina in your party and there's no level one playthrough without her/him/it.

[Cry For Garnet]

@ Xanatos

The only reason I refer to Quina as being crap is because I only use a set in stone party of Zidane, Garnet, Vivi and Steiner because they are my four favourite characaters and I never use anyone else unless I have to, as a result, I usually finish the game with four Lv 99 characters and 4 level 25-35 characters because I only ever use four. I am well aware of quina's usefulness in battle and in the playthroughs where I have used it as one of my main characters, I have, like you say, made mincemeat of every boss apart from Ozma, Necron, and maybe Quale if I have rushed through the game. When I refer to Quina being absolute crap this is only because I have hardly levelled it and hardly found any of its Blue Magic abilities, so as much as I am aware of its superb battle 'skills', I dont use it and threfore is crap, the same as Freya, Eiko and Amarant because I don't use them beyond when I have to either.

But it is as you say, if and when I actually use Quina, it is the best character in the game in terms of battles, and as a result I apologise for my previous comment.

[loaf]

I never did put in my actually Worst character.

I'm going to leave it in the main party.

Worst character as a character I'd say Amarant, he's there for mainly Zidane and Zidane only...Beatrix could have been swapped out with Amarant but that leaves me to the battles. Amarant is one of the best to use.

Worst character as in battle? Steiner. Steiner Steiner Steiner. His Breaks barely hit it's target and you don't even need to use any of them...minus Shock but Freya and Zidane can do 9999 dmg on their own when you build them to do it. His Trance is just BUFFER Steiner, nothing NEW like everyone else Trance. Next would be the healers. Garnet and Eiko are useless once you have Quina, Auto-Regen, Vivi with Doomsday (and everyone with Immune/Absorb Shadow) and Amarant for good ol Chakra.

Actually Beatrix should have replaced Steiner but Steiner does fit well into the story more than Amarant.

So many ways to play FFIX it's really cool when you get into it.

[The Last of Me]

I think that the worst character is not the same as the character I don't like

Eiko was pretty useless since Garnet was so much better in pretty much most ways!!

So I think the worst character was Eiko even if she was a fun character at times.