10 Final Fantasy Characters Nobody EVER Used
Вставка
- Опубліковано 21 лис 2024
- Take a seat.
For more awesome content, check out: whatculture.com...
Catch us on Facebook at: / whatculturegaming
Find us on Twitter: / wculturegaming
----------
Check out our merch store at: teespring.com/s...
Why not join our Discord? / discord
----------
WhatCulture Gaming Podcast now available!
iTunes: itunes.apple.c...
Spotify: open.spotify.c...
WhatCulture Gaming Podcast is also available on Acast, Podbean, Podbay, Podcast Addict, and more to come!
Irvine is literally one of the strongest characters in the game lol. Fast ammo after using doom train kills 90 percent of the game in one cycle
I never do even though he is cooler than Zell but every playthrough I can't turn my back on White Tyson. Then for the last member it's either Rinoa if I'm trying to make their love make sense at the end or it's quistis cause she is a badass.
I've only played ff8 1 time, full through, around original release. My team through the game was Irvine squal an rinoa thought they were the best
@@tompalmer4544 exactly the same setup for me and both of my siblings back the days
I turned the video off the minute Irvine came up…
@@tompalmer4544I'm playing ff8 rn and that's also my team! Love those three
Irvine definitely does not belong on this list. Most places i go where people discuss ff8, he is usually mentioned as part of the team. And pulse ammo is hardly ever used for him. By the end of the game, normal ammo hits just as hard and it isnt even the best option.
I use pulse ammo on him due to low level runs. You never quite get 9999 damage otherwise.
I used fast ammo and I can do 3k DMG per hit and empty my inventory in one limit break. That's about 300k DMG which will kill most bosses
Totally agree: I've always used Irvine!
I agree. Irvine is an amazing character and he’s one of the best characters if you want to fight the game the hard way. I find Quistis and Rinoa to be a lot less use. Selphie is definitely decent but slot takes up a lot of time to get right. Zell is good if you have fast fingers but I’d rather have Laguna for the end fight.
@@HandsomeLongshanks you can easily get 9999 with regular ammo even on a low level. Junction 100 ultima on str.
Kimahri sad, but Kimahri remain strong.
Kimahri remain on bench.
Ehhh....not that strong.
Lmao! Only true players know kimahri thief before Rikku is OP. Even after Rikku, a second thief is godly while building the party up.
Kimhari think Jess should be Jess.
Hornless!
Red mage in ff1 is legit part of most strongest party set ups.
Between Red Mage and Irvine, this list is....something else.
Idk man ever play with 4 monks in ff1? Get to level 8 take weps off and you are hitting for 100+ before the second town
Irvine is the most egregious inclusion on this list. His AP ammo shot is OP AF, and endlessly available by modding Tonberry Cards or Sharp Spikes.
People seem to be sleeping on Amarant. Yeah, as a character, he's poorly written, unimportant, and off-putting, but his moveset is amazing. "Lacks a full hit ability"? He can easily hit the 9999 damage cap through sheer power. He's a jack-of-all trades done well. High physical damage output, a magic attack with a shifting element based on his equipped weapon, excellent support abilities, healing, rezzing, pre-rezzing. If all of that isn't good enough, he can just throw money at the problem, literally.
Sorry... I get a little defensive about FF9, and Amarant is my favorite character in terms of design and mechanics. From a literary perspective? Yeah... I get the hate. On that front, it is totally earned.
Wtf is up with his hair tho? Is it a hat? It's not natural.
@@themonsterunderyourbed9408 I'm guessing it was "supposed" to be dreadlocks? But yeah. it is odd.
My main team was always Zidane, Dagger, Vivi and Steiner, loved me some Doomsday and Doomsday Sword with everyone wearing shadow protection or absorption. I did make regularly switch out for Amarant and Quina though since I really liked them as well.
Was looking for this comment, thank you!
I was a bit surprised Garnet was not mentioned as the most unpopular character in FF9 tbh. There's a point in the game where she misses a lot of her skills, when she's "distracted" and to me she kind of becomes an Eiko lite.
Amarant from _Final Fantasy IX_ is one of my mains when I go back for replays, despite being such a late-comer.
He is honnestly a good character, if Trance could be more controlled he would be even better, also find it ironic that his transition in story from lone wolf attitude to someone embrasing friendship is kind foreshadowed and supported by how he can become one of the best support in the game, Chakra is good to give MP to any character, Aura giving Regen + Auto-Life is a good buff (especially in Trance, makes him the only character able to put auto-life on the entire party in one turn), can Revive party member (or even the entire team with Trance) and can use Curse (altough random) to increase the damage of his teammate and his own.
Amarant is for the pros who don't need a strong healer imo. He pays off more in the end.
Same, as soon as I get him I immediately put him in the party and level him up, his "No Mercy" skill deals 8k to 9999 and is spammable due to low MP cost. My endgame comp would always be Zidane (Stealing, Thievery), Eiko/Dagger (Heal / Summons), Freya (Dragon's Breath), and Amarant (No Mercy)
Amarant hits like a truck and has solid healing skills. He's a much better choice over Garnet/Dagger.
@@termitesc.aardwolf3644 I'd say I prefer Garnet and her summon for mob fights, Amarant definitly better for boss fight.
Oh no... they didn't tell her about Irvines Cheap speed ammo technique
Squall with Lionheart, Irvine with Quick Shot and Zell with his infinite Top Punch/Feint combo make Omega Weapon a joke.
i was gonna comment on that. junction him right and use fast ammo and he turns enemies to swiss cheese
Thank christ someone said it. When I saw the thumbnail I knew no one at whatculture has played FF8 long enough to have seen how broken Irvine is.
And nobody had watched a speedrun. XD
Back in the day,i didnt know of (or just dont remember) using that method, but having the AP rounds shooting max damage early in the game stuck to me.
Irvine slander is crazy and not tolerated
They're insane... they need to go and play FF VIII again.
I hardly liked him… but its great if others do.
I feel like Irvine was in the thumbnail just to bait views.
@@NiteSaiya Haha, you're probably right.
@@NiteSaiya It has to be this. In a universe where Selphie exists they'd have to be down right stupid to think he was the most useless..
Who tf doesn't use Irvine? LoL.
When he is maxed out, he is absolutely BROKEN, doin max damage to every enemy on the screen with deadly precision.
Like to where I can remember having everyone else lay on the ground and Irvine just carry them through the final 4 fights of the game.
Irvine is always in my party due to his limit break. AP ammo destroys enemies while Dark Ammo can cripple enemies! It's like an early doomtrain.
Indeed. He was crucial to me for defeating King Tomberry early
Basically never used him in either the OG game for PS1 or for the Remaster. All the content was easy enough to clear without him, and mr cowboy just wasn't a character I liked, lol.
Whoever wrote this part of the script obviously didn’t pay attention to the storyline. He’s the outsider that is the only one that remembers their childhood, and his personality is often a reflection of that. Without him, we would t have had the connection between the GFs and the memory loss.
And with max Str and Luck his Fast Ammo, is the most damaging of his limit break, on top of having really fast animations unlike Zell.
Kimahri is one of those JRPG party members that rewards the player for knowing the "ins-and-outs" of the game (kinda like most other Blue Mages in the series). If you put Kimahri through Wakka's sphere grid, he gets a ton of HP, Attack, Accuracy, and surprisingly a lot of Magic Attack as well. A couple of Kimahri's Overdrives scale off of Attack (Jump and Seed Cannon for example) while others scale off of Magic (Fire/Aqua Breath), so having a mixture of both is best for Kimahri specifically. Wakka and Lulu's paths on the Sphere Grid are also close to each other so Kimahri can easily switch over from Wakka's path to Lulu's path with the right Key Sphere. Using a Special Sphere to teach him Steal/Use OR a Skill Sphere to give him Mug is also a great idea to allow him to steal from Yenke and Biran to get some Lvl 3 Key Spheres (which are a pain to get without a lot of grinding).
BUT all of that is only if you know how to use Kimahri. On my first playthrough I put Kimahri through Tidus' path on the Sphere Grid and had a lesser Tidus with underwhelming Overdrives (his Magic was weak so Fire/Aqua Breath were on the weaker side, other Overdrives were still good though). Kimahri is definitely the hardest character to use to their fullest but he's a beast if you put a lot of effort into him and that's his main problem compared to the rest of the cast. The rest of the party each has a defined role in combat as well as enemies that they hard-counter easily, making them very straight-forward (maybe even a little too easy to use in the beginning), while Kimahri doesn't have that luxury, making it VERY easy to neglect and leave him on the bench since he's so dang anti-optimal. The player needs to WORK to make Kimahri shine while the other party members need little to no investment.
Kimahri only really has a role in the early game as the tank because you don’t have Auron and Kimahri’s weapon has Piercing on it. First run I did I sent him down Lulus path so he just became a less effective magic user while the second run I sent him down Auron’s path. He still didn’t fair that much better to be perfectly honest. He was my least used character, well he and Rikku. I’ll also just point out even though it’s not relevant to Kimahri, but teaching Tidus, Wakka or especially Auron Mug is so useful.
I'm a serial FFX player. And it is in fact stated on many many comments sections as my favourite (offline) game of all time. I've definitely done play-throughs where I've kept Kimahri in at all times that he's available just for the laugh of it. But he's also definitely my least used FFX character overall over the years. Probably because I like the girly characters.. so sue me lol
@@KegOfMeat I like to slap Mug on Wakka cuz of his high attack and accuracy.
@@frankbrodie5168 understandable, I think he's everybody's least used. Also Yuna, Lulu, and Rikku are great, no suing necessary.
@@KegOfMeat Teaching Kimahri Mug or Steal is actually usefull, cause Biran and Yenke are the earliest source of LV3 Key Sphere, with Master Thief to Kimahri so that he can steal 2 LV3 Key Sphere per steal, you can get enough LV3 Key Sphere for the rest of the game just from that fight alone.
See Irvine in the thumbnail is a crime. His quick shot ammo limit break can deal so much damage. I’m pretty sure the WhatCulture team member who wrote this put him on the list to enrage people.
That seems to be a recurring theme. I've seen MORE than a few vids where it seems the entire purpose is to get a bit of rage going from WhatCulture.
Also, Irvine and Selphie pretty much ended every major boss for me in the last dungeon. His Pulse Ammo and her using The End made short work of even Ultimecia. I burned through the first two forms then finished her off with The End. I just had to keep Selphie at double digit HP, but Holy War made it more than possible.
given its wc, probably ai or someone who doesnt play video games.
I’m team Kimahri on FFX. My boy is essentially a blue mage and is great to slip in at times.
Love me some Kimahri!
Kimahri is a character that really snowballs, if you keep him in the party and get as many blue mage spells as possible he easily becomes the best party memeber, he is not the best at any 1 thing, but he is the second best at everything once you get all the spells
Hell I used him as more of a tank/damager and he was a beast at that.
With the HD re-release of FFX and the subsequent improvement to the sphere grid, he's a great character! But you have the admit, in the OG version his spot on the sphere grid really set him back.
@@SeanSpencerNekoEspirito Not really, used properly he can go to Rikku's grid allowing to get Steal and Use long before she joins, and then you can wait and once you get a LV2 Key Sphere, you can send to Yuna's path and grab Holy long before Yuna gets it, by this point he will be your strongest character, you can also go the other through Wakka and then Lulu's path and this allow him to grab the -aga tier spells long before Lulu.
In Final Fantasy Tactics Cloud is an unlockable secret character. The problem is you get him so late in the game and he's level 1. Not a useless party member by any means, but by the time you get him you've pretty much got your party locked in.
Would be nice if he targets the enemy instead of the tile
Cloud is a useless character. The main thing he brings to the Table is charged attacks that take way too long to execute, and you have other characters (coughOrlanducough) that are better. Orlandu does everything Cloud can do, instantly and his equipment that he comes with is better than Cloud's. Mustadio who you get way earlier in the game, his guns always hit and he throws his items no matter what job he is IIRC (not that you'd want him to be any other job because his starting job is just that awesome), Agrias has some of the better swordskills and you get her pretty earlier too, she's basically an Orlandu-in-training, and there's plenty of other special characters that one can choose from. By the time you get to Cloud, you already consistently have a squad full of special characters that covers pretty much every playstyle without the need to have a useless character that can barely do anything without tons of extra help (doing stuff like casting Haste on him, etc).
I always felt meliadoul was worse than cloud in the original game because her skills cannot do damage if the enemy has no armor, or maintenance skill. Then she is just like a basic bought soldier. So I think I only used her once, and that forced battle is a perfect example.
At least with cloud, materia sword or not, leveling stats are so much rewarding. Though have to agree I can see why no one used him. Though I really like finishing touch status effects (saved me from mindflayers a couple of times lol).
Doesn't help that Omnislash has like a 99 turn charge timer.
@@DSzaks Good lord I remember it being long but not that long holy crap
Umaro’s biggest use is at the Colosseum, where you can’t control the character anyway and the characters with more abilities tend to choose the ones they use very poorly.
Not to mention the Cultist Tower where normally you can only use magic
Umaro is probably best with Gau raging and Mog dancing so Cyan can charge his sword technique--But yeah, that's not the most ideal party.
@@iamtimorama Might work with Relm in place of Cyan. High magic can keep the other three alive
I like to change Amarant's name to Queen. That way his tagline becomes, "I am the flaming Queen!"
Am I immature for thinking "turd would suit that line better"?
I name my characters after chess pieces too. In FF6 Terra and Celes are my two Queens. Locke is my knight and Edgar is literally a king so I named him King.
During my husband’s first play-through he didn’t like the guy before naming him. It was the only character he renamed. And he named him Dick. I loved his reaction to “flaming Dick”.
I love that Irvine, literally the biggest damage machine in the game, is on a list of least used characters. Whack.
My man fails one shot and comes back with a lethal vengeance. "You got armor?" then almost everything dies after.
Snow was a crazy tank especially in the end game
I had a team of Lightning Hope and Snow and they destroyed everything. Especialy late game. Snow is amazing. I would say however that FF13 does not have useless party members. They all work well if you utelise them right.
Right? Snow single handedly being the best Sentinel in the game makes him extremely useful for some of the toughest and hardest hitting enemies, he can reliably tank a monster like Attacus with little support and only needs semi-regular healing when he hits 3rd phase at best.
Just started the video, and I gotta say if people don't use Quina in FF9, they've failed. Period. Homies Blue Magic is OP as hell.
early game Limit Glove cause Phoenix downs revive you with such low HP is nuts.
I think the grinding and/or hunting and/or knowing what enemies give what spells is a turn off to a lot of people. Younger me doing FF9 for the first time, didn't have easy access to all of this information, back when I first played FF9, internet was still new-ish, and I didn't have the brady guide for that game, and I dunno if Gamefaqs even existed at that point and unless you start right away, at eating just the right enemies, Quina is going to seem like they are useless. The fork attacks can be good, but it's like gambling... sometimes you get awesome damage, other times he'll hit the enemy for 10 damage. So, after awhile, when you get the choice to NOT use him, you either choose between RNG or someone who is more reliable like Freya or especially Steiner (even moreso if you've also Vivi in the group!) and well the choice is pretty clear. All of these other characters appear to be way better than Quina, if you didn't get some of their more busted spells. Quina is the embodiment of a GuideDangIt character. No Guide = eating everything (which is a right chore to do, even if you do know exactly what enemies should be eaten) which is a huge turn-off.
You mean Frog Drop?
@@ManwithNoName2025 If that was directed at me, about the "gambling", no, I mean the regular melee attack. Quina uses Forks as their weapon, and it has a HUGE RNG variance on it. Sometimes you'll hit an enemy for 10 damage, or sometimes you'd hit that same enemy for 900 damage or anything in-between. Sometimes you'd get a max critical of like 2,000. And then next turn, you get another 15 damage hit.
EDIT: Also, since an enemy needs to be almost dead to eat it and learn Quina's spells, Quina ends up being the absolute worst party member to help with the efforts as their damage is absolutely unpredictable.
@@Dhalin No, I was asking OP if they meant Blue Magic being OP as hell as referring to Frog Drop for Quina. Sorry for the confusion.
I appreciate Jess just being upfront, saying she's a new fan and just learned some of these characters. Respect
No doubt, lots of people, when asked, like to pretend they've been fans since the beginning, to their own detriment. We don't care how long you've been a fan for, just that you're a fan. And honestly, I'd rather you be honest, because then I get to geek out on how phenomenal some of those old games are. And then maybe you go off and play it, and we get to compare notes.
Yeah I get your point, but becoming a new fan, with her job and the tsunami of spoiler that comes with it, is no easy task. I wish her all the best because a lot of these games deserve a playthrough or 6
@Midragor yeah FF has a huge dedicated fanbase, so she won points in my book by being honest.
She doesn't write most of the videos she does. You can see who the writer is at the end of the video. Not dissing her at all, she's done some of her own stuff.
Truth, Jess is great
Just dropping in to say that Irvine is pretty much OP in the end game, when your shots are doing 9999 per hit. Combine that with his LB with fast ammo, you are literally doing the most damage in the game.
But I will also give the benefit of the doubt since she did say she was relatively new to the series.
Kimahri was designed to be a "second" option. You want a second mage? A second healer? Second armor breaker? etc.
Yes! This! I would always use khimari as my backup white mage for when Yuna left the party during the Bevelle events, including that damned
Evrae fight.
To be fair, they acknowledged that but also said, you basically always have access to a better version of him. Personally, I always sent him down Wakka and then Auron's path. Making him a decent damage dealer and taking advantage of how most of his weapons have piercing.
@@jeronmortensen9160 I always give Kimahri Steal and Use so that he can use Al Bhed Potions. True, you have Rikku during the Evrae battle, but she won't be able to keep up with the beast on her own and you'll want a second multi-target healer if she happens to go down.
Using the wrong shot for Irvine and you can get Pulse shot as early as Disc 1. Irvine is one of the top strongest characters in the game, rivaling Zell, Rinoa, and Squall.
He surpasses Zell pretty easily as his animations are faster and no need to input commands like Zell.
I used Irvine pretty heavily. Stock up on ammo, draw the curagas from the garden hidden draw point, junction that magic to Irvine's HP, and then spam Irvine's limit break.
So many bullets. So much damage
Right after starting the game, Triple Triad for some Abyss Worm cards, Card Mod into Windmills, Refine into Tornado, apply to Strength when Irvine joins. :) I love FF8.
Snow is actually the best member to have in the final hunts. He's the strongest Sentinel user using him to tank makes those fights immensely easier where was Hope is just bad at even his best class.
I'm definitely a Cait Sith defender. Don't tell me sh*t about his stats or battle strategy...He's a Cat riding a giant Moog in a little Cape. I'm sold!
I always put him in my party, one of the weirdest characters controlled remotely by Reeve.
@@josesavantsame. Once he became available he never left my party.
Cait sith is a great character. His dice or slot limit break can be great.
The fact that they kept using Rebirth Cait Sith while talking about OG Cait Sith really took me out of it. Rebirth Cait Sith is actually good if a little esoteric.
Agree
I just came in to thumbs this down. I always use Irvine in FF8.
Same, his Limit Break is one of the most useful especially in the late game
I adore Irvine
@@niallocarroll4450 Without a doubt. The damage is insane.
@@always_ariel Probably my fave character in the whole game.
The dude is cracked, he is always on my team
Oh man, I always use Irvine when I play FF8 along with Zell, although it's honestly mostly cuz I like their limits
As a matter of fact, Zell and Irvine have the most broken limits, you can do a ridiculous amount of damage if you know what you're doing.
@@BlanckOne especially AP Ammo is so easy to manufacture and absolutely broken if you just steal the materials
@@BlanckOne oh I know! That's why I always use them! The amount of damage you can do with Zell's limit makes him the biggest damage dealer by far.
Dream team right there.
@@Collin255 When I realized how easy it was to just keep going on and on with Zell's limit, he was a guaranteed no-drop from my team.
Snow I actually found quite useful. As well as having the highest HP, which made him a great Sentinel, he also had very high strength, which I found useful in high attack paradigms.
He also has the fastest spellcasting animations of the team, which makes him a good Ravager and a good Medic.
Irvine's advantage over Zell is that his limit break doesn't take forever. He also can hit pretty good mid - early late game and reach 9999 each hit before anyone else with the AP ammo and fire ammo. His limit is not worse than Squall actually. It is worse against Renzo + Lion Heart but that doesn't occur every use. Squall's lowest limit is 4 hit and Irvine's will hit for more. I like all the characters in FF8. Not to mention that there's no need to min max anyway since game is easy.
I used Umaro when I was younger, but as I got older and better learned the battle system (and RPG mechanics in general) I quickly learned that his overall damage output was lacking terribly compared to literally any other character when it came down to it, particularly if you are a fan of min maxing specific character stats long before Umaro becomes available (a feat that is even easier in the Pixel Remaster).
AP Ammo for Irvin came in clutch vs plenty of bosses. For the longest time Selphie was not my favorite character until I learned she can cast multiple spells. I’d honestly had said Quistis as not being used. She was only good if you obtained the blue mage spells. And the problem is you never knew which enemy had them. So progressing through the story ment more to me then her spells.
I actually love Umaro especially when speed leveling on fast forward; you can get his physicals up to scoring 9999s with the Rage Ring which is a nice alt to avoid the game regressing into an Ultima spamming army lol
Just equip atma weapons and offerings, kill everything in a barrage attack. This creams even the bonus dungeon bosses in the remake.
I can understand why a new player would not use Irvine, but he is easily a top three character for the difficult end game challenges. AP bullet limit breaks deal insane damage.
I loved using Umaro. Putting him in a party with strong magic users and casting berserk as you ascended the Cultist Tower worked for me very well
The Cultist Tower is on place where he really shines, since you don't have to worry about all the enemies with permanent Reflect with him, and most of them have terrible defense.
Honestly, FF6 is so easy to break open that having one guy constantly on auto-attack isn't all that detrimental. Cyan's Sword Tech, on the other hand, usually feels like a complete waste of time charging to the higher levels because it always feels like you could be having other characters do other things.
@@Freefall347THIS
@@Freefall347 They fixed that in the Pixel Remaster, you tell Cyan which sword tech you want him to use and then he'll wait the amount of time while you can control other characters. Honestly how it should have been from the start. It makes Cyan a bit more usable, though still having one character just stand there half the battle isn't very productive, but at least the first 4 techs are more usable than they were before.
@@Dhalin That's good to hear, only took them a couple decades to figure out a fix for one of the worst special powers in the game (was going to say worst, but Gau's Rage is pretty bad too, just because of the randomness in farming anything useful).
@@Freefall347 Uh. Gau can get the two best rages in the entire game as soon as you get him (templar and stray cat). Templar will decimate everything pre-WoR and Stray Cat is straight up OP for the entire game.
I don't think Cait Sith is WIDELY used, but there are absolutely some strategies with him. You can one-shot any enemy party if you manage to get a certain roll on his Slots limit, and yes, that does include the Weapons and Sephiroth. There's even a trick that you can learn - which I have not mastered - that will guarantee you that result. 4-8 Productions has a video on it.
going to have to rebut Kimahri here. He's not for what you think he's for. he's a Jack of all trades who's also the most well rounded character: stronger than the weakest party member in every metric, often being the 2nd strongest in EVERY metric.
He's for swapping in for fallen allies, as some enemies can prevent revivification from certain statuses.
For instance, if a main character in a role is susceptible to, say, sleep, and they're consistently not getting to take their turn, then Kimahri to the rescue!
Facing a Flying enemy so your Melee character is just standing around doing nothing with their thumb where the sun don't shine? Kimahri to the rescue!
Rikku getting One-Hit every round and you NEED to try to steal but Tidus is the ONLY one fast enough to cause damage? Kimahri to the rescue!
crossing a big map and you're FINALLY getting close to a save point but you're out of phoenix downs? Kimahri to the Rescue!
sure, in the late game you may have super-items that make everyone immune to everything, but for the WHOLE game before that, Kimahri is your Sidearm, and remember folks, "switching to your sidearm is usually faster than trying to reload under fire"
This is an excellent break down. I have never used kimahri much but he was way more useful than Lulu most of the time. The problem is she is a must use at the beginning of the game. Whenever I needed someone to act as a secondary melee/tank I always threw kimahri in.
@@pdiddly086 tyvm! ☺
I personally used every Cha in FFX about equally, tho I'm admittedly a Tidus hater 😅
Actually, I don' like Kimahri but I do believe it when people tell me I'm using him wrong. When it comes to him I have absolutely NO idea where to go on the sphere grid.
@@utopua4all he's a gap player. he fills in for problematic characters. If you find, for instance, that Yuna dies in one hit all the time, you can fill her role with Kimahri (esp. if you're low on phx downs).
he won't do anyone's job as well as them, but he'll do it better than anyone else.
he's your universal 3rd: 3rd strongest, 3rd fastest etc.
that means he's *stronger than 3-4 other characters* in _each_ metric.
so he's not as strong as Yuna in white magic, BUT, he's nearly as durable as Waka and Auron so he'd fill in for her perfectly in certain situations, like AOE atks that 1-hit Yuna.
this dynamic is true for him vs. ALL the characters. he's "Almost as strong as X character in their field, but strongER than them in every other field"
as for the sphere grid: his ability to jump around it is key, so you can plug the gaps in your lineup as they reveal themselves. Personally, I just went everywhere with him, totally filling everything (yes, that took a LOT of grinding). but he can get most of the unique abilities of the other characters in the game! Steal not least!
a quick google has some great guides for how to get the most out of him though!
Obtaining Irvine's pulse ammo is easy if you find the guy laughing on the highway in Esthar who turns into a monster that drops tons of energy crystals that convert into pulse ammo.
Yes, Elnoyle.
@user-zk9rq1hn2c not really. Energy crystals were a really rare drop and only made 10 pulse ammo. And that encounter is a one-time thing if I remember correctly. His field encounter is uncommon as well. AP ammo is where it was at. It'll easily reach max damage with junction and you can make 40 at a time with one cactus thorn which you can get A TON of from cactuars. Or go the chef knife rout which you can get a ton of those too.
@@iangonzalez6171 If you leave the screen where he's at to the right then immediately come back, the guy is there again and again. Rinse and repeat until you have a ton of energy crystals.
@@iangonzalez6171 Elnoyle can be farmed infinitely for Energy Crystals. You pretty much have to in order to obtain Lion Heart.
It's also extremely fast to grind since he's not immune to instant death.
I liked the Red Mage in FF1 and would sometimes swap a White Mage for a Red Mage.
White mage helps in the middle of the game, as you can survive a few of the more challenging fights easier with white mage than a red(especially if you tackle the bonus dungeon content on a lower lvl.), but later on you can produce such a offensive team that healing because far less useful, and you then have a character with low damage compared to rest just kinda is there. Red mage gets the legendary Lightbringer in the remake, which allows them to cast holy for free every fight. No other class can wield it.
I usually go warrior, white mage, black mage, & red mage (sometimes swap with thief & very rarely monk). Red is versatile with both white & black spells giving good support & being able to use swords makes him good melee when the spells are used up
Also worth mentionning Red Mage were busted in the NES version, due to a programming error the Intelligence stat had no effect in spell damage, this mean he could cast as well as a Black Mage or a White Mage with better equipment and better survability.
red and white mages were both almost as useless as the thief. mixture of black belts and fighters is the way to go
@@nostrum6410 I used to do Black Belts only runs on the NES, difficult in the early to mid-game, but fantastic during endgame.
Max props getting into the FF universe, Jess. I got into it in ‘02 when an ex loaned me a chipped PS1 and some games. Including FF7 & FF8. (8 the best in the series).
Ah Irvine... My party in FF8 was always Squall. Zell and Rinoa... Unless the game forced other characters.
I always used Squall, Rinoa, and Quistis. If I couldn’t use any of them for any reason, I would use Zell.
Mine is Squall, Rinoa and Irvine.
I used Irvine instead of Zell, I don’t want no damn Chicken Wuss in my party!
Honestly the FF8 answer should have been Selphie, you use her a lot early on when you have no choice but unless you are trying to cheese a fight with The End she doesn’t get a look in after the mid point.
Honestly though, FF8 does a good job of use all characters.
@@EFFCtoocool Selphie's Slot giving her access to any spell right from the get go (nothing satisfies me more than cast a fucking Ultima at the Dollet Mission XD) would be really great.... if it wasn't for how easy to break into 1 million pieces FFVIII was.... Did somebody says Card Mod ?
Oh, I thought the Cait Sith entry was going to touch on the subject that his limit break can party wipe you but I guess having only two limits is the extent of his awfulness in Jess's eyes.
I was expecting this. When I learned that Slots has a "Party End" option I went "I'm never using this piece of crap. Ever."
I really can not agree on the take for Irvine. He is one of the characters who get's strong very early on and has a collection of very powerfull bullets in his Limit. Literally everyone i knew back the days FF8 was released and my siblings got their hands on it used Irvine nearly permanently once they got him in the party.
Also: Kimahri, Cait Sith and Amarant are literally freaking broken characters. Yes, you need to pay a lot into them, but once you reached a certain point, they literally oneshot everything in their path.
Especially Kimahri was one of the so called "never used" characters, i personally used frequently.
Kimahri was on my main team in my first playthrough back on PS2 along with Tidus and Auron, seldom used the other characters and practically never used Lulu. He was such a strong character, never had any issues with his power especially since I unlocked the celestial weapons before beating the game. In my playthrough of the HD remaster on PC though I virtually never used him, instead used Lulu heavily until the mid game then focused on Tidus, Auron and Yuna as my main team with practically no level grinding and no celestial weapons until I finished the game.
Cait Sith is actually one of the best party members in FF7. He is legitimately the best magic user in the party boasting the highest base magic attack, whilst still being beefy enough to survive in the front unlike the other magic focused party members. On top if that Dice is one of the best limit breaks in the game doing a minimum of 200 dmg when first obtained with a max of 2400 dmg. Even at lowest its strong enough to one shot most basic enemies found in Corel, and it continues to grow as you level getting up to 6 dice for a possible 2100 - 9999 damage at level 60.
Meliaodul is very good in the WotL version since her skills are no longer dependent on breaking armor, she has very good stats and plotwise it makes a lot of sense lining her up in all history battles after you recruit her, you'll get extra dialogue on most battles.
In wotl soo much better. She does more damage if they do not have that armor type of the skill too. And the weapon she comes with is a great edition. I used her more in this version, but by the time you get her, you have a pretty established main party. Though in this version, I thought cloud, or (don't skewer me) byblos seen the least usage from me.
Even in the base version she was very useful. I made her use monk abilities as her second command so she would not be defenseless against monsters
@RPsj it's not so much of "she can't become useful," but when you do get her, you have a pretty established end party by then. Many people invested many hours into the 5 endgame party before that battle. And considering the most OP character you get has those skills before you even get her, many just skip over.
@@doubletee1320 that's a valid point, most people like to keep a fixed party for the endgame. I like to keep my whole team active and up to the challenge. Maybe that's why I could never finish Chrono Cross, too many characters on the team, and most of them irrelevant to the plot
@RPsj I feel called out with this comment lol. I play every rpg this way.
This is real hard disrespect for my man Irvine. I always used the male characters in FF8 because their weapons are actually used in their limit breaks. Just use a meltdown to shred their defense to 0 and then fast ammo does the rest. Pulse ammo is easy to get late game, but it’s not as good as fast ammo. Mans not poorly written either, he’s the only one who remembered who edea was and it’s the main reason why he couldn’t shoot her in the first disc. He glued all the characters together. This was strong slander for my man.
"top characters nobody ever used"
Me whose main party was squall, Rinoa and irvine: am i a joke to you?😀
My main was similar, but Squall Zell and Irvine.
But also:
Red Mage FFI
Porom FFIV (my normally unused was Edward)
Cait Sith FF7 (okay, maybe I didn't really use him since I already had a good team, but I will not take that brutality about not missing him after his sacrifice scene - that made me cry and I was so happy he lived)
comments beat me to it but yea Irvine is top 3 in FF8
Nobody would ever not use a character that can suplex a train.
True but some do not know that function.
Umaro: very powerful stats when you get him, makes climbing the Cultist's Tower a breeze as all mobs are weak to physical
Irvine: Easily does the most damage end game with speed amno
Red mage: very good jack-of-all trades character. Thief/ninja would have been a better choice for this slot, especially in his bugged state in the original game.
Umaro + relics = A MONSTER. Cyan is honestly a more useless character in the OG FF3(6). The WAIT time for his specials is so slow it's crazy.
If you complete his subquest with his family that charge time changes immensely
Cyan has access to spells. Like Ultima. Sure, he isn't the best mage, but "having access to Ultima" vs "Not even being able to control the character to begin with, let alone use spells" IS a deal breaker. I may or may not agree with the other characters she mentions (as far as I know, and as I much as I disliked him, Irvine is actually pretty OP, by example), but Umaro is the character I agree the most that he belongs to this list.
If you want to break the game with relics, there are better characters than him, like Terra or Celes and the Celestriad + Thamasa Soul, or any character that can wield the Ultima weapon (and you can get two) with the Master Scroll and Genji Glove for 8 attacks at full power (and even if you don't get two, you can use Locke with Valiant knife and Ultima weapon to deal HUGE damage), and the rest of the party can use spells. The fact that Umaro is literally the only character that CAN'T use the Paladin shield ensures even further his position as the worst character in the game.
My team in 8. Quistis for blue magic and aura magic. Irvine for AP ammo and Squall cause you cant remove him. Cheesed the entire final dungeon.
Irvine is the best character in the game period. There is nothing more badass than Irvine blasting bosses with Armor piercing ammo.
Especially with Meltdown and Exeter.
in ff8 the least used character would probably be Selphie.
Yes, she does have "The End", which literally ends the current phase of the fight.
But it's tedious to "Do Over" until you get it.
Quistis will probably be used extensively for farming purposes (Initiative+Degenerator).
And Zell, Squall, Irvine and Rinoa are all capable of big damage.
So in the end, there is really no reason to use Selphie.
While i love ff8, game is really unbalanced. But there are mods out there that overhaul the whole battle system.
If you like ff8 it's worth looking into them.
I would agree that Selphie's is the weakest due to Limit RNG and the fact using magic outside of draw cast is bad. Her one upside though is with just Ifrit and her Ultimate weapon, she can auto-kill with undodgable basic attacks, so there is that. Only Squall can claim to do that.
Selphie + Aura is more for the endless Full Cures. Full Cure comes up on her slot like 80-90% of the time when she's buffed with Aura. With her in the group, you will never die, even if the boss breaks all of your Curaga spells, lol. The End is cool and all that, but that's not why I love her.
@@Dhalin It depends on how you play. If you play aggressively and know how to utilise the junction system you don't need much healing most of the time. And at disc 4 you can pretty much stock on invuln items and stop caring altogether.
While I love ff8, since it was one of the first games I've ever played, it's gameplay is really bad.
That's why I love the modders.
The gameplay overhauls are great.
And so was one story overhaul I played recently.
Am i the only one who used Amarant in IX? He is a big strong dps if you didnt grind the 9999k damage cap with other characters. I didnt used throw stuff and gil cause money for dupes weapons and armour for synthesis. I also used red mage in I, they are cool and best balanced job in FF series
I use him too. I love his Elan skills especially Chakra
And pro-tip, get a Red Chocobo before Oielvert and the Chocograph Dusk Plains, get there when Kuja send you and you get the Kaiser Claw, what's good about this beauty it had a good attack power, but is also Wind Elemental and there is a LOT of ennemy (basically everything that fly) weak to wind in this game, use that Claw equip an accessory that boost wind damage, and unless you've been grinding like crazy this turn Amarant into the best damage dealer for quite a while, and still good damage when the rest of the party will catch up.
Yes, you are the only one.
I'm going to give her a pass for not knowing about Irvine, since she did say she was a relatively new fan of the series. That being said, Irvine was always part of my endgame team, along with Rinoa and Squall.
Who I am *not* giving a pass is whoever gave her her notecards, since they should've done more research on how Irvine works, as well as his relevance to the plot.
Kimarhi is actually extremely useful in the HD remaster
Irvine got done dirty here. Yeah, he isnt as high damaging as Zell, ovar usefull as Rinoa or a 1-cast win button like Selphie, but he is a source of concistently high damage if junctioned properly.
Ammo is so easy to refine, and with 255 str & one cast of Meltdown, fast ammo is the optimal option for his limit. So he will do consistant, predictable high damage every time, while Zell or Selphie is more luck and input based. With proper use of the juction system, Quistis is unfortunantly the worst character mechanicly since single hit limits are useless in a game where you can make every character do 9999 max damage with standard attacks
I teamed up Umaro with Relm & Strago for the memes: imagine an abominable snowman throwing around a little kid & an old man. 😂
The lulz were the only reason some of the characters were used for me in several of the games.
As people have pointed out, Irvine is very very very good. It's one of the few things I remember about FF8. To be fair, I never figured out how to make Quistis broken back then because I was like 13 years old, but Zell and Irvine could absolute shred everything in the game.
Kimahri? Irvine?? MELIADOUL??? Who tf wrote this list?
Somebody who doesn’t really play those games.
Red mages are great, especially in the remake of Final Fantasy 1. You can do a solo red mage run while the rest of your party takes a dirt nap, then upon promotion give your team the best lvl ups they can get.(They get the same lvl ups as both classes, and can survive the game solo just fine.) Red Mage gets the Lightbringer, a powerful sword that can spam holy. Outside of a few bonus dungeon challenges, a red mage can heal more than well enough to keep the party alive. At the end of the game your team can be so brutally offensive with a Knight, Ninja, Black Wizard you won't get hit enough care about healing. The red mage/wizard brings more to the table than a whitemage/wizard does. If everything is dead, you don't need heal anyone.
red mage was still a bad toon to go with
Kimahri kinda could be a extra thief level 3 key sphere are hard to come by
Irvine is an amazing character. Squall and Irvine for damange and Rinoa for Invincible Moon.
err that's not true about Irvine being the least used. Back in the day where we only had gamefaqs, it's on top of what character is being suggested. Think this was poorly researched.
Of course it was poorly researched. She said the job system has been absent from mainline since V (it's in XI and XIV) and that I is the only entry with blank slate characters (III is also like this).
I appreciate the disclaimer at the beginning. Thanks Jess!!
cait sith is a beast in rebirth
Yeah, he's got some great skills but he also has a bit of a learning curve and some luck-based skills. That being said, he is certainly not a slouch in Rebirth.
Irvine..... IRVINE?!?!?! Are you kidding me? AP ammo is incredibly easy to get and allows him to consistantly deal at least 40k damage early game. And then there is fast ammo which can deal like 300k damage in 1 limit break. Selphie on the other hand is pure garbage, sure she has The End, but good luck getting that, the rest of her limit breaks are just trash.
FF13 is really underappreciated. I still remember my initial reaction to the battle system, but I fell in love with it after an hour if not two. It is genius and interesting. It was a bit stressful in the final boss because you need to be practically perfect to win, but still loved the game, even though the characters were not that impressive on their own.
I do have plenty of disagreements here.
Irvine: Really glad so many of the comments are in support of King Horny and his machine gun limit. God the quick ammo shreds, especially with Meltdown.
Snow: I agree-ish. He's not great, but his role is primarily as a tank. He's there to be on the Frontline and get clapped.
Kimahri: Not the best in battle if he stays on his own grid (I recommend taking him down Lulu and Yuna's grids, stopping by to get Steal from Rikku's.) Plus he's just a really good guy. He didn't have to stay with Yuna, but he did. He has his fun moments, and while his personal story is short, you still learn about him. Plus, even though he can only use it as an Overdrive, I friggin love Blue Mages.
Red Mage/Wizard: While it doesn't get the highest level of White or Black magic, and can't learn some at all, it still fills several rolls. A mix of melee and magic works really well, offering Frontline damage if you want to save mp, and a mix of healing/support/elemental damage. And pronunciation of Bahamut makes me sad.
Meliadoul: Just because she is eclipsed by the three-in-one Orlandu, she is still amazing and should be used, especially in harder battles. If one person having all three sword skill classes is amazing, the doesn't mean the ones that use a single class is terrible. If anything, Marach is inferior to so many. If anyone begs to differ about Marach, please comment.
Porom: In the GBA/PSP remakes, she does have her uses over Rosa. Especially in agility. If anything, Cid is the worst. He hits hard, fine, but his ability is even more useless than Edge's Steal. Even Tellah is mediocre. He has all the magic. Shame he can't use his best without MP increasing items. Though, while it sucks, Tellah's stats decreasing as he levels up is a nice touch to show his increasing age as the story progresses... Aside from his magic, he also gave us the very memable 'Spoony Bard' line.
Cait Sith: The footage is from Rebirth, yet it sounds like she's talking about og FFVII. His Slots are decent if you know how to manipulate it, especially with Lucky Girl's critical boosting, and Mog Dance being a free Mega Elixir. I wouldn't be surprised if WhatCulture got their info mixed up (again,) like when they talked about Cloud's Buster Sword from og FFVII being amazing yet showing footage or Remake.
As for the others that do kinda suck butt...
Umaro: She was mostly on the money. He can use relics, and has one only he can use in the Blizzard Orb. All it does is give him an AoE ice attack instead of single target melee, but... no. He's not a mage by any means.
Amarant: He's not great, and he has almost no plot or development at all. I'd say he's as pointless as Quina, but as I said earlier, I'm biased toward Blue Mages (even if Quina's White Wind is the absolute worse in the series. Sorry for the tangent.)
If anyone would like to argue with my opinions, please comment. I'm always curious to other people's opinions.
Love all of you beautiful people. Hope you have a nice day~ 💙
But snow is the hero 😂
Irvine Kinneas is a freaking destroyer
Irvine scales up depending on how fast one presses the trigger with fast ammo (with meltdown combo). Imagine a turbo controller maxing out the trigger output.
What?! Irvine is the only reason I play FF8
I usually use a red mage in FF1. And the class I never use is thief. Red Mages makes the fisrt half of the game easy, but theives and ninjas only make running away easier.
The entire f***ing cast of Final Fantasy 13.
First of All, no one dislike Irvine. Second, everyone like Kimarih. Third! The best Team in FF1 is 3x Fighter, 1x RM. Fourth and the most important, never ever dislike Cait Sith. If you know how he functions, he is one of the strongest Characters in FF7 along Tifa.
Never used Cait Sith (in OG) VII, Irvine Kinneas in VIII, Quina or Amarant in IX, Khimari in X, and Snow or Vanille in XIII. Unless the game forces them into the party.
Snow in ff13 was broken with his animatons, he was the fastests caster out of all the characters.
@themagicbeard9432 I don't have anything bad to say about him per se. I just didn't find him that interesting, so he was never in my party line-up when it wasn't mandatory.
You don't need to worry about Irvine's ammo if you know how to get materials and convert them using Ammo Refine. Simply playing cards will get you access to his strongest ammos early in the game (some of which you'd need to upgrade your other characters' weapons)
I hated hope....
Ahhh.. a kindred soul. He really just seemed to be annoying and whiny to me.
I would also be like him or worse if i saw my mom killed in something she was put up to and thought someone was responsible and was going around calling himself a "hero". Yeah. I'd be mopey and petulant too probably
@CrazeeAdam he was mopey and petulant before that
@@CrazeeAdam Just because his attitude is understandable doesn't mean it isn't annoying.
Hope ticked me off too, but Snow was worse, I kept him around as a defender though, he's good at that.
Not using Irvine is stupid. Getting his Pulse ammo is fairly easy. After the Lunar Cry, you can find a black figure sitting on a bridge in Esthar. Talk to him and he'll attack, he's fairly strong but easily taken out. He'll drop the crystals you need to refine Pulse ammo. After killing him run into the next screen And then return and he'll be sitting on the bridge again. Rinse and repeat. Great experience, lots of ammo.
Yeah cait sith has their drawbacks. I always use them though. I like em
I used that dude in final fantasy 10 because he reminded me of panthor from thundercats
SNOW AND KIMAHRI BEING ON THIS LIST HURTS. Their design alone made me fall in love with them as party members
I definitely didn't find Kimahri useless at all in final fantasy X, I also noticed that she made no mention of Final Fantasy 12 before mentioning Lightning (which has 3 games total) and no mention of Final Fantasy 15 as well, I find 13; all three versions with the paradigm system and 15 to be the worst battle systems brought out in vr format. Also, being forced to constantly use Lightning in each of the games with no character usage, unlike Tidus, made the game hard to do any grinding to upgrade characters
Design-wise, both are top tier characters. I did use Snow quite a bit in 13. Kimahri though? Meh. When you've gotta work THAT hard on a character to force them to be good, it isn't fun, imo.
Final Fantasy VII is my favorite Final Fantasy, and Cait Sith is actually my most chosen character (Cloud doesn't count) - I'm not sure what led to me using him enough in order to discover the Limit Break, but I always loved using Slots, as I found it really fun to see what would happen when I did - it may even be my favorite ability in Final Fantasy VII.
Kimahri better not be on this list.. He’s a beast. Easily can be made to play whatever roll you need, and his overdrive is the second most diverse in the game.
Better luck next time!
@@drewtheunspoken3988hey at least Kimahri finally got mentioned for once and not overlooked yet again.
Thank you. I’m so sick of the Kimahri hate. He was my go to character
Rikku, Wakka, Tidus, and Yuna all have better Overdrives. They all have strong multi-attacks and are basically a necessity when going after the superbosses. Khimari, while I like him as a character and do use him throughout the game, probably has the worst OD in the game.
@@Maharvel for pure damage, there’s no reason to use anyone but wakka and Rikku for their overdrives. They do far more damage than anyone else. So if you’re using his overdrive for damage, you’re doing it wrong. Kimahri’s overdrive is good because of its utility. There are a variety of different status effects and healing that can be done with it.
For example, Stone Breath petrifies all enemies. It can just end many battles on the spot, regardless of enemy health.
I said second best but really it’s third. Rikku can do everything, and wakka does the most damage and can apply status effects
How in the hell is Irvine on this list? He's the absolute killer of the party. Considering you can't be 100% sure to get Lionheart at the end of Squall's Limit Break, Irvine is the one who can tear apart the optional bosses.
0:40 ??? What? Why are you making lists about games you don't know about and then acting like you're talking for all of us? Thumbs down.
"I'm a fan of Final Fantasy but a pretty new fan"
Bruh I can tell
Great job Jess! I hope you’re enjoying Final Fantasy
The key for Rinoa is only reading the magazine for the invincibility and Angelo Search. Then her limit will either be Angelo Cannon or the invincibility. Angelo Search does not take up her turn. To use Angel Wing, she should only have meteor and support spells (no status or scan). She will spam meteor without using up her spell stock. From what I remember Angel Wing, significantly increases magic damage.
I'd also like to say that Meliadoul was made more useful in the War of the Lions version, where here attacks didn't rely on the enemy to be equipped with a certain type of item to deal damage. So, for people like me that hate using the exp sponge, OP character that is Orlandeau, she is actually viable. (Plus with the addition of Dark Knight and a job, now Agrias and Meliadoul can use those same two Gaffgarion skills, and then some)
This was a lot of fun to see what trends have emerged. My indecisive self always has a red mage. I never used Irvine because he seemed boring compared to the other characters and he annoyed me with how he treated women. I actually used Snow… until I got Fang. Then I used Lightning, Fang, and Vanille. The one character from 13 I never used was Hope. That kid bugged me. 😂 the rest were pretty spot on for me!
I use Umaro all the time. He's a big, lovable white fluffball of rage. He has his uses and deals considerable damage with little to no effort. Plus it's just fun to have a character who is always an out of control berserker. 😁 It's like having a fluffy Hulk on your team.
I actually remember using Kimahri quite a bit while playing Final Fantasy X. Yes, he's the jack-of-all-trades character in a game where you can swap them all in and out of the front line, but FFX compensated for this, and the return of turn-based mechanics, with a heavy focus on strategy and planning. Even normal encounters could go south fast if you played lazy or careless, and a lot of the boss battles required the player to get incredibly creative with how they used their abilities.
Which is why I always appreciated having that jack-of-all trades character, not just who could use piercing attacks and learn steal long before Auron and Rikku joined the party, but who could quickly jump in with any other of my must-have abilities if the corresponding specialist suddenly became compromised.
Remember that blob thing you had to fight to start unlocking Auron's limit breaks? The one that was resilient to physical damage AND could absorb magic attacks? If Kimahri couldn't cast haste and didn't have a second piercing weapon, that's where the game would have ended for me.
I'll call hax on your Umaro, he was KEY in getting through the Magi tower.
I missed this video the other day, but I just wanted to praise you for including FF Tactics. Meliadoul was sadly outshined before her acquisition, but she has more reliable damage potential than Rafa and Marak(or however you want to spell their names) so they get the boot from me.
That one caveat aside, I do mostly agree with this list. with the top pick being a sad tale of under development on Square's side. That said, they were also the only character who had the chance to cause an automatic win/loss with their limit break, so it was certainly a gamble.
In the original version of FF1, the intelligence stat was bugged, so never featured into calculations. If you were ok without those late-game spells that are exclusive to the other mages, Red was just a solid pick to go with, because he had great equipment and was versatile. Not to mention, who picked Thief? That class was worthless.
magic was worthless as a result
Never got to play the original release. But I'll agree on thief's but limited magic slots and mp made red mages feel spread thin to me. But I rarely tinkerer with thieves black males or red males much. Loved seeing how broken monks could be in the end game literally breaking 5 digit damage in ps1 version if you buffed enough times. 5x chaos max hp and then some to start. Betting it'd go higher with more patience
FUN FACT: Most of the Type-0 playable characters' names are taken from a deck of cards. Ace, Jack, Queen, and King are pretty self-explanitory, as are Seven, Eight, and Nine. Deuce, Tres, Cater, Cinque, and Sice are all taken from old terms from playing cards, referencing the numbers 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, respectively.
That last part I just learned, looking up the entimology, as I initially believed most of the characters to be named for numbers in different languages (Cater from French, Cinque and Tres from Italian, Sice from Spanish, and I thought I remember Seven being Seben, which is German).
In Final Fantasy X, Auron is only the armor hunter thanks to Piercing in his weapons. Kimahri gets this in many weapons, but has a much wider stat gain. Sending him onto Rikku's path gives you a terrific story fight setup, and lowers how many characters you have to focus to 5.
I agreed with all of this from personal experiences EXCEPT for Red Mage. I just finished FF 1 on Origins and my warrior, red,white, and black mages served me well