Most unlikable Final Fantasy main character?

[chstens]

Titus at least grows as a character and he's generally got a positive attitude. Because of his growth he actually has a pretty high spot on my Final Fantasy Main Characters rating scale.

Squall on the other hand is composed almost entirely of negative elements... he's a jerk, he's a whiner, he's apathetic, he treats the other characters like garbage, he has no sense of humor and his character design is way to J-Pop for most peoples liking. Also he barely grows throughout the course of the game and doesn't get nearly so punchy and ending as Tidus.

Still though, he's not my most "hated" Final Fantasy main character... that dubious honor goes to Vaan of FF12... his voice is grating as hell, he serves no purpose in the plot, has no character development and has horrible character design. Worst of all the REST of the cast is so damn good... what is this little putz doing there? At least FFX had Wakka to make Tidus look slightly less ridiculous.

Except for the fact that he isn't the main character.

 

[kyogen]

Least liked protagonist: Cecil, FF IV
--IV is a good game, but I hate the protagonist. I understand how his character arc is supposed to work, but it never works for me at all. It's too fast and too shallow. I'd have preferred Kain as the protagonist.

Least liked party member: Hope, FF XIII
--I don't mind grumpy, whiny, traumatized Hope at the beginning of FF XIII. What I hate about his character is how he becomes the mouthpiece for poorly-worded cliches about friendship and perseverance in the late game. That's not really a problem with his character at all; it's a problem with how his character's dialogue is written.

 

[drmigit2]

I believe everything that needs to be said about Tidus is said here.

Thank you.

 

[Dragoon]

Vaan just all round sucked, what was he even doing in that game to start with? He's all like "I wanna be a Sky Pirate but I'm a poor street urchin weh" and just kinda starts stalking the other characters. Plus his voice is annoying, his clothes are crap and he looks like a girl.

 

[Diddy_Mao]

Zidane. I know that FF 9 is the Holy-fucking-Grail of post SNES pre PS2 FF games for some people and I couldn't begin to tell you why. But that's getting off topic.

Yeah Zidane's not a whiny tool like Squall and Tidus but deplorable as they may be at least they had personalities.
Zidane was....fuck if I know he was a genetically altered monkey man from another dimension?

He was so damn dull I honestly don't remember much about his story arc.

Honestly, haven't liked a single one of them since FF9, which had Vivi, who was awesome...

I'll grant you that.
Vivi was pretty awesome and pretty much the only reason I have any fond memories of that game.

 

[IamSofaKingRaw]

InB4PeopleSayVaanEvernThoughHeIsn'tTheProtagonist

Oh damn it. Too late

 

[spartandude]

I really really really hated Vanille.

dear god i dont think a character has actually ever annoyed me as much as her, heck id rather be trapped in a room with the Adoring Fan from Oblivion

 

[Nerexor]

Tidus. So much so that I couldn't even be bothered to finish the game. Squall at least had some growth, and there is no doubt in my mind that if he and tidus ever threw down, Squall would kick Tidus' bleach blonde butt back to blitzball... [sub]something that starts with b, need something that starts with b...[/sub] burg? I also tend to forgive FF8 more than most simply because I love the soundtrack to that game so much.

I never got far into 12 to be anything more than mildly irritated by Vaan. I gave up on that game due to the shitty combat, whereas in 10 it was definitely the shitty characters that drove me away.

 

[penguindude42]

To everyone saying Tidus or Vaan, hear this:

Squall and Cloud, because their games sucked.

 

[Savo]

Vanille from FFXIII. She was supposed to be the perky energetic part of your group but just ended up feeling horribly forced and obnoxious. I felt nothing when

Spoiler

she and Fang got frozen at the end

As far as Hope goes, I really don't understand all the hate for him. If you were 14 years old, and you watch your mother die and then got branded for death yourself, how would you react? He went from the character who was too afraid to speak up to the person he (wrongly in a fit of emotion) deemed responsible for his mother's death, to being the optimist toward the end of the game who gave the group motivational speeches. There was an incredible amount of character growth in him, and all the character of Final Fantasy XIII, and I think the game deserves more credit than it gets.

Agreed. I am by far in the minority here, but I found him to be the most interesting character in FFXIII (didn't care much for the rest of the cast). He had the whole whiny brat thing going on early on, but his character arc throughout the game made up for it. Plus, unlike many, I don't get annoyed when characters act emo, I just chuckle at it.

 

[JasonEllis66]

Squall, the guy just whines the entire game. I think FF8 would be a lot better with a different main character.

 

[loc978]

Every "batshit insane teenage girl" archetype character from VII-X (I never finished X and never picked up another FF game. I know better now. The series died in the 32-bit era). So... Yuffie, Selphie, I guess IX gets a pass because Eiko was a young child and actually grew up a little, and Rikku.

I really hate that archetype.

If it must be a protagonist, I'll go with Firion, because he was a pain in the ass to keep leveled properly. Just a result of unlikable game mechanics, but man... when you level fighting, magic suffers; when you level magic, fighting suffers... and the guy is a jack of all trades. ALL OF MY HATE

 

[lord.jeff]

So can somebody explain to me why Cloud has a reputation for being emo? Actually, no, I know the answer. The answer is Advent Motherf***ing Children, which rewrote FF7 to the degree and in much the same manner as the Star Wars prequels. If you actually go back and play 7 (or do what I did and watch a Let's Play), you see that Cloud is a brooding dick for about an hour before Tifa tells him to stop being a dick and he says okay. A bit later he goes insane, lapses into a coma, and gets his id dissected, but he actually spends the majority of the game as a pretty normal guy.

Thank you it always bugged me how people say Cloud was an emo in that game, when I think he's 1 of the furthest people from it.

Warning this paragraph below is a bit of a rant, skip it if your not interested.

The only point when Cloud could possibly be called emo would be the northern crater and his journey of self discovery during his 3rd mako bath, where it would be completely justified, yet he gets over that very quickly. Also the thing is he has very good reasons to have all these various mood swings and differing personalities, guys got issues. Should we list these issues?
Was the town pariah and got blamed for Tifa's injuries when he wasn't at fault (probably fueled his desire to become strong and become a SOLDIER.)
Failed to get into SOLDIER (ok that could be a bit emo-ish but it seems he was more ashamed on that score than being emo about it.)
Watched his hometown burn to the ground with all residents killed including his mother.
Knowing it is his childhood hero that caused all this destruction.
Saw his best friend and childhood friend with critical injuries resulting in a homicidal rage which he used to overpower and defeat his childhood hero.
Was experimented on for 4 years.
Only has snippets of 1 year due to mako poisoning
Watched his best friend die. (Probably causing a complete mental breakdown)
Had his mind breakdown and rebuilt with a heavy influence from Zack's memories and Jenova's mind rape.
Has voices in his head at various points throughout the early game. (his childhood self and Sephiroth)
Finds out the events he recalls is a lie and switches sides for a bit (probably suffering PTSD)
Gets 2 more mako baths and finally finds out the truth of his past, also recalling various memories. Reverting to his original personality which seems quite focused on stopping meteor being the team leader and having that heavily implied scene between himself and Tifa when all the other party members go to see their families.
Any other issues I've missed or misinterpreted, I have only played the original game and none of the expansions to the series.

Now on topic
I've only played FF 1-3 and 7 - 10, from those my most hated character is a toss up between Tidus and Squall, Tidus because of the annoyance factor and Squall because he is a whiny emo for no good reason. He can't justify it with the orphan thing because all the playable characters (excluding Rinoa) were orphans from the same orphanage except they all forgot bar 1 and none of them are emo, though Seifer is a dick. the only possible reason for him to be an emo would be if he realised he has been raised as a child soldier to kill for the highest bidder but none of the characters seem to have a problem with this.

I think the reason Cloud get that rep is because his regular over obsession with Sephiroth and his past that takes up a lot of his personality and after Sephiroth gets mentioned it's almost all he talks about for a while and all this happens before you get those details about his past, so it comes off as obsessing for no reason early in the game.

Main character Lightening, the whole cold bad girl act got old fast, it looks like she grows a bit during the game but I haven't made it that far. Of any character I'm going with Tifa, she never seemed to grow beyond a pawing love interest for Cloud.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

Main Character: Vaan. It's not so much that he's unlikeable, but that he has no personality at all, and no impact to the story at all. Take him out of the game, and what changes story-wise?

Party Member: Cait Sith, Cait Sith, fucking Cait Sith. He was improved in the movies by getting a Scottish accent, but in FFVII, he was an annoying character, who was actively working against your party, and unlike other annoying characters, had no use in combat to back him up, other than possibly a high-HP shield, something that anyone could do with an HP-plus materia.

 

[tacotrainwreck]

The one with the blonde hair. I can't stand him.

 

[Joseph McConnell]

Any character from FFIX. They all stunk.

 

[waj9876]

If we're going personality wise, the Hero of Light from the original Final Fantasy obviously wins. As they didn't HAVE a personality.

All in all, to me, the one I just really don't like? Paine. She was pointless. They could have just had Lulu or someone else join in if they really needed to have a third party member. Wouldn't have even needed to change any of her outfits. That's right, I actually liked FFX-2. (I was a hormonal kid just going through puberty when I played it, and it's about running around collecting sexy outfits for the main characters to wear. Do the math.) And even after that I still have a soft spot for it.

 

[HardkorSB]

Squall on the other hand is composed almost entirely of negative elements... he's a jerk, he's a whiner, he's apathetic, he treats the other characters like garbage, he has no sense of humor and his character design is way to J-Pop for most peoples liking. Also he barely grows throughout the course of the game and doesn't get nearly so punchy and ending as Tidus.

He's more like a product than a character.
Back in the late 90's and early 00's, many protagonists were brooding and black leather wearing bad asses with low self-esteem and/or anger issues (usually both). For example:
- Neo
- Blade
- Wolverine
It was a popular image so Square decided to go with that.
They wanted to one up Cloud and he had a big ass sword so they gave Squall a big ass sword... that was also a gun!!!

This is how the rest of it probably went:

"You know what's also bad ass? Scars, so let's give him a scar, on the face too, so everyone can always see how bad ass he is. But it should be placed in a way that will still make him look hot so not on the cheeks.
Also, let's give him a cool looking medallion so that people will buy it and give us more money.
People liked the romance stuff in the last game so let's one up that too - let's give him a romance and a totally non homo-erotic man crush (nudge nudge wink wink) that is all over manga and anime these days.

They will love him."