Surprisingly Useless Characters

[Raven191]

Ashley from RE4. She was practically useless. All she ever did was turn one or two cranks and get hit by plagas.

 

[Brackets]

Final Fantasy (roman numeral colon the adjective) is your resource of useless characters that serve little to no purpose, ever.

Each title in the series has no less than two of them and sometimes as many as all of them.

Because when you only had the four warriors of light two of them were completely useless.

OT: Ashley Graham because with all the guns you have she could at least use one of them.

THIS.

And while we're on Capcom stuff, one of the Clocktower games (I think that's what it's called?) has the single most useless protagonist I HAVE EVER SEEN. She runs cripplingly slowly even when the big bad is right on her heels, and only runs faster when she's in a panic but gets so confused that she turns around and runs back towards him. I have never seen a main so infuriatingly useless.

 

[Brackets]

Zidane from ff9.
worst.
main character
EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
the only character I dont heal.

Really? Zidane's actually my favourite FF protag simply because he's actually cheerful. He has that one emo moment (for a decent reason, I think) but then he fights a few monsters, realises it's not so a big deal and gets over it. And then goes to fight more monsters. Compared to most other FF protagonists, he's probably the most well-adjusted.

 

[laststandman]

Toad in the original Mario. He tells you Peach is in another castle, but not which castle, so you just walk your ass over to the next world and hope she's in that one.

 

[Klepa]

This is no exception with MW2, poor Sgt. Ramirez, next thing you know, his objective would be to help people reload their rifles.

Picture is ever so related:

Spoiler: Ramirez!

I saw that literally months after I had completed the singleplayer game (never played MP), and I instantly heard Keith David in my head.


Not really characters, but RTS games often have uberdubertroops, which are supposed to annihilate all life, but end up sucking balls really bad. Other than that, I can't come up with a lot.

 

[Brackets]

FF12 has Vaan and Vanille holding it back. The game really meant to have Basch as the main character and threw in the street kids because they couldn't have all cool characters. I mean if we didn't have some normal kids thrown into a revolution without a clue about what is going on it wouldn't be star wars...

Not to be nit-picky, but I think you mean Penelo. Vanille is out of XIII and I can't really comment on her except that I don't especially hate her.

 

[gim73]

FF12 has Vaan and Vanille holding it back. The game really meant to have Basch as the main character and threw in the street kids because they couldn't have all cool characters. I mean if we didn't have some normal kids thrown into a revolution without a clue about what is going on it wouldn't be star wars...

Vaan was only FF12 while Vanille was only in FF13

so get it right?

Vaan didn't have much a impact on the story but he wasn't that bad of a fighter. Vanille has a strong impact on the story later on in FF13

Oops, I was thinking Penelope, the lame childhood friend who gets kidnapped later.

Vanille is a very important character and actually useful. Of course every time I was forced to play with Hope as my main character I screamed with frustration. All the characters in FFXIII are useful in some way, but you just don't wanna get stuck with your purely support character as the vital role of game ender. 13 pissed me off with that. Deciding that if your controlled character is KO'd then the game is over, and then throwing in doom on your main character to force encounters to become tense. The UNREMOVABLE status effect that kills your character after a certain amount of time, and is used in some long boss battles. It's just plain cheap. You might as well make an rpg where the game doesn't pause in the inventory...

Did someone say infinite undiscovery? Let's have primary and secondary characters, where the secondary characters can never be in your main party. Now let's have a big stupid dog that takes up two slots in your party and really has no real use. Then again, the suikoden games have been guilty of this for years. Two slot beasts will never make the cut when you can have separate guys each with their own abilities.

 

[Starke]

Thaddeus from Dawn of War 2.

Maybe it's just that I don't really use melee in 40k if I can avoid it, and certainly not as marines, but Thaddeus has always seemed incredibly weak when compared to the rest of the squad. Sure, I can kit him out with a bolter, which improves him somewhat, but then, why wouldn't I just deploy Cyrus, Tarkus, and Avitus instead?

 

[Brackets]

disgaea - etna

ff9 - steiner, freya

Freya has one of the easiest and cheapest guaranteed 9999 hits in the game.

She's also got the Jump thing which is astonishingly useful when everyone else is dead or about to die. Plus that thing that cast Regen on everybody, I was always using that.

Also, no one would have been surprised if Steiner had turned out rubbish. He can be good but you just need to be sure to pair him up with Vivi.

 

[LordWalter]

-snip-

I will admit I hated FF 9 with a violent, blinding passion. I disliked, fervently, every single one of the characters and wanted bad things to happen to them. This was the game I meant, with the fully useless character roster, but not useless as in 'has no use' more useless as in 'why is there no button to fill this man-child's skull with ants.'

I second this. This man is a gentleman and a scholar and my burning love for him is so overwhelming that I shall send a friend request forthwith.

 

[LordWalter]

So I'm replaying Chrono Trigger for the umpteen quingigillionth time, trying to maximize characters other than Crono, Robo, and Ayla, and I've realized that Magus is surprisingly useless. He's a one-trick pony. He blasts magic, and that's it. Luminaire is better than Dark Matter, and Lucca's Flare seems equivalent. Robo's Shock may be equivalent, but doesn't need to be, since Robo can heal and do decent damage to a single opponent. Then there's the fact that he was far more badass long before joining your crew.

So, the question is, what other characters were supposed to be awesome, but were, in truth, the weakest character in the game?

He's good when you're facing an enemy that can change his weakness, but yeah, that's pretty much it.

Anyway, surprisingly useless characters? Nash in Lunar I. All he does is lightning (which very few enemies are weak to) and status effects (which never, ever work).

PEOPLE WHO HAVE PLAYED LUNAR ARE LIKE AN ENDANGERED SPECIES. Agree x20. Still, his lightning AOE spells weren't ALL bad.

 

[timmytom1]

The Adoring Fan in Oblivion. The fact that he respawns every few days is just proof that Bethesda hates us...

He`s great for improving your combat stats though , take him to a secluded area and kill him with the weapon of your choice (i used him to max out archery ,for all the good it does )

 

[Starke]

Not really characters, but RTS games often have uberdubertroops, which are supposed to annihilate all life, but end up sucking balls really bad. Other than that, I can't come up with a lot.

For the most part, I thought DoW managed to side step this. Though, the Grey Knights units were shit...

 

[Koeryn]

Didn't see it in the first several pages, so here:

EVA from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater.

In the cut scenes, she's this insane ass kicking killer. During her escort mission, she can't even draw a gun to help Snake save her life?

 

[spartan773]

Dual classed characters in anything D&D related. You're way better playing an all or nothing, which is no prob for me because I'm always the fighter.

how EXACTLY does one play D&D?

Edit: Rules and Also, The DM's word is ALWAYS LAW!

... okay... i think i felt my brain hemorrhage.

If you're actually interested try a comic book store and ask if they have a game day coming up or if they know of one. Wizards of the Coast organise game days, my local Tabletop Gaming Store ran one recently and they run a table for people who've never played before as well as one for Vets from older editions who want to learn 4th ed and people who know how to play already.

there is a tablestop store nearby... i felt out of place actually...

 

[Shadowsole]

Still, one example I can think of off the top of my head is Fran in Final Fantasy XII. She's presented as this powerful but mysterious woman, spouting cryptic nonsense about Mist and The Wood and whatnot, but she's actually quite weak. There's never any reason to use her in battle, except in situation where everyone else is dead.

Or when shes 20+ levels higher than the rest (Baring Bathier) cause you Love Her Arse

 

[Voodoo_Person]

Didnt read through the whole thread so dunno if its aready been said, but Sheva from RE5, god damn her AI annoyed me so much, wasting valuable herbs when you didn't even need to use them and using the pistol all the bloody time, I ended up taking it off of her and forcing to her to use the rife/shotgun instead, also shes useless when ur in dying staus on Veteran mode because she ALWAYS RUNS AWAY FROM YOUR POSITION!

 

[Tiswas]

Suikoden - About 50% of the characters
One Piece Unlmited Cruise - Franky. Too slow to hit the slowest of enemies.
FFXIII - I never used Hope unless the game forced you.

I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot.

 

[iFail69]

I found Rock in the Soul Calibur series to be absolutely useless!! also, Astaroth actually.

 

[S.R.S.]

I've always seen Sheva as "useless". But she did make me RAEG more times than the enemies did so, that has to count for something.