The14 worst Final Fantasy Characters...

Yeah there have been lots of "worst FF character lists" but hey I haven't done one, and being someone who has played FF since the NES days, I can certainly say I have enough experience to make a list. And while many characters who make other "worst" lists commit the mere crime of being boring, these run the gamut from whiny emo bitch to offensive stereotype to just completely useless on all fronts.

#14: Sephiroth (FFVII): The only reason he's not lower on the list is because he's not a party member, so you don't constantly have to deal with his whiny bullshit. He is laughably feminine, looking like something Twilight fans would go nuts over, he's laughable easy throughout the game, especially at the end. But really, most FF villains are forgettable enough douches just trying to take over the world. Sepiroth is a pure momma's boy at heart, even though really, he doesn't even have one.

#13. Barret (Final Fantasy VII): Final Fantasy doesn't have a lot of notable black characters, so it's pretty bad that their most notable is basically famous for swearing. A lot. He's a pretty good party member overall, just extremely poorly written. Saying "shit" every other sentence is not a good defining character trait and something clearly desperately thrown in at the time to try and show video games were getting more mature.

#12. Lulu (FFX): Pretty much the poster girl for over-sexualized females here. It's to such an extent that she comes off more silly than anything else. She is a pretty powerful party member but that just barely balances the fact that she was clearly made as nerdboy drool material.

#11: Squall (FFVIII): The only main FF game I was unable to finish. And not just because it had a fairly broken system. Hell I made it to the end of the third disc, I had invested plenty of time with this game. And I had come to truly despise the whiniest whiner there had ever been in Squall Leonhart. Whereas Cloud was just the right amount of sullen, Squall took it to an extreme with no rhyme or reason. And while the entire cast of FFVIII was pretty terrible, Squall was the terrible, terrible lead.

#10: Hope (FFXIII): Hope gets off  little easy because like many of the above people. he's an extremely useful party member, arguably the most versatile member of your crew if developed correctly. But in a series filled with annoying teens, Hope easily tops the list. Indecisive and whiny as hell, he just keeps grating on you for the 10s of hours anybody who managed to finish FFXIII put in and that is quite the endurance test.

#9: Payne (FFX-2): Granted, FFX-2 was a whole girl power game gone horribly, horribly wrong, but the epitome of this wrongness was probably Paine. Almost seemingly brought in to be the extreme (once again to a hilarious degree) opposite to Lulu, this ridiculously butch character was a walking joke in a game mostly considered a joke itself.

#8: Tellah (FFIV): Yes yes, everybody loves "You spoony bard!". But bad translations aside, Tellah was at some point a powerful mage, but really he's filled with knowledge of powerful spells he's never really powerful enough to use. His stats actually decrease as he levels! And when he finally does one? He dies in an extremely futile attempt to wipe out his enemy, which seems like something a guy who made it to his age wouldn't be stupid enough to do.

#7: Gau (FFVI): Seriously, who came up with this idiot? A character who can learn enemy attacks isn't a bad idea, but to behave like that enemy with no control over their actions is ridiculous. Basically it's a roll of the dice if he's any use at all, and he's really annoying with his caveman like speak where really he can only say his own name most of the time.

#6: Eiko (FFIX): My beloved FFIX doesn't escape from this list. While I love most of the characters, Eiko is like a useless weak version of Garnet, as they are both summoners, but she fills the whiny brat role along with mostly being a liability for your party.

#5: Relm (FFVI): Yep, another whiny useless brat. You see, she can "sketch things" and use their own attacks against them. The problem is that you have no control over what attacks they use and not surprisingly, most enemies are highly resistant or just plain immune to their own attacks. She also has pretty pathetic stats, making her a complete liability.

#4: Edward (FFIV): Ah yes, the spoony bard himself. You know when a guy's most useful skill is literally hiding (which he will actually do automatically if he gets damaged enough) he's going to to be a complete waste of your time. And he's a major whiner on top of that. Easily one of the most pathetic characters on FF history.

#3. Setzer (FFVI): Setzer would probably be at the top of this list, but personality-wise, he's actually pretty cool. But, as a party member, his "Slots" skill ranges all the way from completely useless (which is what happens most of time) to outright KILLING YOUR ENTIRE PARTY. That's right, he can randomly lose the entire battle for you. No other character on this list can claim that ridiculousness.

#2: Quina (FFIX): Blue Mages are generally considered the most useless class in all of FF, because while they can learn powerful attacks, they often get killed trying to do so. And in the history of this class, no character is worse than Quina. An absurdly bad attempt at comic relief, Quina spoke in complete nonsense and was just completely pointless and arguably the most useless character in recent FF history.

#1: Cat Sith (FFVII): The poster boy of completely useless WTF characters. What the hell is he? What does he do? And much like Setzer, his special abilities are completely random chance. This is the not just the worst FF character ever, it's one of the worst characters in video game history.

And that's the list.  I should be back Tuesday or Wednesday with impressions on the Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning demo that should be out on the 17th. Until then, here's your BIG BANG OF THE WEEK: